Ireland's Largest ISP Settles With Record Industry

An anonymous reader writes "In what has been billed as a world first, four music companies and Irish ISP Eircom have agreed to work together to end illegal music downloading. The Irish branches of the record companies (EMI Records Ltd, Sony BMG Music Entertainment Ltd, Universal Music Ltd and Warner Music Ltd.) brought a High Court action against Eircom last March which has resulted in this settlement after eight days of trial. Eircom will be implementing a three-step process — informing a subscriber that their IP address has been detected infringing copyright; warning the subscriber that if they do not stop they will be disconnected; and finally disconnecting the user if they fail to heed the warning. Which technology they will be using to spy on their customers is currently unknown. EMI and the other record companies have recommended US-based Audible Magic, which (among other things) claims to block copyright violating web content from sites like Youtube and MySpace. However, digital surveillance is nothing new in Ireland and Eircom may have already tested and implemented the necessary technologies."

Comments

Let' see how fast they will run out of customers

[egnop]

Since they probably will go disconnecting people very soon. And that will end up getting another ISP to get connected again.

A comparison

[peterprior]

I wonder how people would react if the postal service were allowed to hold envelopes up to a light, say "theres a CD in there which could have illegally copied copyrighted data on it!" and then after doing that 3 times, stop all mail to your house without having to provide any actual evidence or give you a chance to prove your innocence.

Re:A comparison

[elrous0]

I'm sure a lot of people are going to respond to this comment with "But ISP's are private entities, not the government postal service." But the harsh fact is that most people have little more choice in their ISP's than they do in their postal service. Most people are like me. I have a grand total of two options if I want a broadband internet connection: AT&T's DSL service and Comcast's cable service. So basically, I can't anymore just "take my business elsewhere" (if I got banned for alleged piracy) than I could with the postal service. Getting banned from these two private entities would effectively cut me off from the internet permanently, with no recourse. That's pretty serious business in an age where your very livelihood can depend on the internet (particularly if you're a techie like me).

Re:A comparison

[VEGETA_GT]

This is where I like to point out there are also loads of false positives. Great example is me, over past few months I have gotten 3 letter saying I have downloaded movies on the eDonkey network, even listing the specific movies. Fine except I am the only one in my house who uses eDonkey and I know for a fact that I did not download that content they specified especially since 10 feet form the computer are at least 2 of the 3 dvds for the content specified. now in Canada they really don't do anything else, Rogers just forwards on the e mails and that's about it.

so with all these 3 strikes and you are out crap, I would not not have net access for actually not only not downloading content but for buying the DVD's. There are so many simple ways of avoiding these things of laying blame on others like spoofing ip's and then there are ways around it liek encription and proxies. so really when will they stop this kind of crap and find better ways to deal with the issues, Like servers set up for blanked non DRM subscriptions where I can download all I want for a monthly fee or some other method that would work. And get over the fact no matter what you do downloading content is not going away, you are just making people come up with new solutions to your issues and there are more people trying to get around the issues then make them. O and ya don't forget we still see record sales of dvd's/movies and music is growing online downloading in leaps and bounds so you can't tell me you are not making cash.

SCO is finely dyeing off why cant the RIAA and equivalent news

Re:A comparison

[Jurily]

Then don't download pirated content and you should be fine.

Oh really? Where exactly does TFA say you have to actually download anything to get disconnected?

But this agreement now denies Eircom's own customers all future access to due process when accused of infringement. All that is needed to terminate an Internet connection is three accusations from a narrow set of third-party companies.

It's all a red herring

[yttrstein]

Watch how fast https becomes ubiquitous. When everyone is encrypting everything, the RIAA will be utterly powerless.

As they already are when it comes to any encrypted connection to any number of swarms or usenet servers.

Re:It's all a red herring

[Yacoby]

Watch how fast https becomes ubiquitous. When everyone is encrypting everything, the RIAA will be utterly powerless.

Wait until people go back to swapping data on disks.

Uploading a music collection onto a 16 Flash drive and downloading it at a friends house doesn't take very long, and transfers many thousands of tracks. I doubt the record industry is ever going to stop that.

It is all moot anyway, as in 20 years time, the people who grew up pirating music will be in Government.

Re:Let' see how fast they will run out of customer

[commodore64_love]

I hope you're right. The fact the Eircom rolled-over in just 8 days demonstrates that these companies have no interest in protecting our rights. For them it's all about the money, and they obviously took the cheapest route of not fighting.

Re:Let' see how fast they will run out of customer

[ionix5891]

Good thing then that their wireless passwords for the routers they give out are easy to crack

http://taint.org/2007/10/01/185837a.html

Re:What about fair use?

[oahazmatt]

Whatever happened to free culture on the internet?

It wasn't profitable.

Re:Let' see how fast they will run out of customer

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The fact the Eircom rolled-over in just 8 days demonstrates that these companies have no interest in protecting our rights. For them it's all about the money

Of course it is. It is not a company's job to protect your rights. A company's main purpose is to make money for its shareholders.

Laws are what are supposed to protect your rights, because that company has to operate within the law. If the company's actions are an abuse, then the law should be changed (or enforced) so that this does not happen.

Of course, I'm assuming you were referring to legitimate privacy rights here, not to a non-existent right to download material in breach of copyright.

This is awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about it. The ISP is saying they are responsible for the content on their network. Now you can sue your ISP for wasting your resources on SPAM (especially all the illegal stuff).

Or anything else like if your underage kid views porn. Oops, ISP you should have blocked that!

Or somebody posts untrue comments about you in a forum from one of these ISP's. Forget about trying to find the person doing it, that's expensive and hard. Just sue the ISP into the ground!

(same goes for Comcast and all those other companies that signed up to monitor their network; they can kiss their neutrality goodbye because now they are liable!)

I've just cancelled my Eircom order

[haggisbrain]

I moved to Ireland last week and placed an order with Eircom for broadband. After reading this story earlier today I decided to have another look around for an ISP in my area. I found one, placed an order with them and cancelled my Eircom order. It's not that I want to download copyrighted material, it's just that having a home broadband connection is just far too important to trust the "evidence" of these record companies.

RIAA vs IRA

[Hognoxious]

Q: What's the difference between the RIAA and the IRA?

A: One of them used to be a bunch of terrorists.

Re:Freedom

[MightyYar]

Ireland: we put the "no" in "technology".