Slashdot Mirror
Big Six UK ISPs Capitulate To Music Industry
Barence writes "Britain's six leading internet providers have signed a Government-led agreement to stamp out illegal music file sharing. The six providers — BT, Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali, Sky and Carphone Warehouse — will implement a series of measures against those found to be file sharing. Offenders may find their internet connection is throttled, or may even have their traffic 'filtered' to prevent media files from being downloaded. The ISPs are reportedly reluctant to impose the BPI's preferred 'three strikes and you're out' approach of cutting off users' broadband connections."
apt-get install libopenssl :-P
It's only a matter of time before typing www.piratebay.org into your URL bar produces "Sorry, this site is blocked for content infringement" on ALL of our browsers (since we all ultimately answer to our ISP's).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Filtering/inspecting traffic implies taking responsibility implies getting lawsuits directed at ISPs for users' content.
You thought watching SCO trials was fun, you ain't seen nothing yet. There's going to be some fireworks over this one when they sue the wrong person.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
4*1tb hard drives (with assorted popular media)
buyer must erase data themselves
best offer
Although this does bind ISPs to prosecuting sharers in at least some manner, we don't know how severely it will be enforced yet. Thus far ISPs like Virgin have maintained they will punish filesharers but have only sent out a very limited number of warnings.
It's also worth noting that we don't have the "sue them into oblivion" culture that seems to be the case across the pond. It seems like this could go either way. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed!
...that surprisingly the ISPs won't distinguish between copyrighted files and independent artists?
No...there's no hidden agenda here from BPI...
This will cause encrypted darknets to flourish which will cause a faster downward spiral due to the whole 'Pedo Menace'.
"Bah!" - Dogbert
Next thing you know, they'll be outlawing alcohol and chopping your hand off if you badmouth Allah. Think the British parliament would respond if I told them this law is unconstitutional? I suppose Gordon Brown wants to one-up Tony Blair by, rather than just playing George Bush's puppet, actually doing things Bush wishes he could do but can't.
Whale
The UK Government has released a consultation into potential legislation aimed at curbing illicit filesharing on the net. Several of the legislative options on the table are worrying, and mirror schemes being discussed in various national and international fora. They include streamlining the legal process to require ISPs to provide personal data relating to an IP address, handing responsibility for taking action against illicit filesharers to a third party body, or requiring ISPs to take action against users themselves or to install filtering equipment to block infringing content.
At the same time a "Memorandum of Understanding", negotiated behind-the-scenes with strong influence from the Government, between the UK's six major ISPs (Virgin Media, Sky, Carphone Warehouse, BT, Orange and Tiscali) and the British Phonographic Industry and the Motion Picture Association. Signatories endorse five principles in the MoU:
The Open Rights Group has more details
Does this mean that UK residents now all live in a virtual yellow submarine? ...20 fathoms under water, with no one at the helm? ...with the keys for the emergency hatch under the possession of a guy named Bubba, who also happens to be the only one with a machine gun onboard?
-- Home is where you eat your heart out.
If they don't want you to listen to their music, don't. Don't download, don't listen, don't buy.
:-) either. Just don't.
Don't stea... I mean infringe copyright
This way of spying/deep packet network analysis on users is forbidden. Even the police has to go to court to get permission.
Everybody should pick up the attitude that if you can't share it, don't buy it. Just a thought.
The deal is something of an about-face for Carphone Warehouse boss, Charles Dunstone...
Guess they got their own "Obamas" over their too.
I hope encryption can work until we find a way to dump the ISPs.
What?
... and isn't on you to prove you didn't after they've throttled or cut your connection , then I don't have a problem with it. I have little sympathy with the bleating from the p2p boys who'll whine about freedom to share as they please. Sorry lads , but someone had to spend time and money for that music or film to be created , theres no good reason you should get it for free. If you're too tight to pay for it , tough luck, thats your problem.
exactly how are they going to filter the connections ?
I listen to last.fm thats a music stream in mp3 of copyrighted artist it helps that last.fm (CBS rather large firm) have the license so how is my ISP going to know that ?
this looks like just as excuse to cut out people who do file sharing they simply will look at the large downloaders and accuse them
BPI has no technology and nor do the ISP that can differentiate between licensed and unlicensed !
regards
John Jones
The real issue I see with this isn't so much that the ISP's are sending out warning letters - they've all stated that they're not prepared to cancel anyone's service - but that the record companies have essentially got the ISP's to do their dirty work for them.
