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."

Comments

Dodge this...

[LilBlackKittie]

apt-get install libopenssl :-P

Re:Dodge this...

[Suzuran]

Easy - If your connection has a high ratio of uploads compared to other users on the network (or meets some other arbitrary criteria), your connection class is set to "suspect" and any traffic not identifiable by the filtering system is blocked or throttled.

This is the way we're all headed

[elrous0]

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).

Re:This is the way we're all headed

[Cheerio Boy]

And then we'll all just use TOR.

[Matrix] What good is an Onion Router Mr. CastrTroy if it can not exit? [/Matrix]

You can bet that if this trend continues they'll be able to cover all the major trunk points and any Tor endpoints that are unchecked at that point will be highly noticeable.

Re:This is the way we're all headed

[MBGMorden]

There will always be a grey market for this sort of stuff. My ISP recently started blocking access to Bittorrent trackers. Solution? I signed up for an $8 per month SSH tunnel account that has a SOCKS proxy, so I just tunnel all my tracker communications through there. If for some reason I need to hit a specific website, then I do the same.

Besides - all it takes is for the issue to be important enough and for 1 ISP to offer the better service, and people will flock there. Once the ISP's realize that though it's smaller on a per payment basis, that the general Internet using public has more money to fling around than the recording industry, then they'll ease up.

Re:This is the way we're all headed

[gacl]

1. Start an internet service provider business
2. Block access to anything you feel like blocking
3. Start an SSH tunnel service
4. Profit!

Re:This is the way we're all headed

[CastrTroy]

It makes me think of West Germany. I was watching "The Lives of Others" the other day, and one scene made me realize just how crazy things were. They analyzed the output of a typewriter, and figured out the make and model of the typewriter, and then they proceeded to ask who in the country had one of these typewriters. Apparently none were registered? Registering typewriters? Seriously. Treating a method of disseminating information as a controlled item. It seems we are headed in that direction. Where the governments want to be able to control what we talk about, and with whom we talk.

Re:This is the way we're all headed

[Anonymous Coward]

see, people ARE willing to pay for music and movies. they're willing to pay eight dollars a month for music and movies.

frankly, that sounds like a fair deal to me.

Re:This is the way we're all headed

[Anonymous Coward]

The same is true today for colour laser printers. I know its supposed to be used to track counterfeiters but how long will it be until they use it to find someone printing leaflets trying to arrange a protest or even just those with differing views. I know they're scared of terrorists/freedom/their own shadows/people having free will but all this monitoring & tracking is getting rediculous.

It wont last... either they'll go stupidly too far until it self-destructs around them or the people will get so sick of it that we'll have a revolution but I just wish they'd hurry up and do it.

Re:This is the way we're all headed

[MBGMorden]

I didn't pay THEM more. I paid a third party more. Having that SSH account is pretty handy.

Re:This is the way we're all headed

[MBGMorden]

It's pretty much the same speed. Only the tracker communications go through the proxy - the actual peer to peer connections (where the actual data is being traded) are still done over the normal ISP (though I'm using the built in encryption there as well). If they block that I'll just move to a hosted bittorrent solution.

There's now websites that allow you to upload (via FTP) files that you want to seed, and they'll seed from their servers. You can also add a torrent and they'll download it for you, and you then download it over standard FTP from your account with them. To your ISP all it looks like is large FTP transfers - there's not even the telltale swarm of connections to lots of ISPs to identify any P2P activity.

Where there's a will there's a way - the genie isn't going back into the bottle.

Re:This is the way we're all headed

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Yep, the colour laser printer thing is pretty scary, not least because customers aren't told about this deliberate surveillance.

I discovered the other day that an HP Colour LaserJet I use refuses to print without a supply of yellow toner even if the document to be printed is pure black-and-white, so it's not just spying on me, it's actually breaking my printer.

Re:This is the way we're all headed

[nawcom]

QCompson shows something that some businesses still haven't accepted - there will always be a way around the system. When Napster was taken down, they thought that it was all taken care of but they were wrong, since the use of Guetella shot off the chart. (for you chronologically anal folks, i know development of the listed software is quite not in order, but common use of it and the popularity of it is.) There was Kazaa and the FastTrack network, teh wonderful world of DC++, ed2k, and BitTorrent, which I find to be amazing technology by itself. ISPs are finding ways to slow down the connections (which is sad really, since the BT Protocol is used in many nets where only *legal content* is shared.) ASAIK every major bittorrent client now supports encryption, and if ISPs break through that, somone will develop a way around it. We might reach a point one day when FreeNet is the one way around our own ISPs.

