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p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Is Carphone Warehouse’s TalkTalk speaking out of both sides of its mouth?

“We’re full of bright ideas,” it says on its site. But as p2pnet revealed recently, one of them is a plan to have parents acting as corporate copyright control cops on behalf of the entertainment industry.

Mums and dads would censor their kids online with a U, 14 or 18 certificate, or an unclassified rating system

Parents “choosing” the U or 14 options, “would be able to block computers in the household from accessing certain filesharing sites such as the Pirate Bay, as well as pornography and gambling, without having to install extra software on the computer,” the Financial Times quoted  Carphone Warehouse boss Charles Dunstone stating.

The move would, “help consumers understand a system that blacklists sites that facilitate piracy,” says the story, also quoting Dunstone as declaring, “This is something that we are going to do anyway, as a service to our customers. But through doing it we can also help the content industry by blacklisting sites that have BitTorrent files on them.”

But in a bold PR move, TalkTalk, the UK’s the second largest ISP, “has threatened to launch legal action if business secretary Peter Mandelson follows through with his plan to cut off persistent illegal filesharers’ internet connections,” says the Guardian.

As we’ve emphasised many times, the cut ‘em off scheme is no more Mandelson’s and it is ‘3 Strikes’ Sarkozy’s  over in France.

It’s a wholly creative industries creation. Under it, various government are being herded into deals through which they agreed to act as corporate enforcement agencies, paid for out of the public purse.

If TalkTalk, or anyone else, wants to scupper the Three Strikes plan, they’d best sue the originators, not their dupes.

‘Guilty until proven innocent’

ISPs such as TalkTalk  are expected to act as copyright cops, turning on their own customs,  with the likes of Mandelson and Sarkozy acting as entertainment cartel mouthpieces, fronting for them in their respective parliaments.

“TalkTalk, which has more than 4 million ISP customers and owns the Tiscali and AOL brands, claimed the government’s plan was based on filesharers being ‘guilty until proven innocent’ and constituted an infringement of human rights,” says the Guardian going on:

“The approach is based on the principle of ‘guilty until proven innocent’ and substitutes proper judicial process for a kangaroo court,” said Andrew Heaney, the executive director of strategy and regulation at TalkTalk. “We know this approach will lead to wrongful accusations.”

Of course, encouraging parents to act against their own children as copyright controllers has much the same effect, with kids presumed guilty of being potential copyright crooks whose activities need to be carefully monitored and, possibly, cut off.

“The government plans to look at increased action against illegal downloaders, including potentially suspending the accounts of persistent offenders, from July 2011 if a 70% reduction in online piracy is not achieved by sending warning letters,” says the story. “Customers will have the right to appeal if they are targeted and their connection subjected to technical measures.

“If the government moves to stage two we would consider that extra-judicial technical measures and would look to appeal the decision [to the courts] because it infringes human rights,” Heaney  says in a story. “TalkTalk will continue to resist any attempts to make it impose technical measures on its customers unless directed to do so by a court or recognised tribunal.”

It will instead expect parents to impose technical measures on their kids.

Mandelson has just“confirmed that it would become government policy, following months of speculation,” said the BBC yesterday, going on »»»

Initially Ofcom will monitor whether file-sharing is going down with the disconnection policy not brought into force until at least April 2011.

The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills emphasised that there would be a “toolkit” of technical measures employed to encourage illegal file-sharers to desist.

This would include squeezing their bandwidth and imposing download caps.

Traffic throttling, in other words, with ISPs applying the brakes.

“By what is, we’re sure, merely a concidence, Hollywood mouthperson and MPAA boss Bob Pisano was recently in the UK to suggest traffic throttling rather than outright disconnection would be the way to go,” p2pnet reported on Wednesday, adding:

“Pisano flew to London, ‘to meet Lord Puttnam, the film-maker, who is expected to be a key voice in building support for the plans,’the story adds, said Times Online.

“And by a similar coincidence, Sony Music boss Michael Lynton yesterday felt it incumbent upon himself to chime in with his suport of the UK version of the entertainment industry Three Strikes marketing plan.”

Stay tuned.

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

p2pnet – TalkTalk to launch parent-run censor scheme, September 29, 2009
Financial Times – Age ratings plan to fight internet piracy, September 25, 2009
over in France – ‘3 Strikes’ Sarkozy blows $396,841 on a shower!,  I’mOctober 29, 2009
BBC – Net pirates to be ‘disconnected’, October 28, 2009
Times Online – MI5 comes out against cutting off internet pirates, October 26, 2009
similar coincidence - Sony movie boss touts 3 strikes scheme, October 27, 2009

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