NOW they know that the ISP's will have detailed files on every single person they find allegedly distributing copyrighted music - detailed files that means these "John doe" cases we seen in America will start turning into "John Smith" cases.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Nothing good can come out from analyzing clients' internet traffic.
for giving developers a reason to build even hardier file sharing aps
it was easy to shut down napster: cut off the head
you had to poison morpheus, limewire, etc. with phony files
then emule and bittorrent proved immune to being shut down and poisoned. so now you have to go to the carriers and put the burden on them to search for file sharing patterns
the next step in the war is to build apps that obfuscate their activity. make it look like http form requests. make it look like smtp traffic. randomize ips, obfuscate ports, etc.
that's all your effort results in, dear music industry: stronger, hardier weeds that you can never kill
you lose. you just don't know it yet
legions of poor, music hungry teenagers: 3
hired guns of the music industry: 0
you're dying music industry. please just get dead already please
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Sad to say, this is nothing compared to what I heard on the news here in Norway yesterday. Laws being contemplated that would make ISPs ban people from using the Internet if found to share copyrighted material. Yep, that would sure turn the ISPs into police and judge combined.
Even the ISPs are against this, it seems. They don't want the responsibility.
Guys, seriously, who here still uses one of the big six ISPs by *choice*?!
It's time to switch ISPs
The difference in service is staggering.
I'm gonna be emailing my ISP to thank them for not signing up to this new scheme.
Disclaimer: I don't work for adsl24 or entanet, nor do I get paid for directing you there. I'm just a very happy customer
http://adsl24.co.uk/broadband_home.php - take a look, you won't be disappointed
...UK ISPs who will not enjoy my custom in the future.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
A new law would have been much better as I doubt the burden of proof is going to be very heigh for the agreement that's been made.
I'm just waiting for all the counter claims as people decide they can just hide anything they've downloaded, say it must have been someone hijacking their wifi network and no one will know any better.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
ISPs need to be reminded that their job is to provide internet service. Once the lines between providing access to the tubes and providing content on those tubes blurred, things were doomed to go downhill.
This isn't about ISPs bending to the will of the various media associations - it's about ISPs trying to position themselves to deliver content and ensure _THEIR_ content is the content being delivered. ISPs should be prohibited from being in any business other than providing internet service because, in becoming content providers as well, they are increasingly acting in anti-competitive ways (if you think illegal p2p traffic is the only traffic they're manipulating, then you haven't been paying attention...).
anyone know if share http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_(p2p) is good at hiding your identity?
I would think it's very hard to hide the ip address your connecting from unless you use something like tor.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I feel bad for them, they are "reportedly reluctant" so they must've been forced into this under duress... pity.
I see it. How come they don't? There would be no reason for this if the music industry decided to make two changes. First, they need to accept the new model of doing business. Clearly, the Internet has changed the landscape of things, and the old ways simply won't work as effectivly anymore. The second problem is that none of this would be necessary if the music industry decided to change their pricing model. Again, $20 is too much for a cd. I think if pricing was a little lower, it might cut down on the amount of "copyright infringement" cases. But no, the music industry would rather bully around whoever gets in their way. It's ridiculous, any other industry would change, or lower their prices, it just seems like there's a general lack of competition.
Once upon a time there was a Music Industry. It had a business model that it liked. Then came the Internet, and a company came along offering a business model that it didn't like. So, instead of taking the money that the new business model offered, the music industry decided to flush that money down the toilet instead. The technology and consumer demand didn't go away, and finally the music industry said, "Hmm... maybe we shouldn't have flushed all that money down the toilet." So they went and they found that some of the money they had flushed away was still stuck in the U-bend and they got it out and they cleaned it off. It was too late to get the rest though, a thousand flowers had bloomed and (most) people decided they didn't really have a problem getting everything for free.
Now, the music industry is trying to get people to pay for something that they have gotten for free for years and years. And people know that there's just about no downside to the "stealing." So, the music industry flails around trying to go back to 1999 and do things right this time, but their time machine doesn't seem to be working.
Here's hoping you have better luck than we did.
