The Digital Economy Bill is being introduced to protect copyright holders from illegal filesharing.

If it becomes law, people who share their internet connections can suffer penalties of disconnection and fines even if they are not the ones downloading the files. They might possibly also walk away with a criminal record.

The Bill is currently in the House of Lords. It could become law very soon.

To find out more about the other issues and potential impacts of the Bill as an individual, community group or business - and to find out what you can do about it - join us in free information workshops in the Showroom Cafe Bar this Wednesday afternoon and evening.

More details are at http://undeb-forum.eventbrite.com. Space is limited, so booking for these sessions is needed.

Can't join us for the whole session? Pop by over the afternoon and evening to get some takeaway advice on what you can do to find out more and/or take action. No booking is needed for the drop-in.

Thanks
Jag

Be interesting how they will work out if you are downloading films. I use the IPlayer a lot on the Wii.

Its unlikely talking to your MP will have much impact on this I imagine as people always seemingly come second to profit.

Its unlikely talking to your MP will have much impact on this I imagine as people always seemingly come second to profit.

and your MP is probably downloading films from someone else's internet connection and still claiming for it

The Digital Economy Bill is being introduced to protect copyright holders from illegal filesharing.

The Bill is currently in the House of Lords. It could become law very soon.

To find out more about the other issues and potential impacts of the Bill as an individual, community group or business - and to find out what you can do about it - join us in free information workshops in the Showroom Cafe Bar this Wednesday afternoon and evening.

what a load of crap. People will always download free stuff, end of....the Govt. are a tribe of (insert appropriate words)

@WYorksDeano - it's possible to work out the type of content to an extent based on the protocols being used. 'Regulated' or official sources (only BBC distributed content is available on the iPlayer, for example; Spotify and last.fm have protective license deals, and so on) can also be filtered out and aren't likely to be a concern for the powers that be. It's more about unofficial peer-to-peer sharing - one person downloads something legitimately, and then shares it with others, for instance.

@kayomani - Sure, talking to your MP is no guarantee, but having that conversation is more effective than not having it. Part of the problem is that most MPs don't understand things like the Internet, and that they are just perceived as geeky or techie. As a result, they don't necessarily fully appreciate the impact that the legislation can have, and the only people who are talking to them about it are the ones who have a profit interest. If folks who do know at least start that conversation with them, it's a signal that they should be a bit more concerned about it. This is just one battle in what's likely to be a very long war.

@goldenfleece - people will download stuff for free, there's no question about that. Unfortunately, if the Bill becomes law, the penalties for downloading stuff that isn't offered for free will be pretty severe. Come down on Wednesday and find out some ways to help make this not as dire. As before, no guarantees. And the people who need to hear it aren't listening on these forums - so we need to take our message to them. Maybe one day that'll change, but not before Wednesday.

@WYorksDeano - it's possible to work out the type of content to an extent based on the protocols being used. 'Regulated' or official sources (only BBC distributed content is available on the iPlayer, for example; Spotify and last.fm have protective license deals, and so on) can also be filtered out and aren't likely to be a concern for the powers that be. It's more about unofficial peer-to-peer sharing - one person downloads something legitimately, and then shares it with others, for instance.

@kayomani - Sure, talking to your MP is no guarantee, but having that conversation is more effective than not having it. Part of the problem is that most MPs don't understand things like the Internet, and that they are just perceived as geeky or techie. As a result, they don't necessarily fully appreciate the impact that the legislation can have, and the only people who are talking to them about it are the ones who have a profit interest. If folks who do know at least start that conversation with them, it's a signal that they should be a bit more concerned about it. This is just one battle in what's likely to be a very long war.

@goldenfleece - people will download stuff for free, there's no question about that. Unfortunately, if the Bill becomes law, the penalties for downloading stuff that isn't offered for free will be pretty severe. Come down on Wednesday and find out some ways to help make this not as dire. As before, no guarantees. And the people who need to hear it aren't listening on these forums - so we need to take our message to them. Maybe one day that'll change, but not before Wednesday.

I feel another "TAX" comming on......:P

Either that or a really good "HIDE YOUR IP"..............programme :P :P

what a load of crap. People will always download free stuff, end of.

It's not the free stuff they're worried about.

@WYorksDeano - it's possible to work out the type of content to an extent based on the protocols being used. 'Regulated' or official sources (only BBC distributed content is available on the iPlayer, for example; Spotify and last.fm have protective license deals, and so on) can also be filtered out and aren't likely to be a concern for the powers that be. It's more about unofficial peer-to-peer sharing - one person downloads something legitimately, and then shares it with others, for instance.


