Slashdot Mirror
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."
How obvious can an anti-trust and privacy case be? You just know that the internet will become an RIAA only music store for those 6.5 million people.
People with wealth and power are doing this because they think they can and they must. The political opinions expressed outside of broadcast media will eliminated along with economic threats to the music industry. People who believe in justice and the rule of law are an economic threat too, so this is all the same animal and that's why media consolidation and broadcast itself suck. Society must prevent this and may be able to because so many stand to win as a few lose.
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.
For those who are unclear on the definition of "hyperbole", please read the above quoted sentence.
my belief is that this tactic will work out equally as well as it has in the US and elsewhere. Now... the real issue for me is why do so many of these industry people believe that they can implement a stupid idea better than the last guy?
Well, that's one way to increase broadband access. Drive everyone to lease their own T1s instead of putting up with this kind of crap.
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.
"...they'll come along and cut off the one wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly."
TFA makes it sound like the internet is the only way to exercise these liberties. I suppose blowing up the courthouse is also one way for me to exercise my voice but they seem to have made that one illegal. Shame on them!
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
"Freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly"
Well, we're talking about the UK here, not the US.
From using a record company as your ISP. Anyone could have predicted that they would be tougher on illegal downloads than ISPs that are mainly communications companies.
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
And I'm no longer in support of the author of this article.
Really, how does the internet deliver freedom of assembly? And how does not having the internet really stop your ability to use freedom of assembly? I'm pretty sure assemblies have been held without the internet in the past.
And thats just to point out one absurdity in that sentence. There are plenty of good reasons to be angry about ISPs that want to shut off customers for various reasons - I don't think the author should have needed to make any up.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
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).
To be fair, what "justice" is can be defined quite differently over the years.
The argument for not punishing file sharing is somewhat analogous (with a few less relevant differences) to people walking into vinyl stores some decades ago, and using a piece of custom equipment to duplicate vinyls onto their own blank platters, at a cheaper price, without paying, and then leaving. Would this have been considered "justice" at the time? I doubt it. What are the differences? Not many relevant ones, cluttering up the store would be one (though what is the argument for storeowners arbitrarily deciding who can and who can't come into their store?), while the majority would simply be difference of distribution channel.
While I download things occasionally, I acknowledge that it's against the law, and would not whine if I was caught. There's plenty of "repressiveness" around - for example, I would like to modify GPL code and sell it, including my change, but in that case, ownership seems to be extremely important and "rightly" be met with extreme retributiveness. A lot of what is said, like "anti-trust" here, is plain crap as well, illogical idiocy that people leverage as an argument just because it sounds good. As a consequence, I think none of the crowd are very sympathetic people at all.
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.
I don't mean to be critical, but isn't this just a touch over the top? I don't like the idea of people tracking downloads and cutting of Internet connections any more than you, but for the moment, downloading is still illegal. If someone managed to catch you and charge you $10,000 per song (or whatever the going rate is...I think it's rationed on the same scale as gas prices) or throw you in prison for repeat offenses, would that be any better than losing your ISP?
We need to convince the world that the recording industry is trying to bill us for not buying horseshoes even though we're driving cars. They've said it themselves: they made a mistake by not having download services sooner, and now they've lost a generation of kids who think music grows on the web for free. Let them charge the band for the original recording of the song, the videos, take a share of concert revenue for the advertising work, etc. But taking a percentage of money every time the song is played or recorded elsewhere, in the age of perfect digital copies, is archaic at best.
But don't make me want to go buy duct tape and plastic sheeting because I'm breaking the current copyright laws.
"the one wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly"
--- Mike, take an antacid and calm down. You'll save yourself a stroke.
*Why could you not legally download the songs?
* If they wanted to disconnect you, could they not just find some other trumped up reason to do so?
* There is plenty of alternate choice for broadband in places where Virgin Media is commonly available
Let's wait to see just how often this gets used before it becomes an issue.
I get throttled all the time after a few DivX downloads, and the solution is to download in non-peak times.
I'm sure slashdot will be informed once the letters actually start being posted.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
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 1988I 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.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
I thought 007 WAS what the british took for pr0n!
NO SIG
At first, I read "British Pornographic Industry", and I was seriously worried! But its only the music, so I think I'm safe.
Oh no... it's the future.
This is literally the "Whackamole" of modern business.
They just do not get it.
