BT wary of rights holders' site-blocking proposal

The confidential series of digital economy meetings chaired by Culture secretary Ed Vaizey are a bit less confidential after the leak of a proposal put together by copyright holders. Vaizey wants internet companies and copyright groups to thrash out their differences. The most recent of the meetings last week saw a site- …

[Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse]

ZZZZzzzzz......

Can someone wake me up when all of the junctions on the M25 are re-accessible because the Highways agency have failed to stop getaway drivers from using the motorways.

[Shades]

Yet another example of...

...trying to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted.

[Andrew Baines]

A Kitemark for compliance?

Is that to identify the ISPs that you don't want to use?

Paris because she could with an anonymous proxy too.

[Nathan 13]

How long before

Everyones traffic gets routed via the home office, with every click we make being personally checked by someone who has to press OK or DENY?

[Miek]

Can't wait for that

Refresh, refresh,refresh,refresh,refresh,refresh,refresh,refresh,refresh,refresh ... knock at door ....

[g e]

Yawn

Or maybe uk.gov could grow some and suggest the content industry joins its customers in the 3rd millennium.

Like that's never been mentioned before anywhere ever.

ZZzz.. indeed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just remind me

Will this apply to *-*everyone*-* who infringes copyright?

Including ISPs who intercept web traffic and website content, for commercial gain, without the owner's permission?

Or it it one rule for the peasants and one for the businesses?

Tea and muffins, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

So can we expect...

...all the "Rights Holders" to make their entire catalog available unrestricted by DRM or location, at a fair price and on a 'Download to Own Forever' basis ?

[James!]

Already happens.

Perhaps you've never heard of Bandcamp or any of the many other places where you can buy hundreds of thousands of great independent music tracks? Meets all the above demands - but unfortunately those artists still get ripped off by pirates, hence why they deserve some protection.

[Simplepieman]

Thanks for the credit... not.

So, reading the ORG piece, it turns out the proposal was leaked a a blog called Slightly Right of Centre, not the Open Rights Group...

http://www.slightlyrightofcentre.com/2011/06/premier-league-joins-group-lobbying-for.html

[Andrew Orlowski]

Re: Thanks for the credit... not.

Thanks James, credit where it's due.

[Anonymous Coward]

Only Fools and Horses

"BT was understood to object strongly to the plan, we gather. Vaizey doesn't necessarily back a censorship solution, but is getting fed up with the lack of constructive engagement from ISPs. He was reportedly unimpressed by BT's response."

Getting ISPs to deal with such stuff is like making the Highways Agency responsible for the problem of Trotters Independent Traders (Del-Boy and Rodney) selling dodgy merchandise down the market. After all, it's via the public highways that people get to that market where they can then buy that stuff.

[Anonymous Coward]

Story Time

There are two (or three) little stories that might be relevant:-

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2011/06/06/bailey_review/#c_1083910

[Andrew Orlowski]

Re: Only Fools and Horses

Roads aren't a great analogy. Someone pops up and says "Speed cameras - monitoring you for your own good".

(As I just have).

[Lamont Cranston]

Doesn't BT already operate Cleanfeed?

In which case, someone is already monitoring the tubes for our own good.

Is Cleanfeed an opt-in scheme, or do all UK ISPs have to use it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Step One...

Bring up Amazon Machine Image on EC2, complete with different dynamic IP for each instance.

2) Setup proxy and/or stunnel. on EC2 instance

3) Connect via proxy/stunnel

4) Laugh at government, red tops, and 'creative industry'.

Repeat as required, until messaged received (never), or until government tries to shut down AWS with legal hilarity ensuing.

[Anonymous Coward]

so while they are at it....

why don't they force petrol stations to restrict the speed cars can go on the roads.... heaven forbid someone does 32mph in a 30 area...

[Anonymous Coward]

you forget

They make money off speeders, not off ISPs who don't filter your web for you.

[Dazed and Confused]

Thin end of the wedge

First they'll ban the copyright infringers,

then they'll ban the critical sites,

then the courts will order super-injunction style bans on anything someone with money doesn't like

And once the gubberment get used to the idea that ideas can be banned...

Welcome to the new Iran/China/...

Freedom of speech is really at risk here.

The technically competent (El Reg readers) will have no problems circumventing it, but the masses will be caught in a politically correct vacuous Interweb of the powers that be's choosing.

Anyone else reminded of a certain Pink Floyd song.

Remember when there is no one left for them to come after, they'll come after you.

[Simbu]

I can see this working in practice...

"sites that are "substantially focused upon infringement of copyright""

Yea right... going to block Youtube are they? More copyrighted content on there than you can shake a stick at.

