Digital Economy Bill

[mj.scuba]

I have a NAS at home which can also stream media over the net. It does require a login so only I can get the content, but could the snooping machines pick up my music streaming from my broadband connection and flag it as illegal downloading? Thanks in advance.

 

WC thanks for bringing this to our attention, it's an important issue.

[L00b]

Ah. Now I'm with you Wildcat. Fair enough, and much thanks for the explanation (which was needed, I have no shame to admit )

 

I have a NAS at home which can also stream media over the net. It does require a login so only I can get the content, but could the snooping machines pick up my music streaming from my broadband connection and flag it as illegal downloading? Thanks in advance.

IF "the snooping machines pick up my music streaming from my broadband connection", then the short of it is: yes, they may very well flag it as illegal.

 

Your 'end-user license' (implicit to any CD, DVD..etc. 'content' you buy) does not generally include or extend to a license to broadcast yourself. By way of analogy, think about the distinct license and PRS fees required by pubs and the like.

 

That's effectively what your NAS is doing, and the issue exists regardless of whether it's a private (need login) or public (anyone can access) broadcast.

 

Ultimately, and as downright idiotic as it seems, the issue even exists (in Law) over a LAN (your PC or NAS is broadcasting to your TVs or media players around the place). Still as downright idiotic as it seems, the issue wouldn't arise if your 'NAS' consisted of a DVD player located in another room and a looooong HDMI lead to the TV

[GordonBennet]

A) The CRU emails revealed nothing, except the willingness of deniers to misreport and mislead.

 

 

Not true, the CRU emails proved that pro-global warming scientists had been misreporting their findings to mislead the public into believing global warming was real. But there's more chance of teaching a pig to tapdance than there is of you ever accepting the facts so I'll not go off topic on this thread.

[Funky_Gibbon]

And another passing comment, with ref to:FYI, in the UK at least, everything passing through an Internet connection (in/out...or up/down if you prefer) is 'copyrighted content'. Even this very forum post

 

Which begs the question: suppose someone were to copy your forum post and reprint it elsewhere without your permission (or the forum-owners... I'm not exactly certain who has ownership of the copyright) as a discussion point for their blog. In that case would that person would be infringing on copyright and subject to the measures in this Bill such as web-blocking if you made a complaint?

[esme]

Quote: [from OP]

"On Monday, the House of Lords passed the Digital Economy Bill as amended onto the House of Commons, despite one Lord calling it "a spatchcock that does part of the work it was intended to do but not all of it". Now, it is likely to be rushed through the Commons without proper scrutiny. "

 

 

very quietly, very very quietly, the worst thing Bliar did was to destroy Parliament's ability to properly scrutinize new legislation.

 

we found that out with the ID card act in 2006, the attitude from labour MP's was we have a majority so this is going through, so people wrote to the lords to send it back, this worked until labour threatened the lords with the parliament act, no serious debate occurred, no questions were answered, it was rubber stamped and passed, this is going to be as well unless you write to your MP

 

Me too. I had a letter back from him tell me how it was all fine and dandy because it had gone through lots of scrutiny in the Lords.

 

I wrote back telling him that he'd just lost my vote.

 

that might work , I usually find that if I keep badgering mine I get somewhere eventually

 

...this legislation will punish the broadband bill payer, whether it be a parent, school, college, landlord or coffee shop owner.

 

the copy of the letter I got from the Rt Hon Stephen Timms MP has an interesting paragraph or two, I would have posted this last night but I didn't want to get out of bed and rummage through my files

 

The resulting legislation will require ISP's to write to their customers whose accounts have been identified by a rights holder as having been used for illegal down loading of their material. However in relation to ##### first point we would require a "pack" of evidence to surround each alleged infringement in order to trigger any obligations on ISP's. We expect this to include the IP address, the exact date/time stamp, a copy of the material copied and the technology/process used must be to a very high standard

 

the act doesn't say this, it basically says OfCom will direct the ISP to write the letters if the rights holder suspects an infringement

 

further this is evidence of a crime and as such should go through a court and not a quango, the quango can bring it to the attention of the court yes, but hand out summary punishments ?

 

crime and punishment are the jurisdiction of the courts not quangos

 

he does go on to say

 

Ultimately it will be for the courts to decide whether the evidence is sufficient

 

and

 

There will be a full appeals process, including to a 1st Tier Tribunal, which is a judicial body

 

so where is this mentioned in the bill ? - it isn't

 

and if you run a business on this connection, packet shaping, throttling or disconnecting it can put you out of business before the 1st Tier Tribunal gets to see the case

 

then we get

In addition, any subscriber suspected of illegal downloading would face a number of warnings before any measure might be applied. If they illegally downloaded information by accident, or gave someone else access to their internet account who used it for illegal downloading, or if a third party was able to access their internet account without permission, we would hope that the effect of an initial warning letter would be that the subscriber would change their behaviour either in terms of their own internet activity, the sharing of their internet account or the protection of any wireless connection

which shows a complete lack of understanding of the subject as it is impossible to make a wifi signal completely secure, all he has to do is ask the security services for confirmation of that one

 

how many people have wifi ? how many know how to secure it ? how many have their wifi security set at whatever virgin/bt/talktalk/etc... had it set to when it was given to them ? how many hackers can get through a default setting like it wasn't there ?

