UK ISP Disconnects Customers For File Sharing

think_nix writes "Karoo, an ISP in Hull, in the UK, is disconnecting subscribers without warning if they file-share, or are even suspected of file-sharing. Karoo is the only ISP in the area. Copyright owners are working with the ISP helping them identify and report suspected filesharers using their services. In order to get service restored, subscribers have to go to Karoo's office and sign a form admitting guilt and promising not to do it again. The article states that some subscribers have had their access cut off for more than two years." Update: 07/24 16:29 GMT by KD : The Register is reporting that Karoo has relented and has changed its policy. A spokesman said: "It is evident that we have been exceeding the expectation of copyright owners..."

Comments

I am an ISP and I support this

[Anonymous Coward]

Folks,

IP2P is used exclusively to STEAL, and then you want to whine and complain when the big bad riaa/mpaa fingers you. Haha, I've got no sympathy for you.

From my side, there are two factors at play. First, I get a notice via email that then requires _manual processing_. This means that the cost of providing you service, just suddenly went up because now a _person_ has to get involved in your internet service and do something in order to comply with the law. Why do YOUR illegal activities have to cost ME money? Where do you get off thinking you can just go do as you please without there being consequences? We are not going to protect you, and you better get used to the idea that you WILL NOT engage in this behavior without there being risk to you.

Secondly, file sharers use a disproportionate share of bandwidth as compared to legal and legit users, and cutting their asses off has a positive benifical effect on the network. I consider p2p users to be undesireable customers anyways, and so when they get caught and reported to me, I use that opportunity to engage in some education about the teeth in my terms of service. Yes, cutting people off has quite an immediate and therapeutic effect on their behavior, they will behave as we proscribe in the ToS which means not using the service to break the law, and if it happens that they don't like that policy they still get to pay their early termination fee and if there is no other choice where they live, well thats just too damm bad.

We should note that we don't get involved until an authority has filed a notice with us. No notice we have received ever complained that the ip address in question _downloaded_ anything, only that it was making available a copy of the material for _upload_ to others. Without exception, all of these p2p programs default to sharing your download folder back out, so whatever you steal, you then begin passing around to others. If they did anything else (like not defaulting to being a seeder/uploader) then these file sharing networks wouldn't work and there woulnd't be a problem of any notable size.

So lets get it right. The problem is not the big bad isp cutting off it's sweet innocent customers for arbitrary or unreasonable reasons - it is that the wonton theft and trade of copyrighted material has reached such epidemic proportions that it's beginning to cost the ISP's money, and the escelating war between the copyright holders and the thieves (who could very well be grandma who can't find the keyboard anyways) demands a business resolution in order to stem the tide of lost revenue/extra costs associated with the behavior.

Sounds like they are hard up for cash.

[kaptink]

It's not like internet access is expensive or hard to get in Hull. Internet is peanuts in and around London. Why persecuted users wouldn't move on to a friendlier ISP without this harsh tone I don't know. This ISP looks like they are hard up for cash and can't pay for bandwidth and/or to stupid to install some traffic management, or run by some blind do-gooders. Either way, they'll loose. Plenty more ISP's to sign up with who don't harass their customers like that. If it were me, I'd tell Karoo to kram it sideways.

i hate the mafiaa

[circletimessquare]

i think copyright is a dead concept

but in a world where genocides and starvation and slavery still occur, to speak about "human rights" about internet access is overly pompous

don't ratchet your language up on concerns of, frankly, nonimportant issues to the basics of human dignity

i mean we could also call what karoo is doing "terrorism"

but its the same overuse of terminology meant for far more dire situations than anything remotely touching this case

Re:i hate the mafiaa

[circletimessquare]

if the world lags sufficiently behind the west, jealousy and hatred sets in, then all sorts of problems

you care, because you have a human conscience, not a western conscience

caring only about your own community and not caring about genocide somewhere else is not noble, its selfish