Sincerely,
American ISPs
That's far simpler from their point of view than sending letters and/or getting hit by the record industry. I don't know what the margin is on a single ADSL account, but I doubt that they'd have to cut off more than (say) 10,000 customers to reduce the "problem" to irrelevant proportions. Even if they made £100 per customer per year - I'm sure the music companies would be prepared to pony-up £1Mil. to make the problem go away.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
this is just going to force everyone to move to anonymous proxies, darknets or anonymous p2p. I don't see this causing any changes. Guess we should all start using truecrypt drives for when they start kicking down the doors. Use the new truecrypt so you can have plausible deniability. Give them the plausible deniability password so they stop water boarding you and take the thumb screws off. Just don't break too soon or they won't believe you really have a 500gig drive with just 4meg of pictures of kittens and will keep the bag over your head and won't stop kicking.
Little incenduary but not flamebait.
The fact they want to try cutting your connection after 3 warnings is a bit nuts i mean you would hope that there is a decent appeal system because otherwise its just open to abuse
Carphone Warehouse, a large UK ISP that operates the TalkTalk and AOl(uk) brands doesn't seem entirely enthusiastic about this
In their response they say:
We will continue to fight to protect your privacy and your right to freedom of use of the Internet. What we will not do is:
* disconnect your service or slow the speed of your connection
* monitor your traffic
* divulge your details to content companies (unless forced to do so by a court)
Some content companies are pushing for changes in the law to force us to do these things - we will vigorously fight any such changes in the law.
and they list some helpful excuses:
Q: What would cause me to receive a letter?
If the content companies send TalkTalk an IP address that matches to your broadband connection then they may send you a letter. However, there are many reasons why you might have done anything wrong and the claim unfounded:
* The content that is being offered for upload may actually be being shared legally
* The content company may have made a mistake in identifying the IP address
* It may be someone else in the household that offered the content for upload
* It may be that someone 'hijacked' or 'piggybacked' on your wi-fi connection
and add:
Q: Does the content company have my details to pursue me?
If a copyright infringement has actually occurred content company have some legal powers to attempt to prosecute you. To do this they would need to know your details (e.g. name, address), which they do not currently have. TalkTalk have and we will continue to refuse to divulge your details to them or any other content companies. However, a content company may seek a court order requiring them to divulge your details. TalkTalk will vigorously fight on your behalf to resist this, but they feel they should let you know that they cannot guarantee that they will be successful in protecting your details.
A least they look like they are trying.
If it goes on like this, step by step the internet will become more and more moderated and people will tolerate it. Now the measures in China may seem unacceptable to us, but if people accept these small steps like this one here, more and more we'll go towards the same anyway. Sad indeed :(
Good job. Everyhing is now in place for improved censorship on content from whatever power interest group sees fit.
How much are people willing to give up to let an already obsolete industry slow down its demise ?
Time to set up a remote bittorrent box in other country, you can then download an encrypted B4tManTheD4rkN1ght.zip to your box from there.
If you are a UK Orange member, you can write to them directly to complain and tell them you are unsubscribing here: http://www.orange.co.uk/knowledgebase/webforms/contactus/formWBO.cfm
...using my neighbours wireless.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
Is this the only method to avoid detection or is encryting your bit torrent traffic enough to stop them?
Why is suggesting people should pay for media always seen as flamebait or similar on here? I realise /. is generally populated by teens or students who have little or no concept of earning a living, but you'd think some people would be mature enough to accept that media isn't free to create and the people who do so should be rewarded for their efforts as they so please.
you know you need it.
Read radical news here
Just wait for the first person who challenges this letter. If they take it to court, the judge will completely destroy all the music/film industries arguements and actions, and the publicity generated will be so bad, it will make it almost impossible to do anything like this again.
This is the equivilent of the music/film industries acting as judge, jury and executioner and there is NO way the courts will allow this.
PLEASE, just please, make that person who starts the court challenge, someone like a single mum on benefits. It will be so painfully funny to watch.
I recon my mind is as twisted as one.
1) the ISP cannot monitor for this; to do so would be against RIPA
2) the BPI can only ident you if you try download from one of their torrents3) the BPI represent the recording industry who own the copyrights; therefor downloading or attempting to download from them is not infringing as they have a legal and legitimate right to distribute.
how is this all going to work?
But they will pay for it in the end wont they? If they can't get it for free over the internet they'll pay £1 to £3 at a car boot sale or from Dodgy Eric from down the estate. That just pays those that have no legitimate claim over the money and is no real solution is it?
