Digital economy bill, what do you all think of it?

[#1]

As per the title really, what do you all think of the Digital economy bill being rushed through parliament, and do you really think it will be enforced?
I'd be interested to read peoples opinions regarding this.

[#2]

I'm one of those "never post" guys, but this bill has hauled me out of apathy ! 
It really does look like one of those things that the current government has rushed through for  very strange reasons, more so in light of the recent  "cash for support" sting with some MPs and how they can claim to change the law for clients. Why on earth rush it through when there has been so much protest (including ISPs I understand) when there are far more important things to be looking after in the last week of Parliament ?  I smell more corruption.
But as to the bill, well, I don't know how it will pan out. My suspicions are that it will make headlines, there will be a few well publicised cases but the overall increase in the profits of the music/film industries will be negligible. The law is only UK based and I very much doubt the UK is a significant player in on-line piracy.  So in the global picture there will still be films/albums/etc available from non-uk sources and there will no doubt be ways for people to access them.
I'd also like to hear from Plusnet what their take on it is and how they expect to handle it. I read somewhere that one aim of the bill is to make it easier for a copyright holder to obtain client information from ISPs on the details of suspected copyright theft, IP addresses, etc. At the moment they need a court order and if I'm honest, I can't see any problem with that, but the bill makes it law that the ISPs must comply on request. 
I'm sure that the ISPs could block websites, throttle or completely stop P2P, Usenet or large ftp downloads if they wanted to, but I think that would mark the start of a very slippery slope. The first ISP to do it would lose clients and even if they all joined in then internet usage would drop as people simply went back to email or just lost interest with the resultant drop in ISP subscriptions.    Let's be honest, most kids have an internet connection to share stuff with their mates and it's naive to think otherwise. Once they lose that, they'll go back to swopping CDs in the playground.....    and you don't need a £20/month connection for that, do you ?

[#3]

re your last para - damn right it would.  i need p2p to collect my linux isos and any isp who told me i couldn't would lose my custom smartish.
i feel that this legislation is on a par with the data protection act, which was cobbled together when pollies knew even less about online communication than they do now.  that was introduced as a late way of grabbing some lolly, seeing as how they'd missed out on licensing computer ownership and to have attempted to impose it then would have caused uproar.
anyone under the impression that if a party other than labour is returned as the next government will repeal this pernicious piece of nonsense, forget it.  they won't.

[#4]

To be honest, we only use our web connection for fairly basic email & web surfing but I object to the bill.
I would be really pleased if Plus net joined TalkTalk in their objection, and refusal to disconnect accounts for alleged copywright infringement.  Detailed on the TalkTalk blog:  http://www.talktalkblog.co.uk/2010/04/08/digital-economy-bill-its-a-wash-up/

[#5]

Quote

Digital economy bill, what do you all think of it?

Are you trying to get us all banned for excessive swearing?

[#6]

93 views, 4 posts.
Says it all really, I don't think any one cares one way or another about this bill being rushed through! Or am I wrong?

[#7]

probably as we have two threads on the same subject

[#8]

Yes and this was the 1st one, someone else made another one about 5 hours after I posted this.

[#9]

Quote from: Moominfish

93 views, 4 posts. Says it all really, I don't think any one cares one way or another about this bill being rushed through! Or am I wrong?

I'm sure a lot of people do care - it's the thin end of a very large wedge, and looks like the start of a frightened establishment's attempt to control the Internet. But what can one do?
A million people in London alone marched against the Iraq war. In the last three decades, how many times have we been promised in an election manifesto a referendum on this, that, or the other - and how many have we actually had?
Inevitably, most people seem to accept that "they" will do whatever they damn well like, whether we like it or not. 

[#10]

Quote from: mrdave

To be honest, we only use our web connection for fairly basic email & web surfing but I object to the bill. I would be really pleased if Plus net joined TalkTalk in their objection, and refusal to disconnect accounts for alleged copywright infringement.  Detailed on the TalkTalk blog:  http://www.talktalkblog.co.uk/2010/04/08/digital-economy-bill-its-a-wash-up/

Thanks for that link, I hadn't realised talktalk were so vocal (no pun intended) on the subject. But it is heartening to hear an ISP say they will insist on a court order before releasing information because I never could see anything wrong with that process. If you hold copyright which you think has been infringed you obtain proof (rather than just guesswork or random selection) and if the legal system thinks it's enforceable then you get legal authority to take it further. It's how everything else works, the police need good reason to get a search warrant so why should the music industry be any different ?
I can see talktalk getting a lot more clients if they stick to their guns if other ISPs comply too readily on this one.
Regarding the thought that people don't care, I'm not so sure.  I think it's more like people are just getting punch drunk with the way this particular government  just carries on regardless to introduce it's "good ideas".  Without wishing to distract from the theme of the thread, just take  the last few weeks for examples;   
They have wasted thousands having another working party to propose more draconian dangerous dog legislation which was so well thought out it was removed within a week ? Even an idiot could see that the only people who would get licenses would be responsible owners and if you had a dog as a weapon then you certainly weren't going to make it traceable back to you.
We have a case of a pet shop owner being fined and tagged for selling a goldfish to a 14yr old ? uh ?  I remember as a kid being delighted to come home from the fairground with a goldfish in a bag and now it's illegal ?  Stop kids buying fags, booze, drugs by all means,  and yet here we have council officials setting up sting operations to catch a 60yr old selling a goldfish to a 14yr old and then taking her to court ?????? 
So this bill only affects a small number of people, a slightly larger number can see the implications and potential for internet censorship but the vast majority just pass it by - and so it goes through. Personally I think the potential to censor search engines is one of the biggest dangers lurking behind the headlines. Climategate, ( support it or not) caused a lot of embarrassment to this government and I'm sure they would have taken down websites to suppress it at the time if they could.

[#11]

Who pays the bill to spy on my data stream - is it me?
Sounds like i should equip myself with a VPN to somewhere beyond the reach of the UK.
I have started by monitoring my internet-facing ip address every 15 minutes.

Quote

#! /bin/bash date_stamp=$(date +%d/%m/%Y@%X) exip=$(wget -qO - checkip.dyndns.org | grep -Eo '[0-9\.]+') echo "$date_stamp $exip" >> /var/log/whatismyip.log

[#12]

careful, that will fill your root partition smartish.  best monitor your disk space too.  

[#13]

anacron

[#14]

Quote from: A

I have started by monitoring my internet-facing ip address every 15 minutes.

Well your IP address won't change unless your PPP session ends or gets restarted so you may be better off checking your router (look at TCL/Expect for example if your router doesn't support SNMP).
Alternatively, and much much simpler, just ask PN for a static IP address 

[#15]

If I had a static IP address and I get a threatening letter because Plusnet have given my personal details away, how would I be able to challenge any record of my ip address?
I don't believe that Plusnet's records are absolutely 100% accurate - for comparison, look at PN's accounting system or PN's telephone system or PN's ticket system...
I think Plusnet do periodically reset the PPP session(?) and in any case there is nothing to stop me resetting my PPP session manually.
Indeed, my router seems more stable if I do this every week or so.
(This is not the same as rebooting my router)
By the way that reference from

Quote from: MrC

...(look at TCL/Expect for example if your router doesn't support SNMP).

e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expect
would allow me to telnet to my router and issue commands programmatically, such as change my IP every couple of minutes or so
Plusnet's history database of my ip address would grow and grow...