News Ofcom publishes three-strikes copyright code

Ofcom has published a draft code to establish a three-strikes copyright system in the UK, based on the DEA.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2012/06/26/ofcom-three-strikes/1

 

If a company can find a way to make writing a letter cost seventeen quid, that's their problem.

 

Holy crap, £17 a letter. Right guys, I have an idea for a new business......

 

And - hang on - this is an ISP. You don't possibly think that there would be some free-of-charge letter-analogue they could use, that can be autogenerated at the touch of a button and sent to the user?

Perhaps using some sort of electronic... postal... thing? You could call it, I don't know... e-post?

 

Then change the law.

 

what if the email ends up in your spam box, or if you never check your broadband email account?

 

£17 is about right given the cost of stamps these days.

Sam

 

So with the letters thing, it's a bit like paying to go to prison, no?

 

Exactly. Personally, if there's a chance that I may have to go to court, or I'm being sent a formal legal notification, I'd rather get an actual phyiscal letter than an email.

And in terms of the cost, £17 doesn't sound like an unreasonable figure. You have to factor in the cost of printing machines, staff costs, maintenance costs, postage costs, etc... The materials themselves might be cheap, but the infrastructure required to support it isn't cheap; we're not exactly talking about a guy sat at a desk with a laser printer here.

 

You misunderstand.

If law is causing stupidity, it is wrong. Law is not some unchangeable monolith.

 

What do they intend to do over people illegally accessing a network and downloading pirated media?

Surely the owner must have some defense against being accused even if they had nothing to do with it?

 

So a bit like the Duty/VAT on Fuel then?

 

So they're charging £17 quid a letter, so even if your not doing anything wrong you're going to get stung by the ISP for having to pay for all of these gold plated letters. Logic fail?

 

So essentially they're going to give consumers a three month period in which to learn about encryption, VPN's, and proxies, and those who fail to get in trouble? I almost like the plan.

 

Did you even read the article?

Nobody is charging £17 a letter. Idiot.

 

Well you say that, but once the "red flag system" or whatever they want to call it is in place, it probably will be exactly that. One or two cretins printing out 3500 letters a day and then feeding a post machine with pre-paid envelopes.

But the reality is, if I was one of these businesses I'd only fire it up on inspection days... maybe the day before also to make sure it is all operational. Or at least make it a really low priority...

What would really make me laugh is if they discovered that it wasn't anywhere near 70,000 a month. I.e. 5,000 or so... then see what they do with the crazy figures that they pluck out of thin air with regards to the loss of earnings. My guess is they will not change their figures and continue to tell us how pirates are costing them.

 

In an indirect way yes we are...

Think about it a 14million a month postal bill isn't a cost thats going to be absorbed by the ISP itself. More likely you will received a second letter (if any).

"Our operating costs have risen, therefore we need to pass theses costs onto you, your package cost will increse by £3.50 a month starting next month."

 

actually just did the maths and it would add up to around £17.86 to employ 3 staff, laser printer cartidges, maintenance contract. Let alone before you add in paper, post, and machinethat suffs them <with maintenance for that also.

I can only go by what work pays though and these guys would have more serious buying power for ink and such