Monday, February 18, 2008

Rudd wants to stop internet piracy

The new Federal Government is looking at introducing legislation that effectively gives those who download material illegally through the Internet a '3 strikes and your out' policy

SMH covers it in depth here - http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/rudd-to-tackle-illegal-music-downloaders/2008/02/16/1202760662778.html

"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."

It is estimated that 2.8m Australian's download music illegally each year.

The real question is how feasible is this?

For one, it requires total ISP co-operation ... which would be difficult.

Secondly, it requires ISPs to spend time/resource on identifying the illegal activity and then taking action.

Thirdly, how do you know what torrent/p2p activity is illegal and which isn't. Some people actually use this technology to transmit files/data they have the legal right to transfer.

Lastly - what is to say that there won't be another system of transferring files that pops up ... the core issue here is that there is a stack of people who don't actually feel they should pay for music/entertainment, and this is the area that needs to be addressed.

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