Big Six UK ISPs Capitulate To Music Industry 317
Barence writes "Britain's six leading internet providers have signed a Government-led agreement to stamp out illegal music file sharing. The six providers — BT, Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali, Sky and Carphone Warehouse — will implement a series of measures against those found to be file sharing. Offenders may find their internet connection is throttled, or may even have their traffic 'filtered' to prevent media files from being downloaded. The ISPs are reportedly reluctant to impose the BPI's preferred 'three strikes and you're out' approach of cutting off users' broadband connections."
Dodge this... (Score:5, Informative)
We don't know how bad it'll be yet. (Score:3, Informative)
Although this does bind ISPs to prosecuting sharers in at least some manner, we don't know how severely it will be enforced yet. Thus far ISPs like Virgin have maintained they will punish filesharers but have only sent out a very limited number of warnings.
It's also worth noting that we don't have the "sue them into oblivion" culture that seems to be the case across the pond. It seems like this could go either way. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed!
UK to consult on alaws to curb illicit filesharing (Score:5, Informative)
The UK Government has released a consultation into potential legislation aimed at curbing illicit filesharing on the net. Several of the legislative options on the table are worrying, and mirror schemes being discussed in various national and international fora. They include streamlining the legal process to require ISPs to provide personal data relating to an IP address, handing responsibility for taking action against illicit filesharers to a third party body, or requiring ISPs to take action against users themselves or to install filtering equipment to block infringing content.
At the same time a "Memorandum of Understanding", negotiated behind-the-scenes with strong influence from the Government, between the UK's six major ISPs (Virgin Media, Sky, Carphone Warehouse, BT, Orange and Tiscali) and the British Phonographic Industry and the Motion Picture Association. Signatories endorse five principles in the MoU:
The Open Rights Group has more details [openrightsgroup.org]
Forbidden in NL (Score:1, Informative)
This way of spying/deep packet network analysis on users is forbidden. Even the police has to go to court to get permission.
Even worse (Score:1, Informative)
Sad to say, this is nothing compared to what I heard on the news here in Norway yesterday. Laws being contemplated that would make ISPs ban people from using the Internet if found to share copyrighted material. Yep, that would sure turn the ISPs into police and judge combined.
Even the ISPs are against this, it seems. They don't want the responsibility.
Re:This is the way we're all headed (Score:3, Informative)
Also, we could see a move to fourth-tier providers. In fact, I know of one city at least whose utilities provider (electricity, water, etc is provided by one pseudo-public entity) offers a "metro-area" Ethernet network for home Internet access that piers with a local "big" (but still second-tier) provider; it's impractical for the third- or second-tier provider to which these fourth-tier ISPs peer to filter individual customers within the fourth-tier network.
So while things might look bleak - return of the walled garden Internet - we do in fact have options. First-tier providers aren't so picky about what flows through their tubes, and there are definite markets for fourth-tier provider startups. This is a bump in the road, but in the long run the nerds will prevail over the suits!
A Story.... (Score:2, Informative)
Once upon a time there was a Music Industry. It had a business model that it liked. Then came the Internet, and a company came along offering a business model that it didn't like. So, instead of taking the money that the new business model offered, the music industry decided to flush that money down the toilet instead. The technology and consumer demand didn't go away, and finally the music industry said, "Hmm... maybe we shouldn't have flushed all that money down the toilet." So they went and they found that some of the money they had flushed away was still stuck in the U-bend and they got it out and they cleaned it off. It was too late to get the rest though, a thousand flowers had bloomed and (most) people decided they didn't really have a problem getting everything for free.
Now, the music industry is trying to get people to pay for something that they have gotten for free for years and years. And people know that there's just about no downside to the "stealing." So, the music industry flails around trying to go back to 1999 and do things right this time, but their time machine doesn't seem to be working.
Re:This is the way we're all headed (Score:2, Informative)
Carphone warehouse stance (Score:5, Informative)
In their response they say:
We will continue to fight to protect your privacy and your right to freedom of use of the Internet. What we will not do is:
* disconnect your service or slow the speed of your connection
* monitor your traffic
* divulge your details to content companies (unless forced to do so by a court)
Some content companies are pushing for changes in the law to force us to do these things - we will vigorously fight any such changes in the law.
and they list some helpful excuses:
Q: What would cause me to receive a letter?
