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)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
why is the above modded troll?
its not an amazing post but its not troll
Re:Dodge this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy - If your connection has a high ratio of uploads compared to other users on the network (or meets some other arbitrary criteria), your connection class is set to "suspect" and any traffic not identifiable by the filtering system is blocked or throttled.
Re:Dodge this... (Score:4, Interesting)
So i guess if you encrypt everything, even if you are 100% legal you will be falsely accused, retaliated against, and perhaps have a civil case you can file?
Or will they just fall back on the fine print in their contracts where the ISP can pretty much do what ever they please, anytime they want?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. The language will say that any encrypted connection will be throttled or terminated "to protect the integrity of the internet at large" or some other wording. If you want to use your broadband speed, you will have to do so using approved clear-text protocols connecting to approved hosts.
After all, if you don't have anything to hide, you shouldn't be hiding anything, right?
So Leeches are safe? (Score:3, Interesting)
Whenever I download an ISO, I always leave BT running until I have uploaded several times what I downloaded. I am talking about Linux ISOs and stuff here. I do not download what I haven't paid for. Even stealing from theiving scumbag record company executives is stealing.
If I get any such letter, I will calmly reply and ask for a formal apology. If that fails, they will get bad publicity. Users come to me all the time at work and ask for reccomendations. At the moment, my advice is just keep away from
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Which is going to disappear once the majority want to run their on mine appliance server with IPv6 and regain a measure of privacy with their own personal email server. The money for jam IPv4 address range is coming to any end.
The reality is the ISP and simply trying to squeeze up the profit margins by throttling traffic whilst falsely advertising it as being available, that and a legalised excuse to grossly invade their users privacy so that they can show a continuous stream of targeted psychologically
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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
Dodge THIS (Score:5, Funny)
BBC News April 2nd 2010
ISPs have detected a massive spike in encrypted activity on the internet. Indecipherable "SSL" packets have increased in volume massively in recent months. This trend is seen as "disturbing" in the words of one child protection group.
"There could be anything being sent in these encrypted streams. Anything at all, and we have no way of knowing it", said Angela Termagantine, spokesperson for Protecting the Innocent. "There's little doubt that lurid, disgusting and atrocious images of naked children are being transmitted in these clandestine packets of information. Something Must Be Done."
Police spokesman Robert Peeler warned the public that very sinister developments have given us cause to believe that a vast network of Terrorists are transmitting plans to bring terror and mayhem to Britain's streets. "It is likely that this flood of inscruitible data is the precursor to an outright Terrorist assault, if not an invasion , on British citizens." Police believe that ssl may be a code word for terrorist cells, possibly referring to a passage, or passages from the Koran. Peeler added, "We are working with leaders in the Muslim community to reach young people and other members of the community in an effort to identify the sources of these sinister "ssl" packets."
When news broke of the recent surge and its potentially sinister meaning, traffic at Tabloid News and Gossip sites spiked as millions of Britons swarmed to read titillating speculation about what may be concealed in the encrypted traffic. "People love this stuff, right." said editor of the Scandal on Sunday Andy Tartuffe. "I mean, you throw in a bit of nookie, bit of scandel, bit of how's your father, people go right for it, know wha' I mean? " When it was suggested his publication by be sensationalizing the potential content of the traffic surge he retorted, " Look, it's all porn right! There's dirty buggers out there doing dirty deeds and my readers what to hear all about it." "Especially the kiddie stuff, right. Get's 'em right rilled up! Big seller." he added as he drove away in his BMW with an unidentified young woman.
The Home Office has dismissed protests from network and computer professionals that SSL is a much used and needed protocol on the internet, and has moved ahead with plans to outlaw encrypted data on British networks. "We have to stop this sort of thing", said the Home Office Minister, "Saying that it has legitimate uses, or that only a small fraction of the transmitted material may be illegal is frankly a load of rubbish. If you have nothing to hide, you have no reason to be using these services. Any sensible person can see that."
In addition to banning SSL traffic and previous legislation mandating the handover of encryption keys, the government plans to have monitoring software installed on all internet connected devices in the country. "When you think about it, it's a small price to pay for the safety of you and your children." said the Prime Minister this afternoon. "We have overwhelming public support on this", he added, citing private party telephone polls.
