Liberal MP Karen Redman yesterday introduced Bill C-506, the Internet Child Pornography Prevention Act. The bill envisions a new licensing system for ISPs to be administered by the CRTC, with liability for knowingly permitting access to child pornography. The bill also empowers the government to order ISPs to block access to child pornography.
Private Member’s Bill Calls for CRTC To License ISPs
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Interesting. At what point will someone realize, though, that it’s technologically impossible?
On the plus side, at least the bill would confirm that a warrant is required for child porn investigations.
Hon. Mem Karen Redman is obviously not paying attention to the arguments over ISP blocking sites to copyrighted material. Many if not all of the same arguments can be made as to why this bill simply won\’t work in practice.
While her intentions may be good (protect the children) the technical implementation of such a plan has too many holes to be of any real use.
I fear that if this bill does get passed, it could be used as a stepping stone for the **AAs to argue they should be afforded the same protections for their copy-written material.
While it seems well intentioned. I wonder if it puts too much policing responsibility on the ISP. It should be sufficient for the ISP to be required to \”cooporate with police investigation.\” To ask ISP\’s to be licenced, monitor, and prosecute offences will likely wipe out all the small players and lead to inappropriate and uneven enforcement on various networks.
Does the Bill indicate what is an “ISP”? For instance, would a workplace or a university qualify, if the users of their networks could access the Internet?
Licenses all ISPs?
This bill appears to require that everyone who ‘provides access to the internet’ would have to be licensed by the CRTC. It would in-effect kill all mesh networks (many participants, not all of which can be licensed) and kill all anonymous access points (presumably including tor routing, open-wifi in cawfee shops, etc)
I can see why the major ISPs would want to get on board, as its a nice bill to eliminate any future competition from peer-to-peer access providers.
Entertainment industry move?
What are the odds that this is a move be the entertainment industry to establish a precedent that the ISPs are responsible for what travels through their tubes?
knowingly
Would the important word in this text be “knowingly”?
If there is a site reported as having child pornography, I can see a logic to having ISPs block it once it has been verified by law enforcement. That’s different than saying that ISPs are responsible for policing the content on the internet.
concerned
such regulations may have good intentions but should not be done in piecemeal fashion just because of one very justifiable cause. Agree Isp’s should cooperate with police but shouldn’t be liable for everything on the web.
CETS / FMS
It would seem that the MP introducing the Bill is not aware of how law enforcement has the tools to take care of this business, without the ISP policing the Internet. CETS allows the police in a network themselves, to follow the perps, their credit card activity (plus), their associates, and the images themselves (plus). Every bust they make worldwide adds more information to their database and network, and the world is getting smaller for the pedophiles. Julian Fantino, OPP Commissioner was not asking for much more than time just yesterday, to track down every exploiter of the underage in the Province of Ontario.
ISP filtering would appear to open the thin edge of the wedge between a passive conduit and the ISP being susceptible to things like contributory infringement, authorizing without a license, and on and on, in copyright law. In fact, the ISP blocking may harm the evidence gathering that the police have in process, by say a public request to an ISP to block such a site.
With outfits like the CMPDA/MPAA able to now track the source of preview copies on the Internet (via Film Marking Systems) and following any leads internationally in the case of any commercial operations profiting by P2P, I think its time MP’s like this one who moved this Bill, to move on to the real problems here. She has her trophy of introducing a Private Members Bill to show her electorate that she tried to do something simple, smart or not so smart.
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FMS Link:
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Cable TV All Over Again
Guess the CRTC has to somehow keep itself relevant ten years from now…can\’t wait \’till there are $1,000,000 annual licensing fees for ISP\’s and it all becomes about profit…we\’ll be right back at CableVision faster than you can say \”license\”!
Consequences
From the Bill:”Internet service provider” means a person who provides a service that facilitates access to the Internet, whether or not the service is provided free or for a charge.
That means that they want me to have a licence to operate a router in my house. This would be VERY favourable to the RIAA who cannot easily point to an individual when a router is involved. The hardship of having to get multiple internet accounts for businesses or households with more than one computer would be a huge damper on internet activity. Children in poorer families would most certaily loose their internet access. Leaving your wireless router open for guests, as some generous souls do, would likely be out of the question.
I would also question the jurisdiction of the CTRC to get involved, though I’m sure they would welcome their hugely extended powers. If this too is their business, then all broadcasting could just as well be. An example would be the broadcasting of flyers through the mail (and their Canadian content) lol
My feeling is that Karen Redman is out of her depth here. She clearely does not understand the technology. Worse, she does not see the social implications. If I am wrong about that, then one could suspect that she has been talking with the likes of the RIAA and is just plain evil.
Barrie O. Ward
The problem with this whole notion of CRTC control and licensing of Canadian ISP’s as intimated by the MP’s members bill in question is that should it be taken seriously once again Canadian citizenry would be over-exposed by having to watch every Anne Murray special once again … only this time on the internet….. NUFF SAID!!
Seriously – The internet is NOT the public airwaves and such a bill screams of an ‘Orwellian’ move. Putting a CRTC license and associated controls on an ISP will not control pedophiles anymore than hiring “Blackwater” made the streets of Baghdad safe ….
Enough of this stupidity … The very concept of “Intellectual Property” and copyright is intellectually and socially repugnant and antithetical to our species evolution … It is merely an attempt to gain extended lucre by assigning a ‘value’ to the ethereal and intangible … A word of warning to the Luddite characters of the RIAA/MPAA ilk and also the ‘bought’ or ‘sold’ politicians of any nation … “That which can be digitized and thence rendered ‘Universal’ will be digitized” – Repeat after me Ms. Redman “These are not the droids we are looking for” ….
I don’t see Karen Redman on the Copyrig
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