UK ISP Says No To Music Industry Pressure

siloko sends us to the BBC for the story of one ISP standing up to the music industry. (But note that this ISP is one of the ones said to have worked with Phorm on plans to track customers' surfing.) "The head of one of Britain's biggest internet providers has criticized the music industry for demanding that he act against pirates. 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."

Eh, whatever.

It's a matter of money, not principle. Why the hell would a provider invest in the required infrastructure upgrades? Now, if the record industry agrees to pay for it, perhaps with a small bonus on top for lubrication purposes, they'll switch to a different tune just like that.

Re:Eh, whatever.

If they are forced to police P2P for copyright violations, then they have to police for child pr0n, then sexual predators, then for pr0n filtering, then the lawsuits show up for filtering breast cancer sites, drug rehab support sites, etc.. It opens up a can of worms no ISP wanting to avoid legal headaches would want to stick their toes into.

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I'm afraid I must disagree. If what you say is true, then it would be impossible for any individual to access banned sites and then to download the material which they contain. The number of cases in the UK where individuals have been taken to court for

A difference...

He's not an Internet policeman, just an Internet marketer.

I can live with that.

Love the guilt laden language they use...

basically the only thing the recording industry didn't toss out there was "its for the children"

My question about ISPs in Britain is, how much say does the EU have over them? How does the EU versus the law of England stack up in regards to this situation?

Re:Love the guilt laden language they use...

I particularly liked

The BPI denied it is asking ISPs to become internet police, saying the firms need to educate their customers not to steal music.

Er well no, actually they don't need to do any such thing. As a trade body who apparently represents the interests of the recording industry it's your responsibility to "educate" the public. It's nothing to do with the ISP.

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Yes, and in a perfect world the sellers of handguns should "educate" gangs not to shoot people, and the cigarette companies should "educate" smokers that they're probably going to die prematurely.

Just because someone supplies a service doesn't make them

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and the cigarette companies should "educate" smokers that they're probably going to die prematurely.

Well over here in the UK, they do just that. Granted they've been forced to by government legislation, but nevertheless, you can't buy a packet of cigarettes with a message on it saying you're going to die horribly, or something similar.

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Well over here in the UK, they do just that. Granted they've been forced to by government legislation, but nevertheless, you can't buy a packet of cigarettes with a message on it saying you're going to die horribly, or something similar.

Cigarettes aren't really a valid comparison, as they only have one purpose - to smoke. And that gives you the nasties.

No, what we need is a good, solid car analogy.

It's more like every car seller being forced to monitor all future use of cars they se

Innocence

But note that this ISP is one of the ones said to have worked with Phorm on plans to track customers' surfing

I know nothing of this, honestly!

Neutrality?

mod ISP +1 for standing up to gov lobbyists.
mod ISP -1 for cosying with phorm.
Net result: 0 points.

Is this what they mean by net neutrality?

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To be fair, at least they were pretty quick to say they'd be including an opt-out that didn't send all your traffic through Phorm's equipment after it became clear how controversial it would be (unlike the other two ISPs). I don't think they're exactly goi

They make it sound like a natural thing

The spokesman for the BPI makes it sound like the relationship between ISPs and the music industry is symbiotic. They dress up the "responsibilities" of the ISP in pretty words that make it sound like shutting down users is the greatest thing in the world.

If you read the article, you'll find Geoff Taylor's doublespeak amazing.

At the heart of this issue is ensuring that creators are fairly rewarded in the digital age

Okay so far...

and we passionately believe that working in partnership with ISPs to develop first-class, safe, legal, digital music services is the way forward.

Uh...

Here's the appropriate response to that idiocy from Charles Dunstone, TalkTalk head.

We are the conduit that gives users access to the internet. We do not control the internet, nor do we control what our users do on the internet.

Good job, Charles.

Re:They make it sound like a natural thing

Also his smug assumption that if the ISPs don't reach a voluntary agreement that he'll simply have laws drawn up to compel them is quite sickening. Why should the trials of a group of music publicists be afforded so much attention and deference ?

Re:They make it sound like a natural thing

And BPI is saying that ISPs should disconnect users, which hurts their revenue directly. So, co-operate with BPI: lose money and customers. Fight BPI: keep customers, and free publicity and good will.

Easy business decision if you ask me.

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Also reading between the lines can be amusing.

"...and we passionately believe that working in partnership with ISPs to develop first-class, safe, legal, digital music services is the way forward."

Digital music services that are controlled by BPI members th

conduit

He said: "Our position is very clear. We are the conduit that gives users access to the internet. We do not control the internet, nor do we control what our users do on the internet.

Again with this british slang for tubes?

presumptuous much?

FTFA:

[The BPI] also says that if [ISPs] do not help with the fight against music piracy, then the government will bring in legislation to make them cooperate.

(Sadly, they're probably on safe ground.)

Amazed

I'm amazed it's taken this long before any of the ISPs have spoken out, any sort of policing at all is quite clearly not their job and the very second they begin to take an interest in the content they are transmitting, the second that happens they are going to monitoring and reporting everything to everyone and responsible for all manner of disasters and tragedies when the overwhelming technical impossibility of what they're being asked to do causes something to go wrong.

Any special interest group worried about a particular activity on the internet will want the ISP to ban it, ever media craze will lead to more things being banned and the ISP carrying the can for policing it, any government dept looking for some quick headlines will get them to report ( for example ) anyone talking about benefit fraud in chat rooms to the benefit agency.

Today Jaqui Smith, some brainless minister in the British government, is suggesting ( yet again ) that all paedophiles should register their e-mail addresses with the police and not be allowed to register on chat rooms with those addresses. She says she is in discussions with ISPs to police this. She is too stupid to realise what she is asking for and too moronic to understand palming her inability to convict people and lock them up should not be palmed off onto commercial entities who have no business whatsover doing her policing for her.

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My first thought when I heard that this morning was

(a) how does she know all the emails and aliases of every paedophile. Ask them? Like they're likely to tell her... More likely she only has one on record.
(b) does she *realize* how quickly you can creat

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Actually, credit where credit's due, she asked the people operating the social-networking sites popular with children what could be done to keep paedophiles off those sites. They offered the facility to ban people from registering with black-listed email

Re:Amazed

and viola - he now has a myspace/facebook/whatever account...

Not to mention a stringed instrument!

Talk Talk: bit torrent throttlers

If you read the customers of talk talk tales of woe site http://talktalkhell.wordpress.com/ [wordpress.com] you will note that wow players (uses b/t) are penalised since they use b/t and are so deemed bit bandwidth eaters and bad for his business. Dunstones attempts at running an isp mean that most consider his first enterprise talk talk a failure, his next venture was to buy aol in the uk.

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They're a bottom end ISP. The kind of people who are their target customers surf a couple of times a week and maybe send email... hence they're extremely cheap, but their service is crap when compared to others.

They're going for publicity here - good for

Is it not also a matter of privacy?

It's a bit like asking the post office to open every single letter they deliver to check whether they have any illegally copied DVDs or CDs in there.