Doing my bit against Three Strikes by Stealth

[major_clanger]

Many of you will have seen the comments on the alarming news that amendments have been inserted into the otherwise uncontroversial EU Telecoms Package that would have the effect of allowing the 'three strikes' anti-filesharing policy to be implemented. For more details, see the following:

http://stealth.strangecompany.org/

http://blogscript.blogspot.com/2008/07/three-strikes-and-youre-er-confused.html

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/07/02/write-to-your-mep-say-no-to-3-strikes-through-the-backdoor/

I've written to one of my London MEPs as below to express my concerns.

Dear Jean Lambert,

You will doubtless already have been contacted by other concerned constituents regarding what have been termed the 'stealth amendments' to the Telecoms Package. This legislation is to be voted on by the IMCO and ITRE committees on Monday 7th July; whilst most of it is uncontroversial refinement to a number of existing Directives, several amendments have recently been inserted that purport to address the issue of illicit file-sharing. My concern, and that of many other people, is that these amendments seek to reintroduce by the back door the manifestly excessive and abuse-prone 'three strikes' policy that would impose disproportionate and unwarranted penalties upon internet users merely accused (not prosecuted or found liable by courts) of copyright infringement.

What is particularly worrying are both the method by which this legislation is being introduced and the implications of enacting it. As someone who is a strong supporter of the principles of democratic European union, it is disturbing and disappointing to see the worst stereotypes of what opponents of the EU would describe as unaccountable, covert law-making actually taking place. In the interests of the reputations of the European Parliament and the EU such legislative changes should be made openly and transparently. Furthermore, the sort of pervasive surveillance regime that this legislation seeks to enable will have very worrying implications for privacy and data protection.

Advocates of these amendments may seek to portray opponents of them as anarchistic scofflaws intent on denying artists their rights and seeking a free-for-all of uncompensated downloading. This is not the case; in particular, many academics specialising in telecommunications and internet law have expressed serious concerns regarding this issue. I myself am a trainee Intellectual Property lawyer, and I strongly support a fair balance between artists' rights and the culture-sharing interests of the community. Nonetheless, I am deeply concerned about the scope for abuse of the proposed amendments (including the prospect of arbitrary denial of internet access to segments of the community), the privacy implications of the implied monitoring mechanisms, and the very undemocratic manner in which the 'stealth amendments' are being introduced. I therefore urge you to ask your colleagues involved in the IMCO and ITRE committees to vote against these amendments.

Yours sincerely,

Simon Bradshaw MEng MSc LLB CEng MIET
Limehouse, London

Comments

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Well said!

And I think you should send this to all the other London MEPs as well.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

I think you missed out on the collective punishment aspects of it, but in general, well said.

Collective punishment: a 12 year old kid downloads three singles and the entire family potentially loses their home internet connection for life. Including people who may well depend on the internet connection for telephone access, access to medical and banking services, and the ability to work for a living.

This is ghastly, and extremely dangerous -- it's like denying people access to postal and telephone services because someone at the same address was accused (but not necessarily convicted) of receiving stolen goods through the mail.

(It's also potentially going to shut down every public wifi service in the EU, but that's another matter.)

[were-gopher.livejournal.com]

(It's also potentially going to shut down every public wifi service in the EU, but that's another matter.)

That was one of my first thoughts on it when I read the links Fran posted having just spent three days on the move and using stuff like BTOpenzone and the in train free wifi on the East coast line as well as sniffing about to see if any on my Mum's neighbors have open networks (both sides work for BT, they didn't).

[non-trivial.livejournal.com]

Bloody hell, are they suggesting some kind of a permanent blacklist then?

I emailed all my MEPs; now just to see which of them respond. I do rather hope the UKIP one does...

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

ah is the UKIP one Gofrey someone?

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

The problem with pushing this one is that the usual response is, well, the subscriber is responsible for policing his connection, just like the registered keeper is responsible for speeding tickets. Isn't that reasonable?

The analogy is completely wrong tho, because (a) it's much easier to know who was REALLY speeding and thus reallocate blame and (b) in the analogy, registered person suffers for crimes of AN Other becaue of own breach of duty of care, while in ours, in fact AN OTHERS suffer if subscriber does NOT police the account eg set up secure wi fi - and NOT to due to any fault of own.

I do agree that the complete loss of unsecured wi fi as a result of this is a consequence that voters will respond to, if we get that far :(

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

"Scofflaws", eh? I'm impressed; I did get an "egregious" into mine though.

[cobrabay.livejournal.com]

Well said, and better written than mine which I've just sent off to my MEPs