Recently “Insight” an SBS TV show that holds panel discussions did a story called “MiTunes“. This panel is made up of younger confessed downloaders. A number of local semi successful artists and some heads of record labels and industry organizations.
Unfortunately, there was considerable miss-information based around the fact that most of these people are mis-informed about details surrounding many of the issues.
For example, ARIA wants to do a three strikes and your out. You loose you right to have an Internet connection. The ISP representative insisted that other more creative ways away from punishment is the way forward. This is correct, however, he did not mention that any efforts an ISP takes can, if end users are trapped, can be bypass with improved technology.
It would be a cat and mouse game.
I would compare it to the postal service. Are the postal service responsible for you sending illegal items via the post? Imagine if they where. Imagine the costs of opening all the items to check what was in them. Imagine the costs grow as end users use better technology to hide the illegal content. The Postal service would have to spend more money and time to try and keep on top. This is of course all ludicrous. And the same goes for ISP’s.
1 response so far ↓
1 Philip Hodgetts // Jun 10, 2008 at 3:54 am
Big important difference in the US is that a service provider cannot dare monitor traffic. If they did any moderation or monitoring they would lose their DMCA “Safe Harbor” provisions that man the service can’t be held liable for what users say, (or what they upload) as long as they don’t exercise “editorial control”.
I don’t think there’s similar protection for service providers (including ISPs) in Australia. It’s the *only* good thing about the DMCA.
Phlip
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