what the DEA could mean to LAs and schools

[WorkingMum]

dear all

has anyone been following the progress of the DEA (Digital Economy Act)?

does anyone else have views on how schools, LAs maybe even RBCs will be able to comply with all the obligations of the Act ? in these recent times of ever shrinking ICT budgets how are we going to protect schools and pupils and not be possibly faced with these huge costs to impement and then possibly fuerther costs if the Act is infringed?

The OFCOM consultation is open until July 30th so please everyone add your concerns to the consult

[WorkingMum]

I cant belive no-one has an opinion on this. do you all realise that if it goes ahead as it stands schools can have theur Internet Access removed if there are 3 (as it stands now) infringements of copyright? basically schools will be classed as ISPs and not only run the risk of loosing Net access, 3 strikes and you're out rule !!! so if any 3 members of staff/kids unwittingly breached this ACT prosecution will start. So schools etc will have to shell out money, they havent got, to make sure they can comply with all the ISP obligations in this Act and cover costs of all appeals , providing dat when requested, advising your users etc etc etc etc.

the Act is being baked by the film and music indusrty but basically if you have published anything to the Net you own the copyright and can sue anyone who uses it for any purpose !!!!

the RBCs can also be classed as ISps so can LAs etc etc. we only have 6 days left to get this Act ammended so that the ISO definition remains just witht he TELCOs. go read the full Act please maybe then some-one may have an opinion [/i]

[pete]

You posted this midday on a Friday during the first days of the Summer Hols. Lots of techs are term-time only. Those of us that are full-time are up to our necks in projects we've been planning for the last few months. Edugeek always slows down during the Summer Hols.

 

Or TLDR: Don't complain no-one's responded to your thread if it's been less than 24hrs, posted on a Friday afternoon during the holiday.

[russdev]

First I am no lawyer and also I am not making any comment if the act and if the act is right or not..

 

Technically schools will not be classed as an ISP the people providing service aka in state schools often that the RBC will be classed as the ISP. Issue to school comes down to people downloading copyright material and then your connection being dropped. At a school level this will be stopped by using effective filtering either within school or at the RBC level.

 

Yes it has some implications..

 

Russ

[WorkingMum]

sorry but you are being very naive here. there was a meeting 2 weeks ago attended by lawyers, RBC reps etc and jury still out on who will be classed as the ISP. it was stated at this meet that RBCs, LAs and schools will not be exempt and may be classed as ISPs. also the 400,000 user setting may be altered and the fine is £250,000.00 wake up all of you fast and submit your views .yes I know this is our busiest time of year when the kids etc have all gone ... but if this act goes through as it stands we are all in danger. well tried to warn you but /////

[WorkingMum]

yes interesting isn't it that the consultation finishes on July 30th and this Consult and implications of the Act seems to have gone under the radar so we all haven't picked it up?

[Guest Guest]

At a school level this will be stopped by using effective filtering either within school or at the RBC level.

 

We havn't used our RBC provided proxy for a while now but when we last did it certainly wasn't "effective". So the question of what happens when (not if) a kid or member of staff downloads copyrighted material still stands? Is it up to us in IT to report this knowing that both they and potentially the school may end up on the recieving end of the act?

 

It will be interesting to find out if the act takes into account that no filtering system can ever be foolproof.

Edited July 24, 2010 by Guest

[PeteM]

sorry but you are being very naive here. there was a meeting 2 weeks ago attended by lawyers, RBC reps etc and jury still out on who will be classed as the ISP. it was stated at this meet that RBCs, LAs and schools will not be exempt and may be classed as ISPs. also the 400,000 user setting may be altered and the fine is £250,000.00 wake up all of you fast and submit your views .yes I know this is our busiest time of year when the kids etc have all gone ... but if this act goes through as it stands we are all in danger. well tried to warn you but /////

 

You have said yourself ' the jury is still out on who will be classed as the ISP'. 'Schools.....may be classed as ISPs' Until these facts are established I don't think there is any point in guessing what the outcome may be. Naive? No, Waiting to see the cold hard facts, Yes.

