Virgin-Universal Deal Offers Unlimited Music, Goes After File Sharers

suraj.sun writes "The UK's Virgin Media could start suspending persistent file sharers on a temporary basis, using information provided to it by Universal Music. The ISP announced on Monday that it would, before Christmas, launch an all-you-can-eat music download service for its users, based on a monthly subscription fee. The tracks will all be DRM-free. 'In parallel, the two companies will be working together to protect Universal Music's intellectual property and drive a material reduction in the unauthorized distribution of its repertoire across Virgin Media's network,' a statement read. 'This will involve implementing a range of different strategies to educate file sharers about online piracy and to raise awareness of legal alternatives. They include, as a last resort for persistent offenders, a temporary suspension of internet access.' DTecNet has already been working with UK content companies for some time to do much the same thing, and is also working with RIAA in the United States."

Comments

Sounds like a plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they going to suspend Virgin Corporation's internet access if one of their employees downloads an MP3 using it?

Interesting

[langelgjm]

Interesting. First off, when they say suspend, does that only go for Virgin Media customers (if there are any, not sure what the UK ISP world is like)?

Second, the all-you-can-download idea sounds reasonable. If the catalog is extensive enough (including classical), and it truly is DRM-free and platform-agnostic, I could actually see myself using this. They had better make sure the file metadata is good (a large collection with good metadata is worth paying for), and it'd be nice if they had something like iTune's "Genius" to find things you might like based on your current collection.

Re:Interesting

[nine-times]

From a consumer side of things, a pay-per-month model of getting access to a DRM-free library does sound good, but it seems awfully fishy that Universal would offer it. Wouldn't most people sign up for 1 month, download everything they want, and then cancel? Or are they really going to make it cheap enough, and adding new (good) content frequently enough, to make the whole thing worth it? I have my doubts.

As far as suspending copyright infringers, I've always been concerned by how readily ISPs seem to punish their own customers over a civil dispute in which they ought to have no stake. I guess if they're getting a cut of the action with this service, it makes some sense.

Re:Interesting

[meringuoid]

Wouldn't most people sign up for 1 month, download everything they want, and then cancel?

Debatable.

It's easily said: download everything they want. Maybe quite a few people will do that: sign up, binge on free mp3s, save them, then quit. But it seems to me that the people who would do that are pirates already. They've already downloaded everything they want.

Meanwhile, if you're Joe Average, can you enumerate all the tracks you want, such that you could grab the lot of them in one mass download? It's a hell of a job. You'd always forget some band or other, then months later slap your head in frustration and go 'Oh... I knew I should have downloaded more of the back catalogue of Oingo Boingo!'

I don't view the service here as 'pay to download music'. It's not really a sale thing. Why would I buy what I can have for free? This service is pitched at the lost generation, at the people aged 30 and down who have completely lost touch with the idea that music is something you pay for and then keep. We now treat music differently. Music is free - and I don't want to hear about copyright: maybe music SHOULDN'T be free, but that doesn't change the fact that it IS free.

What I'll pay for is the service of organising music. My music collection is a total shambles. It's inconsistently tagged. It's encoded at a variety of bitrates and in a variety of formats, such that no MP3 player made since the glory days of iRiver will play them all without a Rockbox hack. And it occupies disk space that could be used for anime or porn. Frankly it's a mess.

So that's what might attract me to Virgin's offering. If it's as complete as The Pirate Bay or more so, and the music is consistently tagged and encoded at a high quality, then a monthly fee is eminently fair to have access to that resource. Why would I download and keep any of it? Why should I go to the bother of maintaining my own collection? It's right there on a service run by my own ISP at the other end of a 20 megabit connection. Music on demand. The colossal cloud jukebox.

Interesting but...

[Sponge Bath]

What format for the download? 128Kbit lossy compression? I could not find any mention of that. For it to really work out, I would want at least CD quality lossless compression.

Re:Interesting but...

[vivaelamor]

This is the same company that cries it's customers are using too much bandwidth at the same time as announcing a new faster service. Given the apparent blindness to what their broadband customers want broadband wise I'd be surprised if they manage to offer a music service that keeps mp3 users happy let alone those who want something better. The more companies spend all their effort crying about how their business is hurting because of their customers, the less able they are to offer a service those customers might be satisfied with. It's not an issue limited to the big companies though, apart from Nine Inch Nails (who were hard to miss even had I not already been a fan) I haven't come across any commercial service offering FLAC since allofmp3 died.

May the IFPI and all they represent reap what they sow for what they did to allofmp3. Those guys had more sense about a good product in one pinkie than Virgin Media have in the entire company.

Re:Interesting but...

[Sponge Bath]

"128kbit lossy is more than enough quality, the only kind of people who would need anything more than that would be audiophiles and other people who love placebo effects.

Wow! If you can't easily tell the difference between a CD and a 128Kbit MP3, you are either listening through cheap ear buds or are hearing impaired. That is not "Monster Cable" audiophile or a placebo effect. The artifacts on a 128Kbit MP3 are obvious and annoying, 160Kbit AAC is very listenable for mobile players, but CD quality is the *baseline* for purchased music, at least for me.

