Kitz Forum
Announcements => News Articles => Topic started by: jabns on February 12, 2008, 03:31:18 PM
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Full story: Click Here (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3403-illegal-music-downloaders-to-face-internet-ban.html)
I would love to know how the government would implement this!
I have been using a little pogram called Peer Guardian for a long time now and the invaisioon of my privacy is quite shocking. For example when getting custom versions of ubuntu off thepiratebay.org torrent tracker i have about 20 government and anti-p2p IP's trying to connect to the PC with the ports forwarded to it every min.
I personally think that the music industry ect... are going the wrong way about this. I think they need to look at why people are using these methods to get the content, eg: money, quality, bang for buck ect....
I have got music using usenet before. Then after listening to it thought either yes these people deserve my money or no these people do not deserve my money and then it gets deleted.
Also when you see the "stars" doing drugs it makes you wonder why you are funding someones drug habit.
What your thoughts???
James
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The music and video industries are rich powerful companies who would do just about anything to preserve their vast profits. And they don't do it for the benefit of the artists, that's for sure. The big name stars no doubt make a lot of money out of it, but the lesser artists get ripped off rotten by the music companies. The whole industry stinks.
That being said, I can't believe that this will ever come to much. How on earth are the ISPs supposed to distinguish between legal and illegal P2P? If they tried to ban P2P in total there would surely be a vast outcry from those organisations which use it legally (which include some big household name companies). It's yet another example of politicians who have no understanding of technology bending over for the powerful media lobby.
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Excellent points
Perhaps the media industry needs to look at why people download the content and address this. Are people viewing it because its available in some countries months before retail sale in the UK or appearing on UK TV channels? Or is the pricing too high? Are the existing downloads available legally too restrictive, in that the digital rights management makes it hard or impossible for people to copy it from a home PC to a mobile device?
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One of the great things about peer-to-peer is that you can often find long deleted tracks that are no longer available by more legitimate means.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7240234.stm
Some of the UK's biggest internet providers, such as BT, Virgin and Tiscali have been in talks with the entertainment industry over introducing a voluntary scheme for policing pirate activity, but no agreement has been reached.
So far, they have failed to resolve how disputed allegations would be arbitrated - for example, when customers claim other people have been "piggybacking" on their internet service.
Will be interesting to see how this one develops.
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Alot of the open source software/VMware images i use are distributed by torrent netorks because how are a group of people surposed to afford hosting for for iso's that are 700mb+.
The one good thing about IP's is they have to be registered to someone so i just ban any gov,edu,anti-p2p,unused IP blocks and finally corporate IP's.
James
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Indeed some projects like OpenOffice.org have moved away from traditional hosting to torrent downloads.
The odd bit of music I really want i will buy on iTunes if I can find it, or i'll buy the CD/record on eBay cheap.
I am with Floydoid that some music just isn't easily available to buy, or cannot be bought as a single track, which leads to the occassional search on Limewire. If the music industry cared even a little about consumers rather than the profit margin perhaps they would offer an alternative for those who don't mind paying something from turning to P2P.
I certainly never leave P2P on and remove files from the shared folders - mainly because I dont really like using it and also uploading counts towards my monthly usage.
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The Times is reporting this morning that a green paper due to be published next week could see ISPs forced to disconnect users found to be downloading illegally obtained music or movies.
Well that will save me £45 PM, plus my ISP would be losing another TV and BB customer.
Because I would no longer need the service I have at present.
So I can't see that ISPs would implement that type of strategy, "they want our money" that is why they mainly introduced the FUP and capping.
Warning - while you were typing a new reply has been posted. You may wish to review your post.
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>> So I can't see that ISPs would implement that type of strategy, "they want our money" that is why they mainly introduced the FUP and capping.
In all fairness to the ISPs bandwidth does cost - I did a report a few years back and at the time it worked out that it cost the ISPs something like 67p for every GB that you download. They then have to pay port costs at the exchange to BTw of what was £9.87 each and every month. Therefore to break even before they even started adding on any of their own costs or equipment or foreign transit.. the ISP had to collect apprx £12 from each and every customer per month for just 1GB. For every additional GB add on about another £1.