The one thing I don't hear from all this is what are they going to do to get the generation brought up on free music, interested in a legal way to get music at a sensible price, unencumbered by DRM? You don't make 'em want what you've got to sell by bashing them over the head.
It's all stick and no carrot.
BBC News April 2nd 2010
ISPs have detected a massive spike in encrypted activity on the internet. Indecipherable "SSL" packets have increased in volume massively in recent months. This trend is seen as "disturbing" in the words of one child protection group.
"There could be anything being sent in these encrypted streams. Anything at all, and we have no way of knowing it", said Angela Termagantine, spokesperson for Protecting the Innocent. "There's little doubt that lurid, disgusting and atrocious images of naked children are being transmitted in these clandestine packets of information. Something Must Be Done."
Police spokesman Robert Peeler warned the public that very sinister developments have given us cause to believe that a vast network of Terrorists are transmitting plans to bring terror and mayhem to Britain's streets. "It is likely that this flood of inscruitible data is the precursor to an outright Terrorist assault, if not an invasion , on British citizens." Police believe that ssl may be a code word for terrorist cells, possibly referring to a passage, or passages from the Koran. Peeler added, "We are working with leaders in the Muslim community to reach young people and other members of the community in an effort to identify the sources of these sinister "ssl" packets."
When news broke of the recent surge and its potentially sinister meaning, traffic at Tabloid News and Gossip sites spiked as millions of Britons swarmed to read titillating speculation about what may be concealed in the encrypted traffic. "People love this stuff, right." said editor of the Scandal on Sunday Andy Tartuffe. "I mean, you throw in a bit of nookie, bit of scandel, bit of how's your father, people go right for it, know wha' I mean? " When it was suggested his publication by be sensationalizing the potential content of the traffic surge he retorted, " Look, it's all porn right! There's dirty buggers out there doing dirty deeds and my readers what to hear all about it." "Especially the kiddie stuff, right. Get's 'em right rilled up! Big seller." he added as he drove away in his BMW with an unidentified young woman.
The Home Office has dismissed protests from network and computer professionals that SSL is a much used and needed protocol on the internet, and has moved ahead with plans to outlaw encrypted data on British networks. "We have to stop this sort of thing", said the Home Office Minister, "Saying that it has legitimate uses, or that only a small fraction of the transmitted material may be illegal is frankly a load of rubbish. If you have nothing to hide, you have no reason to be using these services. Any sensible person can see that."
In addition to banning SSL traffic and previous legislation mandating the handover of encryption keys, the government plans to have monitoring software installed on all internet connected devices in the country. "When you think about it, it's a small price to pay for the safety of you and your children." said the Prime Minister this afternoon. "We have overwhelming public support on this", he added, citing private party telephone polls.
Protests from expats living in Russia, China and Iran is more muted relative to earlier episodes. One comment received from an expat in Iran states "We used to get bothered by all this, but frankly, it's so much better over here that we really don't care anymore."
May the Maths Be with you!
Where do you draw your limit for abuse of "copyrighted materials" until everybody, even those who don't listen have an required fee every month to secure that BPI still have jobs?
Sure you are just telling your opinion, but if anyone who has your opinion actually had any proof of loss of income or sane arguments about how to deal with the "problem" it would be a better discussion. It is pretty lame to say that something that can be made for free is required to cost, and not argue for it.
I get modded the same way whenever this topic comes up. People keep insisting that there needs to be a new way to sell music, one based on sharing and often on voluntary payments. They neglect that under the current laws, anyone is perfectly able to begin selling their music under such a model. Yet no-one does. What these Flamebait modders are demanding is a change in law to reduce options in the market place by eliminating the possibility of the older business model, thus forcing their model. And they demand this in the perverted name of Freedom.