If the content companies send TalkTalk an IP address that matches to your broadband connection then they may send you a letter. However, there are many reasons why you might have done anything wrong and the claim unfounded:
* The content that is being offered for upload may actually be being shared legally
* The content company may have made a mistake in identifying the IP address
* It may be someone else in the household that offered the content for upload
* It may be that someone 'hijacked' or 'piggybacked' on your wi-fi connection
and add:
Q: Does the content company have my details to pursue me?
If a copyright infringement has actually occurred content company have some legal powers to attempt to prosecute you. To do this they would need to know your details (e.g. name, address), which they do not currently have. TalkTalk have and we will continue to refuse to divulge your details to them or any other content companies. However, a content company may seek a court order requiring them to divulge your details. TalkTalk will vigorously fight on your behalf to resist this, but they feel they should let you know that they cannot guarantee that they will be successful in protecting your details.
A least they look like they are trying.
Re:This is the way we're all headed (Score:5, Informative)
The same is true today for colour laser printers. I know its supposed to be used to track counterfeiters but how long will it be until they use it to find someone printing leaflets trying to arrange a protest or even just those with differing views. I know they're scared of terrorists/freedom/their own shadows/people having free will but all this monitoring & tracking is getting rediculous.
It wont last... either they'll go stupidly too far until it self-destructs around them or the people will get so sick of it that we'll have a revolution but I just wish they'd hurry up and do it.
Re:This is the way we're all headed (Score:5, Informative)
I didn't pay THEM more. I paid a third party more. Having that SSH account is pretty handy.
Re:This is the way we're all headed (Score:5, Informative)
It's pretty much the same speed. Only the tracker communications go through the proxy - the actual peer to peer connections (where the actual data is being traded) are still done over the normal ISP (though I'm using the built in encryption there as well). If they block that I'll just move to a hosted bittorrent solution.
There's now websites that allow you to upload (via FTP) files that you want to seed, and they'll seed from their servers. You can also add a torrent and they'll download it for you, and you then download it over standard FTP from your account with them. To your ISP all it looks like is large FTP transfers - there's not even the telltale swarm of connections to lots of ISPs to identify any P2P activity.
Where there's a will there's a way - the genie isn't going back into the bottle.
Re:Switch! (Score:2, Informative)
I'd heard that Be* (who are my ISP too, and with whom I'm happy) have been bought by Orange - does anyone know about this?
Nope that's rubbish. BE are owned by O2 (who themselves are owned by Telefonica (the Spanish Telco). Seeing as O2's BB network runs off BE's somehow I doubt it will have been sold to Orange.
Re:This is the way we're all headed (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, the colour laser printer thing is pretty scary, not least because customers aren't told about this deliberate surveillance.
I discovered the other day that an HP Colour LaserJet I use refuses to print without a supply of yellow toner even if the document to be printed is pure black-and-white, so it's not just spying on me, it's actually breaking my printer.
Re:Filtering/inspecting... (Score:3, Informative)
Scientologists will sue the ISPs for allowing people to download copyrighted COS documents.
Yes, that's right, scientologists will save teh internets!
Re:Precedent (Score:4, Informative)
No, because Britain has no Constitution.
I do wish armchair lawyers would stop propagating that crap on Slashdot. Britain does have a constitution, and it is written down. It's just not a single document labelled "Constitution".
Re:Dodge THIS (Score:5, Informative)
Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality, after all.
Re:Dodge this... (Score:2, Informative)
Too late. Actually I had to switch from Comcast to AT&T in the USA. They were sending fake RST packets and throttling my upload while on bittorrent. Even after I messed with iptables.
Re:Precedent (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Switch! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is the way we're all headed (Score:3, Informative)
You really can't figure that out on your own?? Seriously?
100,000 songs download in January.
Artist A had only 1 track downloaded and it got downloaded 100 times. Artist A therefore had .1% of total song downloads for that month and gets .1% of total revenue available for artists.
Re:This is the way we're all headed (Score:5, Informative)
For those of you who aren't familiar with him, he is a UK hip-hop star whose most recent release is presently at No.1 in the singles charts, where it has been since its release at the beginning of the month. We entered the charts on download sales alone (physical unit sales are dead). It is fair to assume that a trend in retail purchases of media will be shadowed by a similar trend in illegal downloading of the same media. It is accurate to say that, so far this month, more people in the UK are buying Dizzee's record than any other. Therefore I can infer that there are a significant number of illegal downloads of the song taking place - it's not unreasonable to suggest perhaps more than any other chart single.
Dizzee is a self-made artist by anyone's definition. He has not had major label backing at any point in his career and this release is on his own label (Dirtee Stank Recordings).
