BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
The government is better placed to consider longer term implications than companies that are legally required to maximize profit

Governmental and inter-governmental policies can be focused on decades in the future rather than on the next product launch. Energy policy in particular operates on long time scales due to the very long build time for new power plants. Equally, governments have the power to regulate and, where necessary, compel individuals and organizations to comply with those regulations. Moreover government’s interests are very different from the interests of business; government’s interest is in the future welfare of their citizens not their own profit and is as much for the young as the current working generation. By contrast the market has an interest in avoiding – or in the case of carbon trading, moving - the problem. Energy companies – not to mention heavy industry and manufacturing – have a commercial interest in maximizing energy use as it relates directly to maximizing output. Energy companies want consumers to use more of their product, car manufacturers want consumers to travel more even if this means using more fuel. If a manufacturer expands they increase their energy consumption and if a consumer is to buy a good they are then increasing their own energy consumption, therefore increasing energy use is, ultimately perceived as a positive outcome. However, every serious report on the subject sees a reduction in the consumption of energy as an important, indeed critical, part of the solution to the challenges posed by climate change and peak oil.
It is simply not the role of government to interfere with the choices of private consumers

Government has done a good deal to put back the cause of the environmental movement by constantly associating it in people’s minds with higher costs and taxes as well as poorly thought out regulation. By contrast the market has an inbuilt motivation to preserve resources for future or more profitable use, to reduce the resource consumption – notably energy – in the provision of any good or service. This means that company can make more and sell more of their product and so make a bigger profit. Also business has an incentive to promote the benefits of sustainability when they provide a market advantage in the minds of consumers keen to help with environmental issues where they can, being ‘green’ can either distinguish a company from the competition or else can become a competition between companies to be greener than their rivals. Government seeks to compel people to do what is good for them, which tends to meet with resistance, whereas market driven solutions present individuals with opportunities to feel good about themselves, still get the products they want and save the planet at the same time.
Government should be using tax breaks and grants to incentivize new areas of growth rather than legislation and regulations to destroy old ones

There is no doubt that, of course, government has a role in engaging with the market to encourage research and stimulate new areas of growth and development. Indeed one of the primary roles of government is finding a way to encourage the creation of new jobs and have an eye on the future direction of the economy. However it is hard to identify a time or place where increasing regulation and costs or attempting to plan the whole thing centrally with the threat of punitive sanctions for non-compliance has been anything other than a disaster. Ultimately the burden still lies on the market although that has always included a role for government. This does not alter the fact that it’s the market that is taking the lead.
The graduate response policy constitutes an invasion of privacy by the state

Graduated response would require huge amounts of monitoring and logging of all internet traffic using technical systems called ‘deep packet inspection’ (DPI) equipment. This means that a computer program will look in close detail at all of the information someone sends over the internet in order to check whether it violates some protocol, for example a ‘fingerprint’ of copyrighted data that the content creator put in. This means a copyright holder, or a third party paid by the copyright holder to monitor internet traffic, suddenly has access to everything every consumer sends over the internet. This is a massive violation of privacy. Given the fact that advertising companies are already using DPI illegitimately for targeted advertising, it is obvious that content companies will also feel tempted to ‘do more’ with all that data they suddenly have access to.[1]    [1] Angela Daly, ‘The Legality of Deep Packet Inspection’, 2010. Presented at the First Interdisciplinary Workshop on Communications Policy and Regulation 'Communications and Competition Law and Policy – Challenges of the New Decade', University of Glasgow 17 June 2010. URL for download: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1628024
ISP will not cooperate with a graduated response policy

The graduated response model requires cooperation from all Internet Service Providers. If just one ISP refuses, users will flock towards that ISP to be able to keep on downloading. Therefore there will always be an incentive to be the ISP that refuses so as to gain custom from others who have agreed to cooperate. ISPs will also have an incentive to not cooperate because the cost of monitoring and identifying is large, and significantly more so for smaller ISPs: initial estimates of the cost of graduated response for ISPs were around 500 million pounds over a period of ten years.[1] [1] Michael Geist, ‘Estimating the cost of a three strikes and you’re out system’, January 26, 2010. URL: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4731/135
The graduated response is a violation of the basic right to due process

