News - TalkTalk vows to fight Digital Economy Bill

[HEXUS]

ISP refuses to go along with ?draconian? measures pushed through in the bill.

Read more.

[semo]

wow this coming from talk talk? anyone who can help is welcome. i'll be writing to my MP using 38 degree's form. also joining their campaign
http://38degrees.org.uk/page/signup
if anyone else knows how else to vote against this i'm in!

[Saracen]

My view of that is that it is mere PR puff.

It's great taking a 'principled' stand .... especially when it could be argued that you have a vest interest in doing it, as one of the ISPs that will have to comply.

I especially liked this bit ....

Unless we are served with a court order we will never surrender a customer's details to rightsholders.

As I read the DE Bill, and the accompanying notes, the Bill does not require ISPS to, unless there's a court order.

It's explicitly foreseen by the Bill that a court order will be necessary, and besides, under Data Protection legislation, it's needed anyway, and such a court order is after a fair bit of a lengthy process has been completed anyway.

As I understand it, the rights holder would lodge a complaint about abuse from a given IP address and, after due investigation by the ISP, they (the ISP, not the rights holder) send an 'information' letter to the account holder, precisely for those situations such as when someone is unaware of unauthorised access, or when a shared account is being misused by a sharer, or perhaps a child. If further reports are received, a follow-up letter would be sent. At this point, the rights holder will not have any access to customer details. If this process continues and continued reports are received, the rights holder can acquire a summary of log entries by IP address from the ISP, and still no account details have been disclosed. Eventually, if a given IP shows a serious and consistent pattern of abuse despite warnings, then and only then can the rights holder go to the court and ask for account details, and if and only if the court is satisfied that it is justified will the ISP be required to provide details. It is not, as regularly portrayed, simply that the ISP is expected to stump up account information when a rights holder shows a file has been downloaded, and as far as I can tell, the Bill (or Act as it shortly will be) has never envisaged TalkTalk or any ISP having to hand over account details without a court order.

So it seems to me rather to be hot air for them to leap on their moral high horse about not handing over details without a court order, because they wouldn't be required to do so, Bill passed or not. It's good PR to be seen to be "defending customers", though.

Moreover, I wonder just how they're going to "fight". If it's the law of the land, and if a court says "provide account names" they're going to be in very deep poop with the court if they then refuse to comply with the order of the court. I wonder what the view through their cell windows will be like?

So, like I say, I see it as just so much PR hot air, and posturing.

[iworrall]

I note that he vows to fight this "until after the election", yet fails to mention that no such notices will not appear until 2012 at the earliest. Just PR spin.

[speardane]

02 are getting in on the act too

Meaningful or not - I'm glad companies as well as individuals are protesting the bill.

The bill itself is criminally ill-thought out - proposing an unelected Lord - like Mandelson to have censorship powers...

I don't get why politicians get all in a lather about the EU and then do the "unelected foreign" media owners bidding (ok they're not all foreign - but the vast majority!)


If Murdoch and News International want to charge for "news" - let them...
If the Record labels want to prevent all sharing - great...
If they beleive they'll get more long-term music fans from X-factor - fine...
They'll fail and disappear - just don't blame everone else for your own stupidity!

I guess the only thing we have to greatful for is that they haven't paid the MPs to introduce another tax to subsidise their incompetence...

[mitch88]

Can we write all our purchases off as expenses?

How is downloading any worse than then stealing from the state.

[Georgy291]

so im guessing google will be banned to?

[speardane]

Government Policy is clear "Do as I say - Don't Do as I Do"

have a look at Felix Cohen in the Guardian
The week Labour and the Tories pass the DeBill - they take it in turns to break copyright

And we hear that the Attorney General is Innocent and her Housekeeper is Guilty

I've always voted - there are a couple of extreme parties I'd never vote for - but all of the rest of them seem as bad as each other.
I've written to the 3 main parties locally about the DEBill - at least the Tories managed to send a form letter reply - zip from the other two...
I really don't know what I'll do this time.

[amdavies]

Allegedly, this bill came about shortly after Lord Mandelson dined with Mr. Geffen in Mr. Rothschild's villa:-

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...cle6797844.ece

Of course, Lord Mandelson denies any link between the two.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...kfast-briefing

[Saracen]

Allegedly, this bill came about shortly after Lord Mandelson dined with Mr. Geffen in Mr. Rothschild's villa:-

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...cle6797844.ece

Of course, Lord Mandelson denies any link between the two.

I can't help but think of a quote variously attributed to sources as diverse as Claud Cockburn, John Pilger, Otto von Bismarck and Sir Humphrey Appleby (from 'Yes, Minister'), which says ....

Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.

[pollaxe]

You might think that, I couldn't possibly comment..

