Good news from Europe: your ISP can't be forced to monitor or block you from using the Web. A European court has ruled that record labels and film studios can't use the courts to instruct your broadband company to track you or try to block you.
"EU law precludes the imposition of an injunction by a national court which requires an Internet service provider to install a filtering system with a view to preventing the illegal downloading of files," the European Court of Justice ruled.
Record labels, film studios and other owners of copyrighted music, movies or media have in recent years tried to steer government and courts towards making ISPs responsible for piracy. They argue that ISPs should keep an eye on what you're doing online, and if they spot you illegally accessing copyrighted material, courts should order your ISP to boot you off the Internet.
That was the plan laid out in the rushed and half-formed Digital Economy Act, currently in the planning and consultation stages here in the UK. The government decided to drop the controversial plans after Ofcom -- and anyone with an ounce of common sense -- pointed out it was a stoopid idea.
Unfortunately, copyright holders have turned to existing legislation instead, beginning with a legal action to cut off file-sharing index Newzbin. This summer the High Court ruled that BT has to block its customers from accessing Newzbin -- and pay for the ban itself -- with similar bans demanded for Sky, Virgin Media and TalkTalk. But as expected the ban has proved impractical, with Newzbin claiming the ban isn't working.
How the European ruling will affect the Digital Economy Act and other legislation remains to be seen. Is this good news from Europe? Tell us your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook page.
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Comments 4
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anonymous 24 November, 2011 13:42
Well all new this would happen, it was just our stupid govenment forgot they are in Europe (when it suits them)
asdfasdf 25 November, 2011 01:30
Except this isn't what the court ruled, and this 'story' misrepresents the facts (and kindles the hopes in millions of suppressed Europeans in vain) - it is a very narrow ruling which says a state can't forced an ISP to install mechanisms which will scan and filter data traffic for all users indefinitely and be forced to pay for it itself. Quite apart from the fact an ISP could chose to do it on their own, ISP could quite possible be forced to monitor individual people or individual sites if they get their costs offset or there is a time limit on it (do this for the next 10years)
Jeimuzu Otaku 25 November, 2011 05:13
@asdfasdf do you seriously think that an ISP would install measures after this and quote "A European court has ruled that record labels and film studios can't use the courts to instruct your broadband company to track you or try to block you."
Think in a business sense an ISP wouldn't any more under because of this:
Would be a waste of money to which they wouldn't see anything back from it, since they were expected to pay for blocking access to newzbin by themselves (which is and was a waste of time all a long) and further more would now be expected to pay filtering sites again by themselves if they opted to do so still.
Also guess who you would think that would ultimately pay for this? The ISP? No, instead they would pass the cost back on to the consumer and raise prices, which would be impracticable to do so since someone would just switch to a cheaper ISP and lose that customer.
Even if they did implement it still, how long do you think it would take before that ISP went out of business because they kept on losing customers to a cheaper ISP? Not very long and also because people are pretty much like sheep, would basically read bad reviews and avoid that ISP (upon contract renewal of there current provider or whatever else).
anonymous 25 November, 2011 12:00
Meanwhile in Finland...
http://translate.google.fi/translate?hl=en&sl=fi&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tietokone.fi%2Fuutiset%2Felisa_estaa_pirate_bayn_sonera_ja_dna_oikeuteen