Now all this said, the point made earlier about proving guilt was correct. This doesn't look like it is the case that someone must prove you guilty before suspending your account. It seems that you must prove your innocence (how?) when you are suspended by your ISP (and realistically, that just means that a program somewhere has decreed you are guilty. Good luck persuading them that their software is incorrect - they probably didn't even write it themselves, just installed something given to them by the *AA). And suspension from the Internet is a ridiculously disproportionate response in any case.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I wonder what knock of Nigel thinks about all this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlhdK5Yl8u0
I spend a lot of my time researching my music to the point where when I buy a CD, I already know it's going to be good & I've found the best possible price for it - therefore, I'm quite content with the quality of music for the price I pay for it, and I see no reason to switch from buying CDs to a "Pick N Mix" download format that ultimately costs more for lower quality. But quite frankly, I'm now getting a bit sick and tired of my CD purchases having to subsidise the hobbies of you music thieves. So how about you people just BUY your music? And if it's too expensive for you, then buy less of it rather than hoarding all the free stuff you can without listening to it properly anyway. What's wrong with being discerning, learning to appreciate a good piece of music and then rewarding the creator(s) accordingly? Do you REALLY consider yourselves music fans when all you do is steal music & because it's so easy to come by, you don't even appreciate it? And just how many of you "CDs are too expensive" thieves actually make an anonymous donation to the musicians of an amount YOU consider fair? Or even make a donation to charity on behalf of the band? No, I'm not a musician and don't work anywhere in the music industry - I'm just a TRUE music fan who believes in paying for stuff he likes and I'm sick of hearing the whining thieves while subsidising their music collections.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The system's broken. It's just that simple. I don't advocate infringing on copyright because of it, but it is beyond repair, with corporations perpetually holding everything from the public domain and (at least in the US) undermining the Founding Fathers' view of copyright.
You probably got modded as flamebait (or troll) because you use "whine" and generally talk down to an opinion that differs from yours. Remember the old adage "you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar." (or words to that effect.) That doesn't make your opinion any less relevant, but it also clouds the opposite opinion as somehow less than your own. If that's what you were going for, no problem. But the consequence of that does open one's posts up to moderation negatively. (I know, I've had the same issue in other discussions.)
I am of the camp that advocates ignoring music altogether (and the same goes for movies and TV). The sooner we choke off their lifeline (OUR money) the sooner they'll realize who is more important to them, and at the very least realize that treating _customers_ like criminals does nothing but make them former customers.
I also realize that P2P and other tech used to infringe is not going to kill the industries working so hard to kill the tech. How long has it been since Napster? And they're still around... making billions. They claim (incorrectly of course) that they're on the brink of extinction because of P2P, but we've yet to see anything tank... and with the US opening of "The Dark Knight" proving that a movie people want to see will make money (lots of money), their argument for "impending doom" rings rather hollow.
There's quite a bit more subtle nuances available to discuss on this subject, (who gets the revenue, is it really worth the $ they claim, etc.) but you get the general idea w/r/t your original post.
Besides, if more people thought as you did (and didn't bother "collecting" the drek off P2P they would otherwise not buy in the first place), we'd not have to discuss this at all... and most likely our freedoms wouldn't collectively be dumped into the abyss in the name of "saving an industry from the evil pirates."
I'd rather see the industry be forced to cater to their customers as it should be... rather than the industry strangling its userbase. But that's just a pipedream these days.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Man, bad move by those ISP's. Now anything being sent across their network can get them sued. Kiddie porn photo, sued. Illegal wire transfer, sued. I hope they get sued for every kind of illegal activity that is sent over their network. They just admitted they are responsible for it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I don't particularly have a problem with law enforcement, provided there is a presumption of innocence, and you are not investigated without some reasonable evidence of wrongdoing (not just the BPI waving your IP address around).
However, I do have a problem with ISPs monitoring the bytes going down my wires.
Imagine if BT said they were going to tap your lines and send you a letter if they caught you singing 'happy birthday' (a copyrighted work) down the phone.
Yes that is one way of looking at it. But in this ever changing landscape of internet technology who dictates roles? The music/movie industry has been accused of not keeping pace with the times. Well that applies to all parties. Its not really anyone's place to dictate what services an ISP must be. They will be whatever the market and their customers (both sides) require.
A few weeks ago, on Insight (Australian forum TV program) they discussed this very topic. The music industry naturally wanted the ISP's to have the 3 strike policy then cutoff. For the record the ISP rep on the show was strongly against it. But another solution on the board was that ISP's would become more providers/sellers of content rather than a mere conduit. Your local ISP is the last point of contact to you. They already collect money from you. They physically closest to you. Its not a stretch to extend that model and make them the primary collector of fees for content they provide to you on behalf of content creators.
The ISP's could amass content or track content from known sources (hey the details are TBD :) and take a small cut. One of the interesting points brought up was that for the younger generation this has benefits. Say young Johnny at home wants a new ring tone, or lets ramp it up, ring video clip :) He's too young for a credit card or bank account. But Daddo allows a certain quota of web content to be purchased through their ISP. The ISP is already setup to simply debit old Daddo. It simplifies things for the customer and lets ISP's and content providers construct their own billing hierarchy behind the scenes.
