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70% of P2P Users Would Stop if Warned by ISP

Umpire writes "As the UK considers a three strikes policy to fight copyright infringement, a new survey reports that 70% of UK broadband users would stop using P2P if they received a warning from their ISP. 'Wiggin commissioned the 2008 Digital Entertainment Survey, which found that 70 percent of all people polled said they would stop illegally sharing files if their ISP notified them in some way that it had detected the practice. When broken down by age group, an unexpected trend emerges: teenagers are generally more likely to change their behavior than older Internet users.'"

9 of 318 comments (clear)

  1. Teenagers by truthsearch · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When broken down by age group, an unexpected trend emerges: teenagers are generally more likely to change their behavior than older Internet users.

    Because teenagers are more likely to feel they can't live without the internet. Older internet users may have been on it longer, but can remember a time when they easily lived without it.

  2. is this the internets version of speeding by petes_PoV · · Score: 3, Interesting
    people know (downloading copyrighted stuff) it's wrong, but they reckon that so long as no-one gets hurt ...

    Just like with speeding. You get pulled over, maybe you get off with a warning, maybe you get a fine and points (In the UK 12 points on your license and you lose it for a time), or maybe you get off with a warning. Either way you are more aware for a while - then you're back to your old habits.

    Will downloading P2P copyrighted material be the same?

    You get a warning, stop for a while (maybe change ISPs, so the new one doesn't have a record of your "offence") and then drift back to your old behaviour.

    If this is a good analogy (comments?) is there really any way to stop it completely - or do people just expect to punish the most blatant offenders and keep everyone else, more or less, under control?

    --
    politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
  3. More like... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    70% of P2P users would lie about stopping if polled about "illegal file sharing". The other 30% just don't care.

  4. 70%? and for how long? by sckeener · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Change their behavior? come on...these are teenagers...they'll just look for another way...say a friends computer or a shared computer. I'm willing to bet that it is = to a gambling urge and the moment something that the want comes out that they can't get any other way but by downloading...they will download. And they should.

    If you want to get paid for your stuff, you better make sure all those that would pay for it legally have the option to...

    case in point...regions on dvds. If say a blockbuster movie was released in DVD in the US but not in, say, ASIA...do you really think everyone of that 70% (that wanted it) will wait for it to be released?

    The media groups need to embrace 'online'. They need to release product 'online'. They need to market it 'online'. They need to get everyone so hooked on getting their information 'online' that people 'offline' are looked at as pathetic. Then the media groups can release to the world...launch Ad campaigns to the world...and never have to worry about this region stuff again!

    --
    "Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
  5. Mass warning-spam in 3, 2, 1... by 6Yankee · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Although I use P2P so rarely that they'd have to be pretty lucky with their timing to scare me, I'm sure that plenty of users could be frightened off the practice by a suitably vague mass mail. Rather than, "We have detected P2P usage", a strongly-hinting "Customers are reminded that..." might be non-accusatory and hand-wavy enough to get away with, while still having the desired effect. Now how much do you think the *AA would pay ISPs to do that?

  6. Response to the EU Commission by CrystalFalcon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The European Commission recently had a public consultation about this. I'm surprised not more understand the issues involved - my response deals with just a few of them:

    Response to Commission from Pirate Party leader

    (the first few lines is a preamble in Swedish, followed by the actual letter in English.)

    In short, this does not deal with copyrights and culture anymore. It deals with the cost to society of enforcing today's copyright. That cost involves the abolition of the messenger immunity, freedom of the press, and private communications as a concept.

    No right exists in a vacuum - there is always a cost to society of enforcing that right. Without a proper cost-to-benefit analysis, no informed decision can be made.

  7. Re:Unlikely? by penguin_dance · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You're making the flawed assumption that for anything agreed to in a contract, any circumstancial evidence or means of verifying it is implicitly ok. Just because the contract with my landlord says I can't do certain things doesn't mean he can set up video surveilance in the apartment or lock himself in and search it any time he wants to. Some random guy on the street can't get me evicted just by making an accusation. The ISPs don't know, don't want to know, shouldn't know and what you're seeing is nothing other than trying to force the landlord into being the moral police. If you can't see the difference between "If you get caught smoking pot in the apartment I'll evict you" and "I get to rummage through your belongings looking for any hidden pot stash at any time" or think one implies the other, I hope you never get to enforce any such mandate. Or at least I want to slap you with a fat lawsuit if you do.

    Yes but the internet is a lot less solid as a far as laws go because cases are only now being tested in the courts. How many people are going to sue for getting kicked off one ISP? Chances are they'll just find another ISP. It becomes a matter of picking your battles. OTOH if you found the landlord had installed video surveillance inside your apartment, you would not only sue the apartment owners and the landlord, but the landlord would get arrested.

    Of course, just keep in mind (in the US) if they someone rummages through your trash you put in the dumpster or left out for pickup, and finds some leftover pot stash, you'd have no grounds to sue or expectation of privacy. They can even legally get your DNA from a tossed cigarette butt or cup. (IANAL--I just watch a lot of CourtTV.)

    --
    If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
  8. Re:Unlikely? by rtb61 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The reason of course why it should be a criminal offence for your ISP to interfere with your service is. If they set up a subsidiary company, or say your competitor has better contacts with your ISP then you do, they can simply kill your service and VOIP for a week or so with a claimed copyright violation, which can cause enormous harm to your business whilst giving your competitor and enormous boost. The RIAA/MPAA have absolutely no care for anybody else or even their own future. Random disconnects can be the death of a business and due to the nature of the internet everybody commits copyright infringement nearly every day.

    To have everybody treated the same under law, all copyright content must be treated the same, so a copied photo, or web page design, by law would have to be treated the same. You could not even send birthday or wedding videos if they contain copyrighted music in the sound track. This gives enormous power to ISP to basically govern upon a profit basis, who will get a stable service, who will get an business destructive service and who can via a system of questionable complaints detsroy a competitors service.

    This is of course beyond the horridly privacy invasive concept that the ISP should legally be able to continuously, monitor, analyse, filter and of course record your internet use (it has to record your use should it need to prove it's case). The privatised police state which the RIAA/MPAA will be forcing upon their own children and grandchildren in their myopic greed for their own personal profits now.

    --
    Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  9. Re:Why -1? by LingNoi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Declare all works as of 2010 to be public domain, and no new copyrights will be granted on anything.
    Ignoring the fact that no one would be brave enough to try and pass a bill like that, I believe that is a little too harsh as you're not giving time for the markets to adapt and try new models. It'd make a lot of businesses bankrupt.

    If you really wanted it to work you'd need to reduce copyright on all products to 10 years. At least there is then motivation for creating new works.