Protests from expats living in Russia, China and Iran is more muted relative to earlier episodes. One comment received from an expat in Iran states "We used to get bothered by all this, but frankly, it's so much better over here that we really don't care anymore."
Re:Dodge THIS (Score:5, Insightful)
I wasn't sure if this was for real or just a satire. It's hard to tell these days. You offered no references. Then I double checked and noticed "BBC News April 2nd 2010".
It's scary when one can barely tell satire from real world events. It's too real. Your fiction and reality are barely separable.
Re:Dodge THIS (Score:5, Informative)
Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality, after all.
Re:Dodge THIS (Score:4, Funny)
BBC News May 2nd 2010
The recent explosion in credit card fraud and identity theft confirms the imminent terrorist attack.
Network and computer professionals are attributing the increases to the recent outlawing of SSL, however The Home Office has dismissed these accusations as unpatriotic and arrested several professionals for supporting terrorism...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You see, the last line was over the top and screwed things. The last lines should have been:
Some network and computer professionals are attributing the increases to the recent outlawing of encryption technologies. However, Thomas Andrews, Home Secretary for Network Infrastructure Security dismissed these accusations as overblown and said "The restriction of encryption to police and security use is a necessary step to fight terrorism and stop the spread of child pornography."
In an unrelated development, se
This is the way we're all headed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is the way we're all headed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is the way we're all headed (Score:5, Interesting)
And then we'll all just use TOR.
[Matrix] What good is an Onion Router Mr. CastrTroy if it can not exit? [/Matrix]
You can bet that if this trend continues they'll be able to cover all the major trunk points and any Tor endpoints that are unchecked at that point will be highly noticeable.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You can bet that if this trend continues they'll be able to cover all the major trunk points and any Tor endpoints that are unchecked at that point will be highly noticeable.
And finally freenet will become worthwhile.
Re:This is the way we're all headed (Score:5, Interesting)
QCompson shows something that some businesses still haven't accepted - there will always be a way around the system. When Napster was taken down, they thought that it was all taken care of but they were wrong, since the use of Guetella shot off the chart. (for you chronologically anal folks, i know development of the listed software is quite not in order, but common use of it and the popularity of it is.) There was Kazaa and the FastTrack network, teh wonderful world of DC++, ed2k, and BitTorrent, which I find to be amazing technology by itself. ISPs are finding ways to slow down the connections (which is sad really, since the BT Protocol is used in many nets where only *legal content* is shared.) ASAIK every major bittorrent client now supports encryption, and if ISPs break through that, somone will develop a way around it. We might reach a point one day when FreeNet is the one way around our own ISPs.
This all makes me wonder what the Internet is. We know of the reason behind its origins, and in the 90s it became this world network created on the basis of digital anarchy in a sense. What do people think the final outcome will be in the end? Just another stream of knowledge limited by the government or something more still? I'm curious on what people think.
Re:This is the way we're all headed (Score:4, Insightful)
You get to choose from a regulated selection of providers (analogous to TV channels) who serve up their own content. All nice and regulated. Put up some high cost-barriers to setting up such a channel, and the internet becomes like every other medium - a way for the big companies to push their content to a passive audience.
Just look at radio - started out open, anyone who could transmit could communicate, then it got regulated. Written media started out expensive (had to hire a team of scribes to make copies) became cheap with the advent of printing, then as mass printing and distribution became more expensive you had to have yourself a publisher or be a large newspaper.
Re:This is the way we're all headed (Score:4, Funny)
Damn! Foiled again! I think we should ban the internet. And CD-R media, and tapes, and pens and printing presses.... for the children. I mean, you're patriotic right?
Re:This is the way we're all headed (Score:5, Insightful)
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You mean East Germany, the typewriter wasn't registered because it had been smuggled into East Germany (GDR) from West Germany.
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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)
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:This is the way we're all headed (Score:4, Funny)
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Patriotic? Are you kidding?!? My shit is red, white, and blue; it smells like apple pie; and mom wipes my ass!
I just hope it doesn't run like a Chevrolet. :-)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is the way we're all headed (Score:5, Interesting)
There will always be a grey market for this sort of stuff. My ISP recently started blocking access to Bittorrent trackers. Solution? I signed up for an $8 per month SSH tunnel account that has a SOCKS proxy, so I just tunnel all my tracker communications through there. If for some reason I need to hit a specific website, then I do the same.