 

and again he's punishing the wrong person, he's shifting the liability for securing copyrighted material from the rights holder onto the internet subscriber who probably doesn't understand what's happened and in the majority of cases lacks the skills to do anything about it, a bit like sending the truck driver to jail because his load contains a bunch of stolen stuff despite the fact that somebody else put it there without their knowledge

 

the phrase "or if a third party was able to access their internet account without permission" basically says tough sh*t, you are the one we can identify you are the one we are going to punish

 

this is not an encouragement to secure your internet connection this is deliberate punishment of the innocent because a powerful lobby in the form of the recording industry doesn't want to change their business model because it will affect their profit margins

[L00b]

Which begs the question: suppose someone were to copy your forum post and reprint it elsewhere without your permission (or the forum-owners... I'm not exactly certain who has ownership of the copyright)

<snip>

I own the copyright in the content of my post.

 

The site owners own the copyrights in the code representing my post and in the display including my post (as well as a whole p*sspot-full of further copyrights tied to the underlying database etc., but I'll not bore you to tears with it )

<tape>

as a discussion point for their blog. In that case would that person would be infringing on copyright and subject to the measures in this Bill such as web-blocking if you made a complaint?

By the Bill's logic: yes (note that this is very over-simplified, necessary to maintain the discussion level at 'manageable', because there are very many exceptions and circumstances where it would not be necessarily so).

 

However, I predict (without requiring much imagination or skill) a pecking order for the handling of complaints, closely correlated to how well-known (or heavily-marketed) the content is

 

See sections 107 and 107A Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988 about criminal liability and enforcement.

 

Put simply: the test is multiple and essentially boils down to (i) the infringer knows that the copy infringes copyright (everything original is automatically copyright-protected, so that's one easy box to tick), and (ii) the infringement is prejudicial to the copyright owner (no sale/license = no royalty = prejudicial, another easy box to tick).

[anywebsite]

Does anybody have a plan for how to deal with this?

 

Are we just going to sit around helplessly & watch it pass?

[esme]

write to your MP's and let them know you aren't happy about it and why you aren't happy about it

 

it may not have any effect but at least they know they are passing this against your wishes

 

use http://www.writetothem.com/ if you don't want to waste a stamp

 

in fact cut and paste this

 

Dear sir/madam,

 

I am writing to you to express my concern over the Digital Economy Bill currently due for it's second reading in the commons on 6th April 2010.

 

It is my opinion that this bill is targeting the wrong group of people, it targets internet subscribers rather than those who infringe copyright.

 

For example, if a third party is able to access an individuals internet account without their consent and use this to illegally download copyrighted material then all correspondence and possible punishment is directed at the holder of the internet account.

 

I believe this is so that the subscriber can somehow change their behaviour to prevent this happening again.

 

However such a behavioural change is not always possible, the subscriber may lack the necessary expertise to prevent a third party gaining access for example, should they still be held to account for this ?

 

Further there is the awkward problem of WiFi internet connections.

 

No Wifi network is secure, ask the security services if you don't believe this.

 

Even with the best security protocols available (WPA2), randomised passwords of maximum or near maximum length which are changed regularly, and MAC access filtering to limit who can connect to the network a WiFi network can be hacked into in less than an hour, and the subscriber will be unaware it has happened.

 

Such a WiFi user will be punished unfairly by the bill and most users do not have the knowledge to make their WiFi so secure.

 

It is quite a common practice for ISP's to give their customers WiFi devices with pre set security settings and then deny the customer access to those settings preventing the customer from changing them in case this renders the WiFi unusable. This is done to keep support costs down.

 

But even if they are denied access to the security settings the bill will make these people liable for illegal downloading.

 

Another point in the bill is that it allows suspicion of copyright theft to be used as sufficient grounds to start the process of punishing the internet subscriber.

 

If someone is threatened with some punitive measures for some crime then those making the threats had better have some evidence otherwise it is nothing less than intimidation.

 

Further if there is evidence of copyright infringement or illegal downloading then this is evidence of a crime and should be handled by the court system, not handed over to a quango for summary judgement and punishment.

 

I am also deeply concerned with the undue haste with which this bill is being rushed through parliament, there seems to be no proper debate of the issues the bill raises and questions are not being answered.

 

Yours etc....

 

change the sir/madam as appropriate and put your contact details at the end, if you want to change anything in the text that's fine by me

--EDIT--

 

and an addition to my "how many wifi..." in the above post

 

how many ISP's send out wifi units with preset security settings and then deny the subscriber access to the security settings so they can change them ?

 

these people are still going to be held to account for anything downloaded over their wifi

[Wildcat]

Most effective would be to write to Nick Clegg, because of the "wash up" situation.

 

To do so you should be a constituent, if you aren't you could draft something for a friend that is a constituent to email to him on your behalf.

[esme]

Most effective would be to write to Nick Clegg, because of the "wash up" situation.

 

To do so you should be a constituent, if you aren't you could draft something for a friend that is a constituent to email to him on your behalf.

 

you can write to nick clegg anyway, and david cameron, I have and I've always had a reply

 

you don't have to be their constituents