[lilxkid24]

People who illegally download films and music will be cut off from the internet under new legislative proposals to be unveiled next week.

Internet service providers (ISPs) will be legally required to take action against users who access pirated material, The Times has learnt.

Users suspected of wrongly downloading films or music will receive a warning e-mail for the first offence, a suspension for the second infringement and the termination of their internet contract if caught a third time, under the most likely option to emerge from discussions about the new law.

Broadband companies who fail to enforce the ?three-strikes? regime would be prosecuted and suspected customers? details could be made available to the courts. The Government has yet to decide if information on offenders should be shared between ISPs.

Six million broadband users are estimated to download files illegally every year in this country in a practice that music and film companies claim is costing them billions of pounds in lost revenue annually.

Britain?s four biggest internet providers ? BT, Tiscali, Orange and Virgin Media ? have been in talks with Hollywood?s biggest studio and distribution companies for six months over a voluntary scheme.

Parallel negotiations between Britain?s music industry and individual internet providers have been dragging on for two years.

Major sticking points include who will arbitrate disputed allegations, for example when customers claim to have been the victim of ?wi-fi piggybacking?, in which users link up to a paid-for wireless network that is not their own. Another outstanding disagreement is how many enforcements the internet companies will be expected to initiate and how quickly warning e-mails would be sent.

International action in the US and France, which is implementing its own ?three-strikes? regime, has increased the pressure on British internet companies and stiffened the Government?s resolve.

Ministers will make an explicit commitment to legislate with the launch next week of a Green Paper on the creative industries. A draft copy, obtained by The Times, states: ?We will move to legislate to require internet service providers to take action on illegal file-sharing.? A consultation paper setting out the options is promised within months.

A spokesman for the Internet Service Providers Association said it remained hopeful that agreement over a voluntary agreement could be reached: ?Every right-thinking body knows that self-regulation is much the better option in these areas.?

Roz Groome, vice-president of antipiracy for NBC Universal, welcomed the prospect of new laws. ?We welcome the signal from Government that it values the health of the creative industries and takes seriously the damage caused by widespread online copyright infringement. We call upon ISPs to take action now. They must play their part in the fight against online piracy and work with rights owners to ensure that ISPs? customers do not use their services for illegal activity. Piracy stifles innovation and threatens the long term health of our industry.?

Ed Vaizey, the Shadow Arts Minister, said: ?David Cameron called on the internet providers to address this issue last summer. The credibility of the Government?s latest threat is undermined by the fact that ministers have spent so many years dithering on whether to legislate.?

The commitment forms part of a Green Paper on the creative industries entitled The World?s Creative Hub to be launched by Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, and Gordon Brown next week.

Other high-profile elements include a pledge that children will be entitled to five hours of culture a week overseen by a new youth culture trust. The pledge will give children the right to learn a musical instrument, visit art galleries and museums and even make films.

Other pledges include setting up a new international conference modelled on Davos, entitled the World Creative Economy Forum, and supporting a new #200 million film centre at the South Bank in London. A spokeswoman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said: ?Early drafts of our creative economy programme document were circulated to stakeholders for comment. The content and proposals for the strategy have been significantly developed since then and a comprehensive plan to bolster the UK?s creative industries will be published shortly. We will not comment on the content of the leaked document

source

uh oh lol

[coastie65]

Hey LIL, Good post. Nothing to worry about as long as you keep it legal. I do pay for all my Music downloads. I don't download movies as you can only watch them on the computer. I buy them mostly from Amazon and sometimes WalMart. Usually pirated material is of a lower quality anyway and not worth downloading. I remember years ago, Just before DVD caught on, they came up with something called DIVXX. You bought a player and then you could watch movies at home as with VHS only a better quality picture. The catch was after you bought the movie, you could watch it twice only, then if you wanted to see again, you would have to buy another copy. It never really caught on, except for maybe the movie industry, for obvious reasons Most people stuck with VHS. The movie Industry wanted to make that the new standard, but fortunately, when DVD came on to the scene, and the industry fought it briefly, the consumer won out. As I recall Circuit City had some involvement with the developement of DIVXX. The exact facts on that is a bit murky at this point. Back in the hey day of Video rental stores, I had two friends that had stores. They paid anywhere from $70 to over $100 for a movie and that was the Dealer wholesale price. At $2 or $3 for a rental, it took a lot of rentals to pay for that tape, not including the other overhead. Out of that intial price, that the Video store operator paid, the distributer got the lion's share, and the Studio the rest. The Distributer's price mark up to the Video store owner was huge. When the big stores such as Blockbuster came along, they would buy titles in huge volumes and with a big discount per film. This resulted in the closings of a lot of Mom & Pop stores, as well as small independent local chains, as they couldn't compete. Before Macrovision came along, copying of movies for archival purposes was somewhat routine. Nobody was out on the street selling them, well almost nobody. When Macrovision came along,that sort of put a kink in things, until "the little black box" hit the market. That thing took care of the copy protection and was eventually outlawed. Anyway, the Studios are trying to make a profit on their investment. They should start by taking a look at these grossly overpaid actors and actresses. If I could buy them for what they are worth, and sell them for what they think they are worth, I would be in high cotton. coastie65

[smax013]

coastie65 said:

Hey LIL, Good post. Nothing to worry about as long as you keep it legal.

Maybe...maybe not. There is nothing that stops innocent people from getting accussed, either due to just mistakes made by an ISP as to which IP address actually downloaded the illegal stuff (kind of like how innocent people can have their doors busted down with a police raid when someone makes a clerical mistake on an address) or due to someone else using YOU Internet connection to illegally download material (for example, your brother, his wife and kids come for a visit and one of their kids using your broadband connection to download some illegal content and you get blamed).



It is an interesting idea, but unless they have built in abilities to challenge the accusation and a proper method for the system to prove it was YOU or someone YOU are legally responsible for who is doing the illegal downloading, then it is ripe for abuse.



And that is where I tend to have issues with how the courts are letting the RIAA bully and attack people now. I am all for the RIAA and MPAA and other elements of the music industry and movie/TV industry getting paid for what it right fully theirs (which is while I buy CDs or DVDs when I want music or movies or use a paid service like iTunes). But, I do believe that they must prove that a particular person actually did it. The reality is that they tend to use their bullying tactics to prove that someone at a particular IP address did it, but they are not being made to prove that it was that particular person at that IP address that did it. And to me, that is completely contradictory to our legal system.

[coastie65]

Hi smax, You made some very good points, and I agree with your assessment. coastie65

[smax013]

coastie65 said:

Hi smax, You made some very good points, and I agree with your assessment. coastie65

The problem with the proposed system is that they are only catch which IP downloaded the material...not the actual person...they are ASSUMING that because your IP (and maybe your computer) was the offender, it was you who downloaded the material. It is kind like you getting a ticket if the cops see your car speeding but never saw who was driving. If you had loaned the car to a friend, then you were innocent of speeding.

[coastie65]

Hi smax, Yeah good point. They need to their enforcement ducks in row before implementing any kind of program. coastie65

[techie4fun]

IF it works. I don't think much will change.

[lilxkid24]

i just hope this law doesn't pass lol, plus there are many arguments like you guys said who actually did the downloading