July 2008 - Posts
Six of the UK's largest Internet Service Providers (ISPs), BT, Virgin, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse, have agreed to join with the Music industry to try and tackle the growing issue of online piracy. The proposal from the government will begin with letters being sent to users suspected of using peer to peer file sharing programmes to illegally share music etc. The warning letters will be sent to thousands of homes across the UK where illegal downloading has been detected, alerting them to the fact they are being monitored. It may be the first time that parents or families know that they or their children are breaking the law. Hard-core users could be subject to measures such as slower connections, traffic management, filtering or marking legitimate content downloaded to identify them.
The ISPs have signed a Memorandum of Understanding drawn up by the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR). It covers consumers who both upload and download music. Previously the BPI has called for a "three-strikes" system which would remove internet connections for persistent pirates if three warnings went ignored. However, many ISP providers have resisted this and have said it is not their job to act as the law. Currently in France, users are disconnected for a year after a third offence. The Government has asked Ofcom to lead negotiations between ISPs and the film/music industries on how to sanction persistent and blatant offenders, if there is no agreement, legislation will be introduced.
Illegal downloaders can be detected by an enforcement team set up by the BPI, the music trade body. Its monitors log on to websites where music is shared, such as LimeWire, Bearshare and BitTorrent, and note the IP addresses users. This identifies a unique internet connection, but not the subscriber's name and address. This information is then passed on to the relevant internet provider, which links the information to an address and sends a warning letter. The BPI and copyright holders are not given culprits' names, which means that relatively small offenders will not immediately face the risk of civil penalties.
Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI said: "All of the major ISPs in the UK now recognise they have a responsibility to deal with illegal file-sharers on their networks. The focus is on people sharing files illegally; there is not an acceptable level of file-sharing. Musicians need to be paid like everyone else. File-sharing (of copyright tracks without permission) is not anonymous, it is not secret, it is against the law."
About 6.5 million Britons are thought to have downloaded music illegally last year. It has been estimated that illegal downloads will cost the music industry alone £1 billion over the next five years. Breach of copyright, by copying music or film via the internet, is a civil offence. All the cases so far in the UK have been settled before court, with people paying an average of £2,000 to reach agreement. An survey of music ownership showed that MP3 players owned by teenagers and students contained on average 842 illegally copied songs.
Merlin John has recently written a article, published on the FutureLabs website considering how Primary Schools can use the internet as teaching tool whilst taking into account e-Safety considerations.
Merlin states how Primary Schools across the UK are "starting to try out secure, media-rich services that allow children to do everything that older students and adults are doing on sites like Flickr, YouTube and Facebook but without the concomitant risks"
The article contains case-studies from Primary schools using Web 2.0 technology such as Blogs, Social Networking etc to enhance learning in the classroom.
Are Primary schools in Kent following suit? We welcome any ideas and suggestions for sites you use in your classroom which you might consider to be a "Junior Safety Zone".
CEOP have managed to secure a conviction for the first person in UK to be arrested for money-laundering the proceeds of commercial distribution of child abuse images.
Andrian Benzin, a 29 year old Moldovan national who was living in London was arrested by CEOP officers on the 25th July 2006. Benzin was providing access to child abuse images on a ‘pay-per-view’ website which had 447 subscribers from 29 different countries, including 22 people from the UK (which included a scoutmaster, a teacher and two registered sex offenders). Users were able to send a monthly subscription charge of $89 per month into Benzin’s account, which enttitled them to unlimited access to 633 still and moving images of children suffering sex abuse.These sites originated in Russia and are now either blocked by the Internet Watch Foundation or have been removed.
Benzin is the first person to be convicted of laundering proceeds of the commercial distribution of child abuse images in the UK and has been sentenced to four years imprisonment. Benzin was convicted in his absence and will now be the subject of an international arrest warrant and ensuing extradition processes. Following his arrest, an order was issued against his various accounts and approximately £53,000 has now been frozen subject to a confistication hearing.
Jim Warnock, Head of Operations at CEOP said:
"Benzin’s conviction sends out a strong message to those seeking to profit from exploiting children. He enabled hundreds of people to view images of children with no regard for the horrific abuse which they suffered, seeking only to line his own pockets.This was a complex investigation by the Financial Investigation Team and colleagues from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) who worked with law enforcement partners through the Virtual Global Taskforce and countries throughout the world to bring Benzin to account.The CEOP Centre is grateful to the IWF, the Metropolitan Police Service and the banking industry for their support and assistance in this investigation"
Benzin is described as 5ft 8 inches tall with short, dark hair and a slim build. Any information on his whereabouts should be reported to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Read the full report from CEOP here