back to article UK.gov denies innocent will be hit by filesharing regime

Forthcoming laws to reduce the level of peer-to-peer copyright infringement with threats of disconnection will affect "hardly anybody, other than the most serious and egregious recidivistic offenders", according to culture minister Sion Simon. The Digital Economy Bill, to be announced in the Queen's Speech next week, will …

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  1. Simon Bacon
    Black Helicopters

    You know you are in trouble when..

    ..Both of the big parties are in favour.

  2. Armitage
    Grenade

    First post yay, not

    so within 12months the amount of piracy detected will drop below 70% and the gov will call this a victory anyway since the majority of fileshares will just switch to vpn tunnels and other means of avoiding detection.

    When will they learn, producing crap doesn't equal a quick buck

    /me off to find a decent deal on a vpn tunnel

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Hmm

    How will they detect that the stuff you download via torrents actually is illegal? Or are they just going to assume like all the other retarded governments that anything that has a .torrent file involved is illegal?

  4. Nomen Publicus
    Big Brother

    How?

    Exactly how will Big Brother recognise copyright material that does not have a free to distribute clause?

    Exactly how will Big Brother perform "deep packet inspection" of encrypted data?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    How will this be measured?

    Is there any 'intelligent' mechanism they intend to use to determine who is a copyright violator?

    As part of my job, I need to download huge amounts of information from clients. Process it. And send it back. We're talking 10's of GBs per month. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

    I hope the tehcnical measure will take into account the content being transferred. Not simply the volume of data.

    Anyone know how this will work?

  6. Jonathan 29
    Pirate

    Hiding under the covers

    Presuming that you will only get letters for copyright infringing torrents, what is the best workaround currently?

    1. Torrent over non UK VPN

    2. Non UK based Seedbox

    3. Rapidshare, Megaupload or similar

    4. Hack the neighbour's WEP/WPA key

    5. Wait for a reasonably priced music/TV/movie store that has fast streaming and downloads and 0 day releases.

    I am more than happy to pay at least £10 a month for the first 3, but no one seems to want to take my money for the last.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    " the most serious and egregious recidivistic offenders"

    How many individuals does that amount to? How much money have they spent on this?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If You've Done Nothing Wrong... You'll Have To Prove It?

    "In Commons questions on Monday, Simon dismissed such concerns. "People who have done nothing wrong should not be in any danger of having their internet interfered with at all," he said."

    The old "if you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to fear" mentality.

    Except:-

    ""Nobody will have their bandwidth squeezed or their account suspended until they have had repeated letters, been given a healthy notice period and then had a right of appeal — indeed, two rights of appeal.""

    Is "right of appeal" a kind of euphemism for guilty until proven innocent? I mean, if we have the right to be presumed innocent, wouldn't it be for the accusers to prove their case? Yet it seems to go straight to a question of appeal.

    So it seems that Sion Simon's reassurance is simply incorrect. "People who have done nothing wrong" would need to appeal.

    And what would these appeals processes involve, anyway? What would an appellant have to do, show or prove in order to succeed?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    "assessed by Ofcom has not reduced by 70 per cent"

    just wandering... but how is Ofcom going to assess the reduction in filesharing?

    are they simply going to look at the profit made by music/movie studios and assume that if it haven't gone by 70% then the filesharing is still going on?

    or are they already monitoring filesharing activities and know "exactly" how much is been transferred and therefore will have the ability to measure the reduction in the activities?

    just a geek wandering

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    indirect action....

    time to start posting the ips for parliament and number 10 into tracker sites

  11. The First Dave
    Boffin

    Levels

    So, does that mean that we should all _increase_ our file sharing activities for a while, just to get the baseline measurement up a bit?

  12. Tom Chiverton 1

    "hardly anybody"

    Isn't "hardly anybody" what they said about the (for instance) RIPA powers (used by almost everyone) or who would have to register on the 'I am not a sex offender, so can I pick my neighbours children up from school' database ?

  13. Rooster Brooster
    IT Angle

    Language usage to communicate or separate?

    "egregious recidivistic" - If Sion SImon is reintroduced to the modern world please let him know? If this is the language used, are they the right person to represent us on the usage of modern technologies?

