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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..."
I guess they don't know about file caching...
Sock Puppets: damn_registrars=pudge_confirmer=jimmy_slimmy=raiigunner=cml4524=a_klavan=red4men=ronpaulisanidiot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_upon_Hull#Telephone_system
Get the IP address of the Karoo president, and denounce him to the Karoo tech as the originator of suspicious copyrighted file sharing. Hilarity ensues.
I can't understand that, if theirs only one ISP it should be a requirement to maintain at least basic service. Considering how much government business is moving online, this is now a requirement to function.
Or you could try to make a comment that is interesting, insightful, and/or informative like everyone else who wants to maintain their karma. It isn't really that hard, and that goes for everyone looking to get the karma bonus. The biggest thing is to be patient and wait until you have something interesting to contribute, rather than feeling like you need to comment at every opportunity.
What struck me about this whole thing is the alleged file-sharer has to sign a document admitting guilt and then the promise that they wouldn't do it again.
Seems awfully heavy handed to me, not to mention legally tricky for those who are accused. What's to say that by signing that document, they won't open themselves up to legal motions by the multinational entertainment companies.
I don't understand why ISPs want to be in the business of policing their users: it costs money to do that. It also costs them lost revenue for cutting off users. Why don't the ISPs just say "It's not our problem" to the copyright holders presumably just as the Postal Service would say if people were sending copyrighted documents, CDs, or DVDs through the mail.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
In the U.S., you typically have both the cable company and the phone company vying for Internet business.
You'd have to go pretty far out to find an area that only had dial-up, much less only one dial-up ISP in the area.
The summary is incorrect. They still have the option to use dialup from some other company, or satellite.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
At first I thought they would disconnect me for sharing ubuntu-9.04-desktop-i386.iso . Then when the summary mentioned copyright owners, I wasn't so sure. Then the summary mentioned "admitting guilt", what guilt?
Apparently "kangaroo court" is now "karoo court"...
"The UK is very big, so local monopolies are very common" - entirely wrong, the UK is rather small and local monopolies are rare. In fact this is the first one in the UK I've heard about.
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Can anybody in the UK shed some light on whether this practise is even legal? How can an ISP act as a judge, jury and executioner especially given that they have spotty evidence at best?
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"That's a blatant infringement on one's human rights, which states that everyone is entitled to a fair trial." -- You sure about that? A 'fair' trial isn't a basic human right, it isn't necessary for life, it's a great concept that's put into practice. I think you're projecting the idealistic notions from "Western Civilization" (the USA and Europe) onto what you *think* should be a global truth.
Fair trial clauses are usually in criminal cases only. This is a business relationship, where businesses usually reserve the right to cancel service at any time.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
From the Summary:
"The article states that some subscribers have had their access cut off for more than two years." WRONG.
From the Article:
"The terms and conditions Karoo enforce are not new - the BBC has spoken to customers whose accounts were suspended over two years ago." In actuality, this only means that the enforcement of this policy has been in use for over two years, not that actual customers have been without internet access for that time duration.
In the U.S., you typically have both the cable company and the phone company vying for Internet business.
WTF are you basing this on? DSL only ranges about 15,000 to 18,000 feet from the DSLAM. There are huge swaths of land that don't receive DSL service, even in fairly suburban areas. The telco can install remote DSLAMs if they want to but many don't make the effort because there aren't enough potential customers in the area to justify the expense.
There are many areas where the cableco is your only choice. Worse, the cableco knows this. In my area you can usually get Time Warner to lower your rate if you threaten to move to DSL -- but if you live in an area where DSL isn't an option they refuse any sort of rate deal because they know they have you by the balls.
You are also discounting the remote areas that have DSL service but are stuck with slow service because of the distance and/or provider policy. I can get DSL where I live -- at a whooping 1.5mbit/s for the same price that Time Warner can deliver 8.0mbit/s. 1.5 isn't really enough to watch decent quality video. So I'm stuck with Time Warner even though DSL is an option.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
well, guilty actually, since there doesn't seem to be any provision for proving your innocence. So, guilty until admitted guilty.
It is because since 1902, Kingston-upon-Hull has had its own local monopoly. It's one of those weird local wrinkles like Berwick-on-Tweed still being at war with Germany. Hull's telecoms firm has traditionally been surprisingly good but evidently they are now scared of being sued out of existence.
How about going to their office en masse and burning it down?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The problem is he often makes early/first posts with slanted views that do not accurately reflect the information presented. Some of them are convincing and he gets upvoted but it spreads misinformation.
Earlier today he posted this: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1313945&cid=28806481
The flaw lies in the implementation of the HTTPD used for router's Admin Web GUI. Which is a custom rewrite by Brainslayer & the DD-WRT team.
