UK government to get tough on file-sharers

Robbie G said:
The owner of the account as they are responsible for it.
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It's all very well saying that "well it's up to the account holder to secure and administrate the connection" so therefore he/she should be prosecuted but, what if you leave your car unlocked and you son/daughter takes your car without your permission and has an accident and kills someone, who is to blame ?, the person driving the car obviously.

How can the government expect you to administrate every single thing your child does on the internet, surely the person committing the crime has to be the one that has to take responsibility for what they've done.
 
meghatronic said:
That's entrapment. Blows that in the UK it doesn't automatically negate the prosecution case.
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Aren't there specific laws when it comes to entrapment? I mean, when they're trying to catch crub crawlers they have a Female PC undercover but she isn't allowed to approach clients, they have to approach her?

I imagine it would be the same thing. Them just sharing something and logging who downloads it isn't illegal, if they sent you e-mails telling you you could download XYZ for free then it would be entrapment?

I think.
 
Athanor said:
Not securing your Wireless router is not a defence and ISP t&cs already make you responsible for anything that goes over your connection, even if you open your wireless router up to all your neighbours.
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ISP t&c... not the law. I can't be held responsible by the law if I leave my car unlocked and some maniac uses it to run down seventeen people. My insurance company might laugh at me if I tried to claim, but the law can't touch me as I've done nothing wrong.
 
wonder how long before someone gets nailed for downloading eastenders or some rubbish you could watch for free.

(yes even crap like emmerdale is on file sharing sites)
 
lowrider007 said:
How can the government expect you to administrate every single thing your child does on the internet, surely the person committing the crime has to be the one that has to take responsibility for what they've done.
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It would be fairly easy to prevent your child from utilising any sort of P2P software though.
 
Edward01 said:
Aren't there specific laws when it comes to entrapment? I mean, when they're trying to catch crub crawlers they have a Female PC undercover but she isn't allowed to approach clients, they have to approach her?

I imagine it would be the same thing. Them just sharing something and logging who downloads it isn't illegal, if they sent you e-mails telling you you could download XYZ for free then it would be entrapment?

I think.
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With entrapment in the UK, the 'amount' of entrapment is considered. For example if the female pc was just stood there and someone approached her, whilst still technically entrapment, it would negated in court as the will was there. I imagine they'll try and pull the same BS with these honey pots.
 
krooton said:
Which realistically is a complete waste of police resource.

I'd rather see gangs of muggers get jailed than Johnny-MP3 down the road, but the latter is a much easier target.
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Exactly i think its a load of tosh too but it could happen taken to the extreme.
If you catch a guy with a fair amount of drugs (beyond personal use) , i would think that they investigate their premisses. If in their house they have a set of weighing scales, 500 baggys etc etc and drug paraphernalia, chances are they are a drug dealer.

Again i know its crap, im not advocating it, just pointing out would could be done, worst case scenario.

think about it... Residential addresses 50mbit DSL line shifting 1tb a week in encrypted data would that be suspicious to these people in the situation?

10 minute operation to search for PC hardware and look at the drives. guys got 100gb of MP3s and TB of Divx films... chances are hes "guilty"
 
lowrider007 said:
For you an I maybe but tell that to the average parent, my mum for example wouldn't even have a clue, my bro's would run circles around her tbh.
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and most kids would know how to get around their parents attempts and blocking stuff on the internet


also: at what age does the child become responsible for their actions and able to be prosecuted, and unti then wouldnt the parent be responsible for their actions anyway
 
krooton said:
It would be fairly easy to prevent your child from utilising any sort of P2P software though.
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er, the average person doesnt even know how to secure a router and your expecting them to outwit the tech savvy children in the house? :rolleyes:
10 minute operation to search for PC hardware and look at the drives. guys got 100gb of MP3s and TB of Divx films... chances are hes "guilty"
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i have around 20gb of mp3's on my hardrive am i guilty? oh wait there ripped from my wifes cd collection and on there because rubbish itunes forces me to have every mp3 thats on her stupid ipod taking space up on my hdd.

that encrypted data could free trailers , demos , free mp3's or anything.

just because people choose not to let you see what they are downloading doesnt mean its illegal
 
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lowrider007 said:
It's all very well saying that "well it's up to the account holder to secure and administrate the connection" so therefore he/she should be prosecuted but, what if you leave your car unlocked and you son/daughter takes your car without your permission and has an accident and kills someone, who is to blame ?, the person driving the car obviously.

How can the government expect you to administrate every single thing your child does on the internet, surely the person committing the crime has to be the one that has to take responsibility for what they've done.
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Fair point and I don't know the answer, so I would guess that the prosecution in a file sharing case would have no choice but to try and prove who did the file sharing. If it was a child then child law would apply. It's like if you imagine a uni flat full of ten file-sharers all using the same line / network - who the hell would be prosecuted as they'd all deny any knowledge and imagine trying to prove which one had committed the act.
 
meghatronic said:
ISP t&c... not the law. I can't be held responsible by the law if I leave my car unlocked and some maniac uses it to run down seventeen people. My insurance company might laugh at me if I tried to claim, but the law can't touch me as I've done nothing wrong.
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But if you sign the contract with the ISP you agree to the T&Cs agreeing to be responsible and liable.

In most cases it's not "illegal" per se to download content, it's the copyright holders suing you. If they can prove the content was downloaded on your connection, and that you have legally agreed to be responsible/liable for content over that connection then I can't see them having a problem taking you to court. I suppose that would be a fall back position if the specific person pirating couldn't be individually identified (like little Jimmys PC has 2TB of films and MP3s on it).

Of course I'm not a legal professional so what do I know :)
 
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Mandelson is a ****, pure and simple.

I'd like to see the court who would convict a pensioner for not securing his wireless network.
The oldest wireless devices would only support WEP, which is pretty easy to get around these days, does that mean that it's your responsibility to keep up to date with when the latest level of encryption is hacked and when you need to upgrade to another device / level of security!

The pirates will always be one step ahead.
 
Paul11 said:
but could they prosecute you without knowing what it is you downloaded,

even if they knew where you downloaded it from ?
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Of course they couldn't. If the traffic is encrypted, as it ought to be, then they have no idea what the data is. It doesn't matter if you connect to the most notorious file sharing IP address in the Universe, without proof there is **** all they can do.

/thread
 
LordSplodge said:
No it isn't: It is copyright infringement.
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Yes it is stealing, as copyright infringment is a form of theft also. In practical terms there is no difference between walking into *** and walking out with a DVD without paying for it, and downloading an AVI file of the latest film released to DVD from the internet without paying for it.
 
Robbie G said:
Yes it is stealing, as copyright infringment is a form of theft also.
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Dowling v. United States (1985)

And wiki:

"The key distinction generally drawn..... is that while copyright infringement may (or may not) cause economic loss to the copyright holder, as theft does, it does not appropriate a physical object, nor deprive the copyright holder of the use of the copyright."
 
Robbie G said:
Yes it is stealing, as copyright infringment is a form of theft also. In practical terms there is no difference between walking into *** and walking out with a DVD without paying for it, and downloading an AVI file of the latest film released to DVD from the internet without paying for it.
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:rolleyes:

no difference between stealing a painting and painting your own copy either?

its like saying someone who makes an unauthorised replica of the mona lisa just stole hundreds of millions of quid
 
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