The full workings out are here
http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/adsl_cost.htm
Prices at the exchange have fallen slightly since then... but it gives you an idea of what and what isnt sustainable.
Cable costs are different since thats fibre thats already laid.
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I think just about everyone in the country has downloaded at least one song or knows someone that has. The music industry must not be bothered to find out WHY such a vast amount of people get there music this way.
I think you should pay for digital content when the price is right and the content is of good quality and available to you. As i said in the last line of the first post i just sometimes wha the money is funding.
Some of you may know this already but in sweden politions have to be carefull what they say to sway voters. More info is available at: thepiratebay.org (http://thepiratebay.org).
They have a 2 videos called "steal this film 1 & 2" and a blog. They also have a funny(a bit tasteless) legal threats section.
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El Reg has an article up about play.com "opening" their DRM-free mp3 shop :
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/13/play_uk_drm_free/
The comments are worth a read through.
My personal opinion is that the pricing is still out by an order of magnitude. For audio piracy to "go away" then the cost of purchasing individual tracks needs to be trivially low. 65p a track is not trivially low - its the record companies STILL trying to preserve their traditional (physical product) markups. Try 5-10p per track and an easy way of making those "micro-payments". That's what it'll take and frankly that's all most tracks are actually worth to the average individual. That price is quite achievable too as there isn't the same distribution chain for data as for physical product.
IMHO we've still got a few years of the tiny (for it is tiny) record/film industry bribing (lobbying they call it) politicians to protect their markups via legislation before the whole copyright system collapses. The complete and total failure of DRM to protect the record industry from piracy is starting to make some in that industry realise that there is no "silver bullet" to enforce copyright. The film industry is still stuck back in the 1990s though.....
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Another one :)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/15/tiscali_bpi_agreement/
Looks like Tiscali and the BPI have fallen out :)
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Money, Money, Money,
This is most certainly one time where disharmony in the ranks is good news.
All I can say is the more they continue to argue among them selves, the better for us.
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It looks like the BPI and cronic illegal music downloaders have something in common - they want something for nothing :lol:
Surely they need to spend some money to save all that money they claim their precious industry is loosing?
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"Discouraging customers from using their accounts unlawfully is an obligation that any ISP should bear as part of its core business. That is the socially responsible thing to do, and it's disappointing if Tiscali sees illegal behaviour on its network as a further opportunity to make money at the expense of the music community."
Are they implying that the ISP should be monitoring their users accounts there? I cant quite make that out.
If so I have no doubt that the isps would be up in arms about the cost of this.
After all if you post a letter, the Post office doesnt open all the contents and examine them.. nor (afaik) do the telecoms industry monitor all calls just to make sure that nothing unlawful is discussed between parties.
Whilst some ISPs may filter out specific content - Im talking the childporn stuff I have no problem with that.
But monitoring anything and everything?
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I actually have some sympathy with the BPI's viewpoint regarding the Tiscali "agreement" :swoon:
As I understand this "scheme" ISPs don't have to monitor anything as the BPI will submit details of any infringement. Even with dynamic IP addresses it should be obvious whether the BPI are chancing their arm or not - "three strikes and you're out" actually seems quite fair really provided enough time is left between reports.
Assuming that they aren't chancing it then I'd say the situation is more like a nuisance phone caller - once you've told BT about it then you wouldn't expect to have to pay BT to investigate or to enforce their own terms & conditions and you'd expect BT to prevent that caller repeating the same actions time and again.
It IS Tiscali though so I may be letting bias affect me :P ;)
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ok thanks rizla -
When explained like that then like you say it does seem fair enough.
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The Grauniad has an article about this in today's edition :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/feb/21/piracy.digitalmusic
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Holy Moly, I'm gonna be rich soon.
So prosecutions are not working, probably because of the 16 people prosecuted they had no money to pay the fine.
Now throw the ball in the court of the ISPs, so when you are reported to them (your ISP) by the powers that be, your ISP is now the bad guy for threatening or cutting you off and cancelling your contract of which they will then be losing revenue.