Well the DEBacle (see what I did there?) has probably cost the Tories my vote at the next election. Whilst I'm not averse to crackdowns on piracy, I am very averse to a law bought by lobbyists from venal idiots who either don't know or (more likely) understand what they're talking about; many of whom don't even show up to vote, of course.

I'm sure Talk Talk will bend over just like everyone else when this abortion of a law is enforced.

[Saracen]

The trouble is, pollaxe, blaming the Tories in unfair. It's a stitch-up between the three main parties, decided effectively by a cabal of front-bench spokesmen in back-room horse-trading over what goes through. And, while the Tories could have (apparently) blocked it, it's a Labour bill, and it was Labour that selected the timetable, choose the method by which it was introduced (via the Lords not the Commons), and stitched up the fact that it was going to get minimal Commons scrutiny, either in the House, or in Committee.

Yes, the Tories (and LibDems) are complicit, and believe me, not happy about many of the aspects of the Bill. But it's still a Labour Bill. Oh, and some of the more obnoxious provisions were dropped at the last moment (like the orphan works clause 43 that I found particularly unacceptable, personally) because the price of the Tories and LibDems letting the rest go through (with a promise to revisit it if elected) was that those clauses were dropped, or they'd block the whole thing.

Also, it's a wide-ranging bill. There's a lot I don't like, most notably that the actual provisions for dealing with things like illegal file-sharing are to be created by OfCom and signed off by the Secretary of State (which will only be Mandelson if Labour get re-elected, of course).But there's a lot of other stuff too, like provisions for digital radio services, the revision of C4 funding, the video game licensing provisions and so forth.

There's a lot of dissent among all parties (including Labour back benchers) on some provisions, but a lot of common agreement on many others. That's why so many, on all sides, objected so strongly to the way it's been rail-roaded through (by Labour, with complicity from others) - given a full debate and especially a full committee process, the really bad bits could have been weeded out or amended to be more reasonable and balanced, while letting the bits that they do agree on and agree that are needed, go through.

[speardane]

I'd love to see the law repealed - but don't beleive that'll happen.

There are many points where "big media" rip's off customers and creators also
it really hack's me off having my time stolen being implicitly accused of video theft for content I've

• purchased - when I'm confident it doesn't happen to the thieves...
• ... repurchasing all my vinyl on CD...
• ... being expected to repurchase it again, at even lower quality...
• ... paying for fees to DRM'd services, then having the service dropped with no compensation...
• ... getting charged a premium price for having DVD's converted to English (region 2) from American (region1)...

etc..............
I'd like to know safe source's of music purchase. I asked the BPI about whether whether TunesPro was legal and paid artists - no answer!!
The Music business finally produce a "complete list" of safe sites - and "accidentally" omit a whole pile of legitmate sites - write to them - no answer - no update
ripoffs - EMI v. Pink Floyd; EMi v. King Crimson (I'll bet there are more - this just reflects my age)

We need balance.
a) We need to point up "big media" dishonesty and hypocrisy
b) We need to start articulating the compromises we'd find acceptable.

I'm very happy for those that copy and distribute to be prosecuted.

• Can anyone tell me a legitimate use for Bulk CD / DVD copiers - why aren't they picking on those sellers and producers?
• It's not the indexers of the Usenet - it's the uploaders...

I'd be very happy for anything I buy to be watermarked...
I willingly pay once for any copy of content I wish to use - I expect my access to that content to be well protected
No artificial monopolies - if big media are prepared to sell for $x in the US, I should be able to buy for the straight dollar equivalent (+VAT) not the typical 2x...

[Saracen]

....

• Can anyone tell me a legitimate use for Bulk CD / DVD copiers - why aren't they picking on those sellers and producers?
• ....

I'd be very

Sure.

Production of marketing materials, press releases, catalogues, technical manual updates for engineers, distributing your own work, and so on .... all on CD and/or DVD.

I do exactly this for a company. Manuals, procedures and forms change and/or are updated regularly. ISO 9000 certification requires a procedure for ensuring all staff have up-to-date information ... and so do some customer contracts. Regular and controlled DVD updates form part of this.

[speardane]

Saracen
- fair enough - I'd rather thought that kind of thing would have been via a corporate site - So I guess that'd be as irritating for people like you - as the various DRM schemes (and other intrusions) are for the rest of us...
- I figured some (self supporting) Bands - might do also - but I was guessing - order of magnitude 10s per day

What kind of volumes do you put out this material in?
Do you have a feeling for proportions of legit : Pirate copies?

I've seen a lot of "semi-professional" quality CDs on market stalls - ie - good enough on 1st examination
If they're not genuine - despite trying to pay for what you use - you've still spent money on ripped-off product