Unfortunately, audiophile has become a loaded term meaning people who buy goofy stuff for high prices that makes little or no difference. I don't think preferring CD quality over a 128Kbit MP3 qualifies as that.

Re:Net Neutrality implications?

[master5o1]

I want to know if they will cut someone off for downloading Warner Bros. or Sony BMG music, considering that this deal is for Universal Music Group, would they protect the rights of the other labels even though they are not directly involved in the deal?

Not the law, their rule

[loufoque]

This will involve implementing a range of different strategies to educate file sharers about online piracy and to raise awareness of legal alternatives. They include, as a last resort for persistent offenders, a temporary suspension of internet access.

By this they really mean they will ban you from their network not because you're breaking the law, but because you're not following their EULA, which would stipulate you may not transfer copyrighted material by other means than their service. (which is completely unrelated to what the law does and doesn't allow)

Transferring copyrighted music on the internet is fair use, not piracy.
By educating people about online piracy, they really mean lying to them to make them believe their rights do not exist.

A Wire

[Anonymous Coward]

Well here we are again, someone else tried this and what was the defence of the pirates? Now we know how much it's worth, stop with the big ass lawsuits.
 
  Essentially Virgin internet provides a wire, for millions of people it is the single most important wire in their lives. Now this wire is being used as a potential punishing tool (parents the world over prevent children from using the net), and for what? Because the user is paying £16-25 a month (Assuming Cell Phone as seperate) instead of £24-38 (Estimated price of music service: £7)?
 
  I think the response of the British People should be clear, pay the £7, once they prove in court you've done something wrong.
 
  Brought to you buy the same people who don't think Ghandhi should have paid for salt.

Re:Net Neutrality implications?

[Lumpy]

Oh no it's not risky.. you are not looking at it right.

Everything for one monthly fee, and they will be going after file sharers and illegal file holders with vigor...

I.E. if you dont subscribe and have music on your computer, you're a criminal. The ONLY way to not get labeled a criminal is to subscribe to the service.

I might be paranoid, but Evil is as Evil does.

Fairness in the EU

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing how the EU courts are banning Microsoft for daring to have a web browser in Windows, does this mean they are setting a trend?

Will Apple be forced to have iTunes offer a "choice" of music services to connect to, instead of defaulting to the anti-choice iTunes music store?

And why can't I sync my non-Apple device with my iTunes library?

Sounds like an untapped monopoly, just ripe for squeezing handouts from every 8-12 months by the EU!

Re:Fairness in the EU

[Old97]

they should be offering it in a standard format like mp3. That, or they should prepare to be broken up, as they do have a monopoly in the distribution of the music as well as the manufacturing of the players.

Apple uses the AAC format which is an open royalty free format designed to replace mp3. Alcatel-Lucent owns the patent on MP3. So, Apple chose the more modern and more open format. Any company can support or use AAC without paying any royalties. Why so many others in the industry stay with an older proprietary format they have to license is what you should be questioning. BTW, Sony's devices support AAC as do some other manufacturers.

Apple does not have a monopoly on the distribution of music. Never has and never will because it doesn't own or control the content. Apple does not have a history of trying to dominate the world, gain a monopoly and then abuse it. They've dominated in a couple of areas because they've done a better job of putting together the right package and selling it. The only thing holding back their competitors is their amazing stupidity and lack of imagination. The worst you can accuse Apple of is being very focused and not trying to be all things to all people by offering a multitude of product options. Either you like what they sell or you go elsewhere. Obviously a lot of people like what they sell.

Apple does protect and promote their business model which is essentially to create and nurture an "ecosystem' of products that work very well together and exploit their synergies. People who point to an individual Apple product and says it lacks this or that feature product x or y have are completely missing the point. The point is that once you buy into the ecosystem, each thing you add to it can use or be used by the other things you've bought before. For example, I manage my music on iTunes (ripped from my CDs) on my computer. I extend my wireless network by buying a $99 airport express. I place the express near my audio system and connect the receiver to the airport express and suddenly iTunes knows about it. Suddenly I can stream music from my computer to my audio system. I can remotely control what iTunes does and where it streams using my iPhone or iPod Touch. I can synch all my computers where ever they may be using mobile me. When I buy an iPhone it synchs that as well. I don't worry about my calendars or settings or passwords or much of anything else getting out of synch on one device or another. It just works. That's the sort of thing that is so attractive (to many people) about buying Apple.

Re:Fairness in the EU

[Larryish]

AAC blows. My Sony Walkman NW-E0005x uses it and it royally blows. The encoding has more bugs than a 2.0 Microsoft product and doesn't work well even with hardware designed specifically for it.

Re:Fairness in the EU

[TheRaven64]

Itunes is slow as a dog (on a quad core machine with 4 gigs of ram no less)

I find this hard to believe. My mother uses it on her 550MHz P3 and it seems responsive. On my C2D Mac it doesn't cause a noticeable spike in CPU load except when encoding.

I despise it's music ordering structure or lack there of

Personal preference. Some people like to create complex structures, but most don't. This is one of the reasons why programmers make terrible UI designers; almost all programmers fall into the category that does, while most of their users tend to fall into the other category (there was an interesting paper published about this around 5 years ago, but my Google-Fu is weak this morning so I can't find it).

