UK Piracy Bill Could Kill Public WiFi Hotspots

Foolish fools. Surrendering freedom to please overzealous and greedy corporations.

Totally agree megaman! Way to drag the interwebs back to the stone age.

This is the same thing as sueing ISPs for their user's actions. Only perhaps less reasonable, because the ISPs have tools in place to monitor the bandwidth useage of each subscriber. Are pubs going to hire a WiFi wench to monitor who needs to get "cut off" from the net?

how old are the politicians that are running today's major countries these days? 12?

No good deed goes unpunished.
Why stop there? Sue the government for providing roads used by drunk drivers. They are just as responsible as the cafe owner is for someone misusing a hot spot.

Even China does not go this far yet.

I've been watching service providers take hits for over 10 years.Looks like the issue still hasn't been resolved.

Wifi clearly can be used for file sharing. File sharing is bad. Let's ban Wifi.
Guns can be used to kill. Killing is bad. Let's ban Guns.
Cars can be used to kill. Killing is bad. Let's ban Cars.
Wood can be used to make buildings that collapse. Building collapses are bad. Let's ban wood.
...
...
Humans are mean to each other. Being mean is bad. Let's ban Humans.

Talk about screwing the law abiding citizens in the butt. And really whats the point, do the corporations that wrote this law think it will give them more business, ABSOLUTELY NOT, some in fact will go bankrupt and maybe even out of business (hopefully). Its a self destructive law. Companies get so greedy that they won't listen to reason. Granted its the companies goal to make as much money as possible but when they try to limit everybody to stop a very few then everybody gets mad and stops buying the product that was probably no good anyway (most movies and almost all music that has come out recently. Don't believe me go look at the titles of some rap songs.)

One more option/luxury removed because of theives ... errr the Robin Hoods of the world, actually you people doing the stealing (err Pirates) that want something for nothing -- you don't give back to anyone ... you just take and take and take and then come up with some lame justification that Corprations are greedy - oh brother.

If you want communism, then go be a communist as communism has failed over and over and over again (check your history lessons junior) -- in every aspect of life. Why, because a LOT of people want something for nothing and are just lazy.

You want something, buy it! Plain and simple. You can't afford it, then you can't have it. Oh there's a concept, you can't have something ... OMG the world is gonna come to an end.

Would it be so hard to make hotspots require some kind of sign-in for a temporary password? The people who have been a problem before won't get access again, that simple. Have the public spots apply 3-strike.

this is bs and it is caused by the asshole hollywood crew RIAA MPAA ETC.
I say boycott these asses and hurt them good.I only buy used movies,no corporate music,and never go to a theater.
they are not getting any cash out of me.
and i never bought nor will i buy any music from any large label/riaaa krud.

If you want to fight this, start boycotting products from RIAA, MPAA and their equivalents in other countries. Hey, it worked against StarForce. Alternatively, develop anonymous encrypted P2P so hopefully they'll figure they can't do anything by force and will have to adjust their business models instead of dismantling the Internet.

This law and all others like are to protect capitalism, to protect peoples ability to get money from other people for providing goods or services. This leads to the big powerful corporations who have the politicians in their collective back pockets being able to make sure they can squeeze every last dollar out of us all. If I want something I buy it, I don't file share, pirate or anything else, never will. I also don't trust public networks because I don't want hackers trying to crack into my PC, however, locking everything down so every last red cent of a persons income goes to one or more ISP, software companies, IP consortia is bat s***.

I like Heraisu's idea. Criminals don't like to work in the light. Take the anonymity out of the equation, reveal who is doing the filesharing, and we'll just see how much pirating people are still willing to do when everyone can see that it's them.

I see a business opportunity in this: a central server that these hotspots use to authenticate users before granting access, and that also logs all traffic. To sign up, you have to swipe a ccard like you do to check in at the airport. No charge (or maybe there is) - just identity verification. Then, as you use your computer this site knows what you're doing and records it. If you steal someone's IP, it knows. If you browse kiddie porn, it knows. If you enable a student's web cam (well, you get the idea).

Several such companies could co-exist, getting paid by record companies to say who's downloading, and by police for other reasons. And because (a) this is on a public computer network which everyone knows is open for observation, and (b) the user would be asked to agree to this observation as a term of use with specific limitations (e.g. only to be used to identify law-breaking activities), it is done with the user's consent.

