Are you writing to your MP?

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As a young hoodlum as I am, I am morally outraged by this draft piece of legislation.

 

So... I'm writing to my MP. As you do.

 

Anyone see anything wrong with this case I'm putting forward?

 

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Me wrote:

Dear Mr. Osborne,

 

Recent legislation has been proposed to go through Parliament next week which aims to force Internet Service providers to warn, suspend, and pernamently disconnect suspected (and I stress "suspected") users of file sharing programs on a "three strikes" basis.

 

I oppose this legislation on numerous grounds. To begin with, I do not believe it is the government's role to be subject to lobbying from the entertainment industry. This legislation does not benefit ISP customers, the ISPs themselves, nor the actual artists and original creators of distributed works. No doubt you will have heard of the RIAA in the USA, who gained notoriety in 2004 for beginning a campaign of filing lawsuits against people for sharing even single files for excessive amounts of damages (often well beyond 6 figures), and to date not a single penny gained by suing these people has actually gone to the original artists, instead it goes into a pot to fund even more lawsuits. I do not want the same situation over here.

 

Additionally, it is very hard (if not impossible) for ISPs to determine what current file shares are legitimate or not. For instance, the Linux operating system is often legally distributed over BitTorrent (a Peer-to-peer technology) as are regular updates for the online game World of Warcraft. But at the same time films, software, and music (often whole discographies at once) are distributed using the same medium. If an ISP cannot determine what is illicit or not, they may block all access to services like BitTorrent and thus prevent positive aspects of this technology from reaching the masses. As a Linux user myself I would not be happy if I couldn’t download the latest distributions, something which would be impossible if my ISP blocked access to BitTorrent.

 

Finally, history has shown that any governmental or corporate attempt to “crack down” on file sharing, legal or otherwise, has been doomed to failure. Even if ISPs clamp down heavily and block access to everything except the World Wide Web and email there are techniques known as “tunnelling” where traffic for one type of service can be put through another, and often encryption is involved making identification of the traffic all but impossible, although it would slow down the transfer of shared files significantly.

 

If the government really wishes to satisfy the near-insatiable demands of the entertainment industry associations then I feel an additional levy on all consumer ISP services which goes towards a collection agency would suffice. A system like this is in place in Canada right now. All ISP service consumers pay an additional dollar or two a month and it becomes legal for them to download and share whatever media they want. I feel this is the most progressive solution and prevents any possibility of a "Record label suing fans" situation there is in the USA. I'm certain you will agree the government needs to consider the experiences of the end-customers and not industry associations which can afford to lobby bills through parliament. It's an affront to democracy.

 

 

 

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