That said, the iTunes UI peaked around 4.2. Every version since then has had at least as many regressions as it's had improvements.

Re:Fairness in the EU

[Anonymous Coward]

That link references iTunes for Mac. Suppose I have iTunes for Windows (like the majority of the world)? In that case, I'm SOL because iTunes for Windows can only sync with iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV. Whoops.

Sorry once again.....

Re:Too little, too late?

[Anonymous Coward]

You be one o' th' ones that agree that sea dogs an' land lubbers in america ortin' ta be havin' a gun aren`t ye?

Seriously tho, I buccanneer stuff. Mostly on accoun' o' 'tis nay released in me country at all or fer a long while after sea dogs an' land lubbers else has seen 't. Sure I agree that piratin' be unethical t' a point, but when ye say that 't dasn't make 't starboard or th' law flawed jus' on accoun' o' we get away wi' 't I be havin' serious conflicts. Th' fact that we be havin' got away wi' 't fer so long be only on accoun' o' th' music industry did nay keep up wi' what we wanted an' we found our own system. Now that 't be goin' on fer so long now 't really does mean th' law be flawed. When swabbies be havin' become accustomed t' somethin' removin' 't wi' laws will often fail.

Jus' on accoun' o' in th' scheme o' things 't seems wrong, dasn't mean th' laws ortin' ta keel haul 't. Th' music industry brought this on them selves. A couple o' examples 'ere society gettin' somethin' fer too long made 't almost impossible t' make ou' starboard illegal:
Alcohol Prohibition
Marijuana fer medical use
Tobacco

All three o' them be damn wrong fer ye. (Although I could duel both sides o' that fer hours its nay th' point I be gettin' at.)

T' conclude, th' music industry did nay do the'r job an' provide what th' customer wanted. Th' customer sailed' elsewhere an' got 't at a better / cheaper rate than what th' music industry could provide. (too bad fer th' industry 't jus' so happened t' be fer so low they couldna e'en undercut 't (free)).

Th' only way they be havin' a chance t' come aft from this be through th' law an' bribin' law makers. They jus' canna win. Trust me on this. They won`t.

They ortin' ta jus' give the'r music away fer free an' put adds at th' the start an' end o' each song an' offer a premium rate 'ere they get nay adds. Works fer pretty much ever' other industry usin' th' model..

They might e'en come aft wi' a move like that..

-Annony

Re:Net Neutrality implications?

[xtrafe]

I'm not quite sure what you think qualifies as 'morally bankrupt', but here's how I'd illustrate the term:

• Inspiring generations of musicians (and other professionals) to toil for free in some faint hope of rockstar-scale success is morally bankrupt.
• Crowding out a cornucopia of music, and an entire economy of middle-class musicians, is morally bankrupt.
• Conning people into thinking it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce a produce a professional-sounding album when it really only costs a couple thousand, at most, is morally bankrupt.
• Convincing musicians that they should live off recordings, rather than performance, is morally bankrupt.
• Subjugating art, expression, and creativity in the name of selling impressionable children on fad after fad, is morally bankrupt.
• Leveraging the legal system at taxpayers expense in a hopeless attempt to keep a depricated business model working is morally bankrupt.
• Lying to people that somehow the most fundimental law of economics we have, that price = demand / supply, does not apply, as if somehow even gravity could be driven off by a marketing campaign, is morally bankrupt.
• Capitalizing on ignorance to charge both producers and consumers for a middleman service that can be had entirely for free is morally bankrupt.
• Trying to sell people into acting against their own self interest is morally bankrupt.
• Spying on people is morally bankrupt.
• Propagandizing is morally bankrupt.
• Brain-washing people is morally bankrupt.
• Telling me I can't twiddle the bits on my own harddrive any way I see fit is morally bankrupt.

But record companies don't care about being morally bankrupt; They're just in business to make money.
And after all that, if you really think there's still some reason that record companies should exist, and moreover deserve some portion of your income or mine, I'd love to hear it.

Re:Net Neutrality implications?

[TheRaven64]

Is it like America across the pond where many municipalities allow broadband providers a legal monopoly?

Virgin Media is the result of a group of mergers between all of the cable companies in the UK. There are basically three ways of getting wired Internet access here:

• Get an ADSL connection from a BT (incumbent monopoly telco) reseller. Owing to regulation, you can't buy directly from the part of BT that operates the network, you have to buy from an arm which gets the lines at the same prices as their competitors. This also requires you to have a BT land line
• If you life near an exchange with local-loop unbundling, you can get ADSL from a third-party provider without paying BT anything, but they still typically need you to have a landline phone connection with somebody.
• If you are one of around 60% of the population living in areas covered by Virgin, you can get a connection from them.

For some strange reason, the regulator recently decided that Virgin doesn't need any regulation, while BT needs a lot. This is odd, because it makes it increasingly difficult for ADSL providers to compete in the areas where Virgin's network extends (i.e. all of the profitable areas of the UK). There are occasionally mutterings about making Virgin sell access to their network wholesale (as BT has to), but they keep being rejected.