I see potential in the idea. Who knows where it will lead.
But I do know that negative schemes that punish people just create animosity, mistrust and retaliation in customers.
I hope encryption can work until we find a way to dump the ISPs.
Remember this only applies to six of the largest ISPs. There are numerous smaller choices, which often provide better service anyway, though many of the good ones cost a little more. I wouldn't dream of using an ISP like BT after (a) the poor service I received when I did use them a few years ago, and (b) they have shown a willingness to participate in things like using Phorm. It's usually the big ISPs that have restrictions like packet shaping and high contention ratios as well.
For the record, I personally don't file share. I don't support Big Media on several counts, but I don't believe in breaking the law over such a trivial issue. Actually, I find it offensively hypocritical for people to claim file sharing is justified because "the music wasn't worth buying anyway" or some such nonsense: it's not worth buying, but it's enjoyable enough to bother downloading and listening to it? Give me a break, and stop trying to rationalise free-loading. (I do participate actively in campaigning and respond to government consultations on changing the law, which do make a difference. Most recently, attempts to increase copyright were stopped in their tracks, and legalisation of format shifting is imminent. There's a long way to go before copyright law is back to being properly balanced, but at least we're moving in the right direction through legitimate means and the proper legislative process.)
Anyway, the sort of behaviour the big ISPs are starting to exhibit inhibits legitimate uses from large downloads of legal software to using the BBC's "Listen Again" and "iPlayer" services. I pay for a high bandwidth, always-on Internet connection so I can use such services, and I expect my service provider to, well, provide that service. I also don't expect it to be spied upon, infected with advertising, or otherwise compromised. This is why I avoid the large ISPs like the plague.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Stupidity like this from ISPs and the BPI is going to push filesharing more and more underground, and in doing so make it much harder to root out the hardcore guys. We saw this with OiNK. It got shut down and everyone scattered, onto three or four lower profile websites, with a smaller userbase that should be harder for the police to attack.
I've stopped downloading music now, as I cant be bothered with the bullshit Virgin Media give me. Connections that 'randomly' drop out when I am uploading anything for over an hour (ftp, http, bit-torrent, they dont care) which, on Virgin Medias speeds, is very very often. But, I have also stopped buying music. I stopped buying CDs ages ago (anyone else feel ripped of when you leave a record shop with a little piece of plastic you just payed £17 for?) and refuse to use DRM riddled, legal download services.
The way the industry can save themselves (that will never happen):
An online music store selling MP3s, Oggs and Flacs of songs. A lossy encoded song costs 50p and a lossless 75p. A lossy album £5, a lossless one £7.50. Without DRM, where the artists get at least 50%. Until then i'll keep going to the gigs, where the record labels barely get a penny of my cash, buying the T-Shirts and going to the festivals.
Screw torrents and Gnutellas, I got a better idea: buy a few cds a year, why not. Then rip them all and put them on a portable hdd. Bring to work. Swap and share with colleagues!
I can't see the BPI stopping that.
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
Dude what are you, the Savior of Karma? This is your third post in this thread trying to help out the modded-down guys.
At any rate, as to the grandparent, I think the real issue is fuckin' with your bandwidth. I'm okay with the theory behind lawsuits and what not - they may be poorly done, and the penalties may be unfathomably egregious, but technically it's illegal, so so be it. Let the copyright holders sue you for $20 or $200,000 for each CD you download, but that shouldn't stop you from having the same, unfettered access to the web you paid for. If you steal a pen from an office, you're still allowed to write letters.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
How about just not using these ISPs? There are plenty more in the UK. May I suggest Bethere?
Perhaps they could extend their licencing arrangement to licence the storing of MP3s on anything that looks or behaves a bit like a computer with a sound card. They could then share royalties with musicians ..
they will sign bands to advertising deals, promotions, live concerts, and take a huge amount of their income, for promoting them in the first place
britney spears and her corporate backers aren't going anywhere
its just that they will make $0 on media. from now on, song recordings are just free advertising
its not like this is weird and alien. this is how it works in a lot of nonwestern countries already
intellectual property of media is a dead concept. the internet killed it. it destroyed the economics of distribution, because it now costs $0 to distribute and no one can control it. it doesn't matter how you think intellectual property should work. this is how it now works, as determined by reality and technological progress. deal with it and accept it. there is no fighting it unless you wish to look like a fool
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Total Hypocrisy!!
