UK 'pirates' face £20 appeal fee

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Suspected internet pirates will have 20 working days to appeal against allegations of copyright infringement and must pay £20 to do so, according to revised plans to enforce the UK's Digital Economy Act.

The details are contained in secondary legislation presented to Parliament and a draft code published by Ofcom.

The telecoms regulator said it expected the scheme to begin in 2014.

Campaigners oppose the fee saying users should be innocent until proven guilty.

The Creative Industries Minister, Ed Vaizey, said: "We must ensure our creative industries can protect their investment.

"They have the right to charge people to access their content if they wish, whether in the physical world or on the internet."

Appeal fees

Accused users who wish to appeal against the claims outlined in any letter must pay £20 to do so, but the revised code says only grounds specified in the act will be considered.

Campaign group Consumer Focus chief executive Mike O'Connor said: "Copyright infringement is not to be condoned, but people who are innocent should not have to pay a fee to challenge accusations.

"Twenty pounds may sound like a small sum, but it could deter those living on low-incomes from challenging unfair allegations."

He added the best way to reduce unnecessary appeals was for Ofcom to require a high standard of evidence from copyright holders to avoid notifications being sent out on the basis of "flimsy evidence".

Ofcom noted its revised code stated rights holders would only be able to gather evidence using measures approved by the regulator.

Punishments

ISPs - who must also contribute to the cost of running the scheme - will ultimately be required to take steps against repeat offenders such as limiting their broadband speed or suspending their accounts.

However, Ofcom noted this would require further legislation that could only be considered after the letter scheme had been in force for a year.

Even so, members of the Creative Coalition Campaign, welcomed the latest step towards implementing the copyright crackdown.

"We urge ISPs to begin building their systems now and to work constructively with rights holders, Ofcom and government to get notice-sending up and running as soon as possible," said John Smith, general secretary of the Musicians' Union.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18594105

All fun and games. But why the £20 fee even though we may be innocent, say what?

You get the £20 back if you're innocent. And I also read, that only applies on your third strike.

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Web users who get three warning letters in a year will face having anonymous information of their downloading and filesharing history provided to copyright owners, which could then be used to gain a court order to reveal the customer's identity and take legal action against piracy.

Internet users will be able to appeal against a report on their alleged infringement, at a cost of £20, which will be refunded if they are successful.

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This sucks they are cracking down so fast :(

omg im getting worried now

Guilty until proven innocent: Families will have to pay £20 to show they DIDN'T illegally download music under new law

READ more at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ght-theft.html

So will this effect you? ;) apparently the most 'pirated' film and show is; Fast five and Dexter. In my eyes no matter how people try to stop this... it will never happen.

Threads merged by Martin (Forum Super Moderator): As they are on the same topic.

I'm fairly certain that the most pirated show is Game of Thrones, changed with the recent season. Probably was Dexter before then.

Doesn't affect me terribly I don't like pirating but if companies are trying their hardest to make it inconvenient for me to watch their TV show I will resort to piracy.

Just found out its posted here: http://www.habboxforum.com/showthrea...84#post7589584

sorry my bad.

Another hit to our precious common law (innocent until proven guilty) with European styled legislation of guilty until proven innocent - whether it comes from the EU I will have to find out. I always make the case on this forum that common law (civil liberties) is one, if not our most precious value - it isn't democracy that keeps us free, its the Magna Carta, Bill of Rights etc that do.

I just hope that people remember this at election time, because this example is only the tip of a very big and sinister iceberg.

I'm not surprised that there are proposals to a newly revised DEA as the old one hasn't been very successful.

Disgusting. Guilty until proven innocent and then you have to pay to prove the innocence... fantastic.

Well the current DEA has been failing due to it going against the European convention of human rights act so there's no guarantee of a newly revised one working out.

Everything about this is wrong. Charging someone to protest? Is this really what we're coming to?

A tad extreme to have the accused pay money to prove their innocence. Only attack them when they're proven guilty, you'll get far more respect for that and actually have a reason to punish them - even though enforcing piracy laws seems like a huge waste of resources for what is essentially a non-problem these days.

It seems weird they're punishing you before they have a reason to. Isn't the £20 in essence a punishment? You're losing an amount of wealth for something you've not be proven to of done.

My question is is this aimed at downloaders, uploaders or both?

It seems there's a lot of laws being brought out to prevent people from downloading illegally. Interesting thing is the majority of downloaders only download and wouldn't risk uploading illegal content at least to the popular used sites from what I've seen.

There are lots of people who have been uploading stuff for years and never had anything sent to them. It makes me wonder if the government and ISP's keep going at the wrong people - instead they'll take down a site - uploader moves to another site, they try and go to the downloader - doesn't effect the uploader and so on.

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Originally Posted by peteyt

My question is is this aimed at downloaders, uploaders or both?

It seems there's a lot of laws being brought out to prevent people from downloading illegally. Interesting thing is the majority of downloaders only download and wouldn't risk uploading illegal content at least to the popular used sites from what I've seen.

There are lots of people who have been uploading stuff for years and never had anything sent to them. It makes me wonder if the government and ISP's keep going at the wrong people - instead they'll take down a site - uploader moves to another site, they try and go to the downloader - doesn't effect the uploader and so on.

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As far as I remember, these laws are usually aimed at those who host the content (and in some cases, upload it). I think the law which was going to target downloaders and those who watch the content failed to be passed through parliament.

As you may remember, there was pure rage on here when there were proposals for ISPs to monitor everything you do, so they can warn you if you are caught watching content like films that were not uploaded with the copyright owner's permission. That never went through, but enforcement of current laws that go after those who host the content - Pirate Bay, MegaUpload etc.

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Originally Posted by GommeInc

As far as I remember, these laws are usually aimed at those who host the content (and in some cases, upload it). I think the law which was going to target downloaders and those who watch the content failed to be passed through parliament.

As you may remember, there was pure rage on here when there were proposals for ISPs to monitor everything you do, so they can warn you if you are caught watching content like films that were not uploaded with the copyright owner's permission. That never went through, but enforcement of current laws that go after those who host the content - Pirate Bay, MegaUpload etc.

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See as someone who plans to work in the media industry and have a Degree in Film & TV Production, I see why the industry want's to do as much as possible to prevent this kind of thing and wouldn't want some of my work pirated without my consent.

My problem is under the laws that are planned innocent sites could get hurt. I'm not going to debate about megaupload, but the problem is as soon as you start telling people your going to monitor what they upload you then get all these privacy complains and organisations trying to shut you down because of that.

In my opinion sites should only be closed down if the site was actually helping to host illegal content as in encouraging it. If someone uploads it and they don't know, it should be the user who takes full responsibility.