Only ISP In Town Pulling Plug On Suspected File Sharers With No Recourse [Update]

from the guilt-by-accusation dept

With all the talk about various "three strikes" plans to kick accused (but not convicted) file sharers off the internet, it appears that one ISP, called Kaloo, in the UK has taken this to an extreme: it's kicking people off on the first accusation of infringement, with no warning, and the only way to get reconnected is to sign a form admitting guilt and promising not to do it again. Even worse? It's the only ISP in town, so people who get kicked off are basically without an internet connection. What's really odd is that the ISP doesn't seem to recognize how a complete lack of due process is a problem, calling the program "reasonable" and suggesting it "protects people from illegal activity." No, actually, it doesn't. It cuts people off from what's increasingly a vital communications system without any real proof or due process. Doesn't that seem like a problem? Update: With all the fuss and publicity from the BBC article the ISP seems to have agreed to change its policy to a "three strikes" one. That's still not great, but better than the one strike plan.

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Rogers Back To Inserting Its Messages Onto Others' Websites

from the creepy-intrusions dept

Back in 2007, we wrote about how Canadian ISP Rogers was inserting its own content into certain webpages, such as Google's. The company was basically putting messages at the top to let people know they were using up their metered bandwidth limit. While it's nice that they were trying to better inform users, the methods were highly questionable -- injecting content into someone else's website just seemed creepy and intrusive. Rogers backed down... however, Michael Geist is reporting that some people have started seeing the notifications injected into their surfing yet again. In this case, it's not about bandwidth metering, but about parental controls. Either way, it seems bad. I'm sure Rogers wants better ways to communicate with customers, but shoving messages into the webpage they're surfing just seems excessive.

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Details Emerge On Australian Lawsuit Against ISPs For Failing To Stop Piracy

from the that's-the-best-you-can-do dept

Last month, we wrote about the lawsuit filed by various movie studios, against Australian ISP iiNet for failing to wave a magic wand and wipe out piracy. Apparently, the reason the studios thought they had a slam dunk case was because they hired an "investigator" who signed up with iiNet's service, purposely shared movies, and then had the studios complain to see if iiNet would cut him off. Since it did not, the studios claim that iiNet knew about piracy and did nothing about it. Leaving aside the point that it wasn't actually copyright infringement in the case of the investigator, since he was authorized to distribute the content, and the takedown notice would likely be a false notification, iiNet's response (which we mentioned when the case first came out) seems to still be dead on:

They send us a list of IP addresses and say 'this IP address was involved in a breach on this date'. We look at that say 'well what do you want us to do with this? We can't release the person's details to you on the basis of an allegation and we can't go and kick the customer off on the basis of an allegation from someone else'. So we say 'you are alleging the person has broken the law; we're passing it to the police. Let them deal with it'.

So, iiNet did take appropriate action. It alerted the police that a company felt laws were being broken. That seems like it should be the extent of any ISP's engagement when sent such flimsy evidence.

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Before We Start Regulating ISPs, Maybe It Would Be Good Idea To Define Them

from the forethought,-ignored dept

Many people are expecting that the debate over net neutrality will kick up again in the new year. The senator behind previous attempts to enact it plans to reintroduce legislation for it, while the incoming presidential administration appears to be much more supportive of the idea than the outgoing one. Before jumping in with both feet, though, let's pause for a second (and read Tim Lee's paper), and take a moment to actually figure out just what constitutes an ISP these days, and who would be bound by any net-neutrality regulations.

An interesting piece at Network World raises the example of Amazon: since it supplies a network connection to Kindle owners, would net-neutrality regulation force it to somehow open up the internet access on the device and allow Kindle owners to connect to other e-book vendors? This is an important point to consider, given how mobile operators are all talking about their plans to "open" their networks and get wireless radios embedded in all sorts of consumer electronics. If, say, Netflix decided to sell a device for accessing its streaming-movie service over mobile networks, and used a similar model to Amazon, in which the wireless service was included, would Netflix be an ISP? Would net-neutrality regulations force it to let users access other movie services? The general trend seems to be that the number of companies that could conceivably be considered ISPs -- especially with some poorly worded legislation -- is set to grow significantly. But net-neutrality regulation could end up stifling business models, innovation and new devices and services if it's not carefully considered. Somehow, though, it's hard to imagine there will be careful consideration in the rush to score political brownie points.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Australia Latest To Consider Kicking People Off The Internet For File Sharing

from the three-strikes-and-your-shooting-yourself-in-the-foot dept

Never let it be said that the entertainment industry lobby isn't comprehensive. Over the past decade plus of watching them at work, you begin to see some patterns that are unmistakable. When the industry has a new idea it plans to push through as a law, it quietly works the concept through a variety of politicians around the world, and then will have one representative of the industry slip the concept into conversation at a public event somewhere. Then, while everyone's debating the concept, it suddenly shows up in pre-written legislation around the world before anyone knows what's going on. That appears to be happening again. Over the summer, entertainment industry execs (mainly from NBC Universal) started buzzing about how ISPs needed to take more responsibility for punishing those who were sharing unauthorized files on their networks. It seemed so outlandish that people were kind of surprised that it was even brought up. But then the laws started popping up. First there was a French proposal that would have ISPs ban users after being caught sharing unauthorized files three times. Then a similar proposal popped up in the UK last week. Now, down in Australia the government is now considering a similar proposal. Rest assured that these ideas didn't suddenly occur to the politicians in each of these countries.

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