Besides - all it takes is for the issue to be important enough and for 1 ISP to offer the better service, and people will flock there. Once the ISP's realize that though it's smaller on a per payment basis, that the general Internet using public has more money to fling around than the recording industry, then they'll ease up.
Re:This is the way we're all headed (Score:5, Funny)
2. Block access to anything you feel like blocking
3. Start an SSH tunnel service
4. Profit!
Re:This is the way we're all headed (Score:5, Insightful)
see, people ARE willing to pay for music and movies. they're willing to pay eight dollars a month for music and movies.
frankly, that sounds like a fair deal to me.
Re:This is the way we're all headed (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this person being modded down?
Something like you suggest [independent.co.uk] has also been proposed today - £30 a year for immunity to prosecution. Not sure if these announcements are related or not, but that does does seem about the right price to me, perhaps even a little low - around $1.25 a month.
But one has to wonder whether the major labels deserve this, the way they've been behaving? If the money went directly to artists, though, and copyrights lifted from non-profit digital copying, now that would be a perfect solution.
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!
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I didn't realise that Dizzee was completely independent (not my sot of music, though the wife likes it). That is fascinating that he's become so successful without any major backing and turns on the head the argument that only successful artists can turn "indie".
Is there an official Dizzee position on file sharing? Since you seem to be positing that file sharing has led to his success and produces a revenue stream through performance, is distribution encouraged, tolerated or frowned upon. Presumably it is t
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I also didn't realise the big part the internet had played in Dizzee's success (and yes, I'm a fan), but this is precisely the kind of thing the major labels would like to prevent. Independents spreading their music by word of mouth through downloads and YouTube completely borks their business model, which relies on control of popular taste.
So props to you for working with people rather than against them. Like I said, the majors don't deserve this money - give it directly to artists. Maybe not retrospective
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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.
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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.
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Yeah, we used to say this about Napster too.
Did mp3's via P2P become unavailable unbeknown to me recently? For all they did to Napster, equivalent (and really better) methods replaced it. They killed 1 player. The game is still running, and they're down quite a few points.
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Filtering/inspecting... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Filtering/inspecting... (Score:5, Interesting)
Filtering/inspecting traffic implies taking responsibility implies getting lawsuits directed at ISPs for users' content.
That's exactly what I was thinking. Doesn't this strip them of their "safe harbor" status? Of course, they don't have to fear the media companies that they're trying to help. Technically, the MAFIAA could now sue the ISPs, but in order to get the ISP's assistance in filtering, they've probably offered some sort of covenant not to sue.
However, there must be some business with deep pockets that's taking a loss from unauthorized copying/illegal activity that would love to bite the ISP's hand off now that they're not offering a content-neutral network. Any suggestions?
How about the government sues the ISPs for allowing VoIP calls where terrorism is discussed? Since they're no longer content-neutral, then they should be filtering for and preventing that. And because they're not, bad things costing billions have happened that are directly attributable to the ISP carrying such content...
(Yes, I realize that's not what we'd actually want the ISPs to do. The point is to show the ISP the error of their ways. Once they start filtering certain content, they lose safe harbor, and are liable for not filtering all other sorts of things. Their only viable choice is to return to content neutrality.)
Re: (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!
This should be good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This should be good. (Score:5, Interesting)
But they're not planning to sue anyone, just send them "menacing" [theregister.co.uk] letters...
I have to admit to being rather surprised the ISPs have agreed to this - I like The Register's take on why they might have done so.
Sue? no need (Score:2)
That's far simpler from their point of view than sending letters and/or getting hit by the record industry. I don't know what the margin is on a single ADSL account, but I doubt that they'd have to cut off more than (say) 10,000 customers to reduce the "problem" to irrelevant proportions. Even if they made Â
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!
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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.
"Seems" is inaccurate; that's definitely the case over here.
The damages awarded in the UK are generally less than would be awarded in the USA.
What do you want to bet... (Score:5, Interesting)
No...there's no hidden agenda here from BPI...
This will cause encrypted darknets to flourish which will cause a faster downward spiral due to the whole 'Pedo Menace'.
Precedent (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Next thing you know, they'll be outlawing alcohol and chopping your hand off if you badmouth Allah.