  14. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Happy

    I'm sure they will...

    ...until some war veteren or non computer owning granny gets their door broken down by Broon's Stormtroopers ordered in by the MPAA! Then they get their face splashed all over the front of the Daily Fail and Current Bun, showing the damage done by said Broon-shirted Troops of Doom!

    Can't wait!

  15. Stuart 22
    Happy

    VPN sir? Yes please, how much?

    Is there a VPN company I can make my fortune with?

    The one benefit of this will be to make VPN mainstream. That will also help people dodge having their email logged, facebook visits tagged and the rest of the control freakery statist ambitions. But then I suppose Whitehall will start requiring VPNs to be registered. A bit of deep packet filtering by our Cheltenham friends should expose use of unregistered VPNs to which the penalty will be instant disconnection or switch to BT whichever is the most killing.

  16. mmiied
    Grenade

    @ both Anonymous Cowards

    I am sick of repeting this but this is likley how they will do it

    1. look on a file shearing site for "latest film.torrent"

    2. download torrent

    3. join the swarm and download the film (probley with upload switched off

    4. check it is "latest film"

    5. note down ips form the swarm

    6. send letters to the isps the ips belong to asking them to sort it out

    plese do not repete your "how will they know I download lots of linux clinets" etc here again

  17. Sam Liddicott
    Thumb Down

    LISTEN: "People who have done nothing wrong"

    "People who have done nothing wrong should not be in any danger of having their internet interfered with at all"

    is another way of saying:

    "You are guilty when we cut your internet off"

    Arnie recently vetoed California laws because the lawmakers were messing about instead of tackling the problems the voters wanted tackling.

    Time for us to veto the standing parties for messing about with stuff that no voter wants.

  18. Deckchair

    @Anonymous Coward Posted Tuesday 10th November 2009 12:32 GMT

    The same way they estimate the cost to the music industry, take its word for it.

    Perhaps we could extend this to drug addicts and criminals and just take their word for it. You'd cut recidivism overnight, prove the millions spent on rehabilitation were wisely invested and everyone gets a knighthood. Huzzah!

  19. Sam Liddicott

    Open a FON hotspot

    I run a fon hot-spot. It runs non-standard firmware so that fon (or their legal overlords) can't easily use it to spy on me.

    I permitted browsing to 0.0.0.0/0 without logging in, so it is an open hot-spot.

    How can an anonymous users be distinguished from me or my family or my house-guests?

  20. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    How to know whats illigal or not.

    Its fairly simple for the gov to determine if what you download is illigal or not. They just ask the music industry. They are the once that will tell the gov to shut you down in the first place after all.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    innocents hit

    1) those who are forced to prove their innocence

    2) those sharing a connection with an accused. And it's not like a group of N people sharing a residence can get N different ADSL/ISP accounts attached to the same wire, is it? (but maybe if they share the same isp...??)

  22. Ryan 26

    @mmiied

    And how will they know if I'm uploading any data? Being connected to the swarm doesn't prove it, so they would actually have to receive data from me and confirm it forms part of the file. How much data do they have to receive from me to accuse me of file sharing. Clearly 1 byte isn't enough, but how much is? 10 bytes? 10KB? 10MB? 1GB?

    Bet they don't check and wrongly assume everyone is uploading ...

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    3 strikes and you're out!

    Claim 1, "You downloaded Back Street Boys latest track, as proof I offer your IP address and name of file "backstreetboystune.mp3".

    Citizen: "No I didn't"

    ISP: Well under the rules they had your IP address and a file name that could be the infringement, hence Claim 1 is upheld.

    Claim 2, "You downloaded LordOfTheRings.mpeg", as proof I offer your IP address and screenshot showing the name of the file."

    Citizen: "No I didn't"

    ISP: "Again, sorry, but the reduced level of evidence for this means we have to uphold their complaint."

    Claim 3, "You downloaded BritneySpearsWallpaper.jpeg, as proof here's a screen shot"

    Citizen: "No I didn't"

    ISP: "Bye, you and your family are blacklisted now, you had lots of warnings and lots of chances to appeal and you failed to prove that you were innocent! So don't start claiming you haven't had due process!"

