[AusNOG] "ISPs agree to graduated warnings for pirates"

Mon Feb 23 10:56:07 EST 2015

My 2 page response has been sent to the Comms Alliance. I find abhorrent the
whole premise that ISPs have a role to play in copyright enforcement prior
to the issuing of court orders!

Willing to share and hope to swap responses off list.

Summary of response: Totally against the scheme.

Rod

From: AusNOG [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Rod Veith
Sent: Monday, 23 February 2015 8:50 AM
To: 'Paul Brooks'; ausnog at lists.ausnog.net
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] "ISPs agree to graduated warnings for pirates"

Thank you for the links.

We are preparing our reply and will send it to the alliance.

Our ISP business has not been approached about this scheme either before or
after this draft was produced by the Communications Alliance.

Rod 

From: AusNOG [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Paul
Brooks
Sent: Monday, 23 February 2015 8:14 AM
To: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] "ISPs agree to graduated warnings for pirates"

Noel - assume there isn't anyone from CommsAlliance here to address the
concerns - reps from the comms industry on this working group were Baker and
McKenzie, Telstra, Optus, M2, iiNet, IPStar, Verizon and VHA.
Many of these concerns were probably raised during the working committee
meetings that brought this about - but many of them would have been howled
down by the content industry.
The group that put this together had a deadline to put out a draft code that
both sides could at least live with - if they don't meet the deadline with a
draft that the service providers AND the content industry can live with,
then the Government was going to 'create' one themselves and impose it
whether you liked it or not - and most people figured that would be worse.
They still might.

I agree, these are all really good comments. Now everyone needs to get them
in to Comms Alliance before the end of the public coment period. Commenting
in here is like a discussion at the urinal in the pub - satisfying, but
doesn't get the vibe in to the people that are making the decisions.

This thing is now in a legislated process, in accordance with the Telco Act:
* 1 month public comment period to Comms Alliance
* Comms Alliance committee consider all the public comments and make changes
as determined by the working committee
* if the changes agreed by the committee are big enough there might need to
be another public comment period - or they might just reach out to people
the comment to run them through the changes
* Comms Alliance presents the draft code to ACMA
* ACMA open up a 2 month (might be 1 month) public comment period
* ACMA consider comments and suggestions made to ACMA
* ACMA make it a mandatory code applicable to every carriage service
provider

Even if its 'I don't agree with this, and I'm not a member of Comms
Alliance, and Comms Alliance shouldn't be claiming to represent the industry
when it only represents its members and didn't ask AusNOG', write your
comment in to Comms Alliance.
Even better, suggest specific changes to words and processes. These are
required to be addressed by the committee, to a level that a comment like
'this is screwed up I don't agree' won't be.

So please please please - everyone,  on behalf of your service provider of
employment, or as an interested individual, follow the public comment
instructions at http://www.commsalliance.com.au/Documents/public-comment and
let the Committee know what changes you would like to see in and out of this
draft code:

Want to submit a comment on a draft document?

You can use the Submit Comments form
<http://www.commsalliance.com.au/Documents/public-comment/submit-comments>
to submit your comments via email or go to the Contact Us
<http://www.commsalliance.com.au/contact_us>  webpage to obtain other
contact methods such as by post or fax.

All submissions received will be made publically available on the
Communications Alliance website unless the submitter requests otherwise.

Copyright Notice Scheme Industry Code

DR C653:2015 (709 KB)
<http://www.commsalliance.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/47570/DR-C653-2
015.pdf> 

The Copyright Notice Scheme Industry Code creates a Copyright Notice Scheme
through which residential fixed internet users who are alleged to have
infringed copyright online will receive an escalating series of infringement
notices designed to change their behaviour and steer them toward lawful
sources of content. The Scheme has a strong emphasis on public education and
does not contain explicit sanctions against internet users, but does provide
for a 'facilitated preliminary discovery' process through which ISPs can
assist Rights Holders who may decide to take legal action against persistent
infringers.

Information on the Working Committee which revised the Code, including the
Terms of Reference can be found here.
<http://www.commsalliance.com.au/Activities/committees-and-groups/wc66> 

PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD CLOSES AT 5.00 P.M. ON (AEDT
<http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/our-country/time> ) 23 March 2015.

Please note that all submissions received will be made publically available
on the Communications Alliance website unless the submitter requests
otherwise.

  _____  

Even if you just cut'n'paste the comments made in here in the past day.

All comments are required to be considered by the committee, and the more
people that provide comments, the more they know the level of feeling behind
it.

Paul.

On 22/02/2015 2:20 PM, Noel Butler wrote:

Absolutely agree, their intention might be well meaning, but there is too
many holes in it, perhaps someone from comms alliance here would like to
address these concerns?

On 22/02/2015 12:37, Damien Gardner Jnr wrote:

It did seem a little one-sided there.  It's all well and fine to say the
process on the Rights Holder side must be certified, but there was no
documented recourse if it should be found that the Rights Holder was telling
furfies.  For example, AFAIAC, should the Rights Holder be found to be
making false allegations, the ISP should have the right to blacklist them
and never deal with them again. 

Seems like the Account Holder needs some recourse BEFORE the Final Notice,
also.  For example, if the Account Holder is a household with 4 teenagers,
AND lots of visiting friends, well, they have no way to tell who may have
done it, so there needs to be a way to come back to the ISP and say 'Sorry,
this was NOT me, nor was it someone I can identify, so please cancel this
notice'.

I don't like the requirement for the ISP to send out the Final Notices via
registered post, without there being some way to recoup that cost.
Automated emails are all well and fine.  But once you have to have someone
print, fold, and stuff a letter, walk to the post office, get a tracking
number, and then come back and enter that number into a system, that notice
just cost you $30 to send.  And then later when someone needs to audit that
process because there was a failure in the system (The accounts junior that
walked to the post office mixed up two of the tracking numbers), that notice
then just cost you another $200+ in developer time.

Seems to be putting a LOT of cost and administrative overhead on the ISP's,
for NO benefit to ISP's or the community.  All the benefit is on the Rights
Holders.  Perhaps a $10-20 per processed infringement notice incoming from
the Rights Holders would be a good cost offset for the effort involved?

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