Headlines - Music industry and UK ISPs unite in battle against piracy

[HEXUS]

BT, Virgin, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse have agreed to help the music industry tackle the ongoing problem of online piracy.

Read more.

[M0nkeyb0Y]

I don't like this - I don't like it one bit.

It infuriates me that they pry in to what I'm downloading...

Does anyone else think the smaller ISPs might gain market share by not signing up for this?

[pollaxe]

I think it absolutely stinks too.

Allegedly it's BT, Carphone Warehouse, Tiscali, Virgin Media, Orange and Sky.

For shame.

[Whiternoise]

Well at least they're not actually taking any action yet. This is designed, and will probably work, to decrease the vast numbers of teenage "bedroom downloaders" who all hop on limewire every night to download the latest 'Fiddy album. They at least acknowledge that it's NOT going to stop people who are a bit more tech savvy and who aren't going to stop just because the BPI sends a threatening letter.

One interesting idea was the government proposing a £30 "levy" to allow people to effectively have a sharing license for music online. An interesting idea certainly that leads one to a number of conclusions. Namely:

1. Well this just sounds like "Protection Money" since when have the BPI become the mafia?

2. They claim that if each of the 7 million music pirates in the UK paid up, it would cover the losses made by the music industry due to piracy. So wait a second, it's not actually to cover the losses made by the artists is it? No.. it's making sure that the BPI bosses keep their fat wallets.

3. If you're going to pay £30, well why not just pay the same for a month's unlimited Napster downloading? Considering it's legal now, you'd probably get more out of it anyway.. Napster "to go" is 14.95 a month, so for two months of getting all those albums you're after, you might as well just pay up. It'll probably be faster than the more "conventional" methods anyway..

Napster is legal, right?

Most ISPs are still against the 3 strikes policy for now, and rightly so. It should be no one's decision, other than a courts. Whether some sort of throttling service would be more appropriate i dunno (although Virgin already does this for free ) - say if you're caught, they throttle you down to dial up speeds so it's impractical to do anything.

I think they should have fixed fines though. This crap about "unlimited" fines is just stupid. Personally i think you should pay as much as the album is worth plus a flat say, £500-1000 fine for a one off infringement case - so music corps can't say "ah well you donwnloaded Music by Madonna, that'll be $200,000 please - oh wait didn't we tell you, it's up to 8 grand PER SONG". I mean cry me a river people, music just isn't worth the fines they're trying to justify.

[directhex]

Well at least they're not actually taking any action yet. This is designed, and will probably work, to decrease the vast numbers of teenage "bedroom downloaders" who all hop on limewire every night to download the latest 'Fiddy album. They at least acknowledge that it's NOT going to stop people who are a bit more tech savvy and who aren't going to stop just because the BPI sends a threatening letter.

One interesting idea was the government proposing a £30 "levy" to allow people to effectively have a sharing license for music online. An interesting idea certainly that leads one to a number of conclusions. Namely:

1. Well this just sounds like "Protection Money" since when have the BPI become the mafia?

2. They claim that if each of the 7 million music pirates in the UK paid up, it would cover the losses made by the music industry due to piracy. So wait a second, it's not actually to cover the losses made by the artists is it? No.. it's making sure that the BPI bosses keep their fat wallets.

3. If you're going to pay £30, well why not just pay the same for a month's unlimited Napster downloading? Considering it's legal now, you'd probably get more out of it anyway.. Napster "to go" is 14.95 a month, so for two months of getting all those albums you're after, you might as well just pay up. It'll probably be faster than the more "conventional" methods anyway..

Napster is legal, right?

Most ISPs are still against the 3 strikes policy for now, and rightly so. It should be no one's decision, other than a courts. Whether some sort of throttling service would be more appropriate i dunno (although Virgin already does this for free ) - say if you're caught, they throttle you down to dial up speeds so it's impractical to do anything.

I think they should have fixed fines though. This crap about "unlimited" fines is just stupid. Personally i think you should pay as much as the album is worth plus a flat say, £500-1000 fine for a one off infringement case - so music corps can't say "ah well you donwnloaded Music by Madonna, that'll be $200,000 please - oh wait didn't we tell you, it's up to 8 grand PER SONG". I mean cry me a river people, music just isn't worth the fines they're trying to justify.

agreed. there's 0 justification for the obscene numbers that get thrown around

[faisal_uk]

so they are not bothered about people downloading the latest movies?
also can they really detect exactly what you are downloading through bittorrent?