But imagine, finally, that a rigorous self-regulation procedure is in place, and that the internet populace knows about it. Does the BPI think its members' sales will grow? For once, Phillips hesitates. "That's really hard to answer. But it would send out the message that copyright is to be respected, that creative industries are to be respected and paid for," he says. "It would mean that the people who are paying for content wouldn't be subsidising those who don't. But I can't say to you now that it would make sales grow, or by how much."
Yes I know that piracy is illegal, but this is not about piracy this is about making the powers that be look as if they are doing something to keep making money for themselves "at the cost of the Music & Film Industries"
1. Just think of the fringe industries that will cease because of this cutback ?
2. Just think of how much money people will save per year by not having to buy equipment ?
3. Just think how much revenue ISPs will lose ?
4. Just think how many FREE time people will then have to get into trouble ?
DRUGS:
1. Illegal
2. Dangerous
3. Health hazard
4. Funded mainly from crime
5. Availability, world wide in every city and town.
Did the government stop them?
No, so they part legalised them.
And by the way to any movie mad people reading this, Rambo IV (John Rambo) is a first class movie, I know I watched it last night. But be warned, this movie is definitely not for the feint hearted. Blood, Gore, Guts, you name it, it's in it.
PS, as per usual, my fee for advertising of any movie or music can be donated to my local dogs home charity. :thumbs:
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Just a couple of points.
Firstly if the music industry got its act together and the big guns such as EMI, Sony, etc made more of their back catalogues available as reasonably priced downloads, then maybe that would discourage some of the piracy. (For example I'm pretty sure that little if any of the Beatles output is legally available online.)
Another thing, if some of these more draconian methods are imposed by the industry / ISP's then file sharers will inevitably find a way around it, such as zipping files up and giving them obscure names.
We will just have to wait and see.
And heaven only knows when the movie industry will wake up and realise that almost as soon as a major release appears on video, it has been ripped and stuck on a torrent site.
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Basically what it needs is for someone who is being prosecuted to be able to stand up and fight back, but this costs money, which the normal everyday person does not have.
Uploading media to the internet is not illegal (it's there for your storage)
Downloading material of which does not belong to you nor do you have permission to download it "is illegal"
So for a prosecution to take place the industry has to put up media to trap people into stealing it, this I believe is what is called ENTRAPMENT.
But this is an old argument of which will continue for some time to come.
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This is quite an interesting discussion and I've learned something from it.
I am in a minority because I don't really care? If I want music, I go out and buy CD's. Maybe I'm just old fashioned. The only exception is listening to some radio on line occasionally or listening to Accuradio on line because they have a Celtic channel.
I confess to having ripped a few videos from YouTube m'lud.
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Uploading media to the internet is not illegal (it's there for your storage)
Downloading material of which does not belong to you nor do you have permission to download it "is illegal"
You have that the wrong way around :)
In England & Wales :
Downloading copyrighted material is not illegal unless it can be proven you knew before commencing the download that the entity making the material available did not have the copyright holders permission to distribute it or that you intended to use the material for commercial gain. Common sense really as you can't tell for example whether the BBC have the copyright holders permission to make material available for download or not.
As soon as you upload copyrighted material (e.g. on P2P apps) then you immediately break the law as you know that you do not have permission from the copyright holder to distribute the material. Your only possible defence could be that you were unaware how P2P works and hence didn't realise people were downloading from you.
That's why usenet (for now) is bulletproof and P2P isn't. The entity distributing the material is the one responsible for ensuring copyright is honoured rather than the recipient.
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Basically what it needs is for someone who is being prosecuted to be able to stand up and fight back, but this costs money, which the normal everyday person does not have.
See what I mean.
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Rizla's right, OF... if you use BitTorrent to download a movie / album / whatever, then it automatically starts sharing and 99% of the time as soon as you've got a few chunks, then someone else starts downloading from you, i.e. you start distributing the copyrighted material.
Given that you know you don't hold the necessary copyright to distribute this material, in part or in full, so therefore you are almost immediately breaking the law. The excuse of storing it on the Internet just would not wash (you're not exactly uploading it to a private online backup service, and there's no way anyone could convince a judge/jury that you were doing so, or that you didn't know the difference!)
P2P is dodgy, and I suppose it was only a matter of time before they found some way of prosecuting here in the UK.