This all makes me wonder what the Internet is. We know of the reason behind its origins, and in the 90s it became this world network created on the basis of digital anarchy in a sense. What do people think the final outcome will be in the end? Just another stream of knowledge limited by the government or something more still? I'm curious on what people think.

Re:This is the way we're all headed

[Keeper Of Keys]

Why is this person being modded down?

Something like you suggest has also been proposed today - £30 a year for immunity to prosecution. Not sure if these announcements are related or not, but that does does seem about the right price to me, perhaps even a little low - around $1.25 a month.

But one has to wonder whether the major labels deserve this, the way they've been behaving? If the money went directly to artists, though, and copyrights lifted from non-profit digital copying, now that would be a perfect solution.

Re:This is the way we're all headed

[lightversusdark]

Please excuse the rant, one of my disparate jobs is that I am Dizzee Rascal's production manager.
For those of you who aren't familiar with him, he is a UK hip-hop star whose most recent release is presently at No.1 in the singles charts, where it has been since its release at the beginning of the month. We entered the charts on download sales alone (physical unit sales are dead). It is fair to assume that a trend in retail purchases of media will be shadowed by a similar trend in illegal downloading of the same media. It is accurate to say that, so far this month, more people in the UK are buying Dizzee's record than any other. Therefore I can infer that there are a significant number of illegal downloads of the song taking place - it's not unreasonable to suggest perhaps more than any other chart single.

Dizzee is a self-made artist by anyone's definition. He has not had major label backing at any point in his career and this release is on his own label (Dirtee Stank Recordings).
He is creating wealth, jobs, tax revenue and all the other things beloved of the government when making speeches about "small British businesses".
He is also the most visible UK artist in the hip-hop genre, traditionally highly US-centric, raising the profile of British music around the world.

How much would we see of this "immunity to prosecution" levy?
NOT ONE PENNY.

That's right, the proposed measures would do nothing for a British citizen, running a British business (no fancy off-shored tax evasion here), with the Number 1 record in the UK this summer. We're not part of the cabal whom these measures would benefit. Why should anyone trust a major label to do the right thing by the artists when they've been screwing them for 93.5% of their revenue for years. I believe we have demonstrated that a label is not required to build an artist from scratch - this is not Radiohead or NIN turning on their labels and capitalising on pre-existing brand awareness - Dizzee came from nowhere, and if you have heard of him it is because he works so damn hard.

Everyone on this forum recognises the naivety of any claim to end file-sharing. In fact this kind of agreement is more likely to "stamp-out" our successful business.
If I authorise our fans to seed torrents of show bootlegs, or recruit them to promote up-coming artists from the label by sharing album previews on P2P networks, am I placing them at risk of punitive measures from their ISPs, or potential criminal prosecution? Perhaps the only safe thing to do is leave USB sticks in club toilets.
No doubt soon this will also be targeted by labels as a promotion channel outside their control that can lead to independent artists mucking with projected chart positions.
Yes, we kept McFly off the top spot this week. Yes, somebody may lose their job over it - that's the way major labels work when you don't meet expectations. No, I'm not sorry.

We learned our lesson years ago, after being flown first class to Argentina, being put up in 5-Star hotels with a few days each side of the show to see the country, going on stage in front of 30,000 people who knew the words to all the songs, and coming home with money in our pockets.

We don't have distribution in Argentina.
We have never sold a copy of any of Dizzee's albums in Argentina, as the records aren't available (excusing imports, which we don't see the markup on).

That's a lot of downloads.
I suppose we should display our gratitude by suing the Argentinians.

Of course, we don't spend our time suing anyone - we spend it uploading everything to YouTube, to save you from having to share it yourselves!

Re:This is the way we're all headed

[mpeskett]

The way things seem to be going sometimes, I get the impression that the media companies and "content" producers would like it to be a one-way connection from corporation to consumer, like TV is.

