BPI Requests ISPs Suspend Suspected Filesharers

MartinJW writes "The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has written to two of the UKs larger ISPs, Tiscali and Cable & Wireless, asking them to suspend the accounts of 59 users they have identified as 'illegal file sharers.' The BPI says they have 'unequivocal evidence' of IP addresses that were used to upload 'significant quantities' of music. Although the IP addresses were used to identify the ISPs involved, the providers are the only people able to identify the exact individuals responsible. This marks a significant change in the BPI's tactics; previously they have targeted individuals but it seems that they are now taking it one step further and requesting the ISPs take decisive action to uphold the terms in their own 'acceptable use policies.'"

Comments

I pay a tax on blanks

[DrSkwid]

so I will download the content I have paid to "pirate"

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[arkhan_jg]

There's no blank media tax in the UK as far as I'm aware, it's one of the few countries in the EU that doesn't have one.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[LiquidCoooled]

Shhhhhhhh its about the only thing we aren't taxed for.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[erroneus]

First off, this is about sharing or making available, not downloading. I have yet to hear of any action against downloaders. Could someone point to an instance if ever there was one?

Secondly, as another commenter wrote, there's no media tax in the U.K. But even if there were, it doesn't account for sharing, just downloading or local copying.

But one thing I would love to see is a case in which someone were sued for acquiring or otherwise being in posession of entertainment content on media that has been taxed. I'd like to see the argument made by the defendant that they already paid for the privilege through blank media taxes. And I'd be ecstatic to see the defense prevail on that argument. But as I initially indicated, I seriously doubt the first step in my fantasy would ever occur.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[Don_dumb]

Although they still attract VAT dont they?

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[DrSkwid]

hehe I could have sworn .....

I thought it was started in the 1990s with video & cassette tapes but I was wrong (a seemingly increasing phenomena, I must be feeling my age!)

Here's a 2001 article where various EU states were mulling it over

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1120199.stm

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[Pofy]

That tax is for legal copying though, not illegal one.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[Pofy]

The other countries in EU that doesn't have any such tax or levy are Ireland, Malta, Cyprus and Luxembourg. On the other hand, in UK, Ireland and Malta there is really no allowance for private copies at all with the exception of things such as time shifting. Which means Luxembourg and Cyprus is about the only place in EU were you are both free to make various private copying and avoid paying such taxes or levys on media or equipments.

Here is a link to a document I found the information above, it holds quite a lot of information:

(Stakeholder Consultation on Copyright Levies in a Convergin World)
http://www.ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/ docs/levy_reform/stakeholder_consultation_en.pdf

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[Gerzel]

Exactly that's why we(the US) left.
Stamp Taxes
Sugar Taxes
Tea Taxes!

Bah you British.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[CommunistHamster]

Everything attracts 17.5% vat except uncooked food, childrens clothing and books.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[Duds]

Neither sugar nor tea has any tax at all. Like most essential foods they're sales-tax exempt.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[rikkus-x]

How come if you buy CD-Rs labelled as 'audio', 'for music', or similar, they cost several times the price of 'data' CDs? Is this not a tax?

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[kaiidth]

But legal copying by its very nature is untaxable - if you in your country have such a concept as fair use (we don't, though, in the UK), enabling you to legally copy then there is no justification to extract a levy for exercising that right. You paid for the original resource, so you already have the right to do with it whatever is legal in your country. Why donate further cash for no reason?

If it weren't for the fact that the government in the UK are utterly without capacity for rational thought, I would suspect that this is one of the reasons why they do not support the idea of taxing blank media. It isn't a very logical step to make.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[slippyblade]

**if you in your country have such a concept as fair use (we don't, though, in the UK)**

Don't feel bad, in the USA we have a "Fair Use" in theory. In practice fair use has been trumped by things like the DMCA and similar laws.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[nogginthenog]

That's a stupidity tax.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[arkhan_jg]

Yes, that's a blank tax media. I thought of that one after posting, but I figured someone would leap in for me :)

It also applies to standalone audio CD duplication devices, as opposed to generic 'data' ones that you find in computers. Hasn't really been relevent for years though, as everyone just buys data CDs and burners, they're physically identical to the 'music specific' audio CDs. Haven't even seen an audio specific CD for ages.

However, there's no general blank-media tax on data CDs, DVDs, flash players, hard-drives etc etc. Only the tax on Audio CDs and DAT tapes, both of which are rather obsolete these days.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[Komarosu]

And don't forget the female essentials...

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[Pofy]

>But legal copying by its very nature is untaxable -

Huh? Why? You can tax basically anything you want. It is really just an issue of creating the law for it.

> if you in your country have such a concept as fair use (we don't, though, in
>the UK), enabling you to legally copy then there is no justification to extract
>a levy for exercising that right.

The fact that you DO allow private copying is the reason there is also a levy. It is supposed to compensate for the private copying. One can argue about the right or wrong of this, but that is the reason it exists. It is seen as a sort of trade off. Allow private copying but have levies.

>You paid for the original resource, so you
>already have the right to do with it whatever is legal in your country. Why
>donate further cash for no reason?

You can do whatever you want (if we look at private copying) because of the levy if you want to look at it that way. They go together.

For a country were there is no legal copying allowed for private use for example, like in UK, there is also no reason for such a levy which is the reason it doens't exist.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

In the UK, even most of the "obvious" personal uses are infringing at present, though the majority of the population don't know this and do continue to do these things anyway. A review is underway that will hopefully result in fixing this particular legal daftness.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[91degrees]

Huh? Why? You can tax basically anything you want. It is really just an issue of creating the law for it.

I think the basic principle is that you can't tax what you can't measure. Legally you can, but practically, it's unenforcable.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[kaiidth]

Senseless.

You either require an additional licence to do something (and must therefore pay for the privilege) or you don't, and therefore don't need to pay for it.

The government can tax anything they feel like, as much as they feel like - air, olive oil, the use of escalators, whatever. In their infinite wisdom, they already charge VAT at 17.5% on blank CDs. So the government is taxing the purchase of CDs. But they are not extracting a levy from those who buy blank CDs, in order to compensate copyright holders.

Charging a levy is a muddled idea. Either an additional licence fee is required, or it isn't. If the levy represented the additional fee required to make the copy legally acceptable, that would be different - but it doesn't. Furthermore, the BPI have publicly stated that consumers should be allowed to legally copy music without fear of prosecution, ie. that the BPI does not consider that copying for personal use requires additional fees to be paid, ie. no levy is required in this scenario.

So the only reason remaining for a levy would be copying outside the realm of personal use, which covers a whole lot of different scenarios and is therefore likely to require a separate licence to be negociated. At one extreme, a few pennies' worth of levy is unlikely to strike the BPI as acceptable compensation for scenarios which are out of the scope of any form of 'fair use' (selling copies of Disney movies at a car-boot sale, for example), and at the other, the entity doing the copying probably shouldn't be paying anything for it at all (there are copyright exceptions in UK law for things like copying for non-commercial research, access for the visually impaired, etc). The obvious scenario in which a levy does apply is downloading of copyrighted material off the Web - but in that case, why put the levy on the CDs? Why not on the connection to the ISP? Per gigabyte download?

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[creepynut]

Tea is "essential?" Bah you British. :)

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[Haeleth]

For a country were there is no legal copying allowed for private use for example, like in UK

*sigh*

This is simply NOT TRUE. While we do not have a concept in British law that goes by the name of "fair use", this does NOT mean that you are not allowed to make private copies under any circumstances.

Look, here it is from the horse's mouth: "there are a number of exceptions to copyright that allow limited use of copyright works without the permission of the copyright owner" (source).

Specifically, "private study" does not infringe copyright, and "private study" is defined to include usage "purely for personal enjoyment" (source).

Also, look up "fair dealing", which in practice is extremely similar to the USA's "fair use".

(IANAL. Seek legal advice if you really care.)

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[footissimo]

Nah, washing machines, hoovers and kitchen sinks aren't exempt from VAT.

*runs away*

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[AndrewRUK]

So are coffee, cakes, and most biscuits (but not chocolate coated biscuits, which lead to a court case over whether Jaffa Cakes, which are the size and shape of a biscuit, are biscuits or cakes. The tax man lost.)

Even better, popcorn is standard rated (17.5%) but corn for popping is zero rated. Yay for lazyness taxes!

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[Pofy]

>I think the basic principle is that you can't tax what you can't measure.
>Legally you can, but practically, it's unenforcable.

Which is why you tax blank media and devices instead.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[Pofy]

>This is simply NOT TRUE. While we do not have a concept in British law that goes
>by the name of "fair use", this does NOT mean that you are not allowed to make
>private copies under any circumstances.

My comment was based on the information in the link I gave in a post a bit up (a document by the Director General of the internal market amd services) in the EU. It states that in the UK there is very limited rooms for private copying compare to most other countries. They gave examples of when it is allowed, such as time shifting. My writing of "no legal copying allowed for private use" was of course a simplification which should be seen in the context of the thread. It was meant to show why there would be a good reason to not have levies in countries were the room for privat copying is very small.

If you disagree with the statment of the document I quoted, you might want to give it an answer though since appearantly they are wrong according to you. Here is the lin again if you can't find it:

http://www.ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/ docs/levy_reform/stakeholder_consultation_en.pdf

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[moxley]

I think such a tax would encourage those who have never downloaded any "pirated" material to do so, so that they feel that they are getting what they pay for.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Are Jaffa Cakes served by Goa'uld?

KREE!

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[jandrese]

Most standalone CD duplication devices (good luck finding them in stores these days however) require you to buy the "music" CDrs which are in fact just regular CDrs with a few special bits pressed into the header. These devices have been rather unpopular with users because they require you to buy the expensive "music" blanks and offer absolutely nothing over a comptuer with a bog standard CD burner installed.

I think the industry was hoping that people would eschew their computer based CD burning systems in favor of the "easier to use" stereo boxes and finally allow them to charge over the media price for blanks, but apparently customers weren't interested. Go figure.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[G Morgan]

Come on Blair will legislate so that you must install a camera in your bathroom just incase you try to hide illegal format shifting practices while in the bath, at the end of the day those with nothing to hide....

Privacy in this country is a dead thing, very soon New Labour will insist on knowing the pH level of your piss just in case you've drunk more beer than you paid tax on. Hopefully Blairs attempt to remove everything that seperates us from dictatorships will be dealt with when he eventually steps down and the Labour party tears itself apart when the socialist part of the party realises they've been supporting a neo-con leadership since 1997.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[kaiidth]

To be exact, the BPI have stated that they 'will not pursue' consumers who copy music for personal use. Which means that, in an informal sort of way, the UK has suddenly acquired 'fair use'. But that has yet to be codified in law as far as I know.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[kimvette]

Yes but now we have allowed our own government to tax:

  - Property taxes (you think you OWN real estate? HA!)
  - Fuel taxes
  - Tolls on paid-for-by-taxes roads
  - Agricultural subsidies
  - Sales tax
  - Income tax
  - DOUBLE tax on income if you have a C-corp
  - Death tax
  - Misc taxes on utilities (which in turn receive subsidies or tax breaks, wtf?)
  - Misc other "user fees" and taxes

Do we really have it any better here in America than the British do? We've kicked them out and then allowed our elected officials to force taxes upon us, and we haven't fought against it by voting those cretins out of office.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[Duds]

Damn straight my good man.

Still it does mean that in this country McDonalds have a damn good reason to ask you if you're eat in or take away. That reaspon being that if you have a milkshake it's a different price since if you eat in it becomes a restaurant not a food store and tax is charged.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[WilliamSChips]

Are Jaffa Cakes served by Goa'uld?

Before the founding of the Free Jaffa Cakes Nation they were.

Re:I pay a tax on blanks

[clickclickdrone]

>There's no blank media tax in the UK as far as I'm aware If you buy a 'music' CD-R instead of a normal one, you pay a tax, or at least used to. They cost about £1.50 to £2 each instead of 20p last time I looked.

damn dyslexia

[Anonymous Coward]

must be the penicillin but i read that as pornographic, not phonographic :-/

Re:damn dyslexia

[Anonymous Coward]

must be the penicillin but i read that as pornographic, not phonographic :-/

Either way, they're still whores...

