Ofcom's consultation document's are out if you want to take a look.
Compiled during the discussions Ofcom have had, this is a list of potential problems we see with the process:
Initial Obligations Code (CIRs, notifications)
- the contents of letters;
- the volume of CIRs and letters;
- the connection between CIRs and letters (not clear if a notification is sent for each CIR)
- the extent to which people are dissuaded from running open wifi networks;
- the impacts on community wifi providers;
- misinformation about copyright
- potential market abuse as ISPs use letters to advertise their products as alternatives to infringement
- The standards of evidence required
- The clear applicability of CIRs to future unknown 'technical measures' under the Act
Appeals
- The way the Appeals body works.
- The open-ness of this body.
- What grounds they accept as reasonable, how consistent they are
Measurement and reporting
- What Ofcom measure in terms of copyright infringement. The difficulty in establishing relationships between infringement and lost income.
Costs
- Hassle and possibly costs for accused to enter appeal process
- Cost of the process being imposed on ISP customers through the 75/25 ‘cost split’
General
- What Ofcom do to ensure the film and music industries properly license their content
- Whether Ofcom are properly able to act in the interests of competition, given the tension between exclusive copyright licensing and competition
- The most important questions, that would actually resolve the problem, could easily be fudged.
Please let us know your thoughts, here or on our Forum.
Robin McKay:
May 29, 2010 at 09:46 AM
The public consultation to get replies back to Ofcom closes at 5pm on 30 July 2010, but we need advice as to whether or not any of these proposals are somehow in breach of human rights.
For example, is there not a right to communicate freely and without hindrance from the State? If so, then surely any law that allows our internet connection to be so hindered by slowing speeds or even suspending the service (ie temporarily disconnected), is in breach of that right to communicate freely.
In addition, there is surely going to be very real difficulties in such a quasi-legal approach to restricting or removing such freedom to communicate because the burden of proof doesn't even reach the low standard of other civil cases.
And all this simply because people are being accused (either rightly or wrongly, because both applies here) of sharing a file allegedly containing copyrighted material they may well have purchased with other people who may also have purchased it.
There's an awful lot wrong and potentially unlawful in this draft Code, and ORG needs to advise us how best to defeat this unfair and possibly crazy law.
Antony Watts:
Jun 01, 2010 at 11:37 AM
Please see my blog at http://syganymede.blogspot.com/2010/05/damp-squib-with-possible-joyful-outcome.html
As I understand it the copyright owners are supposed to provide infringers with the legal download site where they can get the material????
Jim:
Jun 01, 2010 at 09:51 AM
You are right if we move to 'technical measures' but it is more blurred at present. What we have is probably more something which is unfair, confused and problematic, at times quite broken. But we would welcome your [url=http://forum.openrightsgroup.org/comments.php?DiscussionID=109]thoughts and ideas[/url] before as you say we co-ordinate a response.
John:
Jun 01, 2010 at 10:19 AM
Before the code can be implemented, it needs EEC approval. But the issue of "technical measures" appears to have been deferred. Is separate approval required for "technical measures", or is the plan to get a vague meaningless code through approval first, and then to add bits afterwards without needing approval.