Rich Fiscus
24 Oct 2007 9:43
Lord Triesman, parliamentary Under Secretary for Innovation, Universities, and Skills in the U.K. said yesterday that if ISPs don't get copyright infringement by their customers under control, legislation will be passed to resolve the issue. He told the BBC "If we can't get voluntary arrangements we will legislate."
"For the most part I think there are going to be successful voluntary schemes between the creative industries and ISPs. Our preferred position is that we shouldn't have to regulate," he said.
A spokesman for the the Internet Service Providers Association says "ISPs cannot monitor or record the type of information passed over their network. ISPs are no more able to inspect and Filter every single Packet passing across their network than the Post Office is able to open every envelope." He added "ISPs deal with many more packets of data each day than postal services and data protection legislation actually prevents ISPs from looking at the content of the packets sent."
He did add, however "ISPA does not support abuses of copyright and intellectual property theft."
While Triesman says he's not interested in "hounding 14-year-olds who shared music," but rather catching individuals engaged in commercial piracy operations, that statement would seem to paint him as either ignorant or lying. While there are legitimate questions about copyright infringement on the internet, the type of piracy he's talking about doesn't happen on residential broadband services. It involves billions of dollars worth of CD/DVD pressing plants, as well as shipping and distribution channels. None of that is being done, or in fact can be done across the internet.
Source: BBC News