You belong on this website: spEak You're bRanes [ifyoulikei...ethere.com]
Re: (Score:2)
they've already outlawed alcohol on the tube and on many streets.
Re:Precedent (Score:5, Funny)
Next thing you know, they'll be outlawing alcohol
Whoa bad idea... last time the US tried that we ended up with NASCAR!
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As stated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Christianity is offensive to Muslims [dailymail.co.uk]
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".
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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]
Sealed out. (Score:2)
Does this mean that UK residents now all live in a virtual yellow submarine? ...20 fathoms under water, with no one at the helm? ...with the keys for the emergency hatch under the possession of a guy named Bubba, who also happens to be the only one with a machine gun onboard?
Re:Sealed out. (Score:4, Funny)
The keys will obviously be stored in a disused submarine lavatory with no lights and a sign saying 'Beware the leopard!'.
Don't. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't stea... I mean infringe copyright
Re:Don't. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
What's more, a lot of it is musically educational too! Take The Mod Archive [modarchive.com], where you can download modules. You can open them up in a tracker and see the notes go by right before your eyes. That caught my interest a few years ago and I've been learning to make music myself since then.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm an old guy, so I pretty much already have the vast majority of "my music" on CDs, ripped to ogg files. Anything new I come across these days that actually interests me will more often than not be a bootleg. Should something come up that should want to purchase, I'll do my damnedest to find it on ebay, or in a pawn shop, before I'll enrich those SOB's coffers.
Now get off my lawn!
I know it won't happen but (Score:2, Insightful)
Everybody should pick up the attitude that if you can't share it, don't buy it. Just a thought.
The deal is something of an about-face for Carphone Warehouse boss, Charles Dunstone...
Guess they got their own "Obamas" over their too.
I hope encryption can work until we find a way to dump the ISPs.
Re:I know it won't happen but (Score:5, Funny)
Then in walks these copyright police saying,"DO NOT SHARE. Sharing is a Social Crime. If you Share, You are a a thief, a PIRATE."
FILTER HOW ?? (Score:5, Insightful)
exactly how are they going to filter the connections ?
I listen to last.fm thats a music stream in mp3 of copyrighted artist it helps that last.fm (CBS rather large firm) have the license so how is my ISP going to know that ?
this looks like just as excuse to cut out people who do file sharing they simply will look at the large downloaders and accuse them
BPI has no technology and nor do the ISP that can differentiate between licensed and unlicensed !
regards
John Jones
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, Carphone Warehouse (aka TalkTalk) is already doing that. I can get 200-400kB/s on http downloads, but only maybe 1-4kB/s on any traffic on non-standard ports (ssh or p2p etc).
And yes, of course it is just a method to clamp down on customers who actually use the bandwidth they paid for - the "piracy" arg
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The real issue (Score:5, Insightful)
The real issue I see with this isn't so much that the ISP's are sending out warning letters - they've all stated that they're not prepared to cancel anyone's service - but that the record companies have essentially got the ISP's to do their dirty work for them.
NOW they know that the ISP's will have detailed files on every single person they find allegedly distributing copyrighted music - detailed files that means these "John doe" cases we seen in America will start turning into "John Smith" cases.
Re:The real issue (Score:5, Interesting)
...the record companies have essentially got the ISP's to do their dirty work for them...
That's probably not the case, at least beyond the face of it.
There seems to be a growing desire on the part of the ISP to stem the tide of locally hosted content on the internet. They can't censor servers they don't control, and would much prefer their customers were consumers, rather than providers (or redistributors), of content.
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The real issue I see with this isn't so much that the ISP's are sending out warning letters - they've all stated that they're not prepared to cancel anyone's service - but that the record companies have essentially got the ISP's to do their dirty work for them.
Whilst I strongly disapprove of this turn of events, one benefit of the ISPs doing the record companies' dirty work is that the record companies have less reason to want your personal information if their will is being done directly by ISPs. And, more importantly, the ISPs have a much better case for not handing it over.
