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iTech Mediawatch

Legal Blackmail

More on the world of copyright infringement and threats to consumers. On January 26th 2010 Hansard records show a lively debate in the House of Lords concerning the Digital Economy Bill amendments. One of the hot issues in that was the bullying methods of copyright holders vis-à-vis internet consumers. Here is what Lord Lucas had to say about the practice of sending threatening letters to consumers asking them to cough up a payment in lieu of facing exorbitant charges in court defending themselves:

I had a very helpful letter this morning from ACS:Law Solicitors which, combined with what the Ministers were saying on the last occasion we discussed this, leads me to a greater understanding of their reluctance to deal with the practices that ACS:Law Solicitors is pursuing. They expect these practices to become standard. They expect this to be the way that our citizens will be treated. If people fall foul of this Bill, they will have a couple of warning letters, but after that they will get a typical ACS:Law Solicitors standard letter saying, “Pay us £500 or we will take you to court”. If they do not pay the £500, they will end up in court, there will be technical evidence against them, and they will have no ability to provide a technical defence. That is the difficulty that people faced with ACS:Law Solicitors have at the moment. There is this inequality of arms. They are in a civil court, with a 50:50 balance-of-probability judgment, and must contemplate risking thousands of pounds in mounting a defence when it is not easy to do that.

The problem in the UK was, for a long time that law firms like ACS:Law would offer their services to rightsholders who believed that they were victims of internet piracy and then would proceed to send letters to persons identified by their IP in which they threatened to take them to court unless they paid a sum of money up front.

You can read more about the “legal blackmail” here in Ars Tecnica. The constant pressure in Malta on dreambox owners is not far from this kind of reality. In this case private companies are building up the pressure on law enforcers to turn practically one third of the tv viewing public into instant criminals. They hope to get most of the satellite viewers to desist from their “illegal activity” by creating an atmosphere of worry and terror.  We look forward to see how far up the path they are willing to go.

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Mediawatch

The Times, the Dreambox and the Partitioning of a Market

Yesterday’s Times of Malta once again gave priority to a news item related to the Dreambox and satellite TV usage. According to the latest figures one third of Maltese TV viewers watch TV via satellite. The Times distinguishes between satellite and “internet based TV connections like Dreambox” but in actual fact a Dreambox based connection is still satellite dependent – the dreambox is a different form of decoder (that is as far as my limited level of technological knowledge can go) that uses internet to access certain channels. The article also highlighted a commendable campaign by nationalist MP David Agius for better access for football on television by consumers.

Although the article was a presentation of statistics, the title left little space for doubt since it combined the mention of satellite TV viewing with copyright issues. Here at J’accuse we have no doubt that the combined forces of Melita and Go – providers of cable tv – are busy stirring the waters in this regard by making sure that the Times carries such kind of headlines as instil doubt as to the legality of certain consumer choices. All’s fair in love and war they say and MelitaGO are entitled to use any legal means to win over their customers – and they will always find a ready ear among the very investigative journalists of the day. Unfortunately while they attempt to draw the attention to consumers and their purchases – and question the borderline legality of the use of dreambox (in actual fact it might be challenged only in certain circumstances – the dreambox is per se as illegal as a washing machine) – they engage in a bit of borderline legality themselves that is really begging for some answers.

True, consumers are given a choice between “packages” of Melita and Go at the beginning of a sports season. True, consumers can no longer consider access to all football games as a fundamental human right (although we are bloody close to achieving that status for the world cup matches). But what if the performance of the two service providers on the market is such that it does not allow for a normal, informed decision at the beginning of the footballing season? What if that performance includes the switching of packages between service providers within three year periods that drives the consumers crazy thanks to the inconvenience of having to keep up with the administrative side (costs and penalties as well as having to spend time dealing with the respective companies)?What if the virtual duopoly is substituting ransom and blackmail for customer loyalty.

What if… when all is accounted for… we are actually witnessing a virtual duopoly that obliges the consumer to buy ALL of its products if he is to satisfy his demand? It is up to the Competition Office to determine the answers to that question I guess.

Back to the Dreambox. It is not just useful for football actually. What happens, I ask, to a consumer who is willing to pay for a set of channels via satellite – let us say a UK based movie satellite channel – and that package is not legally available for purchase in Malta? What happens if that consumer can buy a decoder from the UK but not from Malta? I have my concerns about the application of EU law in this regard because what you have there is a service being denied to a legitimate customer in another member state. That is just the tip of the iceberg but surely consumers who avail themselves of alternative methods to gain access to programming when no legal method is available cannot suddenly become criminals overnight?

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