Week after week we read more stories involving peer-to-peer file sharing and the various attempts by content owners and content distributors (and the legal representation that sits aside those warriors battling such data transfers) to combat digital hooliganism. Or whatever you want to call it. Most recently, a mix of news emerged that has only left yours truly feeling more confused by and increasingly disturbed at the way things are going.
One development involves a French professional. Another gives the UK-based ISP Talk Talk a headline. The third is a general observation made by the AP of the fact that ISPs in general stipulate clauses in the fine print of end-user contracts that essentially warrant those service providers authoritative access over what their customers can do with data through their respective connections.
Many file sharers would likely be pleased to hear of the French woman’s mandated hiatus from the legal practice after she, in the employ of Logistep, a Swiss anti-piracy outfit, sent “hundreds of thousands of threatening letters demanding that alleged file-sharers” pay a fine of 400 euros, lest they be taken to court for their alleged transgressions and sued for sums far greater, TorrentFreak’s enigmax wrote earlier today. The Web savvy among music consumers will also look kindly on Talk Talk, the United Kingdom’s third-largest ISP, which has said quite clearly that it “rejects music industry threats and refuses to become Internet police.” That memo comes in response to a letter sent to Talk Talk by the British Phonographic Industry requesting that the service provider (as well as all others within geographically legal reach) work to pinpoint the perpetrators of file-sharing and disconnect their linkage to the Web.
And that’s all good and well for consumers across the pond looking to elude copyright enforcers. Here in the US, however, as was mentioned in a piece released by Peter Svensson of the AP, one cannot help but grimace at the discovery that numerous ISPs - the 10 largest in the nation, according to the report, including AT&T, Verizon, and Cox Communications - place within their user agreements clauses that allow for those providers to “to watch how you use the Internet, read your email or keep you from visiting sites it deems inappropriate.” Svensson goes on to explain that “some reserve the right to block traffic and, for any reason, cut off a service many users…find essential.” (more…)
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