Re:damn dyslexia

[RsG]

Either way, they're still whores...

I respectfully disagree. It is my understanding that whores provide a pleasurable service for money. Lawyers and record company executives, on the other hand, do the opposite - and then charge you for the priveledge.

Please don't impinge on the good name of whores :-)

Not going to be a problem

[SmallFurryCreature]

Tiscali at least will fold like wet paper. They do not even have binary newsgroups because usenet is mostly used for piracy according to their helpdesk.

Tiscali heeft 1 nieuwsserver, namelijk news.tiscali.nl. Deze nieuwsserver geeft alleen tekst bestanden weer en ondersteunt dus geen binaries. Tiscali heeft hier bewust voor gekozen omdat binarie servers veelal gebruikt worden voor het illegaal downloaden van auteursrechtelijke bestanden. Tiscali stimuleert juist de legale verspreiding van auteursrechtelijke bestanden via tiscali.music en tiscali.video.

In dutch but I doubt it will be different for the english branch.

Sadly at the moment it ain't my choice to use them. It ain't my connection and for 1 year getting a second line installed is to expensive but I can't wait to get my xs4all account back.

Oh and did anyone else notice that if this happens then people are being punished without ever having seen a judge or even a police officer. No sworn in official will be involved just people from two companies. Welcome to the justice system of the 21st century.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[grasshoppa]

Oh and did anyone else notice that if this happens then people are being punished without ever having seen a judge or even a police officer. No sworn in official will be involved just people from two companies. Welcome to the justice system of the 21st century.

Grand stand much?

A private business has every right to refuse service to anyone, for any reason ( despite what the equal rights groups may tell you ).

This isn't a government organization exacting punitive measures against citizens on a private organizations say-so. This is one private org asking another to "punish" their customers.

Their paying customers. Which to me seems like a bad idea. But whatever.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[arkhan_jg]

A private business has every right to refuse service to anyone, for any reason ( despite what the equal rights groups may tell you ).

Under UK and EU law, you're entirely wrong. You cannot refuse service based on race, sex, age, disability and now I believe religion - based upon the Race Relations Act, Disability Discrimination Act and Equal Opportunities Act.

'Needing my internet fix' however, I believe doesn't fall under any protected class at this time.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Water supply is a private business in the UK. Would you argue for their right to refuse service?

Yes, I realise internet access isn't quite up there with water, but consider that at least one country has judged it to be human right, and that depending on where you live, some UK government services are only practically available online.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[pimpimpim]

It's not about refusing a service, but about a breach of contract. If you are in breach with their Acceptable Use Policy, which will likely state that you should not spread illegal content, then they have all rights to end your contract, both the provider and the user agreed with this at the start of the contract.

An end of a contract happens all the time, you can end your contract with your employer if you don't like your work, the other way around, etc. etc. Therefore you shouldn't see this as a punishment, you won't get a criminal record, or have to get involved into the court system. Everybody wins! The worst that can happen is that you'd have to pay your remaining fees for the planned duration of the contract, but I'm not even sure if that will be the case.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[Pofy]

>If you are in breach with their Acceptable Use Policy, which will likely state
>that you should not spread illegal content, then they have all rights to end
>your contract, both the provider and the user agreed with this at the start of
>the contract.

And who decide if you have done that or not? Some third party entity just claiming so? Typically that (if you commit an illegal act or not) is decided by courts.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[asuffield]

An end of a contract happens all the time, you can end your contract with your employer if you don't like your work, the other way around, etc. etc

Under UK law, an employer CANNOT end your contract if they "don't like your work". They have to prove (before the unfair dismissal tribunal that is now almost inevitable) that you are incompetant, acting in bad faith, or that they have made a determined effort to explain why they don't like you and to get you to change your behaviour. The employee is free to leave, but the employer can't do anything without a good reason.

Short of willful destructive behaviour (calling the customer a faggot), genuine inability to perform the task (hired as a software developer but doesn't know how to write code), or continued disobedience (you were told in writing not to wear fishing waders to work but continued anyway), it's almost impossible to fire somebody.

UK companies very rarely fire people nowadays. Instead, they either engage in 'constructive downsizing' (where you fire x% of the least productive parts of your workforce to cut costs, but can't show favouritism), or they approach the problematic employee and offer them three months salary if they'll resign now and not come back. Most employees are willing to be paid off, especially since it guarantees them a decent reference (you can't give somebody a bad reference unless you fired them - more laws about that stuff).

UK law is often like this. It only recognises free contracts between equals. Two citizens are equals and can form any contract they like; a corporate entity and a citizen are probably not equals, the corporation is probably dictating the terms of the contract, so there are lengthly and complicated restrictions on what they can and cannot do, plus a truly immense quantity of case law about how that contract is to be interpreted.

I don't believe there is much precedent in the field of ISP AUPs, they're quite a recent invention that isn't quite the same as anything else. Courts could go either way on this, but it's entirely plausible under UK law that a court would reject a clause saying that the ISP could cancel the customer's account at whim. If this happened, and the customer can show actual damages as a result of their account being terminated (lost mail, websites offline, etc) then the court would almost certainly order the ISP to pay for it all. To the best of my knowledge there hasn't been a significant case like this yet, so this is rather speculative - but I don't think anybody in the UK legal industry would be particularly surprised by either outcome. Could go either way. IANAL, TINLA, etc.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[bitkari]

Parent makes an incredibly important point here in comparing water with the internet - it is, or at least soon will be, a vital utility for people living this century.

So much of our daily lives are being carried out online. The much-vaunted "digital divide" is something that governments are at pains to resolve, otherwise they will see a new social underclass evolve, and will lose general productivity amongst their population.

One can see, then, that if industry groups such as the BPI are able to remove someone from being online now, this could set a dangerous precedent for the future that would see large companies [or their representatives] being able to control who is or who is not online with out any legal oversight whatsoever.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[irw]

Your post would have been so much more useful if you'd cited your references.

The Race Relations Act 1976 is not yet on OPSI.

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (III,19) says (amongst other things):

19.(1) It is unlawful for a provider of services to discriminate against a disabled person (a) in refusing to provide, or deliberately not providing, to the disabled person any service which he provides, or is prepared to provide, to members of the public;

The Equal Opportunity Act 1984 is not yet on OPSI.

For those thinking (correctly) that no party can be forced to enter into a contract against their will, recall that a general announcement of goods or of a service (e.g. an advertisement, a price tag) is an offer, indicating willingness to enter into a contract.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[FireFury03]

'Needing my internet fix' however, I believe doesn't fall under any protected class at this time.

You could probably start a religion requiring Internet access though :)

Re:Not going to be a problem

[irw]

Under UK law, an employer CANNOT end your contract if they "don't like your work".

Correct, but note that the Right not to be unfairly dismissed has a qualifying period, during which any dismissal is considered fair,

Employment Rights Act 1996 (two years) reduced to one year by Statutory Instrument 1999/1436 sections 2-4.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[Pofy]

>For those thinking (correctly) that no party can be forced to enter into a
>contract against their will, recall that a general announcement of goods or of a
>service (e.g. an advertisement, a price tag) is an offer, indicating willingness
>to enter into a contract.

Are you talking about UK specific or in general? Because if you talk in general it is not true. In many countries such general announcements, advertising and such are not an offer for a contract but a more of a show of products or goods (don't know the correct english law terminology though). For it to be a binding offer for a contract, it has to be at leats somewhate targeted to more limited groups of people.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[timbo_red]

And who decide if you have done that or not? Some third party entity just claiming so?

No. Have you RTFA? Have you even RTF headline? It says "BPI requests ISP's Suspend Suspected Filesharers". "Requests", not "orders". The decision will be taken by the ISP, who are party to the contract. The contract will incorporate the AUP, and will als specify what the ISP may do in the even that the AUP is breached, which will typically range from a warning through to termination of the account.

Typically that (if you commit an illegal act or not) is decided by courts.

Well, yes. But that isn't the issue at question here. The issue at question is whether you have breached the AUP. If you haven't, and the ISP cancels your account this may well be a breach of contract, which would be a relevant matter for the court to decide.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[LubosD]

I think that most of ISPs will just update their spam filters to automatically delete e-mails from organizations like BPI.

Who pays your ISP? You do, not BPI. So I think that most ISPs will protect their customers and ignore BPI-like organizations (that's current situation in my country).

Re:Not going to be a problem

[timbo_red]

it guarantees them a decent reference (you can't give somebody a bad reference unless you fired them - more laws about that stuff).

This is entirely anecdotal on my part, but I've heard that the outcome of this is that references are entirely fact based these days, rather than 'good' or 'bad' per se. For example, they may include details of attendance records, punctuality records, that kind of thing, so that the new employer gets the facts and can make a decision based on that.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[matress]

In UK law, and generally across the common law world (as far as I know at least), just showing a price tag or advertisement is an invitation to treat, that is, an indication of willingness to negotiate for the item advertised. For it to be an offer, there has to be an intention to be bound on sufficiently certain terms. If you have these two things you can in fact make an offer to all the world.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[zakezuke]

Parent makes an incredibly important point here in comparing water with the internet - it is, or at least soon will be, a vital utility for people living this century.

So much of our daily lives are being carried out online. The much-vaunted "digital divide" is something that governments are at pains to resolve, otherwise they will see a new social underclass evolve, and will lose general productivity amongst their population.

One can see, then, that if industry groups such as the BPI are able to remove someone from being online now, this could set a dangerous precedent for the future that would see large companies [or their representatives] being able to control who is or who is not online with out any legal oversight whatsoever.

Agreed... though I would not consider it as vital as water, more along the lines of telephone. It is communication after all. You'll have to excuse me for being ignorant on the practices of telemarketers.... While I know that you can complain to an ISP regarding spam in the hopes they will drop the user, I don't think the same holds true for telemarketing. But the way I see it if the BPI wants to issue a complaint under penality of purgery or the UK legal equlivent that a user is infringing on one of their member's works... and this complaint results in terminination, then they also have to be fully accountable if they are wrong. This would include any damages their claim makes, including the extra money you have to spend to shop in a store rather than hitting the website and electing local pickup.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[gsslay]

Oh and did anyone else notice that if this happens then people are being punished without ever having seen a judge or even a police officer. No sworn in official will be involved just people from two companies. Welcome to the justice system of the 21st century.

Did you notice that the UAT of the ISP, that the people signed up to, forbids using the service for illegal file sharing? That these people are therefore in breach of a contract they have with the ISP? That therefore the ISP is within their rights to withdraw from that contract?

Welcome to the justice system of the 21st century.

Welcome to the notion of a legal contract, as has been since the 17th century. Where have you been?

Re:Not going to be a problem

[Pofy]

>No. Have you RTFA? Have you even RTF headline?

Of course I have. Have you read my post?

>It says "BPI requests ISP's Suspend Suspected Filesharers". "Requests",
>not "orders". The decision will be taken by the ISP, who are party to the
>contract.

Yes, and they can't determine that you commit an illegal activity any more than the BPI or anyone else EXCEPT police/courts. Those are the only ones to decide or determine if you commit an illegal activity. Hence, the ISP can't on their own decide you commited an illegal activity and shut you down. Which is exactly what I was saying.

>Well, yes. But that isn't the issue at question here. The issue at question is
>whether you have breached the AUP.

Were were talking about the situation were you would commit a copyright infringement, which is a legal issue. For you to breach an agreement of not doing illegal acitvities, you must first have been determined to have done something illegal which only courts can do. Again, this is exactly my point.

So it has nothing to do with the AUP or agreement iwth your ISP, it would be a case of the IS acting contrary to their agreement. Basically the BPI is asking the ISP to ignore the contract with their customer of providing their serivce and terminate the agreement in a situation were there is no decision yet by any authority that you have acted illegally. Again, this was the point I made. It has nothing to do with folloinw their AUP or agreements, it is acting in direct opposite of it.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[kkiller]

Tiscali at least will fold like wet paper. They do not even have binary newsgroups because usenet is mostly used for piracy according to their helpdesk.

