John Linton I was interested in this update:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/isps-propose-copyright-notice-scheme-339326850.htm
not because it indicated that the Federal Government and an ISP like Telstra were prepared to agree to deal with on line piracy, it is still a long way away from actually putting some sort of workable scheme into place, but because there is now a public consensus that stealing other people's property is rampant and a really bad thing. Presumably any further attempt to justify such practices is now at an end and no further "it's my right to take whatever I want because it's wrong for the makers to charge for it" will be seen as the infantile nonsense they always were. Then again......
Despite any claims to the contrary, it has always been a very simple process to automatically process any infringement notice and on send it to the IP 'owner' at the time of the alleged infringement. It has been equally easy to allow the alleged infringer to reply denying any infringement and letting the whole matter drop. As the next time an infringing customer gets a notice they could be using a different IP address (either by changing their IP themselves or via the policy of their ISP to allocate a different IP each time the customer logs on introduced.) it would only require the ISP to log the infringement notices against the customer's account (rather than the IP address) to ensure simply changing the IP address doesn't 'defeat' the process of three strikes and you get a termination notice or whatever policy is eventually introduced - in the event that happens.
There will need to be some sort of legislation introduced that requires ISPs to maintain adequate records of IP usage going back over some reasonable time and that, assuming it happens, will take some time. The woosie nature of the 'education emails' and the whole prolonged process is a major nuisance for the ISP but can, depending on what may be finally required, be totally automated so that no cost is incurred in complying with whatever is required. So, it appears that at some time in the future there will be an end to copyright infringement or, at least a massive reduction because at least reasonably honest parents of larcenous children will put an end to that source of infringements. The 'grown up children' may be another matter.
Adult thieves may be quite prepared to change ISPs to continue to pillage other peoples assets which would require any proposed legislation to include a 'register' of names/addresses of people who have had their connection terminated for copyright infringement - but I think that will never happen. The proposed processes as they stand seem easy enough to implement and will, almost certainly, succeed in significantly reducing copyright infringement if they are ever expanded to 100% from the ludicrous '100 per month per ISP'. By publicly agreeing that copyright theft is a bad thing and will cause some sort of inconvenience to the perpetrators the current nonsensical defences of their theft by the thieves that indulge in it will be shown up for just how stupid it is and, presumably, a lot of parents will get a reminder of just how bad their parenting has been.
I can't see any 'down side' from the full implementation of a real process.....other than the increase of public service drones.
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