ISP CAN cut off pirates with 'three strike' rule, says Irish beak Four music record companies have won a court order in Ireland overturning a ban placed on an anti-piracy policy operated by the country's largest internet service provider (ISP). In December last year Ireland's data protection watchdog had issued an enforcement notice banning Eircom from operating its 'three strikes' system. …
It isn't a question of whether or not the service has a legal use. It is a question of cutting off the person who is infringing. His proposal strikes the right cord with me: take the least intrusive means of protecting IP, not the most. But then being one of those crazy 'Merkins, I'm kind of fanatical about making sure you have the right person on the infringement charge, and that they have had their day in court. It strikes me that neither of those requirements are met with the agreement between the ISP and the Music moguls. And while I'm all in favor of letting people who enter freely into contracts work out the terms of those contracts, I believe there must be actual negotiation for that to be controlling. Take it or leave it contracts don't meet that requirement.
In addition to the right to privacy in personal communications, there are also rights issues about collective punishment and self incrimination. If it would have been wrong to punish a group of policemen when they all refuse to say which one of them altered surveillance logs following the shooting of a Brazilian electrician, then punishing entire families for the actions of one of them would also be wrong. Then there is presumption of innocence, as opposed to be required to prove it and the right to a fair trial. I think these "3 strikes" laws in various EU countries are going to run into more trouble.
This is the perfect time for someone in Ireland to test Eircomm's analysis with the old dummy pirate files. Would be good to see just how they are supposedly testing for copyright infringement without breaching privacy....
Just needs one false positive cut-off to throw this back on the record labels as unenforceable.
If the IP address can be linked directly to an account holder it would be classed as personally identifiable information.
Just because the monitoring company have to pass the IP address to the ISP does not make it any less personally identifiable, the whole process only works becuase the data is personally identifiable.
And that's the problem, it's not *proven* to have been engaged in illegal file-sharing, but simply *suspected* of it.
Paragraph 2 of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights states "2. Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law", but it seems that Big Media doesn't need such stringent criteria and can just say "We think you dunnit, so we're cutting you off"!
I don't disagree with the sentiment, but read your quote again
Paragraph 2 of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights states "2. Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law"
Copyright infringement is a civil offence not a criminal one. Personally, I'd consider it simply a matter of semantics (in that it should apply to both) but those in a position to abuse the difference seem perfectly willing to do so.
Considering how much is online nowadays, it'll be interesting to see what happens if people are cut off. As a UK example, you can only file a VAT return online now. If I'm cut off based on suspicion and then get fined because I filed my return late (though you'd need a good reason why you couldn't use another connection) could I then attempt to pass the charges onto the media companies?
If I'm cut off (again based on suspicion) and my (theoretical) gran's posh new pacemaker can't connect to the net, causing a minor panic at the local surgery, who's fault is it? They've already shown that they can get false positives, just as RBS has shown the world that any system can fail. So what happens when they fuck up?
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