A history of anti-filesharing strategies
Thomas Mennecke gives a good overview of the various attempts of IP monopolies to prevent the sharing of music, then discusses present attempts in the form of ‘three-strikes your out’ proposals:
“The shutdown of Napster forced the development of decentralized networking. When targeting centralized networks no longer bore fruit, the entertainment industry tried flooding networks with corrupt files. When the file-sharing community responded with verified files, lawsuits became the norm. When lawsuits failed to make a dent in the P2P population, the next great vision of copyright enforcement came forth: 3 strikes and you’re outta here!
This is the next big experiment in copyright enforcement. Let’s face it, The Pirate Bay isn’t going anywhere any time soon. And with tens of millions of users connected and using the BitTorrent protocol at any given moment, the entertainment industry can’t afford to give up on enforcement. Targeting networks doesn’t work, flooding networks doesn’t work, and suing the population of the P2P community doesn’t work. Maybe we can unplug them?
That’s the plan being propagated around the globe, and it has the support of the major trade organizations such as the RIAA, IFPI and MPAA. Basically the plan calls for this: when an uploader is caught transferring a suspected file, they are given an initial warning. If it happens again, they are given a final warning. The third time? That’s when the uploader is out and loses their internet connection.
France was the first country to drive this policy forward. While the 3 strikes policy has yet to become law in France, New Zealand was the first to sign it into law. The domino effect extended to Italy, which has indicated a willingness to follow the French model.
Ireland’s largest ISP Eircom was forced into a similar agreement, when it finally relented to the IFPI. It appears the ISP was attempting to put up a legal fight, but settled 8 days into litigation. It was the first time an ISP was sued for copyright infringement and forced to adopt the policy.”
Thomas reviews the situation in a few other countries, then concludes with the positive developments in Germany, where opposition has been growing:
“Germany, the tide appears to be turning decidedly against the entertainment industry. As reported by P2P Blog.com and the German blog Spreeblick, German ISPs are breathing a sigh of relief after an statement from Secretary of Justice Brigitte Zypries sided with their cause.
“I don’t think that (Three Strikes) is a fitting model for Germany or even Europe. Preventing someone from accessing the Internet seems like a completely unreasonable punishment to me. It would be highly problematic due to both constitutional and political aspects. I’m sure that once the first disconnects are going to happen in France, we will be hearing the outcry all the way to Berlin.”
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:44 am
Not only that, but some members of the P2P community seem to be looking at encryption/onion routing or whatever, and possibly mesh networks.