[GrumbleDook]

sorry but you are being very naive here. there was a meeting 2 weeks ago attended by lawyers, RBC reps etc and jury still out on who will be classed as the ISP. it was stated at this meet that RBCs, LAs and schools will not be exempt and may be classed as ISPs. also the 400,000 user setting may be altered and the fine is £250,000.00 wake up all of you fast and submit your views .yes I know this is our busiest time of year when the kids etc have all gone ... but if this act goes through as it stands we are all in danger. well tried to warn you but /////

 

Ok, that was just a tad disingenuous of you to drop something in and then also state that you know / were present at a meeting, that statements where made *AND NOT WHO MADE THEM* to say that RBCs, LAs and Schools may be held liable.

 

Why not take a step back ... start at the beginning even ... talk about the meeting, who was there, who chaired it, salient points raised and how it is being challenged, legally or through lobbying. A coherent discussion will bring out more salient points than

wake up all of you fast and submit your views

...

[Rydra]

Like all good STUPID ideas thought up by governments, they will either have to turn a blind eye to schools etc, or fix the act after it is passed.

 

The problem with this, is working out HOW a person has brought in copyrighted material onto the site. Because I can bet most schools who will have all the major sites/programs/protocol's like torrents, limewire etc locked down. And are the ISP's really going to sift through the 12+ hours of network usage for 400-2,000 users of a single school, spread across what has got to be half a million schools per day?

 

The Act if it is going to be this is unenforceable unless they plan on comandeering a major city and employing everyone in it to sift through all your ISP logs.

 

It'll be just like pirated/unlicensed use of MS licensing. If $user at home gets a dodgy copy, MS don't care. If $school is 2 licenses over their limit of XP licences, they don't care all that much, and certainly don't check very often. $business that runs their entire company including 5 servers 100 machines all running windows, office, sharepoint and exchange all pirated, well cha-ching for MS.

 

It's only enforceable and traceable on the very worst of offenders. $student using real player to rip a copy of that music video and post it on their myspace, they just don't give a damn.

 

If they enforced this act next week, They'd put half the ISP's in the country out of business before xmas because I can guarantee, EVERYONE has got, used, watched or acquired in some way shape or form some sort of breach of copyright over their internet connection at some time, and WILL do so again.

 

It's about time governments woke up and realised what the film and music industry are. While we are 500 billion in debt, the film and music companies are making billions in profit every year, AND THEN forcing governments to waste more time effort and money, so they can FORCE US to pay more back to the film and music industry.

[WorkingMum]

great someone who sees the big picture. you can make a difference post your vies on the Consultation asap. Edugeek is a big player in the Industry and we need people to register their concerns before this Act is passed

[WorkingMum]

most of the RBCs were there and I attended a meeting with our local RBC last week with other colleagues where the facts impications etc from that meeting were clearly laid out

 

i have asked them to post their comments on this forum in reply to your questions

 

but if we dont act now and make the practicalities of this Act re schools operation clear then things will be dire

[WorkingMum]

if you dont want schools to be classed as ISPs then i suggest you take part in the consultation fast before you end up with having to adhere to the Act and it's full implications and obligations on school which will be costly. this is not the time to play the wait and see game, it needs clarifying now before it is passed in it's presnt form

[PeteM]

great someone who sees the big picture. you can make a difference post your vies on the Consultation asap. Edugeek is a big player in the Industry and we need people to register their concerns before this Act is passed

 

The Digital Economy Act 2010 (c. 24) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom regulating digital media. It received Royal Assent on 8 April 2010, and came into force on 8 June 2010 (with the exception of certain sections that came into force on 8 April; and certain other sections that will be brought into force by statutory instrument).[1] From Wikipedia

 

According to Wikipedia this Law is now in force - If Wikipedia is correct, my question would be, what can we do?

