Virgin Media To Spy On & Threaten Downloaders

Mike writes "Virgin Media, the UK's largest cable-modem provider, has decided that it will spy on its users to protect record industry profits. Starting next week Virgin Media will send letters to thousands of households where they suspect music is either being downloaded or illegally shared. The campaign is a joint venture between Virgin Media and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), which represents the major record labels. The BPI ultimately wants Internet companies to implement a 'three strikes and out' rule to warn and ultimately disconnect the estimated 6.5 million customers whose accounts are (supposedly) used for regular criminal activity. In other words, you download a few songs and they'll come along and cut off the one wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly."

Comments

markets and competition

[drDugan]

Good thing there are still some competition on who provides Internet service. I expect that this behavior would have the obvious effect that users will simply use different providers: providers that focus on their customers and not other business' interests.

Here in the San Francisco area, for example, there are locally owned ISP companies that have focused on high quality service and support and have grown and down well while providing DSL at faster speeds and lower cost than the larger providers.

It bears repeating time and again

[MikeRT]

Until intellectual property law is forced to conform to the same expectations that private property has, it will never have universal legitimacy in the culture the way that physical property has (except with thieves and Socialists; I repeat myself...)

A modest proposal:

1) Outlaw implied contracts. When I buy a movie, CD, program, etc., unless I sign something in writing, prior to the purchase, any "contract" should be null and void, and any effort to enforce it should be criminal activity.

2) Copyright infringement by sharing copyrighted data is treated as theft, with goods valued for the purpose of assessment under existing property laws at current market value. Copyright infringement by accident, like posting a single picture you weren't supposed to on your site is not a crime at all or at the worst gets you a slap on the wrist.

3) Copyright holders cannot restrict how any one copy of their work is used by buyers, except to make them respect the artificial scarcity of copyright law. Meaning, if I want to resell iPhones with jail-broken OSs and tons of apps, Apple cannot legally interfere with my customers' enjoyment of their iPhone and its OS anymore than Honda could interfere with my customers if I were selling modified racing civics (except to cut off their warranty).

So, will this be a P2P dragnet?

[oldspewey]

From TFA:

If you use peer-to-peer applications to copy or distribute copyrighted material such as music, films and software, and do so without paying royalties, you are almost certainly infringing the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

I think the real question here is how Virgin intends to "catch" subscribers. Will any form of P2P traffic result in a letter? TFA, while full of feel-good rhetoric about damages to our vibrant economy, is scant on details in this regard.

Before everyone says "Aren't Virgin Bastards?"

[jimicus]

The UK government has already said to ISPs "Stop your users downloading illegally or we'll pass legislation forcing you to":

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,1000000085,39290371,00.htm

http://www.techwatch.co.uk/2008/02/25/uk-isp%E2%80%99s-must-stop-illegal-downloads/

(You've got to admire that approach to democracy out of sheer morbid fascination, really, haven't you. It amounts to "You're not doing anything illegal, but if you don't stop doing it we'll make it illegal!")

Virgin Media haven't really got any choice here, and I think we'll see similar announcements regarding other ISPs within the next 6-12 months.

Re:Seems simple enough!

[MightyYar]

Are you talking about the politician-buying, 95-year-copyright-term corporate assholes or the people who are ignoring their asinine little power grab?

There's more than one "criminal" here.

I agree

[Odder]

but you must understand that the attack on P2P is really an attack on free press and has the same purpose as the other, more serious violations. The point is to shut down political opposition, which in turn threaten established economic interests. All weapons are being used to identify, intimidate, harass, silence and eliminate opposition. Cutting a person's net access is the modern equivalent of exile. It will happen to those identified by wiretaps. Those that persist face the threat of search, arrest and torture. If we allow those in power to consolidate these tools, we will not be able to remove them.

Re:I agree

[Mistshadow2k4]

You eliminate the incentives, you cut back drastically on peoples' willingness to produce, not just the willingness to publish or distribute. Which means that the spread and development of culture and ideas slows down.

Yeah, that's why open source software is decades behind proprietary software and there are so few open source developers.... oh, wait, it's not like that. Maybe they have plenty of developers and state-of-the-art software in most areas because they attract the people who care about producing a good product, rather than manufactured stars who just want their money. Kind of like the musicians of old whose copyright privileges only covered someone else trying to steal the credit of composing music. You do know that there were musicians before music could be recorded and controlled by the record companies, right? I wonder why, as their copyright so limited, they would bother, since there wasn't much incentive for them to be musicians at all by your argument.

Re:What's wrong with this?

[zotz]

"I don't get the difference between downloading with P2P and seeing a sidewalk sale and walking off with CDs"

Do you see the difference between singing a song on a street corner with a hat on the ground and seeing a sidewalk sale and walking off with CDs?

And to be honest, here at least, I think the penalties for being in posession of a knock off CD or DVD are way more harsh than for stealing the same from a store.

all the best,

drew

You can't ignore them.

[Odder]

These are the reasons corporate assholes fear a free press. They want to be above the law in every way and they don't want you to have a way to complain or do anything about it.

They just don't get it ...

[TallMatthew]

At what point will the powers that be in the record industry realize that they will never get back to making billions off of CDs? What a bunch of whiny little bitches.

The world changed. But rather than adjust to a new business model (heaven forbid!), they're bullying ISPs into policing the Internet and litigating individuals. All in an attempt to return to a market which will never again exist.

Worse yet, the MPAA is doing the same thing. They could move first-run movies to pay per view today and make billions, but instead they're sticking to their guns, staggering release dates to try and maximize DVD sales. In the meantime, people are becoming increasingly comfortable downloading rips and screeners off of the various torrent portals.

This all could have been avoided (and in the movie industry's case, would be avoided), if the corporations would adjust to new technologies instead of trying to squish them. If the Itunes Music Store had opened before Napster, it would be a totally different world.