Rizla, as for your comment about Usenet being bulletproof - you know the usenet providers don't hold the copyright for stuff hosted there. You'd probably get a bit further with an argument that you're not distributing, etc... you didn't know that the person who uploaded it didn't have permission to do so, etc... but I wouldn't like to put it to the test in court!
Of course it would be the usenet providers that would get done first, as they're actively and pretty much openly facilitating the distribution of copyright material, through a central repository. I reckon the usenet bubble hasn't got long left, before we see similar cases to the Great Napster Shutdown!
ps. would anyone have guessed that the Napster case started over 8 years ago, on 4th January 2000 - wow, that long ago? :o Napster had been ordered to shut down by July 28th that same year! Doesn't time fly?!
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Rizla, as for your comment about Usenet being bulletproof - you know the usenet providers don't hold the copyright for stuff hosted there. You'd probably get a bit further with an argument that you're not distributing, etc... you didn't know that the person who uploaded it didn't have permission to do so, etc... but I wouldn't like to put it to the test in court!
Nor would I personally as it could be demonstrated that I do know the score, so to speak.
The route I would suggest people take with usenet if they were ever threatened is the financial route. The user pays the usenet service provider a monthly fee and ALL usenet service providers have a statement saying "no piracy, tell us about something copyrighted and we'll remove it" so the end user has a reasonable expectation that what is actually present on usenet is not pirated.
Of course anyone who knew the first thing about how usenet works would say thats a load of rubbish, and they'd be right but try proving it in court. Not going to happen in the immediate future and like you say it'll be the providers who go first so that's the bulletproof part (for now). I can't understand how the usenet server operators have kept going "unscathed" so far when they've always been the logical target but they have....
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If you think about it P2P isn't illegal as the File host "Buys" the CD then rips it to his PC and Shares the file. It like me borrowing a CD to my mate as long as I paid for the CD its all good :) so theres a BIG flaw to that plan
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I can't understand how the usenet server operators have kept going "unscathed" so far when they've always been the logical target but they have....
Maybe because they are not so well known about and therefor don't come up in internet conversations very much, unlike some site, therefor keeping out of the headlines and the limelight which after all is what draws the attention to the powers that be.
If you think about it P2P isn't illegal as the File host "Buys" the CD then rips it to his PC and Shares the file. It like me borrowing a CD to my mate as long as I paid for the CD its all good :) so theres a BIG flaw to that plan
The small print usually printed around the edge of the disc usually states something like: "No Copying, Lending, without permission"
Basically you/we pay only to be able to listen or watch the contents of a disc and nothing else.
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i have been P2Ping for god knows how long and police came round once asked me where I get my music i said P2p luckily Londons Police is fairly corrupt so maybe i see where BBC are coming from but then again you guys place a good arguement that buying CD's only Funds so called Celebrities aka Amy Whitehouse and Pete Dokety drug addiction and somehow when they take drugs police take no action but if say I just held a joint of marajuana I would be in prison quicker that Dwain Chambers could run 100meters :mad: maybe its just how life goes Celebrities are immune to Arrest even Paris Hilton speeding ticket jail for 3days and my brother got 6months in prison for doing 25 in a 20 zone :mad:
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BBC :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7258437.stm
"Its intentions are outlined in a creative industries strategy paper called Creative Britain: New Talents for the New Economy."
Makes you want to :vomit: doesn't it? I can't help wondering what the dept of culture, media and sport is actually for? It certainly doesn't seem to act in the interests of the taxpayer anyway....
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From the Telegraph
Virgin Media takes fight to illegal downloaders (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/03/30/cnvirgin130.xml)
Virgin Media looks set to become the first British internet company to crack down on customers who download music illegally.
Music trade body the BPI is working with Virgin on a pilot which could see dozens of customers sent warning letters.
The trial by the UK's largest residential broadband supplier will go live within months and disconnecting customers who ignore warnings, a sanction favoured by the record BPI, remains an option. The trial will also be open to film and television studios.
This would be the first time a British internet company has publicly moved to share responsibility for curbing piracy. Two years of negotiations between record labels and internet service providers (ISPs) have so far failed to produce an industry-wide agreement.
A spokesman for Virgin Media said: "We have been in discussions with rights holders organisations about how a voluntary scheme could work. We are taking this problem seriously and would favour a sensible voluntary solution."
