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Soapbox: internet company ISPed off
By Steven | April 24, 2008
Don Price, head of the Hawkes Bay internet company Wasp, wrote in to argue that ISPs are grown-up enough to develop their own industry standards:
I find it very interesting that once again we (the internet business community) through the new Copyright Act will have the unenviable privilege of the legal fraternity with their intellectual might and wisdom descend upon us in the pursuit of financial gain to purposely complicate the industry and its new long over due copyright act. It is with great dismay that this should be allowed to happen to our industry without consulting our own body of “experts” through the internet society.
In the last 15 years our industry along with the operators and their representatives have strived to meet the changing dynamics of the internet. In doing so the ISPs themselves have matured both morally and ethically and have been very proactive and responsive to the rights and privileges of their clients on both sides of the fence. By establishing common acceptable use policies around our known responsibilities as ISPs we have given ourselves the right to question any client material and activities as well as removing such material from our service at any time without legal ramifications. This type of interaction is generally at a personal level regardless of the size of the organisation.
I am worried that level of trust between ourselves and our clients will now be eroded by unnecessary, vague and ill thought through legislation by people who have little knowledge of the intricate interactions between the ISP and their clients. We have been “out here” living, breathing and growing the industry as new regulations have come into force for the past 15 years, the last thing we need is an over legislative load of crap complicating our industry and the interpretation of this new copyright act. We have too many compliance costs relating to our industry already. As an idea a simple solution would be to have a single body formed to ascertain if a breach has been committed and if that breach comes under any part of the new Act (similar to a complaints authority). A set of procedures and time frames are then put into place to remedy the situation.
Topics: Copyright, General, Internet issues | Comments Off on Soapbox: internet company ISPed off