Does usenet have any other use these days? I thought it had been largely supplemented by mailing lists, bulletin boards and blogs?

Re:Not going to be a problem

[pimpimpim]

Let's take the Terms and Conditions of tiscali uk. I remove the stuff about the user not paying etc. since those are easy to prove and trivial. The main question is, who decides 'what is illegal'.

...
2.2 We can end the service immediately if:
2.2.1 you fail to meet any of these terms and conditions (including but not limited to clause 5);
...
2.2.4 you use abusive or threatening behaviour while using the service.
...

Does tiscali go to court to prove that you have or have not been using threatening behaviour? They won't. You might, if you want to stand in your right, but do you really want to? Won't you get into more troubles if you actually go this procedure than just switch your provider? And what's so special about clause 5? Take a closer look:

5 Responsibility
5.1 You agree to use the service in line with our most recent instructions and also in line with all relevant laws, regulations and licences.
5.2 You agree not to use the service to transmit any material that may be considered illegal, defamatory, offensive, indecent or connected with any criminal offence.
5.3 Any advice or information, whether spoken or in writing, that you get from us will not create any guarantee that is not specifically referred to in these terms and conditions.
5.4 The service is only meant for residential purposes. You must not use it for business or commercial purposes, or to resell the services to anyone else. We can monitor your calls to check whether or not your call patterns are what we would expect for a residential customer.

So, the BPI goes to tiscali, gives them server logs of whatever, that connect your ip to some 'indecent' (how the hell is that defined) activity. Will tiscali bring that to court? They might have some internal commission to judge on this, but at first hand they'll decide themselves if they turn your connection off or not. Probably if you are spreading lots of copyrighted content, you are a heavy dsl user and they might just activate the Fair Use Policy on you. Why not? In the end, it's damaging all their other costumers. And what's this 5.4? Seems pretty nasty and vague. If you just sum this all up, the ISP is more likely to try and find causes to put away with 'problematic' users than to keep them. You can always bring this to court, but do you really want to spend money and time on that?

Re:Not going to be a problem

[sauron_of_mordor]

Hmm the BPI has my IP address, the ISP has my personal details. The ISP cannot provide my detail to the BPI due to the data protection act. How will the BPI *know* whether or not the ISP terminated my contract? If the ISP cannot inform the BPI in a reliable fashion that they did terminate a particular account (after all the IP changes and is dynamic), then why should the ISP bother to lose a customer? SoM

Re:Not going to be a problem

[grim4593]

Sadly a good portion of Internet bandwidth is used for illegal file sharing. You don't think all that bandwidth is going towards Linux distro's and music videos do you? If they cut off their file sharers... guess what, no one needs high speed Internet anymore. Slow DSL, slow cable, hell even dial-up is good enough to read email and surf the web. If the ISPs cut off their customer base, then they WILL lose money.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[clonmult]

I'm on Tiscali, and download a little, and only a little bit via P2P.

Their attitude is to totally BAN P2P activity in the UK at least. Even though I'm well under my monthly allowance (30gig, I believe, I'm typically at 10 or so - heck, last month had a total 6gig down, 1.8gig up). And I'm sure that a very large percentage of this was iTunes.

I've had a few "Heavy usage warnings", after the first one, i asked for details of when, they effectively ignored that request, but I still capped anything I did on Azureus to 10kb/s, ie. SLOW.

They've now decided to start "managing my usage". Their attitude is terrible overall, customer service is lousy beyond belief .... and this article just sums them up.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[Pofy]

>In UK law, and generally across the common law world (as far as I know at
>least), just showing a price tag or advertisement is an invitation to treat,
>that is, an indication of willingness to negotiate for the item advertised.

Yes, but are you required and legally bound to sell it for that price if anyone wants to? What about if every person in your country (or indeed the world) shows up and wants it claiming they accept your offer and agree to it (thus forming a binding contract). You would thus have a legally binding contract/agreement to sell the item and for that price. If you fail, even if due to not having enough items to sell, you would in fact be in breach of the contract. Are you sure this is how it works in UK?

Re:Not going to be a problem

[Pofy]

The issue was of doing an illegal activity. Only a court can determine if you have commited an illegal activity which is the point I made.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[Pofy]

>Did you notice that the UAT of the ISP, that the people signed up to, forbids
>using the service for illegal file sharing? That these people are therefore in
>breach of a contract they have with the ISP? That therefore the ISP is within
>their rights to withdraw from that contract?

And how would you (ot the ISP) know if you have commited illegal file sharing? Just because someone claims so?

Re:Not going to be a problem

[complete loony]

It's nearly like losing your postal address because of suspected mail fraud, or having your phone disconnected because of prank calls.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[pimpimpim]

Well, but the point they'll probably make is that they can also get rid of you for other reasons, there are enough at hand, for which they don't have to prove the "illegalness" of your online activities. In the end it'll all be about saving costs and going to court is a very costly matter.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[matress]

Yes, but are you required and legally bound to sell it for that price if anyone wants to?

When somebody offers something for sale, it's generally regarded as being just an invitation to treat - it is up to the buyer to make the offer, which the seller can then choose to accept unconditionally, to make a counter-offer for a different amount, or to reject outright. Unless the seller specifically says "I will sell to whoever comes to me unconditionally" and makes clear all the necessary terms then it cannot be considered an offer capable of being accepted.

If you did make an offer (not an invitation to treat) and every person you offered it to came to you accepting it, then you would certainly be legally bound to sell it for that price and under those terms. Incidentally and only from memory, the Court said that you can't make a contract with all the world, you can only make an offer to all the world.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[freedom_india]

Two citizens are equals and can form any contract they like; a corporate entity and a citizen are probably not equals, the corporation is probably dictating the terms of the contract, so there are lengthly and complicated restrictions on what they can and cannot do, plus a truly immense quantity of case law about how that contract is to be interpreted.

Sigh !!! I wish i lived in UK....

Re:Not going to be a problem

[Pofy]

>When somebody offers something for sale, it's generally regarded as being just
>an invitation to treat - it is up to the buyer to make the offer, which the
>seller can then choose to accept unconditionally, to make a counter-offer for a
>different amount, or to reject outright. Unless the seller specifically says "I
>will sell to whoever comes to me unconditionally" and makes clear all the
>necessary terms then it cannot be considered an offer capable of being accepted.

Thanks, this was basically the exact thing I tried to say above in reply to "irw". I was under the impression he claimed that mere announcement or showing a price on an item would be the "offer" for a contract which I tried to show it was not. So I think we agree on the issue.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[Pofy]

Sure they might be able to pull other reasons (my comments was on illegalness specifically), but why? They could do that even without the BPI asking. And why would then "save" costs, for what? Actually they would lose income since they would lose you as a customer plus risking being draged to court by the customer, while if they do nothing, there is no problem. Had THEY (the ISP) been doing something wrong, the BPI would of course come for them, so that is appearantly not the case here in our example.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[fallen1]

...and now I believe religion...

Well, now all you have to do is create your own religion, get it recognized by the State (ye olde guv'ment) and make it a PRINCIPLE part of your religion that each person must have internet connections since, well, your services are attended virtually. Chat room style as it were.

Would suck for them to try to cut you off then. Needing your internet fix is now part of your religion. Welcome to the New World Order. '-)

Re:Not going to be a problem

[ajs]

Doesn't work. Been tried in the U.S. and other countries.

Usually, there's precident going back hundreds of years on how religions can be constrained. You're not allowed to use "sacrements" in the U.S. if they're controled substances; you're not allowed to kill people in any country I know of, even if your religion requires ritual sacrifice (even if the sacrificee is consenting); most countries will take children away from parents if their treatment is seen as "abuse", even if the abuse in question is in keeping with the religious practices of the parents. Just like speech, no country that I know of offers a universal freedom of religion. You may consider this a good or bad thing, but it is what it is.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Certainly the UK has a version of RICO? Isn't it very mob-esque for one organisation to unilaterally tell many companies who they can and cannot serve - and then pressure them to follow that?

Re:Not going to be a problem

[fallen1]

There is just one problem with your retort (well, two): In pretty much every instance the things you mention are ALREADY against the law (controlled substances, killing people - even willingly, etc). I was not suggesting religion as a means to circumvent the law per se, but as a means of using the law in your favor. In this case, my "religion" would require me to have an internet connection to practise said religion and if the ISP arbitrarily took my connection away, without due process and proving that I am breaking the law, then they have infringed upon my religion. If they can prove, in a court of law, that I was breaking the laws of the land then that might trump my religion in this case (must have a 'net connection).

Second issue is this: Not all controlled substances are against the law when used for religious purposes. Case in point is the North American Native American Church and their use of Peyote. Any member of said religion can partake of peyote without fear of prosecution, though some issues with European descended members does occur. So, in some cases, it DOES work in the USA. Especially when the Indians had been using it for thousands of years before the white man settled here.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[mark-t]

Define "members of the public".

Because I can see that it may very well be the case that the business owner is *NOT* prepared to provide a service to "members of the public", but only to people that he or she decides is for whatever reason "worthy" of the service.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

It could very easily fall under disability. I could see someone getting their internet shut off and sueing the ISP for far more money then the BPI ever would for discrimination against a disability. Though I do have to admit I am from the US and would see that happening over here. I don't know how sue happy people are over in the UK.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[G Morgan]

Not many employers are willing to take that risk even which is why its imposible to get a job unless you've worked for 2 years or know the boss personally. The employment laws cripple the UK economy in this respect.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[LifesABeach]

I am just curious. Why is it when I monitor the Internet, it's considered "Wire Tapping", and punishable by the F.B.I.; But the record companies can do this and they are not Wire Tapping?

Re:Not going to be a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

That still won't work.
They wouldn't be discriminating against you because of your religion,
but because you were filesharing and they have friends that don't like that.

What you need is a religion that requires filesharing, especially of copyrighted works,
to _force_ a conflict between copyright laws and laws forbiding religious descrimination.
Then they might not be able to punish you for filesharing.
Or, the religious discrimination laws might become revised. :-'

Re:Not going to be a problem

[WilliamSChips]

And it would still be more credible than Scientology.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[gsslay]

Good luck with that argument in front of legislators and the courts.

"We were told exactly how and where our service was being used to break both the law and our own contract, but rather than risk losing money we chose to ignore it. Criminal activity is good for our business."

You see any other industry relying on that? I can't think of a surer way of making sure your industry gets legislation slapped all over it. If you fail to police your own industry, legislators will do it for you.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[gsslay]

And how would you (ot the ISP) know if you have commited illegal file sharing? Just because someone claims so?

How does any company know when you breach a contract with them? Do you think every contract between two persons or organisations has to involve the police before it can be considered void? If you believe you are the victim in the contract being broken and have a case, then you go sue them. It's not a matter for criminal law.

Anyway, who better than your ISP to determine what activities you've been up to online? I don't imagine for a minute the ISPs are simply taking the BPI's word for it.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[grim4593]

As soon as they start policing what passes through their networks, it will be a requirement for them to check what passes through their networks. It will be a precedent which causes them more work in the future and opens them to lawsuits if they do not catch something (whereas now, they claim they do not monitor such usage and therefore are not responsible for it). And as it has been stated elsewhere, if the BPI tells the ISP's of the violations, it does not go through any sort of court process, and does not carry the weight of law.

In my opinion, being told how to do my job from some third party is downright rude. If I were an ISP, i would figure my contracts with customers were my my business, and the BPI would piss me off trying to tell me what to do.

Re:Not going to be a problem

[irw]

My vocabulary was wrong, I stand corrected.

However this is straying from the point. Willingness to negotiate indicates willingness to enter into a contract (subject to satisfactory negotiation as corrected above). I fully expect a person who either refuses to accept the offer made by a disabled person or makes a counter offer at say twice the price, whilst still accepting offers from a non-disabled person at standard price, to be caught by the quoted section of the DDA (assuming no non-disability-related difference between potential buyers).

optical delusion ?

[phreakv6]

oooh my eyes.. i read it as "The British Pornographic Industry (BPI)"...

Re:optical delusion ?

