Copyright Law

IFPI Claims ?3-Strikes? Can Remove Single User, Not Household

By Jared Moya

Spokesperson also tells audience at the Congressional Internet Caucus’ State of the Net conference that there are ?many conversations going on at different levels” about disconnecting repeat file-sharers in the US.

Last week the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee hosted the 6th Annual annual State of the Net Conference as part of its regular attempts to gather policymakers, the press, and the public to discuss important Internet-related policy issues.

As part of that conference there was a particularly interesting panel entitled: “Copyright Strikes: When Has a Pirate Graduated to Internet Exile?” It was essentially a discussion about a “three-strikes” graduated response system and what it means for Internet users.

When a representative from an unnamed ISP asked what disconnection would mean for households that rely on VOIP for their telephone services, emergency services like 9-11 especially, Shira Perlmutter, Executive Vice-President of Global Legal Policy for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), replied that ISPs would be able to make the necessary distinction between it and other Internet traffic (read: DPI).

The Honorable John Robertson, MP from the UK, said that it doesn’t matter, that if someone’s breaking the law with their Internet connection than their service should be “withdrawn.”

Perlmutter also seemed to downplay the effect Internet disconnection would have on a family, saying that in most cases Internet access would be suspended for only one account and may not affect a whole family. But, if a teenager is responsible for the infringement and costs his parents the account, how are they to regain Internet access? Sign up for an account under their kid’s name?

“The response is disproportionate to the crime,” argued John Morris of the Center for Democracy of Technology, another of the discussion’s panelists. He noted the importance of the Internet for education, business, and other aspects of society. He said a lawsuit was a more appropriate penalty.

His best point was that courts have repeatedly struck down individualized Internet bans even for child pornographers, a far, far more heinous online crime.

One judge ruled that “computers and Internet access have become virtually indispensable in the modern world of communication and information gathering,” and that just because they offer the “possibility” they can be used for illegal use “does not justify a total ban on Internet access.”

“It’s hard to imagine how the defendant could function in a modern society,” read another ruling Morris cited.

As for possibility of a “three-strikes” regime coming to the US Perlmutter adds that there are ?many conversations going on @ different levels.? Considering the lack of public input on the matter it just may be that it comes not by legislation, but by govt mandate or voluntary agreement between ISPs and copyright holders.

Stay tuned.

jared@zeropaid.com

[Hat Tip]

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Watch the Panel Here

Full post as published by ZeroPaid on February 01, 2010 (boomark / email).