Brands
Events
March 25th, 2010 @ The Royal Garden Hotel, London
The third annual PCR Awards is set to be the social event of the year for anyone involved in the PC retail sector, and a well deserved celebration for the nominees.
Competitive
Woking, Surrey
Leading internet provider criticises Lord Mandelson's new measures, claiming they are unworkable and will harm investment
Entanet has joined fellow internet service provider TalkTalk in condemning new Government plans to ban people from the internet if they persistently file share.
The legislation, announced yesterday by business secretary Peter Mandelson, will give the state the power to order ISPs to disconnect the most serious offenders, though only as a 'last resort'.
Entanet claims the new measures are unfeasible, and that eventually investment will suffer.
“Asking ISPs to police the Internet is like asking the Highways Agency to take responsibility for all of the accidents that happen on the roads," said Darren Farnden, marketing manager. "We are no more able to control how people use their connectivity than someone who builds and maintains roads can control the way in which people drive.
"All we can do is make sure that the highway is in working order, put reasonable usage policies in place and take appropriate action when it is necessary, merited and most importantly proven. There is already talk of the introduction of a broadband tax, so any added responsibility for monitoring is ultimately going to hurt ISPs’ and Internet users’ pockets. At a time when the UK needs considerable and continued investment in its network infrastructure, this is unwelcome to say the least.”
Advertisement
Should the Government intervene in illegal file sharing? Have your say on this topic by clicking here.
Curious, I wonder if they can successfuly lobby against this. I doubt it, why would the gov want to do it if they can make money without expending any? Who cares about the longest term costs, if the short and medium term are all bonuses to them now.
It makes me wonder how anyone would be able to distinguish between illegal and legal file sharing given the myriad of excellent private file sharing products coming to the market. YuuWaa and Pogoplug are good examples of products coming to the market that allow file sharing within private share networks. These could be used by families to share pictures or small businesses to share work files. Low cost ways of massively improving efficiency and low end private cloud applications. Technology will always be one step ahead of our government let alone the EU monolith!
Good on Entanet standing up to be recognised. Over 300 Brigantia members resell their excellent services and I would recommend them to anyone looking for a reliable, honest and straightforward ISP.
What does it say when a company complains against being asked to help stop illegal activity. I know it is easy to not care about software theft and think that companies like Microsoft and EA can afford it but that is naive. Some software companies are struggling to make money, yet more of their product is downloaded illegally than is sold legitimately. The argument that it is like Highway patrol is stupid. Try the cashier selling alcohol to under 18's and bouncers on the door of a club. Enta need to accept that they hold the only key to stop illegal activity, they facilitate it, they can see it, and they can stop it. It is embarrassing to see them try and pretend it is nothing to do with them.
An interesting point is raised by Opinion 101 whom I am guessing is an American given the references to Highway patrol and cashiers! Honest Indies for years have complained about rogue kitchen table and internet traders selling illegal copies of Microsoft software thus seriously undermining their local businesses. Microsoft has tried to do something about it but does not seem able to stamp this out and often the honest indie is left feeling badly let down when they are striving to run honest businesses.
File sharing is here to stay and there are going to be honest and dishonest people using it for a myriad of different reasons. The interesting point here is how far the rights of the individual go and should public interest be put before the rights of the individual. Obviously there are degrees here – nobody would say that stopping terrorism would not be in the public interest. Here we stray into a very contentious area and I am sure that lawyers will make a great deal of money out of debating this for a few years to come! I feel certain that the British, American and other governments already have the ability to identify the big abusers and would suggest that some form of international enforcement agency is the correct way to deal with this rather than using ISPs as unpaid policemen after all on a private pay highway you still find state troopers! Comparing ISPs to the bouncers or cashiers is off target – the Indie or IT professional is the closest you come to this analogy in that they are the gatekeepers not the ISPs and here you come back round to follow up if abuse is reported.
I was talking to a Brigantia member this morning about this thread - he reminded me that they had reported a customer to the police last year because of indecent photographs that one of his technicians had found on a PC in for a hard disk repair. The police took approprioiate action and it lead to a conviction. This is how the system should work to my mind. The question is one of degree I guess. The example here is easy to follow and illegal software damages an Indies business so again this is regarded as serious.
I agree with Opinion 101 - whether American or English is irrelevant.
Entanet, as an ISP, need to face up to their responsibilities. Persistent offending file sharers shouldn't be too difficult to spot - they'll be the ones with massive traffic. The comment that they cannot control how people use their connectivity is codswallop. Some very simple software could do that! How many executables, exceptionally large files, music files are being up/downloaded? Volumes going over a certain trigger level then give cause to closer inspection.
Saying ISPs shouldn't do this is a bit like saying the security guard at a door cannot keep an eye out for people nicking stuff from the shop!
For Iain Shaw to support the anarchist stance when people genuinely trying to make a living are being ripped off by those who think it is right to "file share" (ie steal) is not helpful.
ISPs, however uncomfortable it might make them feel, need to face up to their responsibilities. Maybe if they did, there might even be a lot less SPAM in the world. Now THAT would be better for everybody, and help them enjoy their broadband experience more.