He is creating wealth, jobs, tax revenue and all the other things beloved of the government when making speeches about "small British businesses".
He is also the most visible UK artist in the hip-hop genre, traditionally highly US-centric, raising the profile of British music around the world.
How much would we see of this "immunity to prosecution" levy?
NOT ONE PENNY.
That's right, the proposed measures would do nothing for a British citizen, running a British business (no fancy off-shored tax evasion here), with the Number 1 record in the UK this summer. We're not part of the cabal whom these measures would benefit. Why should anyone trust a major label to do the right thing by the artists when they've been screwing them for 93.5% of their revenue for years. I believe we have demonstrated that a label is not required to build an artist from scratch - this is not Radiohead or NIN turning on their labels and capitalising on pre-existing brand awareness - Dizzee came from nowhere, and if you have heard of him it is because he works so damn hard.
Everyone on this forum recognises the naivety of any claim to end file-sharing. In fact this kind of agreement is more likely to "stamp-out" our successful business.
If I authorise our fans to seed torrents of show bootlegs, or recruit them to promote up-coming artists from the label by sharing album previews on P2P networks, am I placing them at risk of punitive measures from their ISPs, or potential criminal prosecution? Perhaps the only safe thing to do is leave USB sticks in club toilets.
No doubt soon this will also be targeted by labels as a promotion channel outside their control that can lead to independent artists mucking with projected chart positions.
Yes, we kept McFly off the top spot this week. Yes, somebody may lose their job over it - that's the way major labels work when you don't meet expectations. No, I'm not sorry.
We learned our lesson years ago, after being flown first class to Argentina, being put up in 5-Star hotels with a few days each side of the show to see the country, going on stage in front of 30,000 people who knew the words to all the songs, and coming home with money in our pockets.
We don't have distribution in Argentina.
We have never sold a copy of any of Dizzee's albums in Argentina, as the records aren't available (excusing imports, which we don't see the markup on).
That's a lot of downloads.
I suppose we should display our gratitude by suing the Argentinians.
Of course, we don't spend our time suing anyone - we spend it uploading everything to YouTube [youtube.com], to save you from having to share it yourselves!
Re:Dodge this... (Score:2, Informative)
> But there's no need to throw racism into the mix.
Where was I racist? Making fun of someone's poor quality of service, partly due to their inability to speak the same language as the customer, isn't racism. I'd be making fun of them similarly regardless of their country of origin. Calling people racist whenever race is referred to, regardless of the context, is a little lame.
> I assume from your mocking accent that they've outsourced their support work to somewhere in India? I wouldn't know whether that's accurate or
> not ; I don't think that I ever had to call their technical support people. the billing people I dealt with, over a period of months, were based
> in the UK and utterly incompetent.
They have outsourced it. I've not dealt with the billing people, but the 'technical' people who answer the phone are absolutely useless.
Re:Dodge this... (Score:3, Informative)
Ever heard the "slippery slope" theory? Well, at least you're asking yourself the question.
Just as a matter of interest, my wife is Russian, and was taught to speak English at university. Since she and her daughter came to the UK, she's learned a lot about how poorly English-speakers (native speakers, to be precise) speak English.
You may have heard the joke about how the man who wishes to hear the Queen's English spoken properly should go to Inverness. There is more than a grain of truth in the joke - until quite recently a high proportion of Highlanders have Gaelic as their mother-tongue, and were taught to speak English once they started to attend school. Which is why, on average, the streets of Inverness have a higher proportion of good English speakers than, say, London. Or Bangalore.
And I admit to having as many routine spelling and grammatical errors as anyone other native speaker.
(Joke - one of my university friends turned up massively hung-over for his Philosophy final exams. He couldn't be bothered with the effort of translating his answers from Gaelic to English, so he just wrote them out in Gaelic. As Aberdeen is a bi-lingual university, officially, they had to accept the script and mark it without discrimination. Which meant finding a lecturer-grade philosopher who was fluent in Gaelic and English. I don't remember how closely related the marker was to Fionnlaigh, but it was close enough that he got told of his pass by a phone call to the croft a couple of weeks in advance of his classmates. No implication of nepotism - just small-world syndrome. I'm sure the same happens in the Welsh Universities.)
I don't think we need to pass comment on the TransPondians; different language.
What's that sound? A pump action shotgun chambering a round. Cocked. Aimed at both feet at point blank range. ... ... ... over to you. Or Tiscali.
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