Virgin Media not only host alt.binaries NG's on their servers they recently EXPANDED them to host even more.
Will they be sending a letter out to themselves for hosting and sharing all these files with their subscribers?
Hell, they even sent out an email to all custoemrs letting them know the new server address and information on the updates!
Don't hear that being reported tho huh.
I think the real issue is that one of the biggest ISPs in the UK is named "Carphone Warehouse". WTF?
*wonders if he gets a cape as saviour as karma*
I know I should have proably left it but it seems a little odd.
As for the throttling of the bandwidth i guess the counter arguement is that you are breaking the terms of a contract.
Seems pretty poor though when it can be just as likely legitimate content as illegal. I doubt they'll be able to do it for too long. if nothing else ever time blizzard released a patch ISPs would be spammed to death by annoyed gamers wanting their patch (blizzard releases over a P2P system that uses the same set of ports as bit torrent)
"and most likely our freedoms wouldn't collectively be dumped into the abyss in the name of "saving an industry from the evil pirates."
Perhaps if people hadn't been so free with downloading illegally it wouldn't have happened. Complaining about it now is a bit like moaning about supermarkets that have installed CCTV because of people stealing from them. Sure , it would be better without , but blame the thief, not the retailer.
But the fact that this has occurred since the days of piano rolls, this particular "infringement" isn't new or innovative... it just applies technology.
Remember the furor over VCRs? Cassette tapes? Radio?
I don't buy that P2P is the reason we are losing freedom. *I* should never lose ANY freedom because of the actions of someone else. This isn't elementary school. CCTV is non-invasive and subject to personal restrictions (no cameras in the toilets, etc.) This is simply, we saw you sharing Abba's "dancing queen" on 27 occasions! You're costing Abba and the industry billions. You are hereby cut off from the internet.
(It's a bit of an extreme example... but you get the idea.)
I blame the industry for not wanting to adapt to technology. Technology moves whether the buggy whip manufacturers want it to or not. And the entertainment industry is not immune to progress. They are fighting it worse than any industry we've seen (since perhaps the dawn of the industrial revolution). And the kicker of it is, they're taking our freedoms down with them.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
"Offenders may find their internet connection is throttled, or may even have their traffic "filtered" to prevent media files from being downloaded."
I'm sorry, but BT can't throttle me any further. Going from a 2.5meg connection at off-peak time to a 500k connection at peak times...... What are they going to do, TURN IT OFF? Or drop me to 64k like in New Zealand.
Keep in mind that I DONT use bittorrent, so it's not like I'm in the unhappy pool.
Bah. crappy.
Even 4 million, more would be better, individual lawsuits directed at the ISPs. The costs alone would stop them. The minute the politcos see the figures I don't think this will get anywhere. If it does get anywhere, knock them out of power. You can always bring back flogging of public officials who even think of passing this crap while reminding them of who they actually work for. I know your country prides itself on law but when special interests hi-jack the law it becomes who has the biggest guns. You could try to remind them that you're the biggest special interest but I doubt it will do much without money and threat of physical harm behind it. You know, something to really worry them. Although, I think the biggest threat to lawyers and judges is the abolition of self-sustaining law.
...new lead on the hunt for Madeleine McCann, housing market predicted to crash any time now, England look favourites to Win the World Cup.
This will free up broadband capacity needed for peer-to-peer p0rn sharing, now that the Usenet is being shut down.
Have gnu, will travel.
If you purchase music and get caught making copies three times, you should be banned from ever purchasing music again.
Nullius in verba
NNTP over SSL is a great option at the moment. There's some cheap providers with good rentention and unlimited download (I'm paying Euro 17.5 / quarter for 100 days retention and unlimited download up to 30mbit/s). .nzb files makes it much simpler to grab binaries than it ever has been from usenet, and software like AltBinz which has great automation and RSS options makes it all simple and convenient.
There's also a big boom in downloading from those mass file hosting sites like Rapidshare. People use Uploadjockey to automate uploading to rapidshare, badongo, easy-share, zshare, megaupload and depositfiles. They add as many files as required, then post all the uploadjockey links into paste2.org and distribute that link. Downloaders sinply copy'n'paste the contents of that link into jDownloader, which then automates the process of downloading the file parts from the download sites, automatically waiting for the site timers to expire, inputting the captchas, rejoining split files, decompressing archives and outputting the result to your download folder ready for consumption.