The BPI has teams of technicians to trace illegal music downloading to individual accounts. It will hand these account numbers over to Virgin Media, which will match them to names and addresses.
Six million broadband users are estimated to download files illegally each year, costing record labels billions of pounds in lost CD sales. ISPs have so far resisted calls to control the traffic that passes over their networks, raising issues around customer privacy and the difficulty of accurately pinpointing file sharers.
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Six million broadband users are estimated to download files illegally each year, costing record labels billions of pounds in lost CD sales.
I never have and never will buy a music CD or Movie DVD and I never sell anything that I download, so they lose nothing from me.
What Virgin Media will lose is my £50.00 p/m (£600 p/a) Telephone, Television and Broadband fees, should they instigate this policy.
I would urge all Virgin Media customers to fight back by cancelling all their contracts in protest, then lets see how they like it. :angry:
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I wonder if by any chance "Virgin Records/Music" & "Virgin Media" have anything in common.
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That reads like something out of 1984.
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>> The BPI has teams of technicians to trace illegal music downloading to individual accounts
I guess they mean honeypots then... I've often wondered about the legality of honeypots themselves... does it not count as deception even if it is used to find someone who is breaking the law?
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>> I guess they mean honeypots then... I've often wondered about the legality of honeypots themselves
Me too - its a form of enticement IMHO
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I know it's not really the same thing but it may also be related.
Virgin Media are due to upgrade all us 4Mb packages up to 10Mb.
Yes that certainly sounds good PR etc, the only thing being for some of us we will not be able to use it, so what good is that to the minority of us?
"Download a movie faster" so I can get chucked off quicker. :lol:
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News article on the BBC News page today:
Policing internet 'not ISP's job' (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7329801.stm)
As much as we might disaprove of CPW approach to selling broadband, at least they have taken the lead by telling the BPI (UK music industry body) where to shove its request to ban users who download music.
This made me twitch with frustration...
But the BPI said internet firms need to educate their customers not to steal music.
How on earth that is possible I don't know, perhaps another article is needed entitled "Educating internet users 'not ISP's job' "?
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http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=1756.0
Might I direct people also to look at the above thread in case they missed it.
Unfortunately we have two threads basically on the same topic.
However, if this is Carphone Warehouse's stance on the situation, then I don't think they will be rated as:
the third largest ISP.................... because it won't be long before they are NUMBER ONE.
But Charles Dunstone of Carphone Warehouse, which runs the TalkTalk broadband service, is refusing.
He said it is not his job to be an internet policeman.
Eat your heart out Virgin Media, or should I say, "Virgin Music"
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:D
http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=1756.0
Might I direct people also to look at the above thread in case they missed it.
Unfortunately we have two threads basically on the same topic.
I was aware of the other topic but thought since there was a choice of the two and this didn't regard Virgin Media, it might be more appropriate to post it here. Decisions, decisions ::)
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> what good is that to the minority of us?
No-one cares about the minority - you are insignificant and do not matter - you are just a number, and your ISP would sooner be rid of you rather than keep you as a customer :P
*By the way - tongue is planted FIRMLY in cheek - just in case anyone doesn't realise ;) *
Lol - also just reminded me when we went to see a Greenday concert at the MEN arena - about 14,000 people all singing in unison "We wanna be the minority..." - oh, the irony :lol:
Ahem - naughty corner for me - just took the thread off track :-[
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It's true, THE TRUTH ALWAYS HURTS. Phone Number, Account Number :(
But time will tell whether certain ISP's are just playing lip-service or not.
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However, TT seem to be taking a different line: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7329801.stm
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We have a bit of an overlap here between two topics :D
http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=1504.msg59686#msg59686 (http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=1504.msg59686#msg59686)
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Yes, it's getting confusing as both threads are basically the same topic.
Although not my thread, dare I suggest this one be closed?
With a link to the other thread?
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I've merged the two threads. Hopefully it still makes sense. :)
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Europe it would seem are taking a more liberal view:
in a narrow vote MEPs backed an amendment to the report which said net bans conflicted with "civil liberties and human rights".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7342135.stm
I think this debate is going to run and run.