Heesob Nam reviews the South Korean experience with three strikes legislation that has been in place since July 2009. The government reports thousands of initial notices that have been passed along by ISPs. There have been no instances of using the subscriber termination power.
Post Tagged with: "three strikes"
ACTA Internet Chapter Leaks: Renegotiates WIPO, Sets 3 Strikes as Model
Several months after a European Union memo discussing the ACTA Internet chapter leaked, the actual chapter itself has now leaked. First covered by PC World, the new leak fully confirms the earlier reports and mirrors the language found in the EU memo. This is the chapter that required non-disclosure agreements last fall.
The contents are not particulary surprising given the earlier leaks, but there are three crucial elements: notice-and-takedown, anti-circumvention rules, and ISP liability/three strikes.
USTR: No Mandatory Three Strikes in ACTA
Public Knowledge features a post describing a response from the USTR on its position on ACTA. When asked about whether the U.S. was seeking mandatory filtering or three strikes, Stan McCoy of the USTR responded: Mandatory filtering by ISPs would go beyond existing U.S. law, as would a mandatory “three […]
Australian Judge Explains Why Three Strikes Isn’t Reasonable
Australian Internet users are today celebrating a landmark decision in which an Australian court ruled against the film industry in their lawsuit against iiNET, Australia's third largest ISP. The industry had asked the court to hold the ISP liable for infringing BitTorrent activities of its users. The court soundly rejected that demand, holding that the ISP could not be seen to have authorized the infringement.
While the authorization analysis is unquestionably the foundation of the decision, there is a detailed, must-read section on subscriber termination schemes, better known as three strikes and you're out (paragraphs 425-442). In it, Justice Dennis Cowdroy explains why such schemes are far more complicated than is often claimed and are simply not reasonable in many circumstances.
First, Justice Cowdroy confronts claims that ISPs terminate subscribers for non-payment of accounts, so why not for copyright infringement:
Estimating The Cost of a Three-Strikes and You’re Out System
Canadian officials travel to Guadalajara, Mexico this week to resume negotiations on the still-secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The discussion is likely to turn to the prospect of supporting three-strikes and you’re out systems that could result in thousands of people losing access to the Internet based on three allegations of copyright infringement. Leaked ACTA documents indicate that encouraging the adoption of three-strikes – often euphemistically described as "graduated response" for the way Internet providers gradually send increasingly threatening warnings to subscribers – has been proposed for possible inclusion in the treaty.
My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that while supporters claim that three-strikes is garnering increasing international acceptance, the truth is implementation in many countries is a mixed bag. Countries such as Germany and Spain have rejected it, acknowledging criticisms that loss of Internet access for up to a year for an entire household is a disproportionate punishment for unproven, non-commercial infringement.
Those countries that have ventured forward have faced formidable barriers. New Zealand withdrew a three-strikes proposal in the face of public protests (a much watered-down version was floated at the end of last year), the UK's proposal has been hit with hundreds of proposed amendments at the House of Lords, and France's adventure with three-strikes has included initial defeat in the French National Assembly, a Constitutional Court ruling that the plan was unconstitutional, and delayed implementation due to privacy concerns from the country's data protection commissioner.
Much of the three-strikes debate has focused on its impact on Internet users, yet the price of establishing such systems have scarcely been discussed. That may be changing due to the UK government's own estimates on the likely costs borne by Internet providers and taxpayers in establishing and maintaining a three-strikes system.
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