[KinkyClown]

I had the same delusion. Or is it just plain wishing?

They'll give in, and they probably should...

[HMC CS Major]

ISPs have very strict AUPs, and will probably kill the cheap accounts rather than risk a lawsuit. Realistically speaking, if I were running an ISP, I'd do the same thing.

It's worth noting that the users may not be intentionally violating the (civil) law, it may just be open proxies or misconfigured P2P clients, in which case the accounts can be re-established later (after reasonable assurance that the problem's been 'fixed').

Re:They'll give in, and they probably should...

[scum-e-bag]

ISPs have very strict AUPs, and will probably kill the cheap accounts rather than risk a lawsuit. Realistically speaking, if I were running an ISP, I'd do the same thing.

If the ISP gets paid by other networks to recieve data from the ISP then the ISP might think twice about closing accounts that create large amount of revenue for it.

Re:They'll give in, and they probably should...

[muftak]

Most ISPs have to pay for thier bandwidth. 20% of the customers generate 80% of the traffic, so killing filesharers benefits the ISP.

Re:They'll give in, and they probably should...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Nildram are very much in the pro-do-nothing, regardless of evidence. I mailed them, on a daily basis, logs from my firewall and IDS, showing continual hacking attempts from 3 IP addresses (hell, Im on nildram as well) and they told me that they would do nothing as the T&C states that they arent responsible for the traffic on their network.

Look on the bright side

[Umbral Blot]

Well at least they aren't suing them. That means I still have a little respect for the BPI. (although not much)

Re:Look on the bright side

[arkhan_jg]

The BPI have sued some people in the UK for copyright infringement, it's at the bottom of the FA.

"BPI has taken legal action in 139 filesharing cases. The four that have gone to court have produced verdicts in BPI's favour, while 111 individuals have settled out of court."

Remember, the RIAA and BPI are just the legal mouthpieces of the major international record labels. Anything they do, they do at the behest of:

        * Universal Music Group ($7 billion revenue), which includes A&M, Decca/London, Deutsche Grammophon, Geffen, Interscope, Island Def Jam, Motown, Philips, Rampagge, Universal, and others;
        * Sony BMG Music Entertainment ($5 billion), which includes: Arista, (American) Columbia, Epic, J, Jive, LaFace, Ravenous, RCA and others;
        * EMI Group ($4 billion), which includes Angel, Blue Note, Capitol, European Columbia, Elektrola, Odeon, Parlophone, Pathé Marconi, Positiva, Virgin and others;
        * Warner Music Group (a.k.a. WEA) ($2.5 billion), which includes Asylum, Atlantic, Elektra, Erato, Heiress, Reprise, Rhino, Rykodisc, Sire, Sub Pop (49% Warner ownership), and others.

Let this inform your music purchasing choices appropriately.

Re:Look on the bright side

[MadMoses]

Here's an easy way to figure out if an album is a release...

from a BPI label:
BPI Radar

from a RIAA label:
RIAA Radar

I haven't used the BPI one yet, but I use RIAAradar all the time. My advice, for what it's worth, is to support the independant labels by buying their stuff. On the other hand, if you want a physical copy of a RIAA/BPI album, consider buying it used.

Do they have court?

[Antony-Kyre]

Doesn't the U.K. have a court system? Don't those people deserve to go to court before having anything done to them? The BPI isn't even a government agency or anything, right?

Re:Do they have court?

[Unlikely_Hero]

It doesn't really matter. BPI has a bunch of lawyers. That's really all that matters in the end. They have enough legal resources to make it so that its cheaper for the ISPs to just fold than to fight it out. Isn't it sick that legal systems designed to give the little guy a chance are still subject to this kind of crap? Consider the nuisance lawsuit itself, and why they're even legal. The idea of essentially punishing someone you dislike by filing meaningless suits when its barely a scratch on your finances but could cripple theirs. No one wants to fight a goliath. Extortion...just like it always has been.
Justice....pshhh...what a joke.

Re:Do they have court?

[arkhan_jg]

The way this works, the BPI is asking the ISP's to enforce their Acceptable Use Policies. Since the AUP's UK users agree to are pretty draconian in order to get internet access, the ISP has the right to terminate our accounts at any time based upon breach of them. Of course, the ISP's don't actually monitor the traffic as such, because then they might be expected to catch all of the dodgy traffic going across their wires.

So in effect, the BPI are doing the same thing that anti-spammers do; ask the ISP to enforce their existing contract terms with the user, and terminate it for 'abuse'.

Once the contract is terminated, then the ISP is done. No further action would be taken by the ISP, so the courts don't get involved. Of course, the customer could start a civil suit against the ISP for breach of contract (good luck with that!), or breach of EU data privacy laws if the ISP handed personally identfying info over the BPI without a court-order. Note, I'm not a solicitor, so the previous paragraph could be complete rubbish, but it's how I understand it.

The BPI are a trade organisation, like the RIAA; no government powers at all. They have to go to court to pursue civil cases, or ask the police to investigate criminal cases, just like everyone else. This however is just one company asking another to enforce their contract against a 3rd party, i.e. the users. No doubt the ISP's will jump through hoops to do it though, they've not got a great history of standing up for their users against accusations that may or may not be true.

Re:Do they have court?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, under the European Data Privacy act, the alledged offenders should ask for it to be produced. Proof - could be willfully misleading and deceptive making claims like that - maybe defamatory.
Those not doing anything dodgey should ask for their information, once the ISP publishes the addresses of the claimant/requestor.
Make them bleed in red tape for collecting information.

Re:Do they have court?

[Pofy]

>The way this works, the BPI is asking the ISP's to enforce their Acceptable Use
>Policies. Since the AUP's UK users agree to are pretty draconian in order to get
>internet access, the ISP has the right to terminate our accounts at any time
>based upon breach of them. Of course, the ISP's don't actually monitor the
>traffic as such, because then they might be expected to catch all of the dodgy
>traffic going across their wires.

And how would the ISP now if you breached the contract in this particular case? Because someone just tells them they think that is the case? Should an ISP (or any part that enters into a contract) just accept any notice of breach by anyone? Of course not. In this particular case, the relevant part is if you do something illegal, only the police or courts can decide if you have done so. Unless they say so, you have not commited an illegal activity and hence have not breached the contract no matter how many outsiders may say so.

>Of course, the customer could start a civil suit against the ISP for breach of
>contract (good luck with that!),

Quite easy, they have a contract for an internet service and is not geting any at all. How hard is THAT?

Re:Do they have court?

[Tim C]

Since the AUP's UK users agree to are pretty draconian in order to get internet access

Speak for your own ISP's AUP; mine isn't what I'd call draconian (scroll past the terms for the one month trial). In summary, my obligations are to obey the relevant laws, and not try to claim that it's Eclipse's fault if I get caught breaking one.

Re:Do they have court?

[Don_dumb]

Quite easy, they have a contract for an internet service and is not geting any at all. How hard is THAT?

Having seen my and some other peoples phone, internet and other (usually Direct Debit) service contracts, they usually have a clause that states something along the lines of "We withold the right to terminate the service/contract at any point". The principle being that if they want, they can stop providing the service and the contract ends at that point, if you have already paid for a period after that time then your going to have trouble getting you money back.

Unfortunately, for some of my friends it doesn't seem to work the other way around, when you want to stop your mobile contract because the phoneco isn't holding up their end of the deal, you either have to pay the rest of the contract (several months) or you have to get the bank to stop the Direct Debit (which the banks do not like doing) and ignore the bills that come through from the Phoneco.

My rather verbose point is that the contracts in the we sign in the UK, dont require the provider to really provide much service.

PS. Oh, and dont buy phones on 3mobile.

Re:Do they have court?

[Duds]

Yes but since this isn't a legal matter that doesn't matter. It's an acceptable use policy.

It's just a business refusing to serve you. If you feel they've done it unfairly, THEN you can sue THEM.

Re:Do they have court?

[AndrewRUK]

>The way this works, the BPI is asking the ISP's to enforce their Acceptable Use >Policies. Since the AUP's UK users agree to are pretty draconian in order to get >internet access, the ISP has the right to terminate our accounts at any time >based upon breach of them. Of course, the ISP's don't actually monitor the >traffic as such, because then they might be expected to catch all of the dodgy >traffic going across their wires. And how would the ISP now if you breached the contract in this particular case? Because someone just tells them they think that is the case? Should an ISP (or any part that enters into a contract) just accept any notice of breach by anyone? Of course not.

An ISP can, and should, listen to complaints about the behaviour of its customers from anyone. They should not, of course, do anything unless the complaint includes good enough evidence that the customer has breached thwe contact between them and the ISP. When I send a complaint to an ISP about a spammer on their network, I include as much evidence as I can, and I would assume that the BPI have done the same.

In this particular case, the relevant part is if you do something illegal, only the police or courts can decide if you have done so. Unless they say so, you have not commited an illegal activity and hence have not breached the contract no matter how many outsiders may say so.

What makes you say that? The contract between ISP and customer could quite easily be worded in a way which mean that the ISP doesn't have to wait for a court to decide before they can cut off the customer. For example, my own ISP's terms of use state:
9.2 You shall not use the Services...to send, knowingly receive, upload, download, use or re-use any material which is...in breach of any copyright.
9.3 We shall have the right to enforce such provisions set out in paragraph 9.2 above by suspending or terminating in whole or in part the provision of the affected Services at our option to you if we reasonably believe that you are in breach of such obligations. (Emphasis mine.)
They don't need to go to court, they don't need to be able to prove it beyond reasonable doubt, they only need to have a reasonable belief that a customer is in breach of that section (which also covers things like sending spam) to terminate service for that customer.

>Of course, the customer could start a civil suit against the ISP for breach of >contract (good luck with that!), Quite easy, they have a contract for an internet service and is not geting any at all. How hard is THAT?

You're missing a bit - they have a contract for an internet service that is conditional on them not doing certain things and is not geting any at all. Looking again at my ISP's terms, to be successful in a case for breach of contract against the ISP, a customer would have to show that on the balance of probabilities the ISP's belief that they had breached that section wasn't reasonable.

Re:Do they have court?

[TheRaven64]

you have to get the bank to stop the Direct Debit (which the banks do not like doing)

Really? It's three clicks with my Internet banking service (Barclays, for reference). The problems come when the telephone company decides that you are in their debt and notifies the agency responsible for your credit rating. A better bet is to pay, then take them to the small claims court for breach of contract and get the money back.

Re:Do they have court?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. The UK does not have a system of courts.

We also live in mud huts think the Earth is flat.

Re:Do they have court?

[Rich0]

The principle being that if they want, they can stop providing the service and the contract ends at that point, if you have already paid for a period after that time then your going to have trouble getting you money back.

If they terminated the contract without cause (ie you didn't cause them any harm), then they would almost certainly have to pro-rate any fees collected. It would probably be a simple matter in small-claims court to collect a partial refund.

In fact, most contracts I've read and written in exactly that way.

The general principle is that if you give somebody something, you should get something for it. Most companies have get-out-for-any-reason clauses, but they typically state that they will give a pro-rated refund if they exercise this option.

The phone service issue you brought up is a separate one. If the phone company terminated service without cause they would almost certainly need to stop billing, although you might have to return any free hardware they gave you. If you terminate early the matter comes down to whether they gave you a lot of free hardware up front. Those "$20" phones might really cost the provider $150, and if they can show that between hardware and setup costs they spent $300 on you, but only collected $10, then they're probably going to be able to collect most of their early-termination fee. If all they provided was service and no hardware then an early termination fee will be much harder for them to enforce.

Usually these contracts tend to be enforced in a reasonable manner. Basically, if you get something they can charge you for it, and if you didn't get something they need to refund it if they just decided to cut you off. Also, if the deal was payments over a long time and they are the ones to cut you off, then you may even be able to keep the up-front benefits without ever paying for them - since they were the ones to terminate.

Most ISP contracts are month-to-month unless they recently gave you hardware that you get to keep. If you lease your hardware then it should definitely be month-to-month.

Re:Do they have court?

