Tuesday, February 12th 2008

UK Internet Users Could be Banned for Illegal Downloads

No doubt this news will be met with ferocious attacks from the generally public, but it looks like internet users in the UK could soon see themselves banned from the internet for illegal film and music downloads if new government proposals are approved. Internet service providers will be legally required to enforce a "three-strikes" system - strike one means an email from the ISP, strike two means a suspension and strike three a ban. Under the proposals ISPs would be prosecuted for failing to enforce the new rules and suspected customers details could be made available to the courts. The government is yet to decide whether information on offenders will be shared between ISPs, but if so it could make it much more difficult to find a new ISP once you have been banned. This move comes as a result of six million UK broadband users downloading files illegally each year, with the proposals being officially unveiled next week.
Source: Times Online
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73 Comments on UK Internet Users Could be Banned for Illegal Downloads

#51
tiys
if you dont download illegally, then you dont have to worry about getting yourself shutdown :)
Posted on Reply
#52
das müffin mann
but sometimes your fingers slip, and before you know it (with out knowing of course) you accidentally wound up at the pirate bay downloading the latest back street boys album, or photoshop, it just depends on how much your fingers slip
Posted on Reply
#53
tiys
back street boys :wtf:???
Posted on Reply
#54
Kreij
Senior Monkey Moderator
mdm-adphWhile I'm sure you think that sounds clever, you're not actually understanding what I was getting at. ;)
You are right. It is two sides of a coin. The question then becomes, which side of the coin do you want to be on. I prefer personal freedom, over government intervention "for our own good." In the US, we have not reached that point and I can still do almost enything I want on my own property.

On topic : I have no idea what the future of the internet and it's access will entail. I do know that there are many, many, many individual people who will fight for the right of free information (and file transfers) and they will be the deciding factor, not the governments.
Posted on Reply
#55
das müffin mann
yo dawg the :respect:backstreet boys:respect: are tight ;)

i just don't see this being implemented, there are just to many people against it, that and people will always find a way to share files its the American way:roll:
Posted on Reply
#56
Silverel
das müffin mannyo dawg the :respect:backstreet boys:respect: are tight ;)

i just don't see this being implemented, there are just to many people against it, that and people will always find a way to share files its the American way:roll:
Unfortunately, the "too many people" against it aren't the few that have a ton of cash. Money talks.

When its all said and done, I'm sure there'll be some kind of fee to get you un-banned. Say 50% of your monthly access fee each time? Obviously they can't entirely ban you from the internet... can they?

Maybe work it into a system like getting your license suspended? Yes. That's it. They'll hand out card readers for every PC, and require you to get an Internet license. If you ever want to use the net, you'll have to swipe your card to log on. O.o...
Posted on Reply
#57
Makaveli
LMAO if this actually gets approved, I think we will see another European war!
Posted on Reply
#58
trog100
its the beginning of internet control.. the music.software dudes are in it for their own reason.. but to the government its a good back door excuse to control the isps and effectively the internet..

basically its about making the isps legally responsible for what they provide..

i hope it dosnt come off.. if it does its the beginning of the end of a free internet..

trog
Posted on Reply
#59
surfsk8snow.jah
SilverelMaybe work it into a system like getting your license suspended? Yes. That's it. They'll hand out card readers for every PC, and require you to get an Internet license. If you ever want to use the net, you'll have to swipe your card to log on. O.o...
You know, this idea is actually pretty good. I hope it doesn't come to this, but, it sounds quite logical. If this comes to fruition, I'll always remember who thought of it first:toast:
Posted on Reply
#60
zOaib
it is already here in the US but not being advertized , i use cox communications here in florida , and they pump real good bandwidth through cable and when i got this service friend of mine told me that he was on his 2nd strike for downloading stuff off the net , and i was like wtf are you talking about , and he said that cox actually emailed him to let him know of his first warning to stop downloading stuff of the net to which he replied and called them to ask them how they knew he was downloading stuff , to which they said it confidential, and second time was a suspension notice in mail , and he was suspended for a whole month ............. now he has backed off from downloading ............... and i just got my phone voice mail warning notification of downloading too , so i am on my first strike as we speak .............. so now if anyone knows of any foreign ISP providers i wud love to know of them cause i REALLY hate this crap.
Posted on Reply
#61
surfsk8snow.jah
Ya I've had 2 friends on Cox Communications ISP here in CA get warnings. One of them for DL Heroes Ep through IsoHunt/BitTorrent, got voicemail and email warning [NOTE: the trick here is to tell them you're on an unencrypted wireless router, then they can't do squat].

