Another approach to deal with online piracy: three strikes and you’re out
While the US music industry is exploring the option of imposing additional charges on broadband users, Europe is now discussing a totally new approach: banning errant users from using the web.
This approach still requires ISPs to be copyright cops by monitoring breaches of copyright and disconnecting recalcitrant privates. Of course this proposal has been met with vehement objection because of alleged breach of civil rights. It is interesting to see how the music industry in US is recognizing the immense difficulty of ISPs being copyright cops, while Europe (France is advancing this proposal) is still keen to place the burden of upholding copyright on ISPs.
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skass
April 14, 2008 @ 10:36 am
That story lends credence to Lessig’s argument regarding the regulability of the Web.
bepa
April 14, 2008 @ 4:24 pm
I think it’s important to note that the EU parliament symbolically voted down the French law. This shows the reluctance of the EU to allow this type of crack down.
In other articles on this developing story, it seems that there is a belief that restricting access to the Internet conflicts with civil liberties.
nikae
April 15, 2008 @ 10:10 am
I think that one of the most important points in the article was the last one — the complexity of trying to enforce regulation by the ISPs through European law.
In terms of Lessig’s framework, the law probably wouldn’t be particularly effective at this kind of regulation. If the ISPs took the initiative themselves to create more architecture that prevented file-sharing, this would probably be more effective than simply forcing them to adopt half-baked government regulation.
Problematically, if the ISPs did take the initiative (as they do have incentive to do — they want to be able to provide faster service to all users), there would me fewer checks on their power to cut people off, and people may not have as much recourse as they would under legal regulations to challenge the ISP.