Detection of copyright infringement isn’t usually done by a detective sitting behind a computer. It relies on software like automated crawlers and fingerprinting, often created by commercial vendors and hired by the copyright holders. This software automatically sends detected infringements to the ISP, without someone actually checking if this allegation is correct. This means many consumers can be unjustly accused of copyright infringement. Moreover, most graduated response policies proposed require no judicial intervention at all for the sanction to be invoked. This means private organisations get to decide who has committed a crime and deserves the punishment. The ISPs and copyright holders therefore act as accuser, prosecution, judge and executioner. On top of this if a consumer would go to court, he would also face a reversal of the burden of proof: since he is suing against being fined, he has to prove that he is not guilty, a reversal of the presumption of innocence.[1] [1] Peter K. Yu, ‘The Graduated Response’. 2010. Florida Law Review, Volume 62. Available for download (PDF) at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1579782
The unauthorised downloading of copyrighted material should be addressed and prevented by the state

Downloading isn’t a crime Downloading content is not comparable to theft of material things, like cars: after downloading the original owner can still use his or her own copy. Moreover: governments have always allowed consumers some leeway for replicating content for themselves under the ‘private copying exception’ or ‘fair use’-policy.[1] Before the internet came along, this exception ensured it was legal that one person could copy a song from a radio broadcast transmission for personal use. Why should downloading a song from the internet be any different? Finally, research has shown that those who download the most from pirate sites are also the ones who buy the most music online legally – why would the content industry want to punish their biggest and most loyal customers?.[2] [1] Natali Helberger & P. Bernt Hugenholtz, ‘No place like home for making a copy: private copying in European copyight law and consumer law’. 2007. Berkely Technology Law Journal, volume 22, p. 1061 -1098. URL for PDF: http://www.ivir.nl/publications/helberger/BTLJ_2007_3.pdf [2] Ars Technica, ‘Study: pirates biggest music buyers. Labels: yeah, right’. April 2009. URL: http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/04/study-pirates-buy-tons-more-music-than-average-folks.ars
A graduated response will be an effective deterrent

Consumers will find ways to evade detection Evading detection for most of the surveillance methods are relatively easy: consumers could start relying on proxy servers to hide their IP-addresses or start encrypting everything they share online to avoid being detected by fingerprinting-software. In fact, recent experience in France with its Haute Autorité pour la diffusion des œuvres et la protection des droits sur internet (HADOPI) law suggests that despite a graduated response-policy, piracy is actually on the increase.[1] This shows that graduated response won’t do what it is supposed to do; stem online piracy.   [1] Torrentfreak, ‘Piracy Rises In France Despite Three Strikes Law’, March 9, 2010. URL: http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-rises-in-france-despite-three-strikes-law-100609/
A graduated response is the fairest way to enforce copyright legislation

Graduated response is a draconian punishment Citizens these days rely on their internet connection for their everyday lives: banking transactions, filing tax forms, and other forms of essential communication are all done online. Cutting access to these basic services is a draconian punishment: it basically amounts to making daily life a whole lot harder. Even if essential services were to remain accessible to the offender they could lose access to things somehow considered less vital such as their online social life. The punishment in no way is proportionate to the ‘crime’ of downloading a song that would have cost 99 cents on iTunes.
The graduate response policy constitutes an invasion of privacy by the state

Graduated response is not a massive privacy violation Firstly, ISPs already use Deep Packet Inspection right now, to engage in what they call ‘network management’, like checking whether users aren’t hogging up bandwidth by downloading too much via peer-to-peer software. But moreover, it is hard to see how exactly every form of deep packet inspection is a privacy violation: the inspecting is done by automated software and only checks for infringements. If no infringement is detected, no one will know what was ‘in the information packet’. Take the example of monitoring for the presence digital watermarks: basically, the monitoring-software has a database of specific ‘watermarks’ that content holders put into their videos, for example a unique combination of pixels. The software only checks whether that combination is present. If it’s not present, the software has no way of ‘seeing’ the information itself. Hence, even though it might sound scary, the technology can be designed in such a way that one can prevent it from becoming privacy violation.[1] [1] see wikipedia: Digital Watermarking
ISP will not cooperate with a graduated response policy