People do not have $10,000 to load up an IPOD with content.
People will spend to the level they can/feel is ethical and then take the rest.
If they can't get it off the internet, they'll do it face to face in sneaker nets.
Or they'll encrypt/mangle the packets.
Or things we havn't even imagined yet.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Cut off over 6 million paying customers?
No way that's ever going to happen. No industry in its right mind would destroy itself to satisfy the needs of another.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
The wonderful thing about huge, sprawling conglomerates like Virgin is that there's no shortage of ways to hit back at them when they pull this kind of bullshit.
Do you have a Virgin cell phone? Pound it to slag and mail it back to the bastards, along with a letter explaining why you won't be needing their services anymore. Tell your travel agent that you won't accept a flight on any Virgin plane, and drop them a line telling them about it. Show up at good old Sir Richard's next publicity stunt with appropriately humorous and offensive signs.
The beauty of it is that if enough people act, the pressure doesn't have to be kept up for long to have a real effect on the bottom line. How long would it take before losses in other areas overtake any possible gain from Virgin's Nazi-esque assault on free speech?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
The real issues are the domestic, warrantless spying and the attempt to bring down Bittorrent even for legal filesharing. Everything else is secondary.
'Pirates' support Al Quida'.
Before you know it, they'll need 42 days to sift through your windows DLLs and files. After all, being able to say hundreds of thousands of files and by implication 'this is hard' means a reasonable premise(not). But only to the stupid.
The UK already has enormous monitoring and invasive abuse of its citizens, bad enough before 'companies' start attempting to take the law into their own hands and begin illicit and comprehensive invasion of people's privacy to support their monopoly.
As for Virgin, first we've seen they have an agenda in terms of net neutrality (they don't believe in it), and they also happen to believe in everyone else's rights but not their users, PAYING customers.
I hope they do send out their stupid letters, and I hope the ensuing customer response tells them exactly where to get off, along side the numbers of people leaving the services.
We`re all equal
At least not in their role as ISPs.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/06/09/virgin-media-uk-work.html
I'm pretty sure Cory Doctorow used it first.
These stories are getting more and more depressing. I suggest changing the section name to, "Your (Lack of) Rights Online."
Bark less. Wag more.
Stealing: I take the CD, the owner no longer has the CD.
Copying: I copy the data, now we both have the data.
Copying != theft. Copyright as originally intended "to promote the progress of science and useful arts" is arguably beneficial to society, but copyright as currently implemented mostly benefits the rich elite. With lower barriers to entry for both authorship and distribution the optimal copyright term is now shorter than the original term, but it has instead been increased to be effectively endless. It is no surprise people do not respect such an obviously broken law.
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.
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.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
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.
Virgin Music AND Virgin ISP? Now the marketers that put this together for Sir Richard were convinced that this was a good idea. But it is turning out to be the marriage from hell. Did the lunatics who came up with Daimler-Chrysler have anything to do with this?
Now if someone in Virgin were smart (and when are virgins ever smart?) they would give reduced or even near free downloads to Virgin Music's recordings. And do it in such a way that the anti-monopoly regulators can't do anything about it. Pure Syzygy. But these bozos are turning Virgin into the most hated conglomerate in the UK. Smooth move for a company that relies on its prominent logo as a universal brand of quality among youthful consumers.
However it appears that in Virgin only Sir Richard has any brains. Does he hire dolts in order to appear that no one in the organization looks cooler than he does?
"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
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
You don't need legs to join a protest, but that does not give you the right to cut mine off.
The internet, if you had not noticed, has made it possible for people all around the world to cooperate. It is vital to modern political movements and business. The ability to share and publish has gone a long way to repair the damage government created broadcast networks did to democracy and civil discourse.
I am a name troll of Westlake. Visit my homepage to learn why.
AFAIK the Virgin companies are not linked, they just paid Richard Branson for the use of the name. Virgin Media is still NTL:Telewest under the hood...
Virgin provide their customers with broadband, phone and TV down their "single cable", so they stand to lose a lot more than most ISPs when they tell their customers they no longer want their business.
First, all torrents should be encrypted.
All user's torrent servers should present an NDA and disclaimer to the effect:
"Before connecting with this machine you attest to the fact that you are not downloading anything that you may find that you do not have the legal right to access.
You further more state under oath that any and all activity on this connection is legal as well as private and confidential.
