UK ISP TalkTalk will not obey Digital Economy Bill disconnection orders

Now that the Digital Economy Bill has passed -- without full debate, despite widespread public outrage -- the stage is set for big corporate copyright holders to begin sending ISPs ordering them to disconnect customers who are believed to infringe copyright. ISPs are expected to cave and shut off entire families from their lifeline to the digital society on the say-so of these entertainment industry bullies.

But one ISP, TalkTalk, is refusing to go along with the la. They say that "if we are instructed to disconnect an account due to alleged copyright infringement we will refuse to do so and tell the rightsholders we'll see them in court."

After the election we will resume highlighting the substantial dangers inherent in the proposals and that the hoped for benefits in legitimate sales will not materialise as filesharers will simply switch to other undetectable methods to get content for free.
In the meantime we stand by our pledges to our customers:
* Unless we are served with a court order we will never surrender a customer's details to rightsholders. We are the only major ISP to have taken this stance and we will maintain it.
* If we are instructed to disconnect an account due to alleged copyright infringement we will refuse to do so and tell the rightsholders we'll see them in court.

Bravo TalkTalk. Many ISPs signed open letters to government objecting to the Digital Economy Bill's disconnection and web-censorship proposals. I wonder if they'll join TalkTalk in making this pledge.

Digital Economy Bill - it's a wash up (Thanks, JohnCJ!)

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iConfused

I’d definitely go for that ISP if I was in the UK.
- Anonymous
  
  They still have a terrible FUP and use traffic shaping, so they’re hardly any better than the rest really.
  
  I’d rather stick with BE and use something like iPredator
shadowfirebird

Prompted by an article in The Register, I’ve just double-checked, and this is basically a promotional gimmick.

They’re only promising to stonewall up until the election. The act doesn’t come into force yet.

Admittedly, they are still promising to campaign against it, which is good.

That Reg article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/09/talktalk_org_mandybill_fail/
hbl

I’ve said this before, but I don’t download music or movies, so I fall in that catagory of people that rightsholders like to say “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about”.

However, I vehemently hate that argument. Just because I have nothing to hide does not give you the right to go through my shit. Your business model should not require me to compromise my privacy. So thanks for bribing my politicians and screwing up my democracy.

The day the #debill becomes law is the day I stop going to the cinema and paying for MP3s. I won’t pirate stuff instead, cos I don’t need to be entertained by your crappy media. I can play guitar, I’ll write my own songs. I have a camera, I’ll make my own films. Perhaps without all your bullshit distractions, I’ll be more creative and more productive, and I’ll replace you with something wholly more interesting.
- shadowfirebird
  
  You can also pay for Indy artists who use the internet instead of a music company, of course.
  
  Assuming that they’ve not been disconnected.
  - hbl
    
    Exactly! Governments shouldn’t be rewarding outmoded (and foreign) corporations for failing to evolve. Indy bands who promote everything from the floor up are far more deserving of my time, respect and money than the Big 4 shills.
    
    I watched the 90 min doc about One Eyed Doll last week and I was fascinated. Now there’s a band that’s just grinding it out without any label support. Mesmerising!
    - shadowfirebird
      
      One Eyed Doll? Noted, ta.
      
      Actually, that’s a thought. Is there an online resource listing artists that do an end-run around music companies?
      
      Sometimes it’s difficult to tell, too. I see an artist online — Will Tang, to pluck a name out of my head at psuedorandom — and I wonder how much of the download cost is going to a music company.
- Anonymous
  
  Here’s the bones of it for me -
  
  I might object a little if you rifle through my stuff if you think I am dangerous. I *totally* object if it’s about a two-bit pop song.
  
  The real danger is that this BS of bending over for crappy music/entertainment businesses devalues any hardcore enforcement by the law.
Anonymous

I’ll see your british ISP and raise you my current storage provider:

http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt

One of the happier interactions I have had with a corp in the last few years…
Anonymous

Talk talk have the absolute worst customer service I have ever experienced in this country (and that’s saying a lot as customer service is appalling in England).
Anonymous

Wow you mean a company wants to keep getting paid, and keep customers? Wow, never woulda thunkit.
/sarcasm

The interests of Hollywood lawyers are at odds with the interests of all ISPs. Under these circumstances, I don’t see why any ISP would comply.
mrutter

Its a shame that talk talk generally isn’t a great isp, but bravo nonetheless. I hope other ISPs join talk talk in their pledge.
Anonymous

The fact that ISPs don’t get any disconnection requests, and if they did, they would (rightly) throw them in the bin along with other junk mail, isn’t mentioned. Such a request would currently have the legal validity of a request to paint your house pink, scribbled on a fag packet and thrown from a passing car.
Heaney’s pledge is only good until “after the Election”.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/09/talktalk_org_mandybill_fail/
fsck

Come ON Cory, this is bullshit top to bottom, and you took a big forkful. Let’s examine:

“After the election we will resume highlighting the substantial dangers inherent in the proposals and that the hoped for benefits in legitimate sales will not materialise as filesharers will simply switch to other undetectable methods to get content for free. In the meantime we stand by our pledges to our customers:”

NOTE: “In the meantime”. This means “until the election on May 6th.” . In 4 weeks. So in the next four weeks…

“Unless we are served with a court order we will never surrender a customer’s details to rightsholders. We are the only major ISP to have taken this stance and we will maintain it.”

