Angus Kidman21 February 2008, 5:17 AM
The Australian Government is contemplating introducing '3 strikes and you're out' laws for online copyright offenders, mimicking a proposed similar policy in the UK.
The Australian Government is contemplating introducing '3 strikes and you're out' laws for online copyright offenders.
Broadband minister Senator Steven Conroy told the Sydney Morning Herald that such an approach, with ISPs being required to first warn offending users, then suspend their access temporarily, then cut off access altogether, was being seriously considered by the government.
The proposal is said to mirror similar suggested policies in Britain, though the details leaked of that plan suggest that the exact model for prosecution hasn't been finalised. Using a system that mimics baseball also seems a tad un-Australian, though presumably being bowled out on the first offence would be even less popular.
It's long been expected that Labor's promises to implement online filtering to block pornographic content would also come with an unpleasant copyright-killing aftertaste, with ISPs playing a central policing role. "At the moment, the favoured target is ISPs," University of Queensland law lecturer Kimberlee Weatherall warned
earlier this year. "Don't underestimate the power of this push."
So far, Labor's activities in the Internet space have been relatively consumer-friendly: distant promises of faster broadband for everyone and a short-term extension to the life of the CDMA network. Cracking down on online piracy isn't likely to be as popular, especially amongst younger voters. After all, what's the use of faster broadband if your torrents get cut off?
ISPs are also certain to sternly object, citing the costs and difficulties involved in any sort of monitoring. Given that market leader Telstra has spent several years simply trying to get single bills for its customers in place, we dread to think how long a warning system might take to implement.
While some ISPs do impose shaping on P2P packets, effectively slowing down file sharing, such policies are normally presented as traffic management designed to ensure reasonable performance. While common sense suggests the vast majority of P2P content probably does violate copyright, torrents are used to legally exchange podcasts, source code and other large files. Shaping systems don't try to determine the legality of the information being exchanged; in practice, it's hard to see how they could do so, and any ban would have to be outright.
Despite the manifest technical and operational difficulties (do people end up on a permanent blacklist? how do you keep them out of Internet cafes?) the concept of making ISPs responsible for monitoring content is being heavily promoted, particularly in the "content creation industries".
"For ISPs in general, the days of prevaricating over their responsibilities for helping protect music must end," Paul McGuinness, career-long manager of rock dinosaurs U2, commented during a speech at the MIDEM music industry conference earlier this year. "The ISP lobbyists who say they should not have to 'police the internet' are living in the past - relying on outdated excuses from an earlier technological age."
Of course, U2 selling out to the man is no big shock; how else do you explain the U2 iPod, or Bono appearing in a Bill Gates comedy skit?
No firm time frame for any local regulatory proposal has been set, but APC will keep watching with interest.