ISPs will gladly cooperate with graduated response Almost a decade ago, ISPs engaged in a competitive battle to gain as much broadband penetration as possible. Now that markets have matured and broadband penetration has more or less ‘maxed out’ in developed countries, ISPs need to find new value propositions to attract customers. One of these value propositions is being able to offer high quality content at high speeds. To be able to offer this, ISPs will need the cooperation of content providers – who can ask something in return, like graduated response.[1] That this actually happens is borne out by the fact that in many countries ISPs are actually getting together to make sector-wide agreements, for example in the USA where the major ISPs have agreed to implementing graduated response.[2] [1] Olivier Bomsel and Heritania Ranaivoson, ‘Decreasing copyright enforcement costs: the scope of a graduated response’. 2009. Review of Economic Research on Copyright Issues, Volume 6(2), p. 13 – 29. URL for PDF: http://hal-ensmp.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/44/65/31/PDF/Rerci.pdf [2] David Kravets, Wired, ‘ISPs to Disrupt Internet Access of Copyright Scofflaws’, July 7, 211. URL: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/disrupting-internet-access/
The graduated response is a violation of the basic right to due process

Graduated response can be done prudently Many companies have ‘Terms of Agreement’, violation of which automatically leads to cancellation of service. Suppose you don’t pay your library subscription for a year: no one would complain of ‘lack of due process’ if your subscription was subsequently cancelled. A Graduated response policy is no different. Moreover, the graduated response policy can be made to fit the rules of due process. For example, in the French HADOPI-law, after a third violation, the case gets referred to an ‘expedited judicial procedure’, typically used for minor traffic violations, after which that judge will decide. Compare this to the unfairness before a graduated response policy is implemented: copyright holders might detect and sue one single consumer and extract a very heavy penalty, whilst the rest of the downloading consumers got away. Both the uncertainty and the height of the fine made the situation before a graduated response-policy an ‘enforcement lottery’.[1] [1] Nathan Lovejoy, JOLT Digest ‘Procedural Concerns with the HADOPI Graduated Response Model’, January 13, 2011. URL: http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/copyright/procedural-concerns-with-the-hadopi-graduated-response-model
The unauthorised downloading of copyrighted material should be addressed and prevented by the state

Copyrighted material is intellectual property: someone worked hard for it to produce it. Downloading this content without paying the proper rights holder for it amounts to theft. Furthermore, downloading copyrighted material from an unauthorized source creates an impossible market for producers of copyrighted content, because they have to ‘compete with free’. Why would the average consumer want to pay for a download from an authorized website, when she can get the same movie from a pirate-site for free? To build a commercially viable content industry online, we need to protect this industry from the unfair competition of the parallel market.[1] [1] Piotr Stryszowski , Danny Scorpecci, Piracy of Digital Content. 2009, OECD Publishing. URL for purchase: http://www.oecdbookshop.org/oecd/display.asp?CID=&LANG=EN&SF1=DI&ST1=5KS...
A graduated response will be an effective deterrent

Research has shown that consumers are likely to stop downloading from unauthorized sources when warned by their ISP. For example: Seven out of ten (72%) UK music consumers would stop illegally downloading if told to do so by their ISP, and 90 per cent of consumers would stop illegally file-sharing after two warnings from their ISP.[1] This shows that the threat of a possible disconnection together with a friendly warning is enough to stop most consumers from downloading from illegal source. The reasoning behind it is simple: consumers can now download without a cost, a graduated response mechanism first raises awareness scaring off those who are only casually downloading out of convenience and then heightens the expected cost of infringement and thus makes it more likely consumers will use legal sources.[2][1] IFPI, Digital Music Report 2009. 2009. URL for PDF: http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/dmr2009-real.pdf [2] Olivier Bomsel and Heritania Ranaivoson, ‘Decreasing copyright enforcement costs: the scope of a graduated response’. 2009. Review of Economic Research on Copyright Issues, Volume 6(2), p. 13 – 29. URL for PDF: http://hal-ensmp.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/44/65/31/PDF/Rerci.pdf
A graduated response is the fairest way to enforce copyright legislation

First, the sanction after three warnings can be tailored to fit general notions of justice, the punishment need not be severe and could fit the crime: maybe a consumer would be cut off of the internet for only two weeks, or only cut off from accessing download sites but still be allowed to access government and banking sites, or receive a small fine. Secondly, the consumer has ample time to change his or her behaviour: a consumer can insist on infringing copyright at least two times before the sanction takes place. The consumer can easily avoid being cut off (even temporarily), meaning the punishment likely doesn’t even have to take place.[1] [1] Barry Sookman, ‘Graduated response and copyright: an idea that is right for the times’, January 10th, 2010. URL: http://www.barrysookman.com/2010/01/20/graduated-response-and-copyright-an-idea-that-is-right-for-the-times/
The privatisation of universities encourages course-diversity and provides for students are individuals, not cattle