    Citizen: "But I'm Emperor Mandleson, how dare you use my own half assed pseudo crimes against me!"

  24. Ed Blackshaw Silver badge

    @Sam Liddicott

    If I were you, I'd secure that hotspot, lest the powers that be determine that you are 'facilitating illegal filesharing', or some such bunk. Next thing you know, you'll be accused of downloading child porn and splashed across the front page of the daily mail*.

    *(no capitalisation, there's nothing proper about that particular noun).

  25. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    @mmiied

    As a record/film industry shill, I'm not surprised you're "wearied" by having to explain yourself to all those freetards for the x billionth time. Do you really think that 24/7 checking of every torrent being traded on the planet is productive use of someone's time?!? I'll give you that its a fabulous job creation scheme, - making up "non-jobs" is a New Liebor (and most likely Tory) speciality and would probably get you a peerage :(

    FTR King Canute thought he had the power to stop the sea - didn't quite work out that way though. In reality, the internet is primarily for file sharing (regardless of whether you agree with it or not), and is more likely to rise by 70% than reduce.

    As for the Conservatives "support for the proposals", I imagine they'll be backpedalling fast when they recognize the magnitude of their problems and the necessity of NOT upsetting the taxpayer any more than they have to.

    Those who have nothing to hide, have a LOT to fear.

  26. Paul Crawford Silver badge
    FAIL

    Liability?

    The real question here is have they made you liable for the use/abuse of your IP address?

    How is this squared with the manufacturers of software and routers that are insecure by default, and have an EULA or similar saying they are not liable for it?

    If you do nothing, since you have done nothing wrong other than use a device as supplied, and they cut you off in spite of *you* not doing the sharing, who do you sue for compensation?

    If you have to use insecure WEP due to older computers not supporting new standards and it is regularly hacked, who should pay for it being fixed? The original supplier?

    Could you simply write back to the media industry representative and invite them to come and fix your problems at their cost? If they don't act, can you do the same and after 3 letters have them de-listed as a competent body to issue notices?

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Light touch

    @mmiied

    Yes, thats exactly what ACS::Law have been doing. Apart from point 6, where upon getting the name from the ISP they go after the alleged infringer themselves. But after waiting for over a year, reducing the chances for the accused to prove innocence. Then sending tens of thousands of filesharers letters requesting 600 quid in damages or else if you do not pay up a threat of unlimited fines and/or a prison sentence.

    So compared to the current situation, the governments proposal does look like a light touch.

    Unfortunately the innocent have much to fear from this government, not just this proposed filesharing crackdown.

    In fact I am quite looking forward to seeing the outcome of illegal filesharing plummetting and the corresponding revenue of the Music an Film industry NOT increasing in the proportions they expect.

    What do they do then? Campaign to the government to make DVD players illegal and sell us the same content again on Bluray?

  28. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart
    Stop

    Some quotes

    "The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands . . . "

    "But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. . . ."

    "People who have done nothing wrong should not be in any danger of having their internet interfered with at all,"

    The last quote is Sion Simon, the first two Adolf Hitler.

    Not that I am trying to associate Simon with Hitler, however this "only the guilty have something to hide" is fascist bullshit propaganda of the highest order.

    Of course what Simon meat to say was "People who have done nothing wrong in the eyes of the MAFIAA should not be in any danger of having their internet interfered with at all, but that won’t stop the MAFIAA or their agents from spying on the private communications of private individuals without a warrant, and it doesn’t mean that the MAFIAA are capable of getting it right either".

    There fixed it for you.

  29. Hugo Rune
    Pirate

    Confused

    I forgot to record Stargate Universe, which I have paid Sky 1 for through my Virgin Media subscription. So I had to torrent it to be able to watch what I had paid for.

    I forgot to record Deep space Nine, which I have paid Virgin 1 for through my Virgin Media subscription. So i had to use TV Catchup it to be able to watch what I had paid for.

    Who will explain to my moral compass and the general public why one of these is bad and one is good.

    First one to say cos Deep space nine is shit wins a camel's ball or something!

