Broadband: 'Three strikes' law goes into effect in Ireland

RobitTV

....Irish ISP Eircom is rolling out its graduated response to online piracy this week, making Ireland the first country to implement a 'three strikes' policy for persistent infringers.

Eircom, the biggest ISP in the country with 750,000 broadband subscribers, will introduce the system initially through a pilot scheme. It is estimated that around 50 IP addresses will be processed a week to begin with.

Dtecnet has been appointed as the impartial third-party company tasked with identifying filesharers. The Irish Times reports that suspected filesharers will first receive a phone call. After a third offence, they will have their internet access cut off for one week. A fourth offence will see their access cut off for a year.

This comes after the High Court in Dublin ruled last month that an agreement between the Irish music industry and the country's ISPs to address online piracy did not violate data protection laws.

Mr Justice Peter Charleton said at the time, “Copyright is a universal entitlement to be identified with and to sell, and therefore to enjoy, the fruits of creative work. It applies to everyone who manages to produce anything copyrightable from a song, to a telephone directory, to a symphony, to a film. Were copyright not to exist, then the efforts of an artist could be both stolen and passed off as the talent of another.”

.. The new Conservative/Lib Dem coalition government has stated that it will not repeal the Digital Economy Act in the UK.

Ciaran500

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055919543

byte

Eircom have 750,000 broadband subscribers? I don't believe that for a second.

jor el

It's not a law, and it's already got enough threads.