Tom Corelis
While the country turns down “three strikes,” new agreement will still make UK pirates very uncomfortable
Are you a media pirate? Do you live in the United Kingdom?
If so, be prepared for the deluge of warning letters that will soon be sent your way, followed by possible sanctions – like internet monitoring, speed caps, and blacklisting – from your ISP if you fail to comply.
Widespread opposition to France’s “three-strikes and you’re out” approach to curbing internet piracy – which sees pirates disconnected from the net for a year if caught three times – led UK record labels to request a new kind of remedy, brokered between the country’s six top ISPs and Ofcom, the UK telecommunications authority.
The deal manifests as a memorandum of understanding between the UK music industry association BPI, and ISPs Carphone Warehouse, BT, Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali, and BSkyB. (A press release posted by at the BPI’s website indicates that the MPAA signed on as well.) Under the MOU’s terms, “hundreds of thousands” of strongly-worded letters will be sent out to suspected internet pirates – giving them a chance to change their ways before more severe punishments set in.
As for the punishments themselves, the specifics are still being worked out. It does not appear that pirates will face legal trouble should they keep getting caught; rather, many speculate that ISPs will degrade service for a set period time – like the aforementioned speed caps – for repeat offenders. Ofcom will facilitate these negotiations, but by and large the UK government promised to stand aside – provided an agreement can be reached. If not, it stands ready to enact additional legislation.
The BPI’s enforcement arm will handle the process of discovering music pirates; ISPs will be tasked with forwarding letters from the BPI and implementing sanctions when necessary. Many worried that ISPs would turn their spying capacity – previously demonstrated in a variety of clandestine advertising experiments – against customers; as luck would have it, this will not be the case.
Critics have raised a variety of concerns over the scheme. What happens when the offender is the child in a household? What happens in cases of computers controlled by hackers or botnets? What happens when the “pirate” is making fair use of the copyright materials he downloads?
Their questions, thus far, remain unanswered amidst the MOU’s “vague” wording.
“This MOU represents a significant step forward, in that all ISPs now recognise their responsibility to help deal with illegal filesharing,” said BPI Chief Executive Geoff Taylor. “Government has played an important role in bringing all parties together to arrive at this point, but the work really begins now. We look forward to creating the procedures necessary to effectively tackle repeated unlawful filesharing with the other signatories and Ofcom.”
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