  30. Justabloke 1
    Thumb Down

    Oh well.. if thats what they say then thats ok...

    After all, they said that RIPA would only be used against real terrorists threats and the chances of some mouth breathing/ knuckle dragging idiot from your local authority would never use it to spy on you for trying to get your kids into a decent school...

    Or these new police powers would never be used to arrest a disenting voice at the lab Conf, or a single woman reading out names by a monument in the mddle of the street...

    They just don't get it do they? If one of them was standing front of me and I could see the rain dripping off the end of his nose I still wouldn't believe it was raining if they told me it was.

    Tossers the lot of 'em

  31. nichomach
    FAIL

    Outstanding!

    "Indeed, yesterday the shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt suggested the regime should be brought in quicker."

    Because the Tories care so much more about your rights, about justice, about privacy than Labour. Really they do.

  32. Guy Herbert
    Big Brother

    Sounds like a sovreign excuse...

    ... for Mastering the Internet, reported postponed till after the election yesterday. Got to look in all of everyone's traffic in case they might be filesharers. And they got the Tories on board too by telling them it was protecting commercial interests...

    Cf the Data Retention Directive - transparently an instrument of law enforcement and surveillance, but when 2 member states took that to the European Court of Justice for the equivalent a declaration of ultra vires, it was maintained to be a commerce measure by the Commission.

  33. Grahame 2
    Stop

    only the most serious cases?

    "hardly anybody, other than the most serious and egregious recidivistic offenders".

    How can anyone with a memory trust a statement like this, especially from this government. We have heard it all before.

    Terrorism Act 2000 was only to be used in the most serious of causes to protect the public against terrible harm, we find section 44 used hundreds of times a day, against ordinary people going about their business (especially if armed with a camera!)

    Regulation of Interceptory Power Act (RIPA) 2000, another counter terrorism measure, now routinely (ab)used by local councils for trivial offences

    Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, which grants to power to confiscate assets unless the accused any prove they were not "the proceeds of unlawful conduct or intended for use in such conduct.", related criminal conviction not necessary. Only to be used against the Mr. Bigs of the criminal world, now after repeated extensions (local councils soon to gain powers) and reductions in the minimum threshold (£10,000 (2002) to £5,000 (2004) and now to £1,000 in 2006, it can be applied to just about anyone.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    so how do I

    get in contact with Mandleson and his cronies? - My fear is that we are going to return to inflated prices in record stores because they know they have your balls in a vice.

    Id like to know what these twats are planning on doing about the fleecing of record buying people that is going to happen.

  35. mmiied
    Stop

    in defence of my name

    @Anonymous Coward's again (probley diffrent ones)

    I would like it made know I am a NOT in favor of this I have sared lots of files in my time and I think this legistation is the worst thing to come out of this goverment (and that is saying a lot) but if you are going to be fighting it then you need to be aiming in the right direction so I will contuinue to correct pepol when they aim there vigor in the worng places

    I am not sure this is a light touch compered to the stratagy used before cos I think that a govemnt snooping and there intervention is soo much worse that a privite company that you have the right to counter sue/chlange in an open court

    @Ryan 26

    I suspect they will just be selectivley targeting the big hypes and that is part of how they say that only a few will be caught

    I would be intrested to see there evedance as well (almost so intrested I am considering getting caught just to see what they are passing off as eveidance) I rember asking on a previous post where they clamed somone had made 30,000(ish) copyes of a song if I upload but limite my torrent program to a 1:1 raito do I get done for making 1 copy (the data upload) or 100 (ther number pepol I uploaded a chunk to?

  36. irish donkey
    Thumb Up

    Deep Space Nine

    Is the superior of the all the new gen's

  37. Mark McC
    Unhappy

    Only the most egregious offenders?

    Surely they can be prosecuted under the existing and very extensive UK copyright laws? Oh wait, actual prosecutions are expensive, drawn-out hard to technically prove in court.

    So instead we have a catch-all 'guilty until proven innocent' scheme that will ensnare lots of easy targets while the serious offenders carry on untouched with their IP blockers, VPNs and half a dozen other technologies that render them immune. But hey, it'll do wonders for the crime figures.

