Australian Government Considers Copying UK Copyright Law Ideas

msim brings word that Australian legislators are considering an anti-piracy measure that would require ISPs to terminate internet access for people who repeatedly download copyrighted material. The legislation would set up a three-strikes system similar to the one proposed in the UK recently. While British ISPs resisted suggestions that they act as internet police, the response may not be the same in Australia, where the government has already tried to censor the internet. "Under the three-strikes policy, a warning would be first issued to offenders who illegally share files using peer-to-peer technology to access music, TV shows and movies free of charge. The second strike would lead to the offender's internet access being suspended; the third would cancel the offender's internet access."

So what happens when they cut of half the country?

[MacDork]

Do they think the ISPs will voluntarily give up a 30% plus chunk of their revenue stream?

fail

[wizardforce]

This will fail the first time anyone encrypts their traffic. Therefore, either someone reminds them of the foolishness of their plan, they actually carry out their plan and it not surprisingly fails miserably or the worst scenario- they actually include encrypted traffic along with illegal p2p traffic regardless of whether it is actually legal or not.

Don't we all download copyright material?

[rolfwind]

Pictures -- I'm pretty sure all the pictures we download are copyrighted. Probably at least half of it being on websites that were not the express permission of the owner.

I'm pretty sure articles too, which some blogs insist on quoting in near entirety to get traffic.

Why should other mediums get special treatment under the law?

Re:fail

[unlametheweak]

This will fail the first time anyone encrypts their traffic.

The way things are going, I can see encryption being made illegal unless the government or it's delegates do not have a key to subvert this encryption, thus making it useless. So unless one can successfully obfuscate said encryption, and always be ahead of the head hunters, then I would think the oligarchs in power will have a continuing and growing advantage.

Using tools like encryption only help mitigate the symptoms in the short term. We need to see a change in ideology overall, not just in the electorate, but in the leadership.

Seems like an awful lot of fluff

[Eskarel]

From TFA, it looks like someone asked the government whether they'd consider a three strikes policy and the government being a government has said that they'll watch what happens with the Brits and consider it. Which sounds lik politicion(weasel) speak for "we don't want to tell whoever is asking no because then they might get upset, but we don't want to actually do anything either".

Rudd wants to get broadband to more homes not less, and most governments know stuff like this would be wildly unpopular, and the ISPs have exactly the same financial reasons(increased monitoring costs, loss of revenue from cancelled subscriptions, potential repercussions from improper cancelations), so are just as likely to fight.

Personally I doubt even the Brits who have a much more invasive approach towards their citizens than we do are going to pass something like this, it's political suicide to try and save something that probably can't be saved.

Simple workaround

[Gumbercules!!]

Here's a simple work around. run uTorrent on port 21. then your data will appear to be FTP.

Next, register the DNS of your site to be ftp.companyname.com and if they complain say "yes, that's where my customers upload their high resolution nautical maps to, for my research into deep sea excavation"

Of course, I strongly suspect ISPs will work it like this:
If downloads > x then
        you_are_a_pirate
end if

Re:Why shouldnt we do this?

[unlametheweak]

Im serious. If we find a way to enforce copy right again, why shouldnt we? I know we like stuff to be free, but it really shouldnt be unless the person chooses to give it away.

While I have empathy for your ideals, I would argue that they do nonetheless go against intuition and human nature. For example, if a person buys something, then it is (intuitively at least) considered to be owned by that person, and thus this person would intuitively believe that they can do what they want with this product, including making copies of it. This has certainly been my experience with tape recorders and records.

A mitigation of possible or theoretical financial losses could be had through something like a generalized tax on recording media like CD-ROMs and tape cassettes that we have here in Canada. This is of course not ideal for the consumer or any industry groups seeking compensation, but it is a more fair compromise than the overbearing and arbitrary punishments given to P2P violators. Making these taxes fair and appropriate is the most difficult and contentious thing however; for example people these days don't generally copy records onto tape anymore, and yet the tax is still applied to tapes, and at the same rate at which it was originally applied.

Merely seeking to punish behavior, and arguably behavior that does not have an intuitive or natural feeling of being wrong (like armed robbery) is an overbearing and unfair approach.

Re:So what happens when they cut of half the count

[Sique]

I have my doubts about exactly that theory. I for instance am quite ignorant about brands. I wouldn't be able to make a difference between a pair of brand name sunglasses and a counterfeit one, because I simply don't know the brand names. So if I am on vacation, and my glasses break, I just go for new ones, and I would surely take a pair which I like, and where the price looks reasonable to me. I simply have no clue what brand name sunglasses are supposed to cost.

I know that we (bombarded by advertisements and brand name awareness) are supposed to know all the brand names and the associated prices. I call that bullshit. I just don't care. I never have. And I never will. I am buying functionality, not brands. If a pair of sunglasses works for me I don't care about the name that is printed on them. I wouldn't pay more if I remember an ad I saw for the name.

Re:In other news...

[elronxenu]

More, if they don't all enforce at the same time.

It will be interesting to see what kind of checks and balances are built into this proposed law. For example, will it be necessary for a court to find that a user has downloaded something in order for penalties to apply, or will a mere accusation be sufficient?

Who will be checking the bona-fides of the person or organisation making the complaint? Sometimes the complainant doesn't actually have the rights which they say they have.

Re:fail

[alexhard]

Encryption has nothing to do with this. This is about the RIAA monitoring the torrent servers that you're using, noting your IP address and what you're downloading and sending a note to your ISP asking them to tell you to knock it off.

On the third warning, they'll disconnect you.

If that's how it's going to happen, what's to stop me (or anyone else) from faking said screenshots with RIAA IPs and making their ISP shut them down?

Re:fail

[Xest]

Wouldn't it be possible to write a custom BitTorrent client that connects to the swarm but doesn't actually download anything?

Couldn't you then sue the living daylights out of them for falsely accusing you?

What if it was built into BitTorrent clients as a kind of mass protest to connect to but not download from random swarms? Would this cause any problems for those actually wishing to use the torrent properly?

Sure they could monitor for people actually receiving data from them hence actually using the torrent properly but it'd be a hell of a lot more hassle for them no?