This is from page 65 of
Choice magazine (April 2008), the mouthpiece of the independent Australian Consumer's Association. The website indicated at the end of the article did not work when I posted. The article doesn't say anything new to
forumisti who are familiar with Ghostship's posts about the cartel, but I thought I'd share this anyway.
ISPs pressured to become copyright police
A small but highly influential industry body is attempting to make your internet service provider its de facto detective. As well as the privacy issues, there may be additional costs — and guess who's likely to foot the bill for that?
Watch out. If certain music industry representatives have their way, internet service providers (ISPs) will be made to monitor your use of the internet — all in an attempt to prevent copyright infringement.
One proposal being pushed in Australia by Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) is for ISPs to adopt a 'three strikes and you're out' notice and disconnection scheme. Customers suspected of music piracy would be given warning notices, and if the behaviour continued, would find their internet account suspended or disconnected. So far our ISPs have been reluctant to implement this monitoring system.
There's growing pressure internationally to force ISPs to become the copyright police. Representatives of the global recording industry, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) recently said, "ISPs are the gatekeepers of the internet and have a vital role to play in curbing copyright abuse. IFPI has been urging that government and the telecoms industry recognise this for some time."
Monitoring consumers' internet services is an unacceptable intrusion into consumers' privacy. Policing internet use may also result in extra costs to ISPs, costs that are likely to be passed on to consumers.
Copyright holders have already received substantial changes to the copyright law in their favour, such as lengthening terms of protection by 20 years, and increased civil and criminal penalties for copyright infringements. Despite this, their representatives are still demanding even more consumer-unfriendly changes. Consumers' digital rights shouldn't be further compromised for the interests of this small but highly influential industry group.
For more information, go to choice.com.au/ispcopyright
We can see from this that a leopard never changes its spots. It's more of the same old from the cartel, breaking more laws to preserve their 'rights': ignoring that there are many legal p2p file shares, intimidation, fear-mongering, privacy violation, etc, etc.. It's good to see that the ACA is awake to what the cartel is up to.
