UK to adopt three strikes policy on Piracy

[Famine]

Indeed - but if the person doing the illegal downloading is above the age of criminal responsibility, they have committed an offence and the bill-payer has not.

 

[ExigeEvan]

I'd have to disagree with that. The person who pays for the broadband is responsible for all who use it, if they can't control who uses it, that's their problem.

That's rediculous.

I'm legally responsible for the broadband in my student house. I signed the contract, the bill is taken from my account and I re-coup the costs from my housemates.

How do you suggest I take responsibility for 5 adults who are all perfectly capable of taking responsibility for themselves?

 

[Jondot]

That bit's not brilliantly thought out, is it... You might as well try to prosecute BT because they own the phone lines it inevitably flows through to reach your router.

How do you suggest I take responsibility for 5 adults who are all perfectly capable of taking responsibility for themselves?

Block their MAC addresses, I suppose. And hide in a cupboard to avoid the impending wrath.

 

[ExigeEvan]

While all my food and pots and pans get thieved? I think not!

 

[Sureboss]

Indeed - but if the person doing the illegal downloading is above the age of criminal responsibility, they have committed an offence and the bill-payer has not.

You make a good point (I was really thinking about the whole 2,2 family thing...), I think this proposal (it isn't a law yet, some in the thread seem to think it is, heck I doubt Labour will be in power in 2011) is giving the right intentions (in protecting businesses), but going about it in the wrong way.

Myself, I've always felt it'd be easiest to target the websites.

 

[Joel]

Fixed.

About half of all residential wireless access points are unsecured.

Problem for iPod touch users. Sure you can have a password, but the router can't differentiate between iPods. I go to my friends house all the time and i can just go right on their internet. The router thinks my iPod is the same as my friend's.

 

[Jondot]

Myself, I've always felt it'd be easiest to target the websites.

Well no, it'd be more logical to target the websites. Not easier, from an effort point of view. ThePirateBay went on for years with hundreds of legal threats pledged against it with no apparent impact. It's far easier for the authorities to simply attack the downloaders because they're easy to trace and usually aren't so creative when it comes to dodging lawyers.

Problem for iPod touch users. Sure you can have a password, but the router can't differentiate between iPods. I go to my friends house all the time and i can just go right on their internet. The router thinks my iPod is the same as my friend's.

...sorry, you've lost me there. A router being protected by a password doesn't simply recognise devices which have entered it correctly before - it's not like a man on a barrier waving you through because he recognises you. Connect once to a secure network and you have to enter a password. That is then stored on the device (i.e the iPod) and is re-entered by the device the next time it connects to the network. It's not a case of 'enter password once and the router remembers you', it's 'enter password once and your iPod remembers it for next time'. Whether or not it thinks your iPod is his makes no difference - all the router cares about is whether the password is being entered correctly every time; not who's connecting to it.

Also, the router can tell your iPod is different to his. It probably can't tell whether it's an iPod, a phone, a laptop or a desktop, but it knows it's a separate device because it has a different MAC address.

Just wanted to clear that up before dozens of children go on mad wifi rampages with their iPods.

 

[Azuremen]

This part throws me off; in so many respects France takes a progressive approach to social tolerance—being the first country to explicitly place blame upon the organisation of the Church of Scientology for the exploitation of its' members—but takes 2 steps back with these measures. I'm just glad that Canada has an active and vocal voterbase when it comes to the regulation of multimedia.

Right. One that voted in a levy on burnable CD-R's under the assumption that some will be used to copy music illegally. Or that has had iPod taxes in and out of its legislation for a similar assumption that stolen music may be placed on the device.

Active, maybe. Thought out, no.

Problem for iPod touch users. Sure you can have a password, but the router can't differentiate between iPods. I go to my friends house all the time and i can just go right on their internet. The router thinks my iPod is the same as my friend's.

Umm. No. Jondot pretty clearly explained it, and I've had an iPod touch and can tell you with certainty it has a unique MAC address and identifier.

 

[Public'sTwin]

WHY exactly is this ridiculous and regressive?

BECAUSE banning the use of broadband for downloading 3 songs is insane and doesn't equate to the severity of the crime. Besides that, I have difficulty in accepting a serious punishment for an immaterial "theft"; aside from that issue, many downloads are CDs people wouldn't have bought otherwise. Would I ever spend $400 on a Pink Floyd discography? Hell no. But someone has just downloaded it, and maybe now that they've given it a listen they'll pick up an album.

I will say this now: I am 100% for the freedom of digital information. While I support the artists, and do think they should be entitled to payment for their work—record companies have alienated a large chunk of the music-consuming (if music can be consumed) public, and it's for the very same reason you deem downloading inexcusable; as such, I believe the rest of our discourse to be moot.

But the idea of rights enforcement is not ridiculous at all.

Nor did I say it was—and we are not talking about the idea of "Rights enforcement"; however, banning the user's access to the internet for downloading doesn't serve justice to anyone, and if they are going to be disconnecting anybody, it should (IMO) be the uploaders.

And besides the "rights of the artist"—record companies themselves own the rights to the product 99% of the time, not the artist.

 

[Sureboss]

Well no, it'd be more logical to target the websites. Not easier.

Clearly what I meant.

 

[Tired Tyres]

The EU has a different opinion.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8344174.stm

incidentally what exactly gives Peter Mandelson the right to act like an MP since he isn't one?