    Maybe they should extend this to other criminal activities. If someone sees my teenage son doing 45 in a 40 mph zone in our car they should report it to the police so we can all have our licenses revoked and the family car confiscated without trial. As long as we have an appeals process to get it back of course.

    What's the bet the appeals process will involve making an official complaint via the website (after you've been disconnected)?

  38. arran

    can we just

    get on with the revolution please?

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Some explanations

    The problem with noting the ip addresses reported by the tracker is that trackers can and do lie. Sure, all the people actually sharing the file are on the list but someone realised that adding bogus ip addresses to the list did nothing to performance and added plausible deniability to those downloading.

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    Stupid idea

    Stupid idea and wont change anything, people will just use VPN and also shy away from torrents and use other means such as encrypting files, hidden files with unrelated file names, just random files of nothing they can't do anything as they dont know what the hell your downloading or uploading. As long as you can transmit and receive data there are ways around it.

    The only people that suffers again are the innocent like all new laws in this country.

  41. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Officials

    Both our countries UK, and USA, need to outlaw electronic vote tabulation devices, then start tossing out every piece of crap official, who broke their oath in the US, (sorry I don't know the equal in the UK) and vote their ass's out. Although I don't see how you can vote a king / queen out which is basically a form of dictatorship, we in the US have an electronic dictatorship.

    All these BS wars were just an excuse to remove rights. All these political parties are the same.

  42. Wayland Sothcott 1

    Re: some explainations

    I agree strongly with the last paragraph especially.

    Surely there are more people using torrants than there are people in the industries adversely affected? However there is more MONEY in the industries than in the people using torrents.

    So it is still majority rule but where what counts is not the people but the MONEY.

    This is a fascist proposal where government grants industry the power to police the people in order to protect it's profit.

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    A real crackdown would require ISPs to commit suicide

    Good luck to the government with this. ISPs will make this difficult, without question. They're effectively passing a law that tells ISPs that they're going to take their customers away. ISPs know the volume of their users who use peer-to-peer networks, and they know it's a hell of a lot of them.

    The only way to really stop file sharing is to have ISPs report it themselves, and they're never going to do that because it would be suicide for their business. The method that is currently used of logging IPs connected to a tracker is flawed and everyone but the government knows it.

    Nobody has anything to fear because this law, just like every other possible attempt to crackdown, is completely unworkable. VIVA LA INTERNET.

  44. Col

    To quote Pterry

    As I'm prone to do depressingly regularly these days, 'the axiom "Honest men have nothing to fear from the police" is currently under review by the Axioms Appeal Board'

  45. David 45

    EU

    Isn't there something the EU could do on this total load of political cattle excrement? Someone's just trying to look big and I think we all know who. Are you listening, Mandy?

  46. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    the real problem

    People are not pirating stuff because they want to steal it. They pirate it because they believe that stuff has no value.

    And it doesn't, they're right. It has a cost (what it cost to make it), but it doesn't have a value because it's just thin air. The problem is, those who make this stuff (music, movies, games, whatever) charge huge amounts of money and have no efficient way to distribute it to consumers, so consumers feel cheated and decide it's fair to bypass them.

    The solution? Well, definitely not make up laws to protect their businesses (that's ridiculous!). They need to make their products cheaper and more accessible -> so it's THEIR fault, and it's up to them to sort themselves out if they can. You can't blame the pirates, because there's so many of them they're now the norm (laws shouldn't go against the people they're there to protect).

    I shouldn't have to pay £1 per track. It should be £1 per album. That's a fair price. These people think they need to make billions off us, instead of a decent amount of profit like anybody else. I guess they say "it's a high-risk business, so I want a high return". If you don't like it, invest in something else.

    The internet is here, but the music industry is completely FAILing to exploit it. They need to get their act together if they want to be relevant in a few years' time.

    I believe all these record companies will eventually fail, and high-profile celebrities "made" by these companies will disappear and smaller bands may get a chance to promote their own music.

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sion Simon is a minister?

    Oh FFS - how thin is the bottom of the barrel after they've scraped this far?