Other friend got nabbed by Cox for DL Bourne Identity WAY back in the day. They just shut his internet off out of the blue without a warning. When he called about it, they told him that they noted he was DL the movie, and that was his first of 3 warnings. My friend asked how they knew that, the rep said they hire a 3rd party consultant to monitor traffic.

PeerGuardian is a program that blocks incoming tracking, how much, I'm not sure. But friend said in one day it blocked the Chinese Government Probes 7 times. hah.
Posted on Reply
#62
imperialreign
so . . . ummm . . . how much money are the ISPs going to lose if hundreds of thousands of customers are banned left and right either temporarily or permanently?

or, on the other hand, I wonder how many people will start gravitating towards some "hacking" practices to get around such proposals.
Posted on Reply
#63
qwerty_lesh
phoenix labs peerguardian is good,
if u take the time to read their site, theyll tell you, ignore email warnings, but if u get one to your home address, get a lawyer :roll: and optionally contact them, becaus they are willing to help however they can. my peerguardian blocks almost 3 billion ips or somthin, altho i gotta say make sure u dont (if your using the bluetack lists) double up on lists, ie edu, gov cos both urls (peerguardian and bluetack) have some of the same lists, to take the time to read over there site, cos missuse of their software can be bad for them as they only rely on donations to continue hosting their ip list servers.
but yeah
used em for years, on all my pc's great software :toast:
offtopic? ohwell
Posted on Reply
#64
Basard
Hah, yeah... and lose all their customers... or half of them anyways.
Posted on Reply
#65
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
this just isnt gunna work. its a big scary thing they cant enforce - oops someone hacked my wireless. oops someone hacked starbucks/mcdonalds wireless and downloaded. oops at my net cafe, someone downloaded....

There is no way to enforce this with proxies and encryption everywhere. Hell, go to furk.net, have them torrent and send you HTTP/HTTPS links - no one need ever know.
Posted on Reply
#66
Triprift
Dont worry we wont have to wave goodbye to are british buddies.
Posted on Reply
#67
xfire
Come to India where western movies last a week in theaters and you won't find half the albums you want so then you can download of the net and if they catch you, you can say that its not found here but you have to live with slightly slower speeds.
Posted on Reply
#68
Triprift
Sounds great if other western governments follow suits we may all head over to India :toast:
Posted on Reply
#69
lemonadesoda
My concern is that this has NOTHING to do with "music copyright"... but rather, getting something passed through the House of Lords (new law) to accept, in principle, "spying on the public" and requiring private commercial organisations to have the burden of cost of policing. In this case, if the ISP doesnt enforce, they will themselves open themselves up to huge damages.

ONCE passed, just imagine the NEXT BOGUS BS idea that the ISPs will have to police! Get warned, suspended or banned for using any words that contain "sex", "bomb", "security", "vendetta", "terrorist" or the combinations of words like "Gordon Brown is a noodle" etc. My concern is not so much the "protection of copyright" but the new politically acceptable concept of spying on the public, and making private enterprise accountable to the policing of it.

The next law will be that you have to "snitch on your neighbours" or face going to jail for not snitching. Hell, what kind of State are we turning into?
Posted on Reply
#70
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
I WANT TO PUT GEORGE BUSH IN A BOWL OF NOODLES WITH GORDON BROWN AND BOMB THEM INTO TASTY SUBMISSION. I ALSO DOWNLOADED TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR ILLEGALLY.


Woops, if i was in the UK i'd lose my net now.

this is BS, and i completely agree with you - this is not what it claims to be for, its really just a legal way to spy on peoples net usage whenever people feel like it. The ISP, the Gov'mnt, etc.
Posted on Reply
#71
grunt_408
That is some seriously bad news and I hope that the legislation gets knocked back.
Posted on Reply
#73
mdm-adph
KreijYou are right. It is two sides of a coin. The question then becomes, which side of the coin do you want to be on. I prefer personal freedom, over government intervention "for our own good." In the US, we have not reached that point and I can still do almost enything I want on my own property.

On topic : I have no idea what the future of the internet and it's access will entail. I do know that there are many, many, many individual people who will fight for the right of free information (and file transfers) and they will be the deciding factor, not the governments.
Thank you for understanding the point I was trying to make. ;)

However, I think you're contradicting yourself somewhat when you say that you're a fan of "personal freedom, over government intervention," and then follow that up with saying that you will fight for "the right of free information (and file transfers)"...

You do know that the only thing that will save the internet (and allow the right of free information) is "government intervention" (network neutrality), don't you?

(Please don't tell me you're going to depend on the free market to save the internet, because big companies are precisely the ones trying to lock it down. ;) )
Posted on Reply
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