Denmark Dismisses The Three-Strikes System And Forwards A Legal Service Initiative

June 22, 2012 by
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Legal P2P News & Issues 

Despite the fact that the country once considered to implement the three-strikes warning system, it looks like Denmark officially abandoned the project.

From a TorrentFreak report we are informed that Denmark dropped the three-strikes system and will now focus on a platform called “Pirate Package” – an initiative that aims to find a viable solution for website blocking.

Having their information from a Ministry of Culture document, TF informs that Denmark’s government announced two days ago its “Pirate Package” – the anti-piracy initiative that takes the blame off users and instead encourages the development and creation of legal alternatives, among other things. The document is comprised of several components.

First is called the “Innovation Forum” – a communication bridge for those who are interested in creating and developing digital business models.

“The ambition is that the innovation forum will help to create a foundation for future collaboration across industries and backgrounds with the common goal to ensure that consumers have equal and easy access to as much creative content as possible,” wrote Denmark’s government.

Furthermore, the Ministry of Culture will make a team that will gather the telecoms industry, rightsholders and the Consumer Counci. The team’s job will be to build and launch an awareness project focused on educating people on piracy, and instructing them towards legal services. This is due to the fact that people don’t fully understand the “significance and consequences” of piracy, the Ministry considers.

“Rightsholders have stated that they will take the initiative to create an information task force that will pro-actively target and communicate with Internet users on relevant sites and forums,” the Ministry wrote.

As for ISPs, they’re to include in the bills sent to their customers notices that warn them to secure their connections while highlighting the importance of legal media markets.

The Ministry is also decided to increase the efforts of removing infringing materials off the net. A controversial proposal included in the platform is blocking access to The Pirate Bay and similar websites. Both ISPs and rightsholders have agreed on this. The process will be formalized into the Code of Conduct.

How will this work? It’s quite simple – if a rightsholder decides to block a website it has to take legal action against one ISP; after the court decides whether to block the website or not, the ISP is bound to comply with the ruling.

“This is an automated process where the rights holders need only contact one organization / one telephone company, which will then make sure to communicate this decision to the other telcos,” the Ministry said.

Troels Møller – co-founder of Internet-political and digital rights group Bitbureauet – said:

“The anti-piracy outfits and copyright organizations didn’t get their way this time. I think it’s a brave decision by the politicians.”

“It is a good idea to focus on operating legal services in ways that ensure users actually want to use them, and to facilitate forums to work out new business models.”

It’s likely that rightsholders will push for more. As a matter of fact, they’ve already suggested that police enforcement should join the “war” against piracy. More on the subject will be revealed as soon as possible.

Tags: , , , ,