It seems I’ve got some reason to start training my eyes over across the pond as our English brethren seem to be having some fairly sizable censorship difficulties.

In fact, it’s starting to resemble comic book / Wachowski brothers epic V For Vendetta over there, and some of the similarities are getting so creepy I’m starting to wonder when the US gets whatever disaster it had coming to it in the series (I could never tell) because it definitely looks like The Ear is getting put into place when stuff like this happens:

A British-based anti-piracy group is seeking tougher copyright legislation that would require Internet service providers to turn over the names of suspected pirates to movie studios without requiring a court order. In a statement, John Lovelock, head of the semi-official Federation Against Software Theft (FAST), appeared to acknowledge that his group regarded such legislation as ideal but possibly beyond attainment. Under it he said, “personal data relating to a given IP address may be given to the rights holder on request, without a court order being needed, which is arguably gold plating.” Lovelock appeared to suggest that an accommodation between copyright owners and ISPs, under which the ISPs would turn over information about suspected pirates upon request, is unlikely. “A voluntary approach would be the easiest solution but experience has shown that such an approach may well not work, as it is dependent on a full consensus [among all ISPs] being achieved,” he said, noting some ISPs would be unwilling to alienate their customers.

Noooo!  You REALLY think that some ISPs wouldn’t cheerfully hand over data implicating their customers to the government, who might well wind up getting either arrested or heavily fined and thus in turn cancelling their service?  Man, FAST must be populated totally with loons and goobers to think that ISPs would so happily shoot themselves in the foot to protect other people’s property.

I further love the “turn over information on suspected pirates on request” part, meaning approximately the same thing as “anyone, any time, for any reason, including none”.  The potential for abuse in such a system is mindboggling.  After all, ANYONE could be a “suspected” pirate, never mind if they actually are or not.   What good would the information do, anyway?  All it would manage to find is people who do their piracy via the internet–certainly not those who are out swapping actual disks.

It’s good to see that even FAST realizes that this particular dog won’t hunt, especially in an environment like England, where all that would be necessary to evade the country’s laws is to simply hop in the Chunnel and wind up in France.  To suggest that ISPs would be willing to just hand over information on their customers on request from some “semi-official” organization like FAST is patently insane.

But a word to my American brethren on this one–leave us not get too complacent, lest someone try to pull this hogwash here.

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