[Wolves] Fwd: [SC.LUG] 3 Strike Petition

[Peter Cannon]

Political Penguin wrote:

> The three strikes description is perhaps a little misleading but it's 
> not far off.

Aha, I feel vindicated

> The Bill contains provisions for rights holders to be able 
> to pass on details of an alleged infringer to the ISP. It then mandates 
> the ISP to write to that person explaining the law.

So there's no Draconian measures of immediately taking an Axe to your 
Internet connection or record companies being able to have your contract 
with an ISP terminated but as I said 'due process' interesting.

> There's no clear 
> layout for what happens next or specific timescales but it allows the 
> copyright holder to get a court summons for information on the alleged 
> infringer which isn't much different to the way things are now.

Yep

> However 
> the problem arises if the person accused (we will assume they are doing 
> naughties in this case and not a victim of say someone hacking their WEP 
> encryption) continues to download copyrighted material. The onus is then 
> placed on the ISP to take some sort of enforcement action. This can be 
> writing to them again which is the assumed approach and then leading on 
> to technical measures such as capping, throttling or disconnection. The 
> problem with the Bill is that is firstly that it's not that clear and 
> secondly there's the hammer of OFCOM being held over the heads of ISPs 
> with potentially significant fines if they don't do anything.

I see so again no Draconian Axing but an escalating system of usage 
infringement control.

> This isn't helped because of two relevant EU related matters. The first 
> is the European Directive on Electronic Commerce Directive 2000/31/EC
> 
> http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32000L0031:EN:HTML
> 
> In particular Article 12 through to 15 which places ISPs in the 
> difficult position of potentially violating EU rules if they implement 
> the provisions of the act which is why a couple have threatened to take 
> it to court if the Bill is passed.
> 
> The second is that yesterday the European Parliament passed the Telecoms 
> Reform Bill. It's yet to be seen how this will impact on the situation 
> because it can be equally argued it allows (just about) for the UK 
> legislation or that it would cancel it out. Had it been passed in the 
> wording it had back in May it would obviously rule out the UK 
> legislation as it enshrined internet access to the right to free speech 
> under human right, however there was a lot of rangling at the Council 
> level to get concessions from industry on various other issues and it's 
> been watered down a bit.

<Removed as it relates to copyright>

> I'd urge everyone to sign the petition on the Number 10 website but more 
> importantly write to your MP, especially if they're Labour explaining 
> the problems with this Bill and the technical impossibility of its 
> implementation.

Yep if you think it will do any good.

<Removed as it relates to copyright>

> There's a lot of work going on to bring this crap down, I know I'm 
> trying to do my bit and I'd hope others would too.

In essence Gareth I take your email as a confirmation of my comments 
from the very start.

I'm chuffed to bits you emailed with clear, concise and 'factual' 
information. I'm happy to write to my MP although I'm not sure what I'm 
writing about now?

I'm am now sat in a deep-freeze in the pit of hell waiting for a "Sorry 
Pete perhaps sometimes you are right and I should take more time to 
listen to you rather than jumping down your throat"

Brrr its cold ;-)