[Pofy]

>Having seen my and some other peoples phone, internet and other (usually Direct
>Debit) service contracts, they usually have a clause that states something along
>the lines of "We withold the right to terminate the service/contract at any
>point". The principle being that if they want, they can stop providing the
>service and the contract ends at that point, if you have already paid for a
>period after that time then your going to have trouble getting you money back.

Considering the UK is part of the EU, no, such contractual terms are not allowd. If you want more information, check this out about "Unfair Contract Trems" (click on link in second paragraph or chose another language if you want). Note that the list of examples is just that, examples and not at all conclusive:

http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/cons_int/safe_shop/u nf_cont_terms/index_en.htm

Just because they try to put such terms into the contract doesn't make them valid or enforcable.

Re:Do they have court?

[Pofy]

So your basic idea is that the the ISP should trust outside sources but not the customers? If the BPI doesn't even go to court, what would the reasonability be about there being an illegal activity? If they go to court, what would be the reasonability about not await what the court says? One can of course also wonder why the ISP should at all try to become a court in deciding what is illegal and non illegal activities.

Re:Do they have court?

[AndrewRUK]

So your basic idea is that the the ISP should trust outside sources but not the customers?

No, the ISPs should look at the evidence supplied by the outside source (who, in this case is the BPI claiming copyright infringment, but could euqally be me reporting a customer of theirs sending spam or hosting a phishing website,) try to confirm it for themselves, and ask the customer about it. They should then make a decision based on all of those factors.

If the BPI doesn't even go to court, what would the reasonability be about there being an illegal activity?

It can be perfectly reasonable to believe criminal activity has taken place without anything going to court - for example, whoever it was who cut through my bike lock and nicked my bike last summer committed theft but there's no chance they'll be done for it, or consider the people I know who regularly smoke cannabis who are committing a criminal offence (posession) but are unlikely to ever be prosecuted for it.

Re:Do they have court?

[Pofy]

That a crime has been commited is different from claiming a specific person commited it. If you have a contract that can be terminated if you commit illegal activities, then you must commit illegal activities for it to be terminated. One part can't say "I believe you commited illegal acitivites" and then be safe (well, of course the can, but they would be wrong and the ones breaching the contract). Until you have been judge by a court, you have not commited any illegal activites hence that can't be used as an excuse. One can find out a whole bunch of other reasons that doesn't require a court but we were discussing commiting an illegal activity here. So you can't, in your case terminate a contract with someone just because you think it was he who stole your bike (assuming you have a contract with him that can be terminated when he commits a criminal activity). The one who claims a breach of contract is the one who has to show it has happened, not the other way arround. The fact that the ISP can terminate your connection and account anyway is another story, they can go rob a bank as well, that doesn't make it right, legal or correct which is what we discuss here, not wether they have the possibility to terminate your account in an non correct and legal way.

Re:Do they have court?

[Antony-Kyre]

I see you aren't familiar with the style of writing I was using.

I wonder . . .

[pembo13]

What these kind of organisations would say if pirating were to totally dissappear and they still kept "losing" money.

Re:I wonder . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

"What these kind of organisations would say if pirating were to totally dissappear and they still kept "losing" money."

That a new threat looms over the horizon of hard-working corporations everywhere. A criminal whose moral depravity knows no limits: the uninterested consumer. These social deviants have taken it upon themselves to decide what their purchasing habits should be, depriving corporations who have fairly bribed their elected officials of a potential sale. Depriving of them of their God-given right to make money.

This cannot go on, people. Think of the children, the terrorists have won, and you're either with us or against us.

Re:I wonder . . .

[gbobeck]

What these kind of organisations would say if pirating were to totally dissappear and they still kept "losing" money.

I would venture a guess that they would make claims that the distinct lack of piracy is causing them to lose money. After making those initial claims, I bet they would start a campaign to sue people who purchase large ammounts of albums legally from their local music stores. Once they sue and ruin their most loyal customers, they will revert to their "piracy bad" statements and start the whole process over again.

Re:I wonder . . .

[scum-e-bag]

They'd (US oil barons) create an enemy that no one could see (terrorists) and declare war on weaker nations (iraq) and plunder their resources to improve their bottom line (profit).

Re:I wonder . . .

[Elemenope]

That we should make books illegal. After all, for competition they are the epitome of unfair (they don't require a player, they have free rental distribution, they don't effectively track users, they are portable, user friendly, and have low power consumption, and, goddamit, people have been training to use them since the age of five!), and clearly if there were fewer books distracting people, they would see more movies and listen to more music.

Re:I wonder . . .

[TheRaven64]

They wouldn't. They are not losing money in the traditional sense; that of starting off with more money than you have at the end of a specified period. They are, in fact, making money by the traditional definition. Their definition of 'losing money' means 'making less money than they would make if everyone who pirated a track bought it instead.' If piracy stopped, then their losses (by this metric) would become zero.

They have yet to prove a link between piracy and fewer sales. I suspect that pirates (people who download a lot of music illegally, and buy the occasional track) are 'losing' them less money than people like me who simply don't listen to their product.

Re:I wonder . . .

[jb.hl.com]

They wouldn't say anything. They'd probably change what they were doing and sign different bands.

Re:I wonder . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

If piracy disappeared then they would say nothing because they were bankrupt by then.

Not correct

[aepervius]

In many EU country, you cannot refuse to serve somebody on ground of gender, disablities, religion or race, nationality (well I should say skin color since the concept of race for human is blatantly bunk). There are naturally a few exception (like where serving a disabled person where it would be impossible to ensure their security or would be contrary to the purpose of the service), but the law is quite clear on that point. And I think the anti segregation law are the same in the US (feel free to correct me on that one). So yes, *NO* private business offering a service to the public have a right to refuse service for those reason. No granted they can come up with anything else : financial reason for example, or that you have an obnoxious attitude degrading the quality of service to other client. But bottom line, your "for any reason (despite.... tell you)" is bunk.

Re:Not correct

[Anonymous Coward]

That's bunk, just about any ISP has it in their ToS/AUP that the service can't be used for the sharing of copyrighted works. The ToS/AUP/contract is there specifically so that they CAN deny service to anyone.

Re:Not correct

[mark-t]

How is that enforced, exactly?

In North America, it is enforced primarily by peer pressure... if a private business chose to refuse service to someone for such reasons, you can bet the company would get a HUGE amount of bad press about it, losing vast amounts of business left, right, and center.

Going after the offenders

[xav_jones]

Everytime a story appears about the music or movie industry coming up with some draconian method[1] for protecting their copyright (illegal to even own circumvention devices, DRM, DMCA, etc etc) -- wherein it appears as though they assume all people are criminals unless they happen to have been proven innocent -- I usually think, 'Why don't they go after the offenders and leave the rest of us be?'

Now, in this case, they do appear to be going after the offenders and so good luck to them. I believe they do have a right to protect their copyright but I don't believe it should be at the expense of everyone, just those who are offending.

[1] Which (as a side "benefit") means you often cannot use your own legally purchased media in legally/morally accepted ways.

Re:Going after the offenders

[Threni]

> Now, in this case, they do appear to be going after the offenders

Offender is a technical legal term describing someone who has been convicted of an offence. "They" are going after suspected offenders, which is what they always do, for varying values of "suspected". It remains to be seen how many 6 year olds, dead people and dogs are being included in this particular trawl.

Re:Going after the offenders

[xav_jones]

Offender is a technical legal term describing someone who has been convicted of an offence.

My apologies for not including the full technical legal term.

It remains to be seen how many 6 year olds, dead people and dogs are being included in this particular trawl.

Doesn't that completely depend on how many 6 year olds, dead people and dogs are on the ISP's books? I thought "they" only had IP numbers.

And next time my dog is sharing the internet connection! I don't care, even if he uses those puppy dog eyes on me.

Re:Going after the offenders

[Pofy]

Yes, but they should go after the offenders the proper way, that is through the police and the courts. They should not turn the judge themselves and then go after ISP's and ask the ISP to carry out the judgement.

Re:Going after the offenders

[badfish99]

They've tried that, but found out that "suing your customers" brings them a great deal of very bad publicity. So they want someone else to do the dirty work for them.

If the ISPs have got any sense they will just ignore this, but the BPI will have generated some more publicity that will worry the downloaders, without having put themselves into the position of creating martyrs.

Re:Going after the offenders

[Bob9113]

Now, in this case, they do appear to be going after the offenders and so good luck to them.

Are they going after copyright infringers, or are they going after 59 John Does who posted articles on Yahoo's bulletin boards that suggested the labels' P/E ratios are unjustified? How do you know? While I wholeheartedly agree with the principle of policing actual infringers (perhaps with the caveat that the labels have an obligation to lobby against DRM &c before they have any moral ground to stand on), it is not the prerogative of corporations to engage in private law enforcement. That is the purpose of a court system, and that is the problem here.

Re:Going after the offenders

[monopole]

On the Internet, nobody knows you're a Pirate Dog! ArrWoof!

ISPs are not going to like this

[ravenspear]

Even though most ISP AUPs prohibit illegal music downloading, most broadband providers know that illicit downloading is one of the primary allures of their service and that a significant portion of their customer base engages in it. Some even advertise the ease of it (albeit circumspectly) in their advertising. If they project the image that they actually enforce their AUPs that may drive customers to competing providers that are more willing to overlook such behavior.

Re:ISPs are not going to like this

[cerberusss]

Some even advertise the ease of it (albeit circumspectly) in their advertising

Yep, one of the local ADSL providers here advertising their "advanced" package: "Chatting and downloading a movie or music at the same time? No problem!"

I mean, "downloading a movie", I have never been able to download (as in, completely download, burn and view at a later time) legally.

Re:ISPs are not going to like this

[plumby]

I mean, "downloading a movie", I have never been able to download (as in, completely download, burn and view at a later time) legally

But they aren't advertising that you can download, burn and view at a later time are they?

Here in the UK, if you are a Sky Movies subscriber you can download loads of movies, and view them at a later time (although I don't think you can burn them).

Re:ISPs are not going to like this

[Whiteox]

"...that a significant portion of their customer base engages in it."

Sure that may be for a significant percentage of dsl users with histories of continuous downloads - the ones that some of us call "pirates" - but there is also a significant portion of dsl users with large or frequent downloads for purely legitimate reasons.
How does the BPI know what is being downloaded? Isn't that presumtive? I realise that it is not going to make a difference, as BPI's request is within their rights - and it is going to protect the general public ermm.... I mean "pirates" from prosecution, but it is also a very cheap way to avoid legal costs for BPI.
Think about that. It must be costing a lot of resources (not just money) to keep legal solutions maintained.

So I download about 10+ gb per month. Am I file sharing - yes - Am I downloading pirated music? NO. Should I tossed by my ISP?

Also, supposing that you have searched everywhere for a particular track - a very obscure track. You can't find it on any legitimate site or through paid download. It's not in shops. But someone in Outer Mongolia happens to share the same musical taste as you and happens to have the track in question. Would you break the law and download it?

Re:ISPs are not going to like this

[element-o.p.]

I don't know how things are done in the UK, but I worked at an ISP in the US until a few months ago, and here was how things worked for us:

* Copyright infringement is against our terms and conditions of use, whether by filesharing, posting on a web server, etc.
* If we become aware that someone is engaging, knowingly or otherwise (i.e., botnet, virus, etc.), then we send a warning.
* That's it.


Our legal obligation ended at advising the user that we had become aware of copyright infringement activity originating on an IP address used by the customer's account at the time the offending activity occurred. If, at that point, the customer continued to engage in copyright infringement, we would continue to advise the customer that they needed to fix whatever was causing the offending activity.

If the **AA/BSA wished to escalate at that point, they could then get a court order requesting subscriber information. If not, then we had fulfilled our legal obligation, and any further action was at our discretion...which usually meant nothing else happened, since we were more concerned with spam, virus and port scanning activity originating on our network.

ISPs move away from that practice in Sweden

[peope]

Here in Sweden ISPs have warned and disconnected people accused of copyright infringement.
However in recent time people have been aware of the issue and some ISPs has gone against the practice.
Nowadays ISPs here are reluctant to be known as a party to disconnect you because of those reasons.
Customers simply move away from their services.