This could be taken a step further by separating the actual identities (e.g. name, etc.) from the identifying info (e.g. some ID number or CC number), so that users performing legal activities would not have their privacy compromised.

montezuma, I'm not saying that this clearinghouse would know what you do on your computer - which, as I firmly agree with you, no one has the right to know. Now if you send packets out on the internet (e.g. in the form of HTTP requests), those are already in the public space. You're kidding yourself if you think otherwise. So if the clearinghouse sees that (anonymized) user XYZ has been sending numerous packets to PirateBay, uploading and downloading GBs of data, using URLs that point to pirated material, then it is XYZ's fault for publicly breaking the law. Essentially, since the WiFi spots are not full-fledged ISPs, this facilitates the same IP logging that an ISP would do and nothing more. The clearinghouse would not know your true identity unless a court requested it from another independent party that held the knowledge that XYZ == Johnny Pirate.

What I don't want is for wifi hotspots to disappear because there's no way to host them without going to jail. So change the law so that facilitation of and cooperation with law enforcement provides immunity, and then give the hotspots a way to facilitate law enforcement. Of course separation of powers is essential. Require court orders before making the logs of an anonymous individual's activities available for review. Require a stronger court order to identify that anonymous individual. In the end, this doesn't look any worse than what ISPs do, as far as I can tell.

Government: "We're setting up new laws to fully punish pirates, and we've got new tools with which to catch them".

Pirate: "Good luck! I'm behind 7 proxies".

"this would send entirely the wrong signal and could lead to 'fake' organizations being set up, claiming an exemption and becoming a hub for copyright infringement."

Really? They want to stand behind that statement? That is admitting they are either to lazy or too incompetent to differentiate a legit organization from a front for illegal activities.

First off, im not for piracy, in my opinion it ruins creativity in the entertainment industry because the companies dont risk spending money on artists that may not sell. Piracy also forces companies to sell their products at higher prices so they can cover development and manufacturing costs, this in turn makes piracy over the net more attractive.

But i blame the entertainment industry itself for being the main cause of the piracy that happens over the net, they started by charging a far too high price for their products because they are greedy, this made piracy an attractive option. Then they saw what was happening and they started with their mafia tactics, this turned people against them and more pirates was recruited, and still they keep on with this. I used to speak up against piracy to my friends that download "pirated" files off the net, i no longer do that because of the behaviour of the entertainment industry, i goes as far as to not buy products from Universal music anymore.

/facepalm

Let's bite our nose to spite our face. Let the Dark Age begin again..

"But i blame the entertainment industry itself for being the main cause of the piracy that happens over the net, they started by charging a far too high price for their products because they are greedy, this made piracy an attractive option."

Drivel. No one is entitled to steal. Go ahead, rationalize away immoral and dishonest behavior any way you want. I'm sure the guy who steals from you will have some way to justify it, too.

Where we draw the line? This is what happens when economics or money are more important than freedom, everbody are hungry but the corporation´s apetatide never stops, we now gives more importance to the survival of companies than the man, so the rich get richer and poor that needs free wifi to survive gets ruin and ends more poor...you can never call civilization when the rights of their citizens are destroy for interest of a few companies.. so the monetary system in the end will collapse by itself because it was never meant to protect their people rights?, it was created instead to profit some rich guys? and therefore injustice becomes a reality for everyone but not for the rich people?

Husker +1. How is this an issue of freedom? You have no freedom to steal from others, that's not a right and never was a right. However the right to benefit from one's own work, the right to receive the rewards from one's production, now that's a right. And in case you didn't understand--people have a right to PROFIT from their work. If you don't want to pay, then don't, that's your right, but at no time can you ever take his work without his permission.

Are you hungry? Give me a break, pirates with their broadband access and customized computers are poor? This is such a stupid argument, the equipment needed to pirate just isn't available to the poor, rather if you have such equipment, you are no longer poor and thus the pirates are just rich, spoiled, thieves who want to take someone's livelihood from them and make the creators of content poor.

What the hell is wrong with you ? These mother fuckers who make content are not poor lol and make plenty of money they believe the right in making "Infinite profit " and bitch and whine when there profit are not infinitely expanding from rehashing the same crap. Some magical world where piracy doesn't exist will reduce prices on good . Bullshit there no piracy on the PS3 and the prices are the same . Amazing how many idiot corporate trolls will defend corporation in the moral good of humanity . If the Western world want to live in a Corporate North Korea Disney land with there Fantasy about individuality ,Corporate right and Free market freeing Human potential so be it .