Net giants rail against law to block file-sharing sites

Good stuff!

The more companies and individuals that oppose this ridiculous legislation, the more the parties will understand that supporting it would be a vote-loser. And with an election coming up, it doesn't make sense to try and push deeply unpopular legislation like this.

By Trippynet on 10 Mar 2010

The Internet in general contains a lot of illegal/pirated content. Why stop at mere websites?

By Josefov on 10 Mar 2010

The problem here is UK case law and the law in general.

if you copy stuff you not meant to and then share it free of charge - it a civil case - ie - the owner of the materal that been copied needs to make inforcement and also gain monies do to lost sales etc.

If on the other hand you sell the copy materail it becomes criminal and also the copyright holder can also take action via a civil case.

This law moves the civil case part more to the criminal side but not far enought so it is still in the gray area between the two and we end up where no one is happy.

Mark

By mprltd on 10 Mar 2010

Interesting

In my opinion all this legislation is not going to do anything good, and i just dont't understand why people still want to pursue the cases of illegalities of file sharing. What they are doing is not sorting the problem just making it worse.
In my opinion there should be a creation of a large web based internet sharing organisation that woudl prodive its cutomers all the information anddata that it available online by chargin nominal or monthly fee. that way those greedy creators would get some money and the internet would become a more legal place. But as those creators (copyright owners) are so greedy this will most likely never happen.

By mobilegnet on 10 Mar 2010

Excellent, guilty until proven innocent!!!!!

Quote "It will give courts the power to force ISPs to bar access to sites accused of copyright infringement." - you don’t even have to be guilty anymore, just a mention from the BPI and your website is offline - I wonder how much money they slipped the powers at be for that?

I wonder why eBay have signed the letter, is it because they would also be blocked by the ISPs as their site sells on copied CDs, DVDs, well everything in fact.

What about P2P apps, torrents, or even usenet sites\servers? – none of these are websites you can block, maybe the search feature is on a website, but the actual sharing is ... well, peer-to-peer.

By andy_fogg on 10 Mar 2010

guilty until proven innocent ...pt2

Ebay would be concerned because of all those second hand Games, DVDs and CDs people sell. The BPI and people like EA and Microsoft loath reselling.

But who get's blocked ...the individula seller or the whole of Ebay?

By fingerbob69 on 10 Mar 2010

These corpoarations are just fences anyway

Of course they will oppose it. They have so much to gain from it. Between them they must owe me a fortune in lost revenues.

By ptp_producer on 11 Mar 2010

BRILL NEW! AND ABOUT TIME THIEVES MOVE ON>>>

Yes about time laws make right right and wrong wrong .
the isp are annoyed because they make loads of money from just turning a blind eye to how their gateway is used, no regard to what is legal and what is not legal and no care as to try to stop or protect other people right that get taken using their systems internet portal and now their business at last comes user some rules and responsibilities to provide access but also provide protection for how its used and stop those thieveing web sites using their portal to tout their stolen warez.
ISP's are used to letting the gate swing open and turning a blind eye to all the thieving but if they want to provide a internet portal they have to also provide some checks and balances on how that portal is used for all things being stolen using it is partly their doing for allowing it.
They are moaning because this will cut into their easy profits and the thieves are moaning because they wont be able to sell stolen goods or put up sharing sites to help other thieves steal ..about time some reality was brought to the virtual reality!

with every service a company provides they should have a responsibility to make sure the service is not used illegally

thieves you can moan but your days are numbered!

By atonofcrap on 11 Mar 2010

atonofbullshit

atonofcrap is exactly what you've written. It's not thieving it's infringement dickhead so as a previous poster said it's civil not criminal. The real concern is not about file sharing but the guilty until proven innocent argument and the fact the legislation could be used against legitimate sites with differing views to the government/big business.

By dodge1963 on 11 Mar 2010

Labourious

The answer is quite simple, stop the film and record companies ripping us off then it won't be worth downloading a rubbish quality copy from the net.

By birdmaniw on 11 Mar 2010