But that still doesn't allow the ISPs who will be made to monitor usage to determine if what is being downloaded is breaking copyright. For example I download of lot of live music from archive.org. Everything on there is there with the permission of the bands and totally legal to download. Other stuff, equally legal to download because of the permission of the band, might have been uploaded to filesharing sites by tapers. Ostensibly none of this stuff will appear to be legal to download even though it is.

It's extremely likely that people will be cut off from the internet even though they didn't break the law in any way.

It's extremely likely that people will be cut off from the internet even though they didn't break the law in any way.

Those people would be in a massive minority and would be able to clear up any confusion pretty quick.

The reality is that the free for all downloading that is going on at the moment can't continue indefinately.

@WYorksDeano - it's possible to work out the type of content to an extent based on the protocols being used. 'Regulated' or official sources (only BBC distributed content is available on the iPlayer, for example; Spotify and last.fm have protective license deals, and so on) can also be filtered out and aren't likely to be a concern for the powers that be. It's more about unofficial peer-to-peer sharing - one person downloads something legitimately, and then shares it with others, for instance.


Decent grade encryption is fast approaching the point where it becomes standard on most p2p apps, which will pretty much kill off attempts to track pirates. Ironically, because of data protection laws, the new digital bill may well make it almost impossible to catch pirates who use encryption.

I feel another "TAX" comming on......:P

Either that or a really good "HIDE YOUR IP"..............programme :P :P

It doesn't really matter about your IP - they have to know the content itself is infringing (and it is/will be an offence to just "fish" without knowing for a fact that there is illegal content being downloaded)

And, perhaps strangely, the new law does not allow ISPs to break encryption - what we need to be worried about is the new international agreement that is being drawn up, which looks like making it legal for foreign law agencys to intercept and look at the data you are downloading.

Encryption indeed is now becoming very popular with internet users in general, even on chat apps as they do not want 'big brother' watching them, let alone watch what they are downloading.

Alot of people will be caught off guard with this, espeshally those that still use applications such as limewire, sharaza etc (and those are the people most infected with viruses lol)

This however will not affect most torrent users, so this bill is a white elephant anyways; and besides it is only there to shut up the RIAA and such cartels.

The MP that came up with this by the way... spent a weekend with a top guy in the music industry... then he came out with this bill. Wonder if he claimed tax payers money on this weekend? And what was he doing spending a weekend with this dude?

The Lords are discussing it this afternoon/evening. You can watch it live at http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_lords/default.stm.

An interesting development today is that Ofcom are proposing that the disconnected should be charged to appeal against their disconnection. http://www.techeye.net/security/ofcom-to-charge-terminated-downloaders-to-appeal

It's all hotting up! Follow the latest at http://search.twitter.com/search?q=debill.

If any of this irks you, pop into the Showroom on Wednesday to find out the best way to make your concerns get heard. http://undeb-forum.eventbrite.com. It's free, and if you can't stay long, we can still give you some takeaway advice very quickly.

Thanks

Decent grade encryption is fast approaching the point where it becomes standard on most p2p apps, which will pretty much kill off attempts to track pirates. Ironically, because of data protection laws, the new digital bill may well make it almost impossible to catch pirates who use encryption.

At least some ISPs seem to be planning to use deep-packet inspection to try and identify pirated material.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8480699.stm

I don't know whether that would work with encrypted stuff but it seems like all legal privacy protections under law are being abandoned just to track down a few pirates. Big Brother really is watching everything you do on the internet.

Those people would be in a massive minority and would be able to clear up any confusion pretty quick.

Oh that makes it ok then. :rolleyes:

Get's worse
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8481790.stm

Maybe we should all just forget the internet.....

what we need to be worried about is the new international agreement that is being drawn up, which looks like making it legal for foreign law agencys to intercept and look at the data you are downloading.Otherwise known as ACTA.

The drawing up of which, even MPs don't get information about (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/21/acta_lammy/) when they ask. Never mind IP professionals.

But fear not, rights owners are at that particular table.

At least some ISPs seem to be planning to use deep-packet inspection to try and identify pirated material.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8480699.stm

I don't know whether that would work with encrypted stuff but it seems like all legal privacy protections under law are being abandoned just to track down a few pirates. Big Brother really is watching everything you do on the internet.


You can of course get the file name of the encrypted file. However, all that is needed to defeat it is changing the filename, as they still can't examine the actual data unless they break the encryption.

If you imagine a passworded rar file for example, they can reform the actual rar file, but they would need to either get the password or break the protection on it (which would under most circumstances would be illegal).

The reality is that the free for all downloading that is going on at the moment can't continue indefinately.

...but it will, and there isn't anything they can do about it. P2P networks will adapt, just as they always have. In the meantime, the Government thinks that a few knee-jerk reaction laws will fix everything, which they wont. If anything they are likely to make things much worse.