Irma/ISPs: why we're about to sell ourselves out

The settlement between the Irish Recorded Music Assocation (Irma) and Eircom has gotten a lot of attention. But most of it has been about the disconnection of copyright abusers and the three-strikes approach.

A far more serious issue for civil liberties was confirmed in a legal letter sent out to all of the country's ISPs by Irma this week.

It states: "Eircom has agreed that it will not oppose any application our client may make seeking the blocking of access from their network to the Pirate Bay or similar websites".

In other words, Irma is drawing up a list of websites it doesn't like and Eircom will block them to all of its customers. And Irma is demanding that other ISPs do likewise, on pain of being sued.

Eircom says that it will only block a website if a court order requests it to. But it has undertaken not to oppose any application to a court, meaning the order is automatically granted. It's a technical way of getting out of taking responsibility for it.

"We're not offering to block Pirate Bay," a spokesman for Eircom told me on Tuesday. "But if Irma goes and gets a court order seeking the blocking go Pirate Bay, we will comply with the court order. And we have agreed not to oppose that application in court."

In other words, it's happy hunting time for the big music labels. Bear in mind that Eircom over two-thrids of the residential broadband market in Ireland. That's a lot of internet censorship.

And the other ISPs? BT, UPC, Vodafone, 3? They're taking counsel at the moment and conferring among themselves. They're not small enough to be easily bullied by the music industry. But they may also take the view that it's less hassle just to comply with the scheme Eircom has signed up to. This will especially be so if people do not kick up a stink. If the public appears not to care about this, as I think is likely to be the case, it will be more tempting to save money on the legal costs involved.

This is a very serious development for freedom of speech and internet access in this country, whether the public care or not.

In a nutshell, if this sails through, other industries will line up to have their own nemesis websites blocked. For example, the publishing industry has long since had it in for Google's Book Search project. It alleges massive copyright infringement. What's to stop Penguin, Harper Collins and the rest from demanding that Irish ISPs stop allowing access to that site? Even Wikipedia could come under threat.

If this continues, Ireland will have proven itself to be a soft touch for censorship.

The question is: will anybody care?

EDIT: On the above point relating to how Irma's application gets through the courts, Eircom has asked me to point out that Irma still needs some standard of proof to show the court. This is true, but Irma has a couple of legislative provisions (mostly section 40(4) of the Copyright Act) to argue in court. Our judicial system is an adversarial one: it depends on someone opposing the action for a judge to come to a conclusion. If the opposing party enters no opposition, a basic standard of proof will be enough to satisfy the court.

Comments

[GP]

They will care if they know about it. This needs to be made more publicly available

[dahamsta]

New Zealand is attempting something along the lines of the IrelandOffline Blackout a while back. (I was the person that organised that, for all the good it did.) I was going to suggest on my site and in a few other places that we join in with them, but my experience of trying to rally people is disheartening to say the least.

[dahamsta]

Sorry, links:

http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=new+zealand+blackout

[Yourtech]

Adam,

I suspect that fewer than a couple of hundred people care enough about this to do anything about it, depressingly. Ever thus with digital issues in Ireland.

[Yourtech]

GP,

The problem is: how do you interest that part of the population that is over 40 on this issue?

I'm sure that sounds facetious, but honestly, even in my own paper, when I argue why this is an important issue I can see eyes glazing over.

And eyes glaze over all around the country on this: to middle-aged people, who still run the country, this is about kids downloading music, nothing else.

It's a technical issue, as they see it. And it's nothing to do with them, as they still only visit five websites.

So it's hard to get out there.

[Cronan]

Just because Eircom won't oppose any court application - that doesn't mean that it can't be opposed. What is the best organisation to mobilise to oppose these applications?

[Yourtech]

Cronan,

I think you're right, but am not sure. Kieron Wood, our legal editor, would know.

But don't forget, you'd still need either lots of money or a couple of lawyers willing to work on a bona fide basis.

[Orlaith]

This development really does merit an organised public campaign to voice opposition. The first step is probably to set up a protest group on facebook and attract members. It could build from there..only problem this presents is I would then have to establish a profile on Facebook and I've managed to avoid that until now.

[Eamonn]

NTL already do this, block sites they don't like.

[Yourtech]

Eamonn,

Really? Which ones?

[Marie]

Dont' know about NTL specifically but ISPs have been known to indulge in traffic shaping, which is not legal and isn't officially acknowledged but this IRMA/Pirate Bay matter is serious and will set a precedent for large organizations controlling Irish ISPs and their customers.

If the Pirate Bay is not held to be illegal to access then I don't see what IRMA's basic standard of proof could be for blocking this and similar sites?

[Adrian]

Marie,

Just one point on The Pirate Bay's case -- whether or not it is found to be legal or illegal in Sweden is probably irrelevant here, I'd think. Irish law is very different.

Did you know that, technically, it is still illegal (ie against copyright law) to copy a song from a CD to a computer or an iPod in Ireland? We haven't changed that law, as far as I know.

[celebrity]

What an involvement and interest this blog has created !..Nice discussion

[Johnny Ryan]

Adrian,
You might be interested in this conversation - revolving around the Proposal recently launched by the Commission on filtering (most of the comments below are in English) http://ceciliamalmstrom.wordpress.com/2010/03/29/ett-slag-for-barnens-rattigheter/
Hope all is well with you,
Johnny

[Papaz Büyüsü]

What an involvement and interest this blog has created !..Nice discussion

[facebook community]

Hi There
Sounds like a plan to me
Really had great fun your blog. gracias