This a long post and to get the short of it just scroll to the bottom :) ...
Once again this is hitting the news. Now the government wants to cut people off the internet if they share files illegally. Please!!!....
Why not just chop my hands off so I can't use a keyboard, it will also stop me from doing many other crimes. Personally I don't do filesharing, but I find this idea outrageous. From personal experience of being banned from wikipeida due to an IP address mistake, how can they acturately tell whos filesharing and accurately cut them off. Also if my brother decides to illegally download music and the internet get's cut off, what about me and my parents that's illegal seeing as I'm innocent, do I get remove the government from it's place I don't think so. What if someone gets into my wireless network from the street and then proceeds to download illegal files? They might be able to see which IP addresses (and even then that isn't entirely acurate) but theres nothing that binds me to any IP address. And what if I'm downloading something legal say a linux distro? How do they know the difference between that and a movie? Do they look at what I'm doing? why don't the government open everyone's post just in case your sending a disc with an illegal file on it. There's to many variables, too many things to mistake and get wrong.
Besides the person/MP who suggested this says he has no idea about the internet, he isn't, like Gordon Brown, even elected. Now ISPs will have to spend money on policing the internet, so prices will either go up for the public or the quality will go even further down, or likely both.
But why do people share files illegally anyway? Because the legal systems are either too expensive, don't work, don't do what we want them to, or are just too hard to use.
The 1994 film Stargate aired on BBC one the other day, I can record that using my Sky+ box and keep for however long I want, should however I want to put on disc I have to play it back in realtime, this also prevents me from watching TV. Alternatively I could just go online and download it in half the time and be able to watch my TV as normal. Was that movie on BBC iPlayer? No. Because the BBC don't have the rights to put it on the net, yet they have the rights to put it on TV? It's like 2 roads same distance, same quality, going to the same place fromt he same place but ones closed for no reason and the other closes after you've gone through. When the BBC get rights to show a movie/programme on TV that should automatically mean the get the rights to broadcast it over the net and allow you to download it and keep it for as long as you like(effectively recording it). I love the iPlayer it's a great service, but it could be soooo much better and the thing stoppping it is all the legal rubbish.
Take Sky again, they have an online player/catchup service as well. I pay for Sky each month, which gets me Sky 1 and 2, on that channel (I'll use stargate as the example again) I can watch and record stargate SG-1, now should I want to catch up on it online, I have to pay to watch it, not even buy it I can only rent it. I've already paid to watch it why should I have to pay again???
Take the pirate bay, say the Music Board or whatever opened up a site wthi the same amount of content getting there with the same speed as the pirate bay, but charged 20p per download, most people would think "ahh it's only 20p", now they are not losing money, they are getting 20p extra. Because loads of people downloading from the free Pirate Bay are now going to buy from the new site where you pay 20ppd, and there's no risk of malware and stuff, because it's all official and legal.
Also another reason is content gets into the priate community often long before it's in the cinemas or on CD/DVD. If the movie is finsihed (and therefore available to download illegally, why are they waiting to release it on DVD and Cinema? And why do DVDs always get released way after it's been in the cinema. How much do you pay to watch at the cinema £4? And to buy the DVD? £30-£20. they make more profit fromt he DVDs yet by the time the DVDs come out everyone's seen it at the cinema or watch it online before that.
They moan and moan and take a handfull of filesharers to court, but in actual fact they are the ones driving people away from the legal services to the illegal ones. Originally it was too hard for the average PC user to download files illegally, it was much easier to get it legally. And before people though Music was in the microphone onto a disc onto the shelves but now have begun to realise that it takes a lot longer legally but strangely it's quicker illegally.But now as the illegal options become opener and easier to use, the legal versions become harder to use and more closed(DRM etc, which only inconviencies people who buy software/music/videos legal as the pirates have all found ways round them.). Plus more people than ever are using PCs and the internet, and the average person knows more about computers then the average person before the millenium.
To stop filesharers, the government either need to change the law so sites that host the .torrent files must be closed (but this won't work as most are hosted outside the UK they'll never get an fully international law).
Or more realistically update copyright laws, and force creators and providers to open up and simplify with more features services that digitally distribute content.
Phew that was long, but it's a subject I feel very strongly about.
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