  48. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Light touch

    This would presumably be different from the normal Ofcom (or perhaps FSA) light touch? I mean, that light touch is really, really light (soft, dare I say?), so light in fact that the bad guys never, ever get punished, with consumers left to take the brunt of poor service, greed and regulatory indifference. On the other hand THIS light touch is a little tougher, more comparable perhaps to an indiscriminate Iron Fist in the face, with little warning, reason or justice. In fact consumers will take the brunt of business stupidity, greed and ... more greed.

    So there seems to be one "light touch" for the rich, another "light touch" for the rest of us. I'd hate to write the new labour dictionary.

    @Mike Richards - They've been scraping for so long now, there is no bottom and they're well into the sludge.

  49. ZenCoder
    FAIL

    Easily spoofed.

    Remember the story about the University of Washington students who were "able to generate hundreds of real DMCA takedown notices for computers at the University of Washington that never downloaded nor shared any content whatsoever."

    They even managed to frame a network printer.

    Also many p2p networks identify files by a hash rather than by a file name. So lets say there is a linux DVD available via emule. I can download it and rename it as "2012 2009 DVDRiP.avi". People searching the network for users pirating 2012 will now obtain solid "evidence" that people downloading that linux DVD are downloading the movie 2012.

    And of course ISP's never make mistakes when it comes to determining what IP address belonged to what account a year ago.

  50. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Sign me up.

    When a user gets a 2nd strike, and the ISP throttles their connection to 128kByes/sec, will their bill autmatically be reduced by the same percentage? For ex. If you're paying $50/month for 20Mbit, and they reduce your connection to 1Mbit, will your bill be reduced to $2.50/month? If so, can I sign up for permanent '2nd strike status'. I'm sure I could find something worthwhile on which to spend an extra $47.50/month. (beer, maybe?)

  51. Winkypop Silver badge
    FAIL

    Complete Hansard

    Now available on uTorrent.

    What?

    Oh sorry....

  52. Pete 8
    Troll

    So

    As a sysadmin, if a user get snapped... am I complicit? what is the test for this?

    A hidden SSID

    A wep key?

    WPA key?

    WPA2

    Will Techs need to be 'vetted' to setup connections soon?

    Goblins!

  53. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ theodore

    Don't be so naive, the British people have always paid for broadband speed they never received. It's like tradition or something. Rather than actually do something about it all the ISPs did was change their marketing material so that it says "up to x Mbits". Why would they start handing out discounts now?

    I could probably sell *up to* 20Mbit broadband limited to 1Mbit all day long and no one would ever stop me. Heck, make that *up to* 1Gbit. I've got a gigabit switch in my office so technically I'm not lying, it's not MY fault if the cable between us isn't good enough to handle the speed.

  54. ShaggyDoggy

    @AC 13:48

    Canute went into the sea the prove he DIDN'T have power over it.

    The most misunderstood man in history.

  55. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    So what happens

    when my 7yo kid downloads a cartoon and is snarled by the SS^W MMPAAIDDTFFSCNUT whatever.

    A 7yo is below the legal age for criminal prosecution. I can show that I _supervise_ his surfing, but don't stand by his shoulder every second (I'm a Dad, not a warder) and it only takes a second to double click on a torrent file. Why do I have a torrent client, for Linux downloads of course, what else, are you accusing me of something?

    So who gets the charge laid against them? I would take the matter to court. I _*DO*_ still have the right to go to court don't I?

    ++++++

    Another thing, surely this law if fatally flawed anyway. How can anyone "PROVE" a negative. How can I PROVE I didn't do something. Surely the onus should be on the accuser to PROVE that I _DID_ something. And prove that beyond reasonable doubt.

  56. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: @AC 13:48

    The traditional story of Cnut (I prefer that spelling), combined with the fact that the traditional story is a massive lie, is itself a story of deep truth.

    1. The people believe the king, Cnut, has such authority that even the tide won't dare to embarrass him.

    2. Cnut proves that this is a load of nonsense.

    3. The people laugh at Cnut, as if he was trying to demonstrate the nonsense that they, the people, had ignorantly believed.

    I am a big fan of Cnut.