Any and all legal issues arising from your activity are solely your responsibility
Lastly, you indemnify the operator of this torrent server against any and all legal actions for your activity."
yes or no.
After the terrible events of WWII, major european countries came together and created the closest thing we have to a constitution, the European Convention of Human Rights. This was ratified in law in 1998 with the Human Rights Act. But yes, our civil liberties in the UK are eroding, but we do have the same protection as our "USian" cousins. Just their constitution is being just as shredded as our human rights.
No, see, they just cut access, but not the accounts. The billing keeps going, the customers can't log into their banking sites to cancel auto-payments, and they can't cancel their service because you have to log onto virgin's website to request a cancellation form.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
I guess the British Government has better things to worry about other than online predators and such. How about using the ISP's to look for them?
The only thing that customers of Virgin Media can do is to switch to another carrier and bad mouth their service to others (and encourage others to switch). They still want to make money and bad press changes behavior.
A single customer at Virgin would pay a lot more than $15 month. Just double pounds and you will get the equivalent price in dollars.
Broadband -
2 Mb = 9 pound/month (Size M)
4 Mb = 16 pound/month (Size L),
20Mb = 26 pound/month (Size XL)
Digital TV -
40 Channels - Free (Size M)
90 Channels - 9 pounds/month (Size L)
145 Channels - 19.90 pounds/month (Size XL)
Landline Phone
Talk Weekends - 11 pounds/month (Size M)
Talk Evenings/Weekends - 14.14 pounds/month (Size L)
Talk Unlimited - 18.95 pounds/month (Size XL)
Mobile Phone
Talk Anywhere 200 - 20 pounds/month
Talk Anywhere 400 - 28 pounds/month
Talk Anywhere 800 - 40 pounds/month
A single customer could be paying as much as 50 pounds ($100/month). Virgin already lost 84,000 customers from the lost of Sky One/News, so that is a large amount to lose.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
That's actually pretty kind for people that violate their ToS, which usually list copyright violations as one of the big no-nos. Technically they could drop them on the first offense then hand them over to the RIAA with all the evidence the RIAA needs.
Personally I'd rather have my service cut off and learn a valuable lesson than get sued by the RIAA. It's doubtful that it's a antitrust violation since they are punishing people that break the rules outlined in their ToS.
Bravo? They are doing their subscribers a favor. They could collect the info, forward it to the RIAA, then let them keep subscribing so the RIAA can surgically get their statistics and log them sharing files until they get a suitably sized sample of their activity to get whatever damage award they want.
Another point: Since shares are publicly accessible on the p2p networks, it's not spying, despite the tin foil hat mentality the author is implying. Spying implies the interception of communication. Sharing files illegally doesn't require spying to see it happening.
All it takes is a p2p program on the same network...
It's the ISPs duty to police illegal activity occurring on their network.
The only danger I see is that people sharing files legally (the copyright owners) could be singled out and dropped erroneously.
I fail to see how this is any worse than an employer firing someone for running a p2p server which is sharing copyrighted files to the world from their employer's network. Copyright violation is copyright violation, and is illegal activity according to current laws.
If you want to fix this problem, write your leaders and have the copyright laws changed. They are the real culprit, not the people abiding the law by policing their networks.
-Viz
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
For UK/EU ppl out there, http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2002/20022013.htm and http://www.out-law.com/page-431 for the safe harbour provisions.
Rest is my untested knowledge for which I accept no liability.
I believe it all hinges on third party liability to a breach tho - a question of fact and degree will not suffice in claims like this. Third party liability is only established through knowing participation (knowledgeable assistance if you will).
Actual knowledge is one piece constructive, and one piece subjective. Claimants often try to claim entirely on the constructive knowledge front (so they don't have to show the state of mind) and ignore actual knowledge, which requires a dishonest state of mind. and so the argument goes a dishonest mind is hard to prove when you don't know what's going across your tubes. but then there's also a grey area: wilful blindness/recklessness and the argument you can't be guilty of being reckless as to data exchanged when you don't monitor the data upon international standard that avoids actionable per se).
I think from a liability point of view, ISPs need to take a step back, and start offering unrestricted plans that don't acknowledge *anything* about the content they're handling.