I said it before, and I'll say it again. (Score:2)
Nothing good [slashdot.org] can come out from analyzing clients' internet traffic. [slashdot.org]
thank you music industry (Score:5, Interesting)
for giving developers a reason to build even hardier file sharing aps
it was easy to shut down napster: cut off the head
you had to poison morpheus, limewire, etc. with phony files
then emule and bittorrent proved immune to being shut down and poisoned. so now you have to go to the carriers and put the burden on them to search for file sharing patterns
the next step in the war is to build apps that obfuscate their activity. make it look like http form requests. make it look like smtp traffic. randomize ips, obfuscate ports, etc.
that's all your effort results in, dear music industry: stronger, hardier weeds that you can never kill
you lose. you just don't know it yet
legions of poor, music hungry teenagers: 3
hired guns of the music industry: 0
you're dying music industry. please just get dead already please
Switch! (Score:5, Interesting)
Guys, seriously, who here still uses one of the big six ISPs by *choice*?!
It's time to switch [adsl24.co.uk] ISPs [enta.net]
The difference in service is staggering.
I'm gonna be emailing my ISP to thank them for not signing up to this new scheme.
Disclaimer: I don't work for adsl24 or entanet, nor do I get paid for directing you there. I'm just a very happy customer
http://adsl24.co.uk/broadband_home.php [adsl24.co.uk] - take a look, you won't be disappointed
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I'm a very happy Be* [bethere.co.uk] customer. They seem still to be on the side of the custommers and I love them for this (and their good service)! :-)
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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?
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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.
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Be is/was owned by O2. Not heard anything about ownership changing hands.
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I still use one by choice - I use Sky (although I hadn't realised they were one of the "big six" as I thought their broadband arm wouldn't have had the up-take of their TV).
Well, I say "choice". It was a choice of four fuzzy channels or get everything from Sky (TV, phone and Internet) for £1 per month more than we were previously getting just the Internet access for.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're going to Entanet why not use UKFSN [ukfsn.org] who are not only an Entanet reseller but donate all profits to fund UK Free Software profits (well that's what it says on the web site).
Personally I've been a happy customer of theirs for the last couple of years. Totally transparent bandwidth allowances, no port protocol blocking, run your own servers, decent web space, database etc. etc. etc.
And no I don't work for them or get commission !
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Look up WBC (Wholesale Broadband Connect), and/or Datastream.
My understanding is that BT owns the last mile, then passes the traffic directly from the exchanges (in the case of datastream), or from the aggregation points (WBC), directly to the ISP's network.
ie, they don't get to fiddle with my traffic.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
these would be the six... (Score:2, Funny)
...UK ISPs who will not enjoy my custom in the future.
I would have prefered a new law (Score:2)
A new law would have been much better as I doubt the burden of proof is going to be very heigh for the agreement that's been made.
I'm just waiting for all the counter claims as people decide they can just hide anything they've downloaded, say it must have been someone hijacking their wifi network and no one will know any better.
ISP?... (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't about ISPs bending to the will of the various media associations - it's about ISPs trying to position themselves to deliver content and ensure _THEIR_ content is the content being delivered. ISPs should be prohibited from being in any business other than providing internet service because, in becoming content providers as well, they are increasingly acting in anti-competitive ways (if you think illegal p2p traffic is the only traffic they're manipulating, then you haven't been paying attention...).
Re: (Score:2)
Their content. Spot on.
Virgin try and charge me £0.50 per song per day. Are they having a laugh? Even £0.50 forever would be too much. Format shift with them? Not a chance unless I go the analogue route. Streaming or nothing is the only thing on offer.
But, I might ask them to start filtering the gross emails my daughter gets from their email servers. She's 8 BTW. If they can stop music sharing, they can stop everything else while they're at it. Especially if it comes from their servers (or P
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
See an obvious problem there?
This is what
look to japan? (Score:2)
anyone know if share http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_(p2p) [wikipedia.org] is good at hiding your identity?
I would think it's very hard to hide the ip address your connecting from unless you use something like tor.
The Music Industry's Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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 fou
Dear British ISPs (Score:3, Funny)
Here's hoping you have better luck than we did.
Sincerely,
American ISPs
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.
Sad evolution (Score:2, Insightful)
Remote bittorrent box (Score:2)
Time to set up a remote bittorrent box in other country, you can then download an encrypted B4tManTheD4rkN1ght.zip to your box from there.
Nova Magna Carta (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You probably got modded as flamebait (or troll) because you use "whine" and generally talk down to an opinion that differs from yours. Remember the old adage "you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar." (or words to that eff