I think it will have an effect on some people, but most will carry on regardless and I don't think the ISP's will want to cut off the millions of people who download through file-sharing programs, as the will have no customers left!

Also how do they know that you don't already own a CD of the music you are downloading? You might just want to download it in another format/high quality file to transfer to an MP3 player.

[DavidM]

<snip>

[kalniel]

And what about people who use P2P for purely legal purposes?

What about them? They won't be touched by this action

[AtomicFuse]

Personally I think its an outrage, another form of control from the government, to which everyone just accepts. Does no one see this?

[Steven W]

Tip of the Day: Change ISP to someone who doesn't support the initiative.

[finnrogers]

What about people whose computers have been "zombied" and are actually just being used by some hacker who is the real one doing the illegal downloading.

There has already been a number of people complaining that they have received these letters when they have never downloaded or shared music before.

What about people piggybacking your wireless connection to download music?

Recently a court in Germany rejected a case because the "downloader" said that his open wireless connection was misused and he couldn't be held responsible for the actions of somebody else (rightly so in my opinion).

I believe this whole thing needs addressing properly before the BPI walks all over us and monitors everything we do.

The pirate bay is currently looking at encrypting the data sent to and from bittorrent servers which sounds promising.

[shaithis]

Personally I fail to see how they can impose this until there has been a gigantic "wireless security education" initiative from the government......Something I can't see happening any time soon.

The lower forms of encryption are so easy to crack now anyway, that some routers just cannot be secured properly anyway.

[Saracen]

so they are not bothered about people downloading the latest movies?
also can they really detect exactly what you are downloading through bittorrent?

Well, the BPI don't represent the movie industry, so no, they aren't "bothered" about that, as it's not their job. But if this works, no doubt it'll be followed by similar moves re: movies.

.... I think it will have an effect on some people, but most will carry on regardless and I don't think the ISP's will want to cut off the millions of people who download through file-sharing programs, as the will have no customers left!

No doubt they don't want to cut off customers. But they may not get much choice.

Car Warehouse's CEO summed it up ..

"I cannot foresee any circumstances in which we would voluntarily disconnect a customer's account on the basis of a third party alleging a wrongdoing," he adds.

There's two ways to read that. Firstly, they don't want to lose customers. Secondly, they don't want to "voluntarily" disconnect.

Firstly, if the customer is actively breaking the law, they risk facing legal action. If they lose, it could be VERY expensive indeed. And it would only take one successful test case to open the flood gates. Furthermore, it may well be that if the various interested parties can't sort it out between them, government steps in with legislation.

.... Also how do they know that you don't already own a CD of the music you are downloading? You might just want to download it in another format/high quality file to transfer to an MP3 player.

Under UK legislation, as it currently stands, it's illegal to create such a copy, even if you do own the CD.

[Saracen]

I don't like this - I don't like it one bit.

It infuriates me that they pry in to what I'm downloading...

Does anyone else think the smaller ISPs might gain market share by not signing up for this?

Just like it's a cheek that the police pry into who a burglar is burgling?

[Saracen]

One thing people need to realise is that what's being proposed here is not a prosecution, and it does NOT need courtroom standards of proof. It may be that a court would throw out a case if it couldn't be proven who was downloading over an account, but I've yet to see an ISP that doesn't have account terms with a prohibition against using their services for illegal means.

Make no mistake, ISPs can disconnect you if you breach those terms. And, by and large, it'll be your responsibility to see that your account isn't abused, even if that means securing your wireless link. If you don't, and if illegal activity results, they'll simply invoke that contract term and cancel the account, if they wish to do so. Whether they have a standard of proof that would satisfy a criminal court that it was YOU doing it is irrelevant - it was on your account.

ISPs no doubt won't want to lose customers, but if the alternative is to face a legal battle that might well cost hundreds of thousands, well, they may just take the pragmatic approach and lose a few customers.

[M0nkeyb0Y]

Just like it's a cheek that the police pry into who a burglar is burgling?

Not at all - a more appropriate analogy would be: it's a cheek that police repeatedly stop and search me every time I walk to and from work.

I guess I just covet my privacy a little more than you.