Posts relating to copyright: mostly the obligations that may be placed on intermediaries to deal with breaches of it
[This is the approximate text of an internal company talk, which I’ve been asked to make more widely available] One of the odd things about how people talk about the Internet is that you’ll hear it described both as “the Wild West” where there are no rules and unlawful behaviour is rife and as a […]
Ofcom’s 2010 report on “Site Blocking” to reduce online copyright infringement concluded that using IP addresses to block infringing sites “carries a significant risk of over-blocking given that it is common practice for multiple discrete sites to share a single IP address” (page 5). They have now published a report commissioned from CMSG that shows […]
I’m pleased to report that the Internet Society has published a discussion paper looking at different methods being proposed around the world to respond to the use of the Internet to breach Intellectual Property Rights. For each of the approaches – graduated response and suspension of access, traffic shaping, blocking, content identification and filtering, and […]
Article 15 of the European Ecommerce Directive states that Member States shall not impose a general obligation on providers … to monitor the information which they transmit or store, nor a general obligation actively to seek facts or circumstances indicating illegal activity. However recital 47 says that “this does not concern monitoring obligations in a […]
I’ve just sent off a Janet response to Ofcom’s consultation on the latest draft Initial Obligations Code under the Digital Economy Act 2010. On the wording of the Code itself there are just a couple of minor observations. There seems to be a drafting hiccup that means any ISP that becomes Qualifying in the second […]
Ofcom’s draft Digital Economy Act Code recognises that the real Internet is more complex than the Act’s model, and that there may be a variety of “communications providers”, “Qualifying ISPs” and “non-Qualifying ISPs” involved in getting packets (and possibly Copyright Infringement Notices) delivered to “subscribers”. This post describes some of the combinations likely to be […]
The European Commission have opened a consultation on “notice and action” procedures (in the UK we tend to refer to them as notice and takedown) by those who host content on the Internet. Since Janet customers may see a different side of the issue from us as operators of the network, it would be helpful […]
Ofcom have at last published the Initial Obligations Code on how ISPs must deal with copyright infringement reports under the Digital Economy Act 2010. The accompanying notes, and in particular Annex 5, provide welcome recognition of the work that is already done by universities and colleges to reduce infringement on the Janet network, as well […]
I was interested to see both “Shibboleth” and “Athens” being mentioned in a consultation on extending the educational use exemption for re-playing recordings of broadcast programmes, sound recordings and films. At the moment sections 35 & 36 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 permit recordings to be re-played as part of teaching in […]
Given the outcome of previous hearings on copyright infringement, the court’s conclusion this week that the UK’s major ISPs should be ordered to block access to The Pirate Bay was no surprise. However the judgment raises an interesting technical issue. In a previous hearing, it had been pointed out that there was a way to […]