NOTE: Fine, and this holds for many ISPs but means nothing because a) you already do this and b) you’re only “maintaining” it until May 6th

“If we are instructed to disconnect an account due to alleged copyright infringement we will refuse to do so and tell the rightsholders we’ll see them in court.”

NOTE: Yes, but ONLY UNTIL “after the election”.! Four weeks away!

And given you’ll only get such requests “before the election” from deranged space maniacs, this means precisely fuck all. Less than fuck all in fact, because it’s a weasel-worded paranoia-based market share grab.

Cory, don’t believe the hype dude.
Anonymous

There is no provision for disconnection in the bill yet. They will not have that power (if at all) until after Ofcoms study into what measures are possible and appropriate. Ofcom will also be defining the detail of how these measures can be used.

TalkTalks proclamation today is misrepresentation and just marketing for their own services. I hope if it comes to it that they do stand by their word. I would love to see this go to court.
jeffbell

Can falsely accusing someone of violating the copyright be considered libel-per-se?
- A Nonny Moose
  
  Possibly, but that neatly shifts the burden of proof to the accused.
  
  Disclosure: I am almost entirely ignorant of British libel/slander law.
3lbFlax

I’d love to move to TalkTalk in light of this. Sadly I tried to a few months ago – three times I went back to my current provider to get a MAC address, which I immediately gave to TalkTalk. Then I’d hear nothing until I got a message from my current provider saying the MAC had expired, Michael Finnegan begin again. Once my partner rang them with a fresh MAC and was told we didn’t need a MAC at all. She was then told that the account was set up. Obviously it wasn’t, and after that we decided that we had zero confidence in them and gave up.

I’m sure people would have tales of similar experiences with the provider we stuck with, but every time I see the words (word?) TalkTalk nowadays, I have to suppress a shudder. The real kicker is that our original/current IP is a subsidiary of TalkTalk. So hopefully we’ll get the same policy anyway. Though whether this headline-friendly pledge will be adhered to when push comes to shove, I’m not so sure.
Anonymous

I’m not often proud to work for TalkTalk, but this has cheered me up a bit.
ukcannonfodder

@ 1

there is a clause inside this law that protects the media industry from prosecution for vexatious claims, also the “independent” tribunal we must go to, to fight these claims is bank rolled by the media industry, as our right to a day in court has been trampled on and destroyed. we are also liable for all our expensive legal costs and cannot get any help from legal aid.

this bill was designed to bypass our legal democratic right, also we are now guilty until proven innocent.
a_user

it’s passed in the commons but it has to go through the upper house as well. It’s not law yet.
- Anonymous
  
  It started in the House of Lords. It was granted Royal Assent during the great big royal assent ceremony that they had today.
  La Reyne le veult.
scorzonera

This makes me so glad we switched to TalkTalk from British Telecom a couple of months ago. Switching ISP is always a bit of a grit-your-teeth-and-cross-your-fingers time, but it went through without a hitch. BT had us down as “very heavy users” which we attributed to daily use of BBC iPlayer and my frequent downloads from the avantgardeproject.org archive – but what the hell’s the web for? And how do ISPs (in the UK at least) get away with advertising “unlimited usage” when it’s simply a lie?
johnphantom

Well well. If I lived in the UK and had access to TalkTalk, I would certainly give them my business.

/I deal with TimeWarner for now – great DL speeds (up to 1MBs) but crappy upload speeds (lucky to see 40KBs)
- arkizzle / Moderator
  
  I wouldn’t.
  
  But I am hoping for Be* to make a similar announcement..
  
  *please please please*
  - Mattz
    
    Seconded. Be* have been a bloody great ISP for 3 years to us now. That said, if it meant living in a world where innocent before proven guilty existed, I’d make the switch.
Symbiote

I switched to TalkTalk about a year ago, purely to stop paying BT for the phone line (although I’m sure TalkTalk have to pay BT). Service has been fine (it just works), and this is an excellent bonus.

I expect some of the ISPs that are also media providers (e.g. Virgin, as they do cable TV too) won’t be so quick to make a similar announcement.
Terry

Okay. I have to speak up here. I dare anyone to make sense of this sentence:

“the stage is set for big corporate copyright holders to begin sending ISPs ordering them to disconnect customers who are believed to infringe copyright.”

While we’re at it, let’s look at: “lifeline to the digital society”

Lifeline? really?
- jackie31337
  
  Actually, Finland has officially defined access to broadband as a right.
- robulus
  
  Hi again Terry, robulus here, you may remember me from previous discussions centring around the role of technology in our lives. Honestly, I’m not stalking you.
  
  However.
  
  1. I think the sentence is missing the words “disconnection demand” or similar, after the word “ISPs”. I was able to gather the gist of it none the less.
  
  2. I run a web development business from home with my wife, which is our sole source of income for a family of four. Lifeline? Absofuckingloutly.
Anonymous

This is brilliant business move of TalkTalk and you could say it makes the entire Bill useless, as everyone can just move to TalkTalk and get their internet back. The other companies won’t be so keen either to give away their customers to the competition.
Scott Bieser

F. — I. W.
- shadowfirebird
  
  See, this is why I like BoingBoing. There aren’t many places would you be able to post that without explanation.
  
  ….Everyone else did understand that, right? ;)