Re:ISPs move away from that practice in Sweden

[scum-e-bag]

Here in Australia similar things happen. ISPs forward emails to users whos IP has been identified by the the "so-called owners" of data. Further action beyond this is unheard of.

AUPs need to go away

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

This is somewhat offtopic, but if we want universal wireless Internet access (which we do... well I do), then eventually AUPs are going to have to go away, and network protocols that take this into account will have to be used (email and universal IPSEC come to mind)...

Re:AUPs need to go away

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately AUPs won't go away... if we do get universal wireless internet access, many organizations (especially in the US) will try to censor it.

Re:AUPs need to go away

[Whiteox]

This is somewhat offtopic,(no comma needed) but if we want universal wireless Internet access (be consistent with capitalization 'u.w.I.a.') (which we do... well I do), then eventually AUPs are going to have to go away,(comma!) and network protocols that take this into account will have to be used (full stop required) (email and universal IPSEC come to mind)...

Re:AUPs need to go away

[LocalH]

You're an idiot. Every single thing you nitpicked was correct before. Every single one of them.

The most correct approach so far

[erroneus]

I'm really very sympathetic to the cause of file sharing. I only see the file-sharing-universe as the participant that I am. I don't do it all that much but I feel a bit grateful for those that share stuff... whether intentionally or not. (Hehehe... one of my favorite boredom-killing past times is to open a gnutella client and search for p*.jpg or *.doc or *.xls... you might be surprised as what people are stupid enough to share!)

As a rule, if I really want something, I buy it. I would like to assume (and from what I hear it's generally true) that when people fully appreciate something or functionally use it, they buy it. That goes for software, music, movies... whatever... okay, I admit I don't buy porn... but anyway.

But if ever there was a "correct" approach to their handling, this would be it. Their [the clients'] anonymity is preserved. They don't get a criminal record. They don't pay thousands to defend themselves. They don't settle for large amounts of money. And in my guess, the worst they might initially get is an interruption of service as a warning and probably resume connectivity (after turning off sharing) shortly thereafter and lives go generally unharmed.

It's not that bad really.

Re:The most correct approach so far

[scum-e-bag]

Hehehe... one of my favorite boredom-killing past times is to open a gnutella client and search for p*.jpg or *.doc or *.xls... you might be surprised as what people are stupid enough to share!

Thanks! You've just entertained me for an evening.

Re:The most correct approach so far

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, from a practical POV the (maybe) filesharers were lucky.

But how on earth is this the right approach??

If the ISP gives in, some people were disconnected because a non-government(correct me if wrong) association thought they might be filesharers. There is no proof. And they didn't go through that entire pesky, time consuming judicial system (the one where people get a chance to defend themselves). Because an ISP was intimidated by the BPI. That sounds right to you?

Might still be breach of contract

[Lonewolf666]

Once the ISP has agreed to deliver a service, he is bound to that contract. IANAL but I think refusing to provide the service would be a valid reason for the customer to cancel the ISP contract immediately and take his business somewhere else.
An interesting side note (from Germany, where I live):
ISPs frequently offer a nice hardware package (DSL router, often with WLAN) in exchange for a minimum contract duration of 1-2 years. If the provider now breaks the service contract, chances are that you could cancel the ISP contract and keep the goodies. Of course, you'd better NOT do this if you have reason to believe that "they" can prove you have illegaly distributed other peoples' IP.

I hope they give a little time before disconnect

[brunos]

About 4 years ago, I was working in quite a large company that had many online shops all over the world. We had two connections to BT. One day they did not work anymore, we checked the equipment, all was OK, we phoned BT and they said that we had payd in time and that there was no problem at all. This basically took a lot of our servers down, and we lost a lot of money. The next day, whe phoned BT again and asked what had happened, and they told us that someone had posted a file to a newsgroup, and therefore they disconnected us. (The file in question was a BSD package). So a stupid employee at these companies can really do some damage without a proper legal procedures.

Is this only in the US?

[dteichman2]

In the US, our ISPs aren't supposed to filter or block anything, at all. It's what allows them to stay neutral parties. Does the UK have anything similar?

Re:Is this only in the US?

[paedobear]

It's not clear - the cases that have gone to court have gone both ways. Mind you, I'd be stunned if anyone with any seniority in the government at any real level had any idea of technology at all. It's not that they're luddite, just ignorant.

Re:Is this only in the US?

[BenjyD]

The law isn't so clear in the UK: rights like free speech don't seem to carry so much weight over here.

There was a case a while back where someone sued an ISP when they didn't remove libellous Usenet posts which was settled out of court in favour of the plaintiff. I'm not sure of the effect that has had on ISPs, or if the law has changed since.

Re:Is this only in the US?

[badfish99]

On the contrary, the UK government is pressuring ISPs to introduce "voluntary" censorship of a (secret) list of alleged child-porn sites. Most of the big ISPs have already complied. Of course the unspoken threat is that this will be made compulsory unless they all "volunteer".

At the moment this is to confined to blocking porn, but once all the ISPs have caved in, the infrastructure for more general censorship will be in place. And the list of sites to be censored is supplied to the ISPs in an encrypted form, so even they do not know what they are blocking.

Misconfigured my ass

[caitsith01]

It's worth noting that the users may not be intentionally violating the (civil) law, it may just be open proxies or misconfigured P2P clients

Which, as the innocent denizens of Slashdot often remind us, are no doubt being used for purely non-infringing purposes, such as downloading home made movies and Linux distros...

Or perhaps you meant 'misconfigured' in the sense of 'not running PeerGuardian'.

Realistically, it is quite likely that the individuals being targeted are uploading copyright material. The more significant question is whether this type of 'denial of service' justice is appropriate, especially when the apparent 'victim' is not the same company that is denying you access to their services.

Personally I find it very disturbing - take it far enough and we could have the power company switching off power to your home if the RIAA or non-US equivalent declares you a 'likely copyright thief'. Cue 'free market' rants, but in the end, if you are blacklisted by telcos you will not have Internet access, free market or not.

Re:Misconfigured my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Misconfigured my ass

Ewww

Re:Misconfigured my ass

[timbo_red]

we could have the power company switching off power to your home if the RIAA or non-US equivalent declares you a 'likely copyright thief.

Sigh.

Have you explicity and voluntarily agreed to an Acceptable Use Policy with your power company stating that you will not make available for downloading any copyrighted material that you do not have the right to make available using a computer powered by their electicity?

Re:Misconfigured my ass

[caitsith01]

Have you explicity and voluntarily agreed to an Acceptable Use Policy with your power company stating that you will not make available for downloading any copyrighted material that you do not have the right to make available using a computer powered by their electicity?

Sigh.

Do you really have any choice as to whether you accept an AUP from your ISP? Where I live, the options are few and my choice would almost certainly be to accept this kind of AUP or have no Internet access, or at least no broadband access.

Likewise, if the 3 power companies in my area did decide to implement that kind of policy, what choices would I have? 1. Accept it. 2. Have no power. This is the problem with arguments about a 'free' market and 'free' choice - really, these companies have the power. For example, I cannot approach my ISP and present them with a policy that I will only use their service on the condition that they never reveal my IP address to a third party. Why? Because I have no bargaining position. I am one of millions of customers. They are one of a relatively very few service providers, all of whom have similar policies.

So..

[Frightening]

Even if this madness ensues, the 59 people can sign up with another ISP that understands the internet within a week. They can then launch a blog-campaign or something to put the idiot ISP out of business.

There will always be hundreds of providers that allow all sorts of filesharing. If the ISP goes so far as to defame the users/cause blacklisting in other providers for this issue alone, lawsuits should fly, heads must roll.

Piracy is not always nice, but big brother is so much worse.

Well the problem is simple

[SmallFurryCreature]

If you can't use an ISP to "pirate" then why should you use it? At least in holland several ISP's have advertised with "download music/movies/games at high speed" while they had no service to offer these products in a "legal" manner. So where they advertising piracy?

Perhaps in the same way that a fast car ad advertises speeding. What after all is the point of a fast car when you can only drive as fast as everyone else?

ISP's might realize that there intrests are not the interests of the copyright holders. Same as xerox interests are not the interests of book publishers. If xerox made their copiers incapable of copying copyrighted works they might possibly find their entire market share collapsing faster then you can say "cheap chinese clones".

It reminds me a bit of those pay sex phone lines. Nobody likes them, banks hate doing business with porn companies. The phone company hates them because they are a hassle but both the banks and the phone company love the money they bring in. As long as you keep your company "clean" enough to touch they are happy to help you peddle smut.

Same with ISP's, while they would love to be just email and light web browwsing comapnies the momey is in p2p and porn. Nobody is going to need 24/7 super adsl to check their email.

Re:Well the problem is simple

[sealawyer2003]

There are plenty of legal sources for music and video. Maybe the ISPs are talking about downloading stuff from iTunes.

Re:Well the problem is simple

[mark-t]

If you can't use an ISP to "pirate" then why should you use it?

Keeping in touch with friends and family.

News.

Research.

Multiplayer games.

VOIP.

And...

Your daily slashdot fix.

C&W (Bulldog) and Tiscali

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to use Bulldog broadband until about a month ago. Their service was great in 6 months the connection didn't drop once. That was until I got a letter stating they were no longer signing up residential customers and were moving to business customers only. Within a couple of days after that their service went to pot. I was disconnected every 5-10 mins Needless they say if they cancel peoples accounts they really will not be bothered. As far as I aware tiscali have a max of 2gb download limit a month so there can't be much downloading there!

Re:C&W (Bulldog) and Tiscali

[grim4593]

2GB a month? What shit is that? I use more than that a month just surfing the web. Hell, even free fileservers let you have more bandwidth a month that that :P

Re:C&W (Bulldog) and Tiscali

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm lucky enough not to have a cap on how much I can download in a month (except for the limit of speed 8Mbps/1Mbps). I know I use at least 2GB of b/w within two weeks on just browsing alone, I'd have to include all the time I spend on CS:S and other online games, as well as downloading game demos.

What if a user on C&W and Tiscali wanted to play the WoW demo? It's 3GB, even if they could somehow get around to download it, would they even be able to play it?

Re:C&W (Bulldog) and Tiscali

[Anonymous Coward]

2GB a month? What shit is that? I use more than that a month just surfing the web.

It's an entry level broadband package; you want a higher cap, you pay a bit more. Or choose one of the dozens of other ISPs who are willing to take your money. It's a competitive market: broadband prices "from £whatever" sells.

Revenue...

[Savage-Rabbit]

If the ISP gets paid by other networks to recieve data from the ISP then the ISP might think twice about closing accounts that create large amount of revenue for it.

I think the point he was trying to make is that the revenue generated by those users who own the accounts which are being used to illegaly download music generate less revenue than it would cost to deal with the flood of lawsuits from the BPI. Also keep in mind that in many European countries the party that loses a civil lawsuit pays the costs of the proceedings. I don't know if that's the case in the UK but even if it isn't any business person with a modicum of sense will draw the obvious conclusion which is: Close the filesharing users down and get the lawyers of your back cheaply.

Re:Revenue...

[Pofy]

On the other hand, what lawsuit would the ISP lose and thus pay the costs for? If THEY were doing anything wrong, the BPI would obviously go after THEM, not the costumer. If the customer breaches an agreement with the ISP that is of no bussiness to anyone else than those two. A third party can't drag you to a court for not fullfilling an agreement between you and someone completely different.

Better than being sued

[Anonymous Coward]

It's better than being sued by the BPI, for sure!

Why shouldn't ISPs turn a blind eye?

[IAmAI]

In the article, it quotes Peter Jamieson, BPI chairman:

"We have said for months that it is unacceptable for ISPs to turn a blind eye to industrial-scale copyright infringement."