  57. Jon 52
    FAIL

    whole household charged

    So this is a takedown placed on that address/landline connection?

    If more than one person lives there are they all punished? Can you just register the broadband connection in another persons name?

  58. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    so, how much money will digital britain loss

    so.how much money will digital britain loss exactly, as people will NOT pay monthly fees to the UK ISPs for half speed and/or disconnections within that month....

    how much will digital britain loss to the EU co-location sites as they will not want to re-invest in the new UK co-location sites, as people cant then use the services if they are reduced to a crawl or cut off etc.....

    it seems UK PLC will be lossing a LOT MORE digital infrastucture and ISP cash PCM then anything the US/UK music business say they will loose with their fiddled No's.

    and again, that perpetual question

    'how Exactly does the threat of cutting people off the UKs WWW, make them want to Actually invest in, and buy more digital media content,services and property...'

  59. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    i own the copyright, they say i dont...

    the problem with that "ask the music industry" is OC the likes of WM and other corps say they own copyrights they dont actually own....lier lier, pants on fire.

    as just one single example of the commercial 'music corps' pirating other peoples data/copyright and making their unlawful 'derivative works' for commercial profit see:

    http://torrentfreak.tv/ 1 minute and 45 seconds in...

    edwyn collins and his "a girl like you"

    "

    How to know whats illegal or not. #

    By Anonymous Coward Posted Tuesday 10th November 2009 13:29 GMT

    Its fairly simple for the gov to determine if what you download is illigal or not. They just ask the music industry. They are the once that will tell the gov to shut you down in the first place after all.

    "

  60. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    just make your own mesh WAN

    OC the simplest thing is for everyone to take their open wireless routers and setup a

    really open wireless mesh that grows and spans the whole UK.

    its easy enough taking that ISP refund for loss of services after you get the letters and install your very own 'robin wireless mesh'

    http://robin.forumup.it/index.php?mforum=robin

    if ebough people actually take the time to try it, your going to see a lot of turn key livecd's and the like for this and private consumer to consumer based VPN WAN/LAN connections and taking the UKs ISPs right out of the picture and making the ISP's loss a LOT of Real Cash income, good for the HW non UK OEMs and consumers alike, as they produce something you want to actually buy and spend your money on.

    and the added side benefit of building out your UK wide WAN one wireless 11N dual radio router at a time.

    "@Sam Liddicott #

    By Ed Blackshaw Posted Tuesday 10th November 2009 13:40 GMT

    If I were you, I'd secure that hotspot, lest the powers that be determine that you are 'facilitating illegal filesharing', or some such bunk.

    "

  61. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    RIPA and You.

    no,no,no see you must have got that the wrong way round, clearly they need these RIPA

    function creep to stop 'the wrong sort' from getting out of the low income area's into the middle/higher income area's and taking way their job securitys....

    and CLEARLY "RIPA would only be used against real terrorists threats " is wrong as they dont intend in ever actually prosecuting the BT executives that authorised mass interception of the 'wrong sort of people'

    (the cuntsumers that actually pay the monthly costs and make the actual profits for these executives)

    and clearly, putting mass Deep Packet Interception hardware into the key frastructure of the mass digital britain backbone.... doesnt really break RIPA or effect "real terrorists threats" as its suposed to bring in much needed Cash for this UK infrastucture buildout that people cant then pay for and use to its full potential...

    think of all those massive databases and your private digital datastreams they can collect, and sell YOUR data and derivative works of same, to the highest world bidders, and the private Credit Reference Agences that dont already use DPI to steal your copyrighted data streams. you dont want them to miss out on that latest executive gold mine do YOU!

    you cant have the executives procicuted Under RIPA and placed in jail for 'piracy for commercial profit; offences or they cant be taking all these exectutive bonuses year on year until they come out and re-join the Govt.

    "Oh well.. if thats what they say then thats ok... #

    By Justabloke 1 Posted Tuesday 10th November 2009 14:04 GMT

    After all, they said that RIPA would only be used against real terrorists threats and the chances of some mouth breathing/ knuckle dragging idiot from your local authority would never use it to spy on you for trying to get your kids into a decent school...

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