14 DAY TRIAL // Guilty until proven innocent seems to be the attitude the BBC has towards those pesky little Internet users who may or may not be downloading copyrighted content on their computers.
TorrentFreak reports that in a submission that was made to the Australian government on the issue of online piracy, the BBC claims that service providers should actively monitor their customers’ activities and become particularly suspicious when customers use VPN services or consume a lot of bandwidth.
After getting involved in copyright issues within the United Kingdom, BBC has now crossed the borders and it’s been sticking its nose in other countries as well, including Australia, where it operates four subscription channels.
BBC wants ISPs to act as Internet police
In a filing sent to the Federal Government, BBC wants new anti-piracy measures to be implemented, taking things up a notch. In short, the network wants Internet Service Providers to be held liable for the online content infringement their subscribers are guilty of, sharing the blame. The BBC claims it is the ISP’s job to educate consumers on the impact of piracy and where content can be obtained legally online.
“Despite the BBC dedicated considerable resources to taking down and blocking access to these Doctor Who materials, there were almost 13,000 download attempts of these materials from Australian IP addresses in the period between their unauthorized access and the expiration of the usual catch-up windows,” the BBC wrote.
The network is referring, of course, to the complete fiasco that was the launching of the latest Doctor Who series, when all but the last episode were leaked online before the series even hit TVs.
The BBC believes that ISPs will need to be the ones to pressure their subscribers into compliance by implementing a tiered response scheme of educational messages and action against persistent pirates.
First, they should warn alleged copyright infringers that what they’re doing is illegal and to educate them about the word of the law, as well as the importance of copyright to funding content and services they enjoy. More serious action should be taken, they say, when the consumers don’t abide by these notifications.
Throttling users’ Internet speeds would be the first step, while cutting off access is on the list too.
VPNs, the weapons of evil
“Since the evolution of peer-to-peer software protocols to incorporate decentralized architectures, which has allowed users to download content from numerous host computers, the detection and prosecution of copyright violations has become a complex task. This situation is further amplified by the adoption of virtual private networks (VPNs) and proxy servers by some users, allowing them to circumvent geo-blocking technologies and further evade detection,” the BBC claims.
This isn’t the first time copyright holders have seen VPN tools as evil and it will certainly not be the last time. While it’s true that some people use VPNs to circumvent local blockades to pirated content, they’re also used by people in countries where access to social media, for instance, is blocked, such as it happened in Turkey last year. Such tools can also be used by those who simply seek to have their browsing habits kept away from prying eyes.
It remains to be seen whether the Australian government will even consider implementing such measures considering how unpopular they are with Internet users and Service Providers alike.