ISP ordered to drop 'three strikes' rule against pirates

ACS:Lawless

They couldn't catch the clap in Thai brothel. Regarding Sky subscribers, every time a user's router is restarted, they are assigned a new IP address.

Considering the amount of Sky broadband users, they must have a very large pool of address to use. Finding out who was using a particular address at a given time is a near-impossible task.

Still it didn't stop the sharks going after the innocent. Fortunately an end has been put to their very sharp practices. Goodbye ACS:POOR, you are a waste of oxygen.

@Blarkon

You seem to be acting under the false assumption that downloading is somehow divested from paying. It isn't, it's just that the majors can't be bothered to provide the service that consumers want, or are only willing to do so at a price-point the consumers can't stomach; so some consumers look for an alternative/

It doesn't have to e this was at all. Some of us download AND pay. Just not from the likes of Sony, EMI, WB or any other those idiots.

This story has context

For the specific case (the 2009 settlement of EMI vs Eircom) mentioned here, people seem to be ignoring the history. Can I draw your attention to the Register article about the Dublin High Court's review? One Andrew Orlowski was particularly scathing about riled-up 'freetards':

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/19/charleton_eircom_emi/>

"So the ruling rejects two key arguments made by critics of the UK's Digital Economy Act - that internet access is a 'fundamental human right', and that copyright enforcement infringes privacy. The ruling gives the go ahead light for a 'three strikes' policy in Ireland." It goes on to quote that judge in a way you would approve of:

' ... Charleton notes that [the internet] is, "thickly populated by fraudsters, pornographers of the worst kind and cranks... Among younger people, so much has the habit grown up of downloading copyright material from the internet that a claim of entitlement seems to have arisen to have what is not theirs for free"... Everyone won from this, he noted, "except for the creators of original copyright material who are utterly disregarded." '

However the latest ruling from the DPC, backed by the EU, ditches that court's jurisprudence in no uncertain terms. Internet (and data) access is indeed a fundamental human right; copyright enforcement does infringe privacy laws; and the light for a 'three strikes' policy has just turned red.

Be aware when reading Orlowski's original post that some paragraphs didn't make sense, for example: "The defendant had referred to Eircom as Eire's Data Protection Commissioner."

This is probably an innocent mistake which should have been caught by a sub-editor. There was no actual defendant; the judge was ruling on the lawfulness of a private settlement between parties. He had to do this because someone had complained about the settlement to the DPC. The DPC did not appear before the judge - it was not required to, and indeed could not because it's own due process had yet to run its course.

Now that process is done, the office of the DPC has in effect slapped El Reg, the copyright industry, the judge, and the Irish Government in the face. I await their respective reactions with eager anticipation.

Personally I don't download files illegally, perhaps because I'm far too old - I'm not even remotely tempted by current tastes in music or movies, and I take my own photos.

But perhaps I qualify as a 'freetard' because I do download large numbers of ISO images of things like the latest distribution of Fedora (before retiring I was an engineer and CCNA, and I maintain an interest in the tech). Also, I would tend to believe that where the marginal cost of production is essentially zero a rational society has no business prohibiting copy production; it's inefficient of resources, and criminalizes the population, thereby bringing the law into disrepute. Which is one reason "people" don't care whether "file sharing goes on".

Class action?

I think I'm right (unfortunately) in saying that we UK dwellers do not have the right to sue in a class action and possibly other European countries are in the same boat. This seems to be an exclusively American thing........and WHY aren't we able to do it, I say?

Oh but they have "figured it out", and their solution is to lobby for laws that impose on ISPs to "sort it out".

The IP address would appear to be the problematic part of the whole process, so in effect it is basically saying "you can't block their access" since without additional information - that may well equally invade privacy as much as IP addresses - there would be no identifiable customer to block to begin with.