How many sites are out there? Each one will need a court order to be blocked? Sounds like an expensive waste of taxpayers' money to me. Block one domain, 5 more will spring up.

An unworkable solution from idiots desperately trying to clasp onto traditional (read 'ripoff') revenue streams.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm afraid your title didn't conform to our correct-speak list.

Wait, am I getting this right that Ed "lets screw the games industry" Vaizey is getting pissed off that no-one is interested in being part of a voluntary solution? Surely that's their choice then.

Just drop the pretence and call it mandatory. -_-

[Lamont Cranston]

The film and music industries have had plenty of time

to make their products universally available, and at a fair price. They failed to do this, and now piracy is normalised for large swathes of their target market (ie. young people).

As an older person (ie. over 30), I'm not in the habit of downloading (because my formative, internet years, were over dial-up) but, attempting to buy an album recently, I found that the only people willing to sell it to me were some dodgy-looking Russian site, or I could have a massively overpriced import through Amazon; so I googled further, downloaded it elsewhere, and kept my credit card clean.

Time for the big players in the film and music industry to curl up and die.

[Steen Hive]

Something missing here?

"Vaizey wants internet companies and copyright groups to thrash out their differences."

Finding common ground in the way they get to shaft consumers is not what this should be about, and without a party present to represent the interests of these consumers, the whole process is a sham anyway.

[Anonymous Coward]

What a pathetic waste of time

Firstly, the idea that we should give rights holders the power to close a web site without any legal backing is pretty scary.

Secondly, stop wasting your time you idiots. None of this will make the slightest bit of difference. Nothing you have done so far has made any difference whatsoever and unless you start to provide what people want at a fair price without DRM, people (yes, me included) will continue to pirate whatever we choose.

The rights holders took a very long time to wake up to the internet and the possibilities it offered to them. Once they had no choice (literally 10 years late) they foolishly thought that enforcement was the answer. That totally failed as everything they do will fail because we are much cleverer than you and also much more agile you fat dinosaurs.

[James!]

Misguided

First you say it's scary, and then you say it won't make any difference? Can't have it both ways.

And why are you still talking about DRM, or price, for that matter? Sounds like you haven't visited a digital store in a while. I haven't bought an MP3 with DRM in years. Certainly there's no DRM at Amazon, Play, 7digital, Bandcamp, Juno etc, so that's just not a valid argument anymore. I see brand new digital albums at £5, with no DRM; and many classic CDs for £3 including delivery. If you don't think a fiver is a decent price for an album, you really have no idea what goes into making one.

It's idiotic and self-defeating to say "(we) will continue to pirate whatever we choose"; if you choose to pirate, the creatively gifted people of the future will choose different career paths and the quality of new music available, either for purchase or pirating, will be greatly diminished. It's just plain short-sighted behaviour. So here's a thought: instead of spending your time downloading music made by artists you evidently have no respect for, why not instead do something constructive, like supporting DIY or independent bands who share your ideals, or better yet, go and create and market something yourself and show everyone else how it should be done.

[The BigYin]

So...

...Big Music is represented, Big ISP is represented; where is the public voice?

Oh wait, the public can't buy the expensive junkets, so don't matter.

[Arnie]

Chipping away.....

All your internets are belong to MPA

Not long now kids. 5-10 years and the internet will be a husk of its former self. Nothing more than an out of town shopping center with a few handy goverment websites to help you perform your duties as a citizen.

Government approved blogs, SSL cert's etc, welcome to the new world order.

Of couse we can always watch Sky anytime+ with its lovely lower than SD broadcast quality and dolby stereo sound as part of a £60 p/m package that only works in one room. Or we could visit lovefilm and stream a similar sized catalogue for Just £9.99 per month. Lets add a spotify premimum for £9.99. Oh but wait a minute theres loads of my fav albums with the good tracks missing. Better get another provider that covers the rest of the catalogue at a similar price. shit there isnt one. Or we could download any song we like for £0.99 new or old it doesnt matter, it's 99p. Of course we could go to a small theatre gig to see a band. The specials are coming to my town soon. Oh look £40 notes. What about the cinema. you want 3d right and imax right? £20 EACH. TVcatchup? Shit quality. iplayer 30days, itv LMFAO silverrlight piss off, chan4 fair play but it dont work on my mediacenter

How about this. Get your fucking shit sorted. integrate you cataloges and stop being so fucking greedy. Then maybe I'll come back.

in the meantime its Usenet, SSL, SABNzbd, sickbeard, couch potato, nzbdotsu and of course XBMC.

Flame on, for my shocking freetard attitude.