[figgy]

Hi All

 

The Digital Economy Bill became the Digital Economy Act on April 8th, as part of the Act ISP's are required to fulfill certain obligations, the obligations are onerous and potentially hugely costly as they are all about putting in place the measures required to identify an infringer of copyright. As so correctly pointed out by Rydra that task is huge and at the end of the day is unlikely to result in any meaningful kind of prosecution, however, these are legal obligations and whether they produce the result the music/film industry is looking for or not is almost a side issue. The issue you need to think about now is the cost of meeting the obligations whilst you're budgets are being squeezed harder than ever before! The ofcom consultation that is open now, and it's not too late to respond, is about the obligations. It is vitally important that you don't let the obligations go through as they are because they'll cost you a fortune to implement and if you don't implement them you'll be liable for a fine of £250k should you (LA, school, public intermediary of any kind providing access to the internet) be classed as an ISP, which is looking highly likely.

[teejay]

This may be useful for some clarification Practical suggestions to remain compliant with the Digital Economy Act : JISC

[sparkeh]

should you (LA, school, public intermediary of any kind providing access to the internet) be classed as an ISP, which is looking highly likely.

 

Source for your "highly likely" statement?

[teejay]

This is from the page I linked to above, looks like a valid point has been raised by the op:

 

The closing date is 30 July 2010. Public sector bodies are strongly urged to respond to this consultation, and where possible outline the following ramifications for their organisations as a result of the Act:

 

The ambiguity of the wording in the Act whereby public sector bodies may, by virtue of their activities, be defined as both ISPs and subscribers

The implications and impact for them in providing online and/or wifi access to students and/or visitors as a result of their potential definition as ISPs under the Act, as well as the effect on them in being classed as subscribers

The costs that they are likely to incur in ensuring that they have the necessary technological infrastructure in place to comply with any obligations associated with their definitions of ISPs under the Digital Economy Act

The impact on their organisations of being responsible for 25% of costs associated with allegations copyright infringements in their role as ISPs

[sparkeh]

Of course this could be a cause for concern, but we really need sourced facts about this. Saying this is 'highly likely' without any evidence could cause unnecessary concern.

[Rydra]

I was going to post something about how badly this will work, or wont as I strongly believe. It is so bad, I won't even waste my time on it. There was enough pressure before the bill was pushed not to do it, so i don't see how whining about it afterwards will help.

 

Simply put, I'll just wait for when Sony Music insists we shut down e2bn because they found 3 mp3's on some school's PC. And then wait for them to turn off the internet to 10 million people across the country, and watch Virgin/BT and the others sue them for damages.

 

Next they are going to stipulate that all IT techies must wear a Pineapple on our left shoulder at all times. It makes about as much sense, and probably just as easy/hard to enforce.

[figgy]

Completely agree with all the points being made. Firstly, I should say that the link posted by teejay is to all the original presentations and papers from a meeting organised by the Strategic Content Alliance (JISC) and the British Library on June 29th. The aim of the meeting which was attended by representatives of public intermediary organisations, Museums, Libraries, Cultural and Heritage organisatios, Universities, LA's, RBC's, Schools, lawyers, BT and others, was to mobilise the public intermediaries to respond to the OFCOM consultation on the obligations.

 

It's too late to do anything about the Act itself but what we can do is argue for some type of exclusion for public itermediaries from the obligations which will be costly to implement and highly unlikely to produce a result for the copyright owners. By responding to the consultation there is a hope that we could stop people like yourselves being told to spend thousands, tens of thousands, pssibly hundreds of thousands of pounds on systems that will prove useless in achieving their objectives.

 

Unless we respond and make it clear how inappropriate the obligations are to the internet service provision chain that covers LA's/schools we will get lumped in with everyone else and it will cost you either in order to conform or as a fine for non-conformance!

[sparkeh]

Janet's response to DEA.