Digital Economy Bill

[stustaff]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

"...if users are caught downloading copyright infringed material, the copyright owners must inform the ISP with evidence within the month."

How do copyright owners detect downloaders?

I can see how uploaders would be visible to them, but downloaders?

Most people download via torrents which also means your uploading.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

How could this happen in the UK?

I don't know if you saw it or not, but there was a Despatches programme showing politicians taking bribes in order to have laws changed, or clauses added to them. The BPI actually wrote one of the clauses in this new law, the one about blocking access to sites that might have copyright infringing content.

This site itself contains ebooks that are subject to copyright in the UK, so theoretically it could be one of the sites that are blocked.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

"...if users are caught downloading copyright infringed material, the copyright owners must inform the ISP with evidence within the month."

How do copyright owners detect downloaders?

I can see how uploaders would be visible to them, but downloaders?

It depends where they are downloaded from. Rapidshare and similar will keep IP logs of anyone downloading. Torrenters will be visible on connection.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

The BPI actually wrote one of the clauses in this new law, the one about blocking access to sites that might have copyright infringing content.

I believe I'm correct in saying that that clause didn't get through wash-up. Your description of it is somewhat misleading; it was about blocking access to sites that had no purpose other than to provide illegal material.

[DawnFalcon]

You're wrong, although it's confusing - it got put back in after a further vote, Harry.

And no, there was nothing about "no purpose other", any substantial amount of material is sufficient for a block. They could target...say... P. Guttenburg, that well known pirate site (/sarcasm so strong you can cut it with a knife), which provides books not PD in the UK...

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

From http://blogs.zdnet.com/igeneration/?...ontent;wrapper

"The bill, covered quite extensively on this blog, will give the state and government to tell ISP’s to disable and suspend broadband and Internet accounts of users through a three-strike system of copyright infringement; in a nutshell, admittedly."

"Clause 4 through to 17 resolves that if users are caught downloading copyright infringed material, the copyright owners must inform the ISP with evidence within the month. ISP’s must respond with details confirming the fact if need be.

Hmmm. How do you confirm copyright infringement--the copyright owner says "that's infringing?" No defense? What if the person downloading a copy says, "I had permission." (Some bands have said, "if you can't afford our album, download it." This drives the RIAA up the wall.) What if the person claims fair use? Or claims, "I bought this album/book/movie from a website and due to technical problems, couldn't download it--so the customer service rep told me I could just download it from [torrentsite] and that'd be fine, since I'd already paid for it?"

Of course, that's all rhetorical. They're not planning on holding anyone to legal accountability levels; if they were able to do that, they wouldn't want this bill. They want to bypass the legal standards for proof of a crime and replace them with "my company feels its copyright has been infringed; punish the person who pays for this internet access account. Oh, and whoever he allows to use that account, because that'll give them incentive to watch each other."

First result: A whole bunch of angry people get their internet cut off.
Next result: an irate student realizes that, with a tiny bit of hacking expertise (TOR and utorrent run off a flash drive) he can get an entire school's internet access cut off by downloading a few music files.

The real intended purpose of this legislation: to end free public wifi.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

It depends where they are downloaded from. Rapidshare and similar will keep IP logs of anyone downloading. Torrenters will be visible on connection.

But copyright holders won't have automatic access to the logs will they?
Don't they have to go to the ISP with a name and some evidence relating to a suspected downloader first? How do they obtain that initial information?

Stustaff made the point that, on torrents, downloaders are also uploaders - but aren't they likely to be downloading a different copyright holder's (CH) material to the one their uploading? So they may be visible as uploaders; but if it's only downloading that's being looked for, how does that help the CH of the downloaded stuff, they still have nothing to justify them going to the ISP.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

But copyright holders won't have automatic access to the logs will they?
Don't they have to go to the ISP with a name and some evidence relating to a suspected downloader first? How do they obtain that initial information?

Stustaff made the point that, on torrents, downloaders are also uploaders - but aren't they likely to be downloading a different copyright holder's (CH) material to the one their uploading? So they may be visible as uploaders; but if it's only downloading that's being looked for, how does that help the CH of the downloaded stuff, they still have nothing to justify them going to the ISP.

With torrents, the IP of everyone who is either up or downloading a file will be visible to everyone else up or downloding that file. So if a copyright holder started to download that file they would get a list of everyone else that they could present to the ISPs. Or if they wanted they could create their own torrent and just collect the IP of everyone who trys to download it.

[DawnFalcon]

See, that's the sort of propaganda they put out, but it's really not true.

To get someone's IP, they have to share the file and participate in the swarm, and they can only harvest the IP's of people whose torrent clients are directly uploading or downloading from them, or have requested to do so.

With most places using DHT these days, there's not a centralised place to harvest IP's even if you upload the torrent yourself either.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

See, that's the sort of propaganda they put out, but it's really not true.

To get someone's IP, they have to share the file and participate in the swarm, and they can only harvest the IP's of people whose torrent clients are directly uploading or downloading from them, or have requested to do so.

With most places using DHT these days, there's not a centralised place to harvest IP's even if you upload the torrent yourself either.

I've only ever used Utorrent, but that gives a list of IPs in the swarm regardless of whether they are up or downing with you. It tells you the speeds to/from each one, and even when both speeds are at 0 you will still see them.

[DawnFalcon]

That's because it's polled the clients for their pieces. You're still only seeing out to a relatively a small horizon, and simply having a file supposedly available has run into legal issues in several courtrooms, actually downloading pieces of the files is far stronger, legally.

Of course, it also takes more time and effort, never mind that spoofing IP's is perfectly possible in torrent swarms...it rapidly gets you banned by other clients, but you could still get people in trouble with only a little effort that way.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

That's because it's polled the clients for their pieces. You're still only seeing out to a relatively a small horizon, and simply having a file supposedly available has run into legal issues in several courtrooms, actually downloading pieces of the files is far stronger, legally.

Of course, it also takes more time and effort, never mind that spoofing IP's is perfectly possible in torrent swarms...it rapidly gets you banned by other clients, but you could still get people in trouble with only a little effort that way.

That will probably be why the burden of proof has been passed onto the accused rather than the accuser. There was also some talk of charging a fee for people who wanted to try to prove their innocence, I don't know if that made it into the final bill or not. Proving you didn't do something would be pretty difficult either way.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I believe I'm correct in saying that that clause didn't get through wash-up. Your description of it is somewhat misleading; it was about blocking access to sites that had no purpose other than to provide illegal material.

It was moved to Clause 8:


“a location on the internet which the court is satisfied has been, is being or is likely to be used for or in connection with an activity that infringes copyright”


If anything that adds even more scope for fun by anyone so inclined, because there are very few sites that couldn't be used to infringe copyright.

[kaan]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

It was moved to Clause 8:


“a location on the internet which the court is satisfied has been, is being or is likely to be used for or in connection with an activity that infringes copyright”


If anything that adds even more scope for fun by anyone so inclined, because there are very few sites that couldn't be used to infringe copyright.

That pretty much bans sales of any caffeine product on the internet!

[DawnFalcon]

Oh, and let's not forget this lovely forum. Say... format shifting (which frex Calibre enables) is technically a breach of copyright, remember. Sure, you can't be prosecuted for personal use, but it's still a breach and under this law...