A brief history of DD-WRT (warning: it's biased against the project): http://www.bitsum.com/about-ddwrt.htm
He complains of "the dangers of homogeny" when the software bug was from a hobbyist-type build of a custom firmware.
Then he closes with the following statement: "Just because we love Linux doesn't mean that we should sacrifice the entire ecosystem to that love. We need to nurture other implementations to prevent this type of virus from wiping out our entire networking infrastructure."
While melodramatic, he's misrepresenting the actual number of DD-WRT users. The subset of router enthusiasts with DD-WRT is smaller compared to those who use other 3rd party firmwares (OpenWRT, Tomato, etc available on Broadcom or Atheros chipsets) and those who never bother to reflash their routers at all or have routers that are unsupported by DD-WRT.
Is the ISP legally obliged to ensure its users don't do illegal things? If so, I'd have expected more ISPs to run similar operations.
On the contrary, surely it is entirely acceptable that those people making legitimate use of your network costs you some of the money you charge them for that use? (that cost being that which you spend on determining whether this suspected thief is actually thieving)
This is fine. And I wish ISPs would just say that they're overselling their resources rather than pretending that anyone who wants access to the services they thought they signed up to is stealing music.
One point of contention in the article is that these people are getting cut off on nothing more than an assumption that they must be pirating stuff since they're using P2P. This is like arresting people leaving hardware shops with crowbars on the grounds that they're going to burgle houses.
My ISP clearly states in their policy that one should not use their line for illegal activities. And under their punishments is a disconnection. I've had a disconnection for a few days five years ago (for file sharing). If I were to repeat it again and I'm facing a week and then a full disconnection. Immediately disconnecting the line on the first crime seems like bad business to me. It's one customer who won't be paying his monthly bill!
All other parts of the UK are served by BT
I hope BitTorrent becomes an ISP in my area too!
My webcomic
"IP2P is used exclusively to STEAL"
Wrong. True, a lot of people use it to steal. That's unfortunate. But there *are* legitimate uses of P2P technologies. I've used BitTorrent to download perfectly legal ISO's of Linux distros (Ubuntu provides links to the torrent right on the Ubuntu website, though you do have to hunt a little bit to find them). Same with OpenOffice.org. IIRC, Fedora also provides a torrent of the Fedora ISOs.
There was an HD 'tv' show, a couple years ago, called MariposaHD. The producers of the show distribute it exclusively by BitTorrent (it's still available if you care to check it out - it's mostly eye candy - some guys going to different South/Central American countries and taking HD footage of scenery and chicks - lots of chicks lol). The reason I mention it, is that I think there is real potential, in the future, for using P2P technologies to legally distribute HD content. I'd like to see more online video services perhaps adopt more P2P technologies - there's no reason a for-profit company couldn't potentially use P2P to increase their market reach and profitability.
Blizzard uses BitTorrent to push out updates for World of Warcraft.
There is a LOT of potential for P2P data distribution to be used both legally and productively. Unfortunately, so many people have the mindset you do, that they fail to realize the potential of P2P. It can dramatically reduce an online publishers costs in terms of how much bandwidth they have to buy in order to provide content to huge numbers of customers. It scales well with demand (the more people downloading in a P2P network, particularly with BitTorrent, but other protocols as well, the more other peers there are to download from).
A 'fair' trial isn't a basic human right, it isn't necessary for life
Due process has been considered a basic human right for at least 800 years now. The US constitution (I know, not where the article takes place) also enumerates it as such.
I don't know about you, but I'd consider not being arbitrarily locked up in a prison a right. It seems very basic to me.
Interesting? Insightful? Informative?
From BadAnalogyGuy? His sole purpose is to give us witty analogies, which, true to his name, are terrible – although it sometimes requires a bit of inspection to find what is so glaringly wrong (thus their brilliance: what should be glaringly obvious is not always so obvious at first). They're puzzles... brain teasers... just like his post here. His insight lies not in his straightforward posts, but in the bad analogies themselves!
Asking for interesting, insightful, or informative posts from BadAnalogyGuy would be like asking for apples from a peach tree. Now, I like apples, and don't get me wrong, I like peaches, too. But apples from a peach tree? Come on. You get apples from apple trees.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
If the quality of the content was so low, there would be no consumers of said content to squeeze money from.
Insert wit here.
according to this independent ratings site.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Which part of "sole provider" and "monopoly" did you choose to ignore?
Karoo are the only ISP in Hull.
Hull is not in fucking London.