Is it really in the interest of ISPs to not turn a blind eye? As I see it, it is potentially against their interest: First of all, ISPs are barely, if it all, affected music piracy. In fact they may even benefit from 'pirates' choosing to use their service because they, for example, don't block P2P ports (although on the flipside, the increased bandwidth usage of P2P may be to their detriment). If I recall correctly, Tiscali attempted to set up a music store of some kind, which was thwarted, presumably by the music industry, so ISPs can't get in the way of effects of piracy, even if they wanted to! I'm fairly confident that piracy having a direct negative impact on the business is not a reason for why it is disallowed in their EULAs (legal requirement, minimisation of legal action against them are probably more likely reasons).

So even if ISPs kindly decided to be altruistic towards their fellow big business, the BPI, and help root out big-time pirates, they would have to go to all the trouble of trawling through all of its paying customer's activity, invading their privacy, handing them in as criminals and then loosing their custom. That seems like a great deal to give up for no gain!

You're not alone! (Was: optical delusion ?)

[Baracat]

You know... Me too.

Unequivocal?

[Kaemaril]

"We are providing unequivocal evidence of copyright infringement via their services"

I'd like to see that evidence. The article suggests it's IP addresses associated with uploads. At worst it's simply the IP address and at best surely it could only be a list of IP addresses and what they uploaded - i.e, IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx uploaded (file) on (date and time) to (server).

Is that enough to be 'unequivocal'? And if so, since the article also suggests they're only after those who upload a lot ('It was unacceptable for ISPs to turn a "blind eye to industrial-scale copyright infringement", said BPI chairman Peter Jamieson.') why aren't they going after these guys for damages in court instead of going the easy route of simply shutting them off? After all, it's likely they'll simply go to another ISP ...

Re:Unequivocal?

[Pofy]

>And if so, since the article also suggests they're only after those who upload a lot....

Which makes one wonder how they know someone has uploaded "a lot".

Re:Unequivocal?

[Tim C]

Which makes one wonder how they know someone has uploaded "a lot".

Well, you could simply download a lot from them, making a note of their IP address. Any IP that uploads more than X to you, you go after.

Yes, a lot of them will be dynamic IPs, in which case the ISP can simply reply to that effect and that's the end of it. However, a lot of people have static IP addresses - I've had one for about 5 years now at no extra cost, and a lot of ISPs hand them out either by default or on request, often for free.

Short of breaking down doors and confiscating PCs, there's not a lot they can do. The law gives them the right to protect their copyrights, you can hardly blame them for trying to do so. At least they're not just blanket suing people (at the moment...)

Re:Unequivocal?

[LordSnooty]

AFAIK they go after those who have a lot of files available to share, not necessarily those who upload a lot of data. Open up emule, browse to a user, view shared files, if > 1000, book him.

Re:Unequivocal?

[karot]

At worst it's simply the IP address and at best surely it could only be a list of IP addresses and what they uploaded - i.e, IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx uploaded (file) on (date and time) to (server).

ISPs (at least in th UK, and I think in the USA and elsewhere) are required to log which customer was using which IP address at what time for tracability reasons. This means that the information above would quite easily identify a household, and I imagine it is a short jump from there with appropriate legal warrants, to access to the computers in that household.

Re:Unequivocal?

[complete loony]

Or another IP address ....

Re:Unequivocal?

[zenyu]

ISPs (at least in th UK, and I think in the USA and elsewhere) are required to log which customer was using which IP address at what time for tracability reasons.

FYI In the USA it is possibly legal to track which customer is using which IP, but it is certainly not required.

It would be unconstitutional to require that type of violence against an American's privacy without a warrant. Not that the law has much affect on what actually happens in the USA anymore. But there are still ISPs that use 20 minute DHCP expires as a selling point for privacy reasons.

BTW I would love to see that "evidence" myself. I had my internet cut off for a week after EMI presented laughably fake "evidence" against me. The bastards running these cartels should be imprisoned and the companies dissolved. I would love to see the corprate veil pierced as well and have all the "investors" in these companies have their assets seized as well.

Re:Unequivocal?

[Pofy]

Which is a quite different case though. They might not have shared more than those few specific files the BPI downloaded. Even if you share a million files, it would take a long time even for a realsitic possibility for there being one download of each file, a simple calculation of file size and speed of connection gives a good estimate of minimum time. Of course, simply making it available can in many cases also be infringement, but is definately not the same as if one actually uploaded all those files many times.

Re:Unequivocal?

[Pofy]

Before the recent directive on saving most trafiic information in EU, it would be up to each country te decide whatever they want. Many countries, including for example Sweden, specifically *forbids* saving of much such data with some exceptions. In Sweden such data as who used which IP can only be saved if it is required for billing issues and similar reasons (which it often might be, but thus not required at all).

Re:Unequivocal?

[karot]

FYI In the USA it is possibly legal to track which customer is using which IP, but it is certainly not required.

It would be unconstitutional to require that type of violence against an American's privacy without a warrant. Not that the law has much affect on what actually happens in the USA anymore. But there are still ISPs that use 20 minute DHCP expires as a selling point for privacy reasons.

Interesting - While I understand that privacy is important, I am happy for information to be stored regarding my actions where those actions are "in plain sight". I do not want that information spread without due process, but it could be in my interest to have an alibi provided by my ISP. It may also be useful to be able to convict someone of spamming, phishing, child pornography or whatever through the use of this type of evidence.

The UK government also behaves differently in other respects towards privacy, and although there are some HORRIBLE exceptions where guilt is assumed (***GRRR***), I have no objections to city-centre video surveillance etc etc... Numerous criminals are caught through this type of "privacy invasion"

...Or are you doing something illegal??? ;-) If I were looking for criminals, the first place to go would be those 20 minute DHCP lease companies!!!

Re:Unequivocal?

[LordSnooty]

One wonders how the BPI would calculate how much data someone has uploaded, without checking ISP logs. I'm sure that in this case, they are going after those with lots of modern music available to share.

Customers Pay the Cash

[segedunum]

The music industry gets more money out of Britain than most other countries combined when it comes to music. Small wonder we're called 'treasure island'. It just seems really, really, really rich coming from them. They even seem to be completely redefining the definiton of ownership:

BPI has identified 17 Tiscali IP addresses and 42 Cable & Wireless IP addresses which were used to upload "significant quantities of music owned by BPI members".

Stuff them. I'd just give a two-fingered salute and move ISPs. However, it's difficult for ISPs because allowing file sharing makes them money, and I would imagine they will all be dragging their feet over this. It's the customers who pay the cash at the end of the day, and not the BPI, but I'd imagine they would eventually be wanting a slice of an ISPs revenue.

I wonder

[eipgam]

I wonder how many of the people complaining about this (i.e. the ISP enforcing their AUP) are also the ones that complain when the ISP doesn't crack down on users spamming.

Re:I wonder

[vegetablespork]

I wonder how many people can't distinguish the petty act of copyright infringement from an assault on peoples' time and attention. Just because they're both against the ISPs' AUPs (for purely CYA reasons) doesn't imply they both merit the same enforcement effort.

Re:I wonder

[eipgam]

Whether or not you think copyright infringement is petty is irrelevant. The fact is that both it and spamming are generally prohibited by the average ISP AUP - you can't ask for one to be enforced and not the other.

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Both actions are mentioned in some document that some lawyer wrote and so what? I do not have to regard two totally different actions the same because of that. If murder and mentioning of the Tiananmen Square Bloodshed are both illegal in China and I am against murder, why should I also be against the Freedom of Speech?

Re:I wonder

[vegetablespork]

Sure I can. Just as I can ask that the laws against rape and murder be enforced more agressively than those against, say, jaywalking. And sane people do.

Hogwash...

[Ogemaniac]

I know people who still choose to live without TELEPHONES, let alone the internet.

Is the internet useful? Yes. Comparable to food, clothes or shelter? Absolutely not.

Re:Hogwash...

[arclyte]

I know people who live without money, housing, toilets, and most of the time, food. They're called "homeless" where I come from because of their lack of a reliable place to live. I don't think that they were what the original poster was referring to, though. There will always be exceptions to the rule. If my DSL line didn't conveniently require me to have a telephone I would live without one as well. But the fact is, as more people come to rely on this technology to run their daily lives (shop, find jobs, find lovers and friends, find housing, etc.), the threat of having it revoked is a major concern. Of course, we could all go back to our agrarian roots and start our own farms because none of the trappings of the modern world are really "required" for our survival, and may in fact be hindering our lives more than helping. But, come on, let's face reality here... You want to take my net access from me? You can have it when you pry it from my cold, dead hands...

Re:Hogwash...

[vertinox]

I know people who still choose to live without TELEPHONES, let alone the internet.

It must suck for them when they need to call 911.

That or do phone interviews for that new job.

Is the internet useful? Yes. Comparable to food, clothes or shelter? Absolutely not.

Personally, I wouldn't have my current day job today without the internet (monster.com) nor would I be able to manage my personal business (or do sales) without the internet.

So basically, if the internet went away for me tomorrow... I'd be pretty much hosed for my future outlook of making money and paying for food and shelter... So yeah... To me and others it is just as important.

Re:Pornographic music?

[gsslay]

Did anyone else wonder why every time the BPI is mentioned in a slashdot story someone posts this exact same observation?

I would say this actually helps the ISPs

[Ogemaniac]

The vast majority of these pirates are likely to be among the heaviest downloaders on their system, akin to the biggest hogs at the buffet line. Depending on what kind of system you are talking about, it is likely that these hogs are making the system slower for everyone else. My ISP (the local cable company) never performs anywhere near their advertised "up to XXX megabits/sec" speed because so many people in my apartment complex use them (which I can infer from the absurd number of wireless systems I can pick up).

By slaughtering a few of these cheating hogs, you lose them (and maybe a couple of their other cheating hog friends in protest), but in return remove a lot of fat from your system.

Re:I would say this actually helps the ISPs

[Anonymous Coward]

So you bought a package that said "up to XXX megabits/sec", and then you don't get that speed. That's not the ISP's fault. It's your fault for being stupid enough to be taken in by their advertising. Everyone else knows what "up to" means - it means you won't get anywhere near it.

Re:I would say this actually helps the ISPs

[IAmAI]

Possibly true, although the most common reason for not gaining the quoted bandwidth for ADSL connection at least, is related to the distance your connection is from the exchange. I don't know if this applies to cable as well; it may not.

Re:I would say this actually helps the ISPs

[nzkbuk]

Also the contention ratio (adsl terms)
While a dsl provider may advertise the standard 50:1 (home) or 20:1 (business) with the larger pipes it's much more likely to be 200:1 or more.
It's standard practise, just like it was when there was only dialup.

Also as for the ADSL being sold for the speed, yes and no, do remember that until not long ago internet calls in the uk (dialup) were charged on a per minute rate. Now if you look around you can get flat rate for dialup, but typically it still works out cheaper and easier to get a DSL connection.

Tiscali?

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

A couple of years ago, the German magazine C't did a comparison of the various DSL services available, I think there were around 3 main services (Telekom/T-Online, Tiscali and maybe Arcor) plus several resellers. One thing that came out clearly was that Tiscali were artificially putting the brakes on certain services/ports - specifically those used for file sharing.

C't speculated that one of the reasons for encouraging file sharers to use another service was to reduce bandwidth consumption, another to reduce their exposure to legal actions.

Now I see that Tiscali are being mentioned here. Does this mean that they have changed their policy? That it applied in Germany but not the UK? That the file sharers are just plain stupid or that they are using their parents' connection and have no influence over the ISP used?

checks or abuses?

[Tom]

There's one major issue here: How does the ISP know the names or numbers it gets are "guilty" in any sense? Who checks what these lobby groups send you? Who verifies that they indeed shared copyrighted material and not something that's perfectly legal to share (say, a Linux .iso)?

Re:checks or abuses?

[Yvan256]

>Who verifies that they indeed shared copyrighted material and not something that's perfectly legal to share (say, a Linux .iso)?

Or even free domain music files such as, oh, I dunno... the whole OverClocked ReMix library?

Pot - Kettle - Black

[DrStrangeLug]

Wasn't the BPI found guilty back in 2002 of defrauding the artists they represent by not passing on the royalties ? If we could find some artists who think they're getting ripped off then it's a safe bet that some of the financial dealings are done over the BPI's internet connection so thats grounds for having their connection terminated. It's unacceptable for an ISP to turn a blind eye to corperate corruption and lawbreaking by their customers.

