Here we are in 2012 a couple of years after the idea of writing to alleged
copyright infringers was first introduced, and we are still looking at a date
of March 2014 before the first letters might be sent out. Another round of
consultations are taking place, driven
forward by Ofcom, there is a draft code of practice, with a short
consultation until 26th July 2012 on this code. A longer consultation
on the cost sharing that is part of the scheme will run until 18th September
2012.
The code whose core intention is to protect online copyright and inform
consumers, is a requirement arising from the Digital Economy Act 2010. The code
will only apply to those broadband providers with over 400,000 fixed lines,
i.e. BT, Orange, O2, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media, mobile broadband operators
are not included. These six providers account for 93% of the fixed-line
broadband market in the UK.
If the draft code does not change significantly then people accused of
copyright infringement can expect to receive a maximum of one letter a month
from March 2014, and if in any 12 month period the same account holder receives
three letters, anonymised information will passed back to the copyright holders
so that they can decide whether to seek a court order to reveal an account
holders identity, and then pursue using the existing court systems via the
Copyright Designs and Patent Act 1988.
Account holders will have the right to appeal an alleged infringement
letter, with a fee of £20 to be paid if the infringement is upheld. The
methodologies used by copyright holders to identify IP addresses infringing
will most likely change from the current system, that at times looks like a
random lottery, with Ofcom having to approve each system used by the Copyright
Holders. Ofcom wants to create a publically-available standard to promote good
practice in the evidence gathering arena.
This complete process costs money to administer, and under current
proposals, 75% of the costs will be bourne by copyright holders (ultimately
meaning those buying legal material will bear the cost) and 25% by the
broadband providers. Estimates suggest that for each provider the capital and
fixed costs will be around £1.4m, with each notification costing around 80p.
The cost to Ofcom of running the consultations, and acting as piggy in the
middle will be charged to the Copyright Owners, with projections from 2010 to
2015 of Ofcom spending £10.5m.
The key aim of this letter writing, is that consumers will learn that
content is available via authorised channels, and the Copyright Owners will
hope that people will then buy it. The most likely outcome is that many may
simply decide not to see/hear the content, or move to use services that will
hide their online identity. There are some moves by Ofcom to try and encourage
the copyright owners to make their content available via legal means, we doubt
this will come to much.
The threat of a three strikes and you are out policy, is still lurking in
the background, since if the letter writing campaign does not have a
significant effect on copyright infringment, there is the possibility of
further technical measures which may include internet bandwidth reduction,
blocking internet access or temporarily suspending accounts, though this would
require sanction from the Secretary of State.
Test your broadband speed
Follow us on X for the latest broadband news 
What a waste of timer and money , as long as these copyright owners who are making the most noise about this, take the blinkered approach nothing will change,another reason to never use one of the big isp’s too, what would they do if Joe public decided make a stand for once and boycot them ? it would cost them less to ignore ofcom and rights holders , they are as bonkers as the current P.M
As this kind of thing becomes more common, so will encryption and IP-blockers.
They tried taking down the original P2P networks and all that did was cause Bit Torrent to be created, along with various decentralised technologies that became part of bit torrent and other networks. Now they’re targeting the users and it won’t be long before encryption becomes standard with ISPs being unable to stop it because it just looks like SSL traffic.
“The code will only apply to those broadband providers with over 400,000 fixed lines, i.e. BT, Orange, O2, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin”
I presume that this includes Plusnet as part of BT.
Believe you are correct Jelv
This approach will at least go a good way to prevent speculative invoicing, however there are substantial issues remaining. What if the account holder did not commit the copyright infringement in the first place? Are they held responsible for the actions of all users on the connection? How can they possibly defend themselves if their connection has been compromised – for example through a cracked wireless key. Associating a public IP address with an individual is not a very simple process at all, unlike what some copyright holders would wish to have you believe.
It will be the account holder, not the individual, so a kids friend who visits every few weeks could result in a household getting letters if you let them on your WiFi.
Letters from providers are meant to help inform on security.
There is an appeals process, which I am sure many will use.
Linking activity to a public IP is easy enough, the lookup to account is something providers can do, and are meant to retain records of, for this and other reasons.
Appeals process which costs does it not?
If we are being accused of this we shouldn’t have to pay, thats guilty until proven innocent.
Of course we are guilty.
Why else would you want an internet connection, everyone online is a filthy pirate!
(not my views btw, but the views of the music industry, what is nearly dead and losing money hourly whilst recording record profits)
Appeals process only costs if you lose the appeal.
When I reboot our modem, either manually or forced by a power cut, we get a different IP address every time. So as the letters are aimed at a selected IP address account holder, anyone can get a letter that is nothing to do with their own activity. It is a very unreliable way to determine who should be targetted, as has been said many times before. Only if everyone had ‘fixed’ IPs could this possibly be considered fair and reasonable.