I say that because I think safe harbour provisions are an all or nothing defence. Similar to automatism as a defence to homicide. Let me explain that one. Murder and manslaughter constitue homicide. Murder is a specific intent crime - that is, to be found guilty, a jury will be instructed that they must find the action of killing and the state of mind to kill (a specific intent to kill) coincide at the time of killing. In short that means the mens rea (the guity mind) and actus reus (actions) of a killing must coincide to commit a murder. Without either, you are not guilty of murder, but may be guilty of homicide.
The intent for murder must be specific - an actuak intent to kill someone or a virtual certainty as to that effect. A virtual certainty is best described if you think of a bomber on a plane - he has the intent to kill people around him when he sets off a bomb, yet it is a virtual certainty that he will kill the rest when the plane crashes, which establishes an indirect/oblique intent.
Automatons are not responsible for their actions since they lack intent. So... if you're intoxicated (either by prescription drugs, illicit drugs or alcohol) to the extent you cannot possibly form the intent to kill (mens rea), which is so far beyond being drunk it calls for an intoxicated person to be on the brink of death almost, then you can claim automatism.
(before someone goes off to kill someone, bare in mind that issues of public policy will defeat self-induced automatism)
Automatism is an all or nothing defence. In so-called "normal cases" of homicide where someone lacks the intent due to intoxication, or someone takes a reckless risk where it was unreasonable to do so in the circumstance and they jury can infer they should have reasonably appreciated that risk, then that person is found not guilty of murder as they lack specific intent, but can still be found guilty of manslaughter.
If we apply the principal to copyright infringement, and imagine that the safe habour provisions are like a person operating as an automatom, then we assume that should a person ever be proven to be capable for forming a state of mind, fulfilling any mens rea, then they destroy their lawful defence. With an all or nothing defence, there are no levels to mitigate liability. You are either innocent or guilty of an offence if you have or have not a defense.
When ISPs such as VM start to move beyond their role as providers of a service, they start to acknowledge intent, preventing them from relying on their safe harbour defence
At the moment we all have a contract with ISPs. Under contract, in which they are obliged to provide a service, as we are o
Copying: I copy the data, now we both have the data. I don't know about the US, but in the UK you're absolutely right. IANAL, but I was a police officer, and here in the UK the legal definition of theft is To dishonestly appropriate with the intention to permanently deprive Clearly there is no intention (or indeed possibility) of permanent deprivation, and the applicability of "appropriation" in this context is suspect too.
This bandying around of the word theft and the annoying faux-hip "CoPyRiGhT is StEaLiNg!!!11!!" things you get at the beginning of DVDs make me bristle every time.
Yes, The Register had a much more balanced article too
Now, THERE'S a sentence I thought I would never see.
I mean seriously, if they disconnect 6.5 million people from their network, why wouldn't that same 6.5 million people simply be like, oh wait, we don't need them. We can just make a huge network that will be faster and cheaper with WiFi routers and collaberation.
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.
The distinction is between "theft" and "copyright infringement". Both involve obtaining something without the permission of the owner, but theft would be actually taking their stuff whereas copyright infringement is making an unauthorised copy for yourself. It's not mental gymnastics, it's what the law is.
Yes both are illegal, but they're different crimes. You can therefore decide that you want copyright infringement to no longer be a crime (by abolishing copyright or legalising filesharing or whatever) without also deciding you want to legalise "proper" theft.
Calling it theft is a tactic used by the copyright holders to make copyright infringement sound like a more serious crime than it is. Unfortunately for them they also called it piracy and hence made it cool.
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.
There is good content, legal content that is only distributed via bit torrent. People try to argue the quality, but that is the major issue; content industry must do its best to shut it down in any way before it becomes better. I think it is apparent that while there has been a growing range of video and music content on the web, there is good stuff out there. Want a specific political example? How about Steal this Film I & II? These movies only method of distribution is P2P.
This is the most revealing and damning statement in the article: 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. This is an absurd statement, and only one that could be made by a monopoly that has found a venue for media distribution it does not control. The media organizations (at least in the US) also control most all the news. In that way they are only trying to further their monopoly and censor political opposition. And just to reinforce the point, Steal this movie is far superior than what can be expressed in a blog.
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
Clearly the sending of large mails-outs as well as possible subscriber losses would not be attempted or even conceived of by a money making entity, unless there were to be some financial benefit in the short term future. Since those actions in and of themselves only cost money, they must be a precursor to the actual money maker. We have yet to see what the next step in this horror will be. If this is not halted at the state its in the next step where they make money is gonna be awfully offensive.