Re:I hope they give a little time before disconnec

[cerberusss]

Then what? I expect a somewhat larger company with lots of online shops has some sort of a SLA for their internet connection.

Re:Pornographic music?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up. I'm tired of seeing this stupid comment everytime the BPI is mentioned.

References

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

IME, most large employers will do little more than confirming that Mr Jones did indeed work for them between the relevant dates. There's just no upside to giving any information they don't have to, and they could be screwed by either the former employee or his new employer if things go bad and the blame comes back to their reference.

In this case, I think the law should provide some sort of "good faith" safe harbour protection for those giving references (much as witnesses in court automatically get certain legal protections, as mentioned in this week's discussion about expert witnesses and professional regulatory bodies). Otherwise, there is simply no incentive to give a reference at all, and a lot of risk.

Godfrey vs. Demon case

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

If the ISP gets paid by other networks to recieve data from the ISP then the ISP might think twice about closing accounts that create large amount of revenue for it.

As others have pointed out, the tiny number of customers in question probably aren't generating large amounts of revenue for the ISP.

Moreover, the fact that the ISP has been told about the infringing use of their network potentially lays them open to huge legal liability. We had Godfrey vs. Demon back in 1999, and ISPs in the UK have been shivering ever since.

A court said they broke the law

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The BPI have sued some people in the UK for copyright infringement, it's at the bottom of the FA.

"BPI has taken legal action in 139 filesharing cases. The four that have gone to court have produced verdicts in BPI's favour, while 111 individuals have settled out of court."

Please read your comment again, noting the part I've emphasized. These people broke the law, and were found to have done so by a court, not by some sort of recording industry shady dealing and barratry.

Now, you can bitch about how copyright law is unreasonable, and so on, yada yada. But the fact remains, that is the law right now, and it's a good bet that all of these people knew it. No-one forced them to break that law, and the recording industry was asking for legal remedies in court, as is its right. Why is this a problem?

Re:A court said they broke the law

[arkhan_jg]

Because of the 111 individuals who settled out of court, who decided it was cheaper and simpler to pay the settlement than pay for a solicitor and go for the longer drawn out battle in court, even if they might have won on the merits of their case?

Because there's 24 people who have neither settled or been found guilty, and are presumably going through this long, expensive process?

Because not all of us agree that the penalties for copyright infringment levelled against private individual sharing are necessarily fair and just?

Because many people infringing are children, and NOT aware of the law and its consquences, so their parents end up with multi-thousand pound fines?

It's the THREAT of court by a private body that forces settlements from the majority. Whether they are guilty or not, we'll never know. Personally, I think they should concentrate on commercial infringement, and making their product valuable on its merits, rather than constantly try to sell us less and less of a product, for more and more money, and using the law to enforce it.

Just because the big 4 have the law on their side doesn't make them right, or worthy of my business. I've made my choice to only buy from independants, you're welcome to make your own.

Re:A court said they broke the law

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Sorry, I still don't have a problem with any of this.

Because of the 111 individuals who settled out of court, who decided it was cheaper and simpler to pay the settlement than pay for a solicitor and go for the longer drawn out battle in court, even if they might have won on the merits of their case?

We're talking about the UK, which has a loser-pays legal system and a presumption of innocence. The cost of defending yourself in court, even without a solicitor if necessary, is likely to be small.

I'm more inclined to believe that since all of the cases that have gone to court have been won by the industry, a lot of people who know damn well that they should lose are settling up-front to avoid the risk of the court awarding higher damages and/or costs.

Because there's 24 people who have neither settled or been found guilty, and are presumably going through this long, expensive process?

What long, expensive process?

Because not all of us agree that the penalties for copyright infringment levelled against private individual sharing are necessarily fair and just?

Well, that's your decision, and of course you're as entitled as anyone else to have your own opinion. However, since we don't appear to know how big the settlements and court-ordered penalties are in this case, and in any case those should be defined by the law and the specifics of the case rather than your or my personal preferences, I don't see that this point has any relevance.

Because many people infringing are children, and NOT aware of the law and its consquences, so their parents end up with multi-thousand pound fines?

Then maybe their parents should be a little more responsible, I dunno, maybe supervising their kids and bringing them up to obey the law?

Sorry, but I have absolutely no sympathy for a parent that lets their kids go roaming around on the Internet, unsupervised and unrestricted, for the extended periods of time necessary to be in this situation. Maybe a few thousand in fines will remind them of the responsibility they took on when they brought a child into this world.

It's the THREAT of court by a private body that forces settlements from the majority. Whether they are guilty or not, we'll never know.

No, I don't think so. You're thinking like someone used to seeing US tactics, where megacorps can draw out extensive cases, and get awarded absurd punitive damages for trivial infractions. Fortunately for all of us, the UK hasn't quite descended to that level yet. I don't swap songs illegally on-line, and you better believe I'd defend myself in court against a frivolous lawsuit rather than roll over and play dead.

As for guilt, in individual cases, no, of course you mustn't prejudge the outcome. Overall, let's not kid ourselves, it's a good bet that the vast majority of people doing enough to get noticed here are guilty as sin.

Just because the big 4 have the law on their side doesn't make them right, or worthy of my business. I've made my choice to only buy from independants, you're welcome to make your own.

Indeed, and as it happens, I rarely buy music of any sort these days. I just don't find it enjoyable enough that I want to spend my hard-earned money on it, so I listen to the radio or whatever instead. I have no problem with your decision either; it's absolutely your right to make that choice, whatever Big Media might like to think. The only thing I have a problem with here is people who decide they do want Big Media's products, but are going to take them illegally rather than paying the going rate.

A bit off topic, but...

[ShyGuy91284]

Am I the only one that reads "British Phonographic Industry" as "British Pornographic Industry" every time I see them in a Slashdot headline?

Re:A bit off topic, but...

[Odiumjunkie]

No, as evidenced by _the huge number of identical posts in any discussion in involving the BPI_.

It has happened to me...

[Chabil Ha']

I remember waking up one morning with a splash screen on my browser no matter where I went, stating that I had been in violation of the DMCA because I was sharing Matrix: Reloaded. It was true. I'm not going to profess my innocence. I was caught red handed. I thank my lucky stars, however, that my ISP stood up for my privacy rights and did not hand over my information to the third party acting on behalf of the MPAA. My punishment: my Internet access was shut off for 24 hours and I had to check a box on that splash screen saying that I would not upload copyrighted materials to other people. To say the least, I dropped a load that morning. I knew that if my ISP really wanted to, they could have thrown me to the piranhas.

Did this stop me from leeching? No. I was using Kazaa at the time (hacked version) so I was able to completely cut off my upload capabilities.

Re:It has happened to me...

[Travelsonic]

Well, unfortunately, "I had to check a box on that splash screen saying that I would not upload copyrighted materials to other people..." that is not, IIRC completely enforcable since there are copyrighted works that can./are legally shared - you just have to look. They can not apply such a blanket statement when there are factors that make it un-enforcable.

Re:War against Communism is a holy crusade!

[Anonymous Coward]

It is of course interesting to note that China is a communist country.

Re:I hope they give a little time before disconnec

[brunos]

I am not sure what happened next, knowing the boss I guess he got some kind of compensation. The problem was that for a while no one in my company or at BT knew what was going on: panic everywhere. The only other time that something as bad happened was when I worked at the ministry of employment (in Egypt) with a microsoft stack which had a licensing cap on the maximum number of connections. Microsoft then gave us access to a great website with all their software that we could use without any license restrictions ... There were some really nice programs in there that I never saw on sale anywhere. Bill Gates himself came to visit, and got the Egyptian goverment to standardize on microsoft produts :-(

ISP Boardroom

[berenixium]

"Well, that's the latest batch of suspensions done. How many customers have we got left?"
"Er, one. On dialup pay-as-you go. Inactive since '96."
"Bah. God Damn you BPI!"

Re:Pornographic music?

[Big Nothing]

What? Are you saying I'm not the only one? Well, I never!

Proxies?

[The MAZZTer]

It'd be funny if it was one user using 59 proxies.

Sure, but tell it to good ol' Pete.

[sirrobert]

During his reign, Peter the Great of Russia taxed:

• beards
• souls
• hats
• boots
• beehives
• basements
• chimneys
• food
• clothing
• birth
• marriage
• burial

For more "fun" tax trivia (did you know the Brits were the first to tax income (1400s), depending on how you look at religious governments earlier, but it was the Romans who first came up with the clever "Urine tax" (A.D. 1)), look for "tax trivia" on the web =)

Re:Pornographic music?

[LocalH]

In fact, I would go so far as to say that ./ should do something heretofore unprecedented - they should add the phrase "British Pornographic Industry" to the lameness filter and adjust it so any presence of that string causes the comment to be blocked, even if it's three words within a 500-word post. That'll end it.

the only new news is that it's british

[Akatosh]

I've been getting these dumb 'dmca' complaints to my abuse@ box at work (an isp) for years. What they don't get (or more likely, simply ignore hoping the isp doesnt know) is that the dmca only provides takedown mechanisms for content stored on the provider's equipment. An illegal file stored on the user's PC is transit and the ISP opens themselfs up to legal liability if they act on it, even if they know what the user is doing. You can read the nitty gritty on wikipedia. Of course this is the usa, and the artical is about the brits. I know nothing about British law.

Your germlish fails to impress me

[gd23ka]

Tiscali heeft 1 nieuwsserver, namelijk news.tiscali.nl. Deze nieuwsserver geeft alleen tekst bestanden weer en ondersteunt dus geen binaries. Tiscali heeft hier bewust voor gekozen omdat binarie servers veelal gebruikt worden voor het illegaal downloaden van auteursrechtelijke bestanden. Tiscali stimuleert juist de legale verspreiding van auteursrechtelijke bestanden via tiscali.music en tiscali.video.

Tiscali hat einen Newsserver, naemlich news.tiscali.nl. Auf diesen Newsserver gibt es nur Textmaterial und keine Binaries. Tiscali hat hier eine bewusste Vorauswahl getroffen, da Server mit Binaerdateien vielmals benutzt werden zum illegalen Herunterladen von urheberrechtlich geschuetztem Material. Tiscali foerdert lediglich die legale Verbreitung von urheberrechtlich geschuetzten Material ueber tiscali.music und tiscali.video.

Tiscali has one Newsserver which is news.tiscali.nl. There is only text and no binaries on that server. Tiscali has made this preselection deliberately because servers with binaries are often used to illegally download intellectual property rights protected materials. Tiscali
encourages solely legal dissemination of intellectually property rights protected material via tiscali.music and tiscali.video.

There is only one other Germlish language that I find slightly more difficult to read and that would be Afrikaans.

Revenue

[phorm]

A lot of people sign up for 'net so that they can, among a few other things, download music etc (I'm not saying it's right, but they do). Not only that, but many ISP's advertised that you could "download music faster with broadband" etc.

If an ISP suddenly becomes known to yoink people's connections in large amounts for doing what most people do... it may well end up with a customer migration.

Disappear to whom?

[StreetStealth]

My guess? If piracy were to "disappear," the music industry would conclude that pirates had simply become too stealthy in their activities and demand legislation for mandatory antipiracy spyware on users' computers.

BPI?

[Ruvim]

What is this Pornographic Industry I keep reading about and why does it have so much influence on government?

"step forward"

[Anonymous Coward]

errrr, what? step forward?
LOL
this is a step backwards. You quit onlineaccount on x andchange to company Y. Eventually costs a month payment, but you do not have to pay for the songs like you would be a criminal (which sharers indeed are not).

so MI, have fun with this ;)

Ha!

[WizADSL]

I've got hundreds of IPs from the ISPs in question that are spamming the hell out of me, I have unequivical evidence, will they just turn those off for me too? What a load...
 
BTW, the CAPTCHA word for this post was "jerkings", how appropriate....

Re:Ha!

[nzkbuk]

Well post your list and all those who have been file sharing now have a valid excuse, My pc was hacked and while it was spewing out spam it was also downloading stuff