It's stated that a user must sign an admission of guilt before reconnecting service, I don't see how that isn't a breach of due process. I'm not a lawyer or an expert, but could one logically conclude that this business is using it's unique position of power to force users to wave their right to a free trial? I read another comment where someone claims it could be an infringement to one's basic human rights, and while I don't quite agree, I think it's an infringement of our legal rights. Karoo is the only provider of wired broadband internet access for these people from what I can tell, and really dial-up and satellite are not feasible options for alot of users, especially those that need a good reliable connection for work with any amount of speed. I know this still isn't forcing a user to admit guilt, but their options are slim unless they choose to go without the internet. Cutting off service is nothing new, but perhaps they should be required to seek more than just any "suspicion" considering that really leaves no need for evidence to back the decision and can be done on the whim of an employee who may just be having a bad day. Or, at the very least, they shouldn't require an admission of guilt, just a contract stating you won't share copyrighted files illegally and if you do you can be held legally responsible. Please, pick that apart and respond, I want to know how far off I could be with this one. Or how right it is...
Isn't that why you pay for bandwidth? If a company advertises I can buy 5 liters of Coke a week for $2, and I drink five liters of Coke a week, and pay my $2, who are they to complain that I'm drinking more than my fair share of Coke? If they cannot afford to actually provide me 5 liters/week for $2, then they should change their advertising and product offering to something more reasonable.
Real /.ers browse with no threshold and no karma modifiers. Helps you build those nice mental filters against low temperature urination. On the plus side you also get to read some of the quite inventive trolls posted.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
I agree, I read at -1 exclusively. I do lament at the quality of the trolls though...the good ones are few and far between these days.
1) Find a list of all the IP addresses in use and file a copyright violation claim for each and every one of their subscribers.
2) They'll disconnect all their subscribers
3) Profit!
but in a world where genocides and starvation and slavery still occur, to speak about "human rights" about internet access is overly pompous
So because someone else's life sucks we can't improve our own?
Generally, I agree with you. Government should not unduly interfere with business relationships. Businesses should be, mostly, free to decide who they do business with.
But, when you talk about utilities that have government granted monopolies on running cable through rights-of-way to all the buildings in a geographic area, and no one else is permitted to compete by running their own cables, then its a different story. Such a business should be subject to government regulation, including reasonable regulations that they must offer service to anyone willing to pay, and to cut off service, there should either be lack of payment for an extended period (e.g. don't cut someone off for being just 2 or 3 days late on payment), or because of a *court order* (that is, as a result of perhaps a copyright holder suing someone for copyright violation, the court finding the defendant guilty, and the court issuing an order to terminate their Internet connection; or, in a more extreme case, maybe a judge has seen sufficient evidence to show that an internet connection is likely being used for something like kiddie porn, terrorism, or the operations of some other type of criminal organization, and so issues an emergency order before the trial).
It's not quite as simple as that.
We don't have a DMCA and as far as I am aware, the ISP cannot be sued by the content provider for allowing copyright infringement.
So, why does the ISP police its users like this? Simple. The content industry went to the government and said "waah waah piracy is costing us billions every week!" and the government came back with an ultimatum to ISPs: "do something about it or we'll pass a law forcing you to".
Now we have a situation where instead of this policing following a law (which at least generally has the good grace to deal with such things as providing a due process and an appeals procedure), it's based on your contract with your ISP which they can rewrite on a whim.
I think I'd have preferred the law.
"It is evident that we have been exceeding the expectation of copyright owners..."
Sit!
Fetch!
Good boy!
A reasonable interpretation of unlimited, in the context of a connection which has an advertised bandwidth limit (i.e. 10mbps down/2mbps up) is that you are limited to the amount of available bandwidth advertised. If I pay for 2mbps up, I'm not really paying for 'unlimited', but I do expect to be able to upload 2mbps without being told I'm consuming 'too much' bandwidth.
Such customers aren't using 'unlimited', they are using the bandwidth that was advertised and which they payed for. When ISPs bring up arguments like "using 100x more bandwidth than other customers" it's just to try to deflect attention away from the fact that they are using exactly what was advertised and which they payed for, and there's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't MATTER that it's 100x more. Other people just *under-utilize* (should that be hyphenated? Not sure) their connections.
Not trying to belittle the problem of moderators censoring what they don't agree with, but have you tried posting on sites that use different moderation schemes? Slashdot is well above average when it comes to giving all sides a voice, probably because the relative scarcity of mod points encourages people to mod up rather than mod down. It's a lot like democracy being a horrible form a government (but the best one that we've found); Slashdot's moderation system allows for abuse and community censorship, but it is the best system I've seen on the Internet.
That depends, did you actually download anything NBC would consider illegal downloading, or were you just getting the latest WoW update?