You get to choose from a regulated selection of providers (analogous to TV channels) who serve up their own content. All nice and regulated. Put up some high cost-barriers to setting up such a channel, and the internet becomes like every other medium - a way for the big companies to push their content to a passive audience.

Just look at radio - started out open, anyone who could transmit could communicate, then it got regulated. Written media started out expensive (had to hire a team of scribes to make copies) became cheap with the advent of printing, then as mass printing and distribution became more expensive you had to have yourself a publisher or be a large newspaper.

Filtering/inspecting...

[anonieuweling]

Filtering/inspecting traffic implies taking responsibility implies getting lawsuits directed at ISPs for users' content.

Re:Filtering/inspecting...

[PetiePooo]

Filtering/inspecting traffic implies taking responsibility implies getting lawsuits directed at ISPs for users' content.

That's exactly what I was thinking. Doesn't this strip them of their "safe harbor" status? Of course, they don't have to fear the media companies that they're trying to help. Technically, the MAFIAA could now sue the ISPs, but in order to get the ISP's assistance in filtering, they've probably offered some sort of covenant not to sue.

However, there must be some business with deep pockets that's taking a loss from unauthorized copying/illegal activity that would love to bite the ISP's hand off now that they're not offering a content-neutral network. Any suggestions?

How about the government sues the ISPs for allowing VoIP calls where terrorism is discussed? Since they're no longer content-neutral, then they should be filtering for and preventing that. And because they're not, bad things costing billions have happened that are directly attributable to the ISP carrying such content...

(Yes, I realize that's not what we'd actually want the ISPs to do. The point is to show the ISP the error of their ways. Once they start filtering certain content, they lose safe harbor, and are liable for not filtering all other sorts of things. Their only viable choice is to return to content neutrality.)

This should be good.

[AltGrendel]

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.

Re:This should be good.

[Wanderer2]

There's going to be some fireworks over this one when they sue the wrong person.

But they're not planning to sue anyone, just send them "menacing" letters...

I have to admit to being rather surprised the ISPs have agreed to this - I like The Register's take on why they might have done so.

What do you want to bet...

[Cheerio Boy]

...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'.

UK to consult on alaws to curb illicit filesharing

[rimberg]

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:

1. That a joint industry solution is the best way forward
2. That they will work together to educate consumers about why illicit filesharing is wrong
3. That making content available in a wide range of user-friendly formats is important
4. That they will engage in a 3 month trial to send letters to 1,000 subscribers per week suspected of downloading or uploading unlicensed, copyrighted material
5. That they will work with OfCom to identify effective measures to deal with repeat offenders

The Open Rights Group has more details

Don't.

[getuid()]

If they don't want you to listen to their music, don't. Don't download, don't listen, don't buy.

Don't stea... I mean infringe copyright :-) either. Just don't.

FILTER HOW ??

[johnjones]

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

[neokushan]

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.

Re:The real issue

[BobMcD]

...the record companies have essentially got the ISP's to do their dirty work for them...

That's probably not the case, at least beyond the face of it.

There seems to be a growing desire on the part of the ISP to stem the tide of locally hosted content on the internet. They can't censor servers they don't control, and would much prefer their customers were consumers, rather than providers (or redistributors), of content.

thank you music industry

[circletimessquare]

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

Switch!

[mtxf]

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

ISP?...

[whisper_jeff]

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...).

Re:Precedent

[kellyb9]

Next thing you know, they'll be outlawing alcohol

Whoa bad idea... last time the US tried that we ended up with NASCAR!

Carphone warehouse stance

[Kingston]

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.

Dodge THIS

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

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."

Re:Dodge THIS

[unlametheweak]

I wasn't sure if this was for real or just a satire. It's hard to tell these days. You offered no references. Then I double checked and noticed "BBC News April 2nd 2010".

It's scary when one can barely tell satire from real world events. It's too real. Your fiction and reality are barely separable.

Re:Dodge THIS

[DanielJosphXhan]

Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality, after all.

Re:I know it won't happen but

[fork_daemon]

As kids we are taught, "Sharing is Good Virtue. Share your Toys with your friends. If you got more then share with the needy"

Then in walks these copyright police saying,"DO NOT SHARE. Sharing is a Social Crime. If you Share, You are a a thief, a PIRATE."