If more diversity is necessary, then governments can change the way in which they fund universities, perhaps by giving a proportion of funding based on student numbers. However, for the large part so-called "increased diversity" would not constitute improvements on the quality of academic education, but rather gimmicks to make a university look more attractive to the young people who apply – there are incentives to make the university popular to sixth-form applicants, not to existing undergraduates. improve this
The current system constitutes taking from the poor and giving to the rich

It is unfortunate that the current system constitutes taking from the poor and giving to the rich, but this is justified as long as two things are true: first, overall, the government does redistribute wealth in such a way as to take from the rich and give to the poor, and second, the funding of universities from the public purse is of benefit to the poorer people in society. In this case publicly funding universities gives the poor the option of going to university that they would otherwise not have, even if they fail to take that option up. (The opposition arguments explain why this latter condition is the case.) improve this
Private Universities would risk reducing the quality of university degrees.

Far from reducing the quality of university private universities would increase it. Private Universities would go where most money is, and this is most likely to be at the top where a lot of money can be charged for the degrees. This is what Grayling's proposed New College of the Humanities is doing. The New College of the Humanities will charge fees of £18,0001. With the extra money they will be able to hire the best professors and have a very good student teacher ratio, better than 1:10, with the result that there will be a lot of one to one tuition and student-staff interaction to increase the quality of teaching2. 1 BBC News, “Academics launch £18,000 college in London.” 5 June 2011. 2 New College of the Humanities improve this
This will increase the perception that universities are just for the rich

The reason why people from poorer backgrounds are underrepresented at university is not because they perceive it as something only rich people can do. Instead, it is because their schools did not adequately prepare them: on average, they have fewer/worse qualifications, and are less likely to have performed the myriad extra-curricular activities that give people an advantage when applying to universities1. Making university education private, then, does not disadvantage the poor: if the opposition really wants to help people from poorer backgrounds it would address the deficiencies of school-level education instead. 1 Cassidy, Sarah, "Quality of education still determined by wealth, says report." The Independent, 8 August 2008, improve this
Private universities would increase the divide between the rich and poor

With regard to subsiding universities and the student loan schemes, both of these could nevertheless be operated even if universities were privatised. For example, assisted place-schemes,(which-School.co.uk) where the government funded bright students to attend private schools are successfully run in the UK.With regard to pressure to increase diversity in the student population, this merely treats the symptom and not the cause, which is the inadequate educational support given to some groups in society at a lower level: this should be directly addressed instead. improve this
Private universities are needed to increase the number of places for students.

British universities are facing cuts in government funding and as a result there will be no new places created to cater for rising demand. Professor Steve Smith, president of Universities UK noted the fact that the budget cuts that could soar to as much as £950,000,000 over three years would decrease the quality of education whilst keeping the numbers of University places stagnant. In 2009, 160,000 students who applied did not go to University. In 2010, 75,000 more people applied.1 Governments in rich countries all over the world are facing squeezed budged over the next few years and will be unable to increase funding for universities. This leaves private universities as the only way to meet increasing demand for higher education. 1Shepherd, 2010
The introduction of more private universities would increase the quality of education by allowing open competition

In the rest of the economy, when consumers are allowed to choose between goods or services, the higher quality products are successful and the bad ones fail. Similarly, when consumers can makes choices between universities, and are putting money on the line (thus taking a risk) they will choose the good universities, and consider the bad universities as not worth wasting their money on. As a consequence, the best universities will expand, and the worst universities will either improve or fail. The New College of the Humanities for example is aiming to rival Oxford and Cambridge1 so helping to provide these two elite institutions with the necessary competition to force up standards. This will result in a higher quality of education being available to more people. 1 BBC News, "Academics launch £18,000 college in London.” 5 June 2011 improve this
The current system constitutes taking from the poor and giving to the rich

The majority of people in the UK have not benefited from a university education, and graduates earn more, on average, than the rest of the population. Further, universities accept a larger number of richer people than they do poorer people. A National Audit Office report claims "Socioeconomic background remains a strong determinant of higher education participation. People from lower socioeconomic backgrounds make up around half of the population of England, but represent just 29 per cent of young, full-time, first-time entrants to higher education."1 It is therefore wrong on principle to use tax-payers' money to subsidise universities, because when universities are subsidised from a general "pot" of taxation, a redistribution of wealth occurs whereby the rich benefit at a cost to the poorer people in society. This is wrong, because we should be using taxation to attempt to mitigate economic inequality, not to exacerbate it. 1 Woolcock, Nicola, "White working class boys least likely to go to university." Times Online, 25 June 2008, improve this