I do wonder if the major record labels and movie studios realize that most of the illegal downloads come from scene releases. Would be amusing to see the looks on their faces when they realized that most of their alleged losses come from a bunch of teenagers having an e-penis contest.
I only buy pepper spray that's been tested on anti-vivisectionists.
Do the British even know what "three strikes and you're out" means?
The more you tighten your grip, Virgin, the more customers will slip through your fingers
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
Someone please write a trojan horse that clandestinely starts a bittorrent client on infected PCs and starts downloading whatever hot thing the MPAA/RIAA have so graciously produced for us. Watch them start a flood of takedown/3-strike notices and shut everyone off.
...and I have no reason to assume you're not, you should write a 1000 word piece explaining your thoughts and reasoning and ping it to the Times, Guardian, Indy, Fin & Telegraph. Get it signed off by Dizzee and his management. I'm an ex lawyer and I'd be more than happy to help you draft & craft this. You can reach me by emailing my username (strip the spaces) at gmail.
In other news, the 7th leading ISP in the UK is experiencing a big rise in profits.
In my verdict, music publishers (and to a lessor extent film companies) are wasting the breath. The issue is QUALITY and not QUANTITY.
Most illegal P2P stuff is going to be MP3, and offered in a low bit rate at that. For music purists this affects the sound quality by a wide margin. In fact the sound quality has been affected by increasing the volume of quiet parts while reducing the volume of loud parts; the detail has been lost.
So what has the music industry done? first of all it tries to close down the networks; after limited success the model changes to 2p2. Next it tries to sue downloaders; and gets bad press. Now it tries to frustrate but trying to get the ISPs of heavy downloaders to act and close/reduce bandwidth of accounts affected.
Then of course when the industry tries to provide legal downloads, not only do most of them have useless DRM that only stops the 100% law abiding citizen for listening to the music how they want, but they try to charge money for a product that is otherwise no better than the illegal download and still much worse than a legal CD. Of course you can easily make the assumption that the reason why the quality is so low is because the quality of the artist being pushed is of a similar low quality.
Radiohead got it right with their "in Rainbows" album. Yes you could pay anything you wanted for the album in digital form, but strangely when the official CD release came out it was still a big success. What this says is that there is still market for a high quality release, even if it still comes in physical media.
And then that goes onto my next point, if the music industry were interested in music rather than just "making money", then they would be looking at ways to add value to buying a CD (why didn't they push SACD?), or providing albums in online in lossless formats.
Another thing that really gets my "goat" is when I see an album on iTunes with bonus tracks that are not on the physical release. Surely, if the music industry really wants a future it should stop treating those of us that prefer the quality of a CD like the vinyl audiophiles were treated in the late 1980's (i.e. shabby).
And to the final thing that is forgotten by the music industry, use illegal p2p at your peril, with so much malware at their posing as music and films; I'll think I will avoid that thank you very much. If fact this also makes a mockery of DRM, as the attitude of some companies appears to be if something trashes your drive, tough; you can only re-activate the DRM file so many times when you'll have to buy the file again (makes a CD so much more appealing).
Perhaps now as proper artists take control of their own music more, the music industry will learn to provide what the customer wants and that means not ripping them off.
The BPI seem to be pressing hard to 'stamp out piracy' at present. In addition to this news, there is currently a series of TV adverts in Britain, trying to make downloading socially unacceptable
Whenever I download an ISO, I always leave BT running until I have uploaded several times what I downloaded. I am talking about Linux ISOs and stuff here. I do not download what I haven't paid for. Even stealing from theiving scumbag record company executives is stealing.
If I get any such letter, I will calmly reply and ask for a formal apology. If that fails, they will get bad publicity. Users come to me all the time at work and ask for reccomendations. At the moment, my advice is just keep away from AOL and TalkTalk. I would need to expand that.
I am also sure that the local press would love the story...
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
They won't be monitoring our traffic. It'd be too difficult, too costly, too... Illegal.
Instead, what I expect they will do is sit back and let the RIAA do their usual work. Only when they honeytrap british IP's instead of discarding it and crying at how they can't sue us here, they'll contact the ISP and ask them to send a letter.
From what I can figure out, that's the only legal way they can do it.