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BPI Requests ISPs Suspend Suspected Filesharers 224

Posted by timothy from the sounds-like-a-reasonable-approach-overall dept.
MartinJW writes "The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has written to two of the UKs larger ISPs, Tiscali and Cable & Wireless, asking them to suspend the accounts of 59 users they have identified as 'illegal file sharers.' The BPI says they have 'unequivocal evidence' of IP addresses that were used to upload 'significant quantities' of music. Although the IP addresses were used to identify the ISPs involved, the providers are the only people able to identify the exact individuals responsible. This marks a significant change in the BPI's tactics; previously they have targeted individuals but it seems that they are now taking it one step further and requesting the ISPs take decisive action to uphold the terms in their own 'acceptable use policies.'"
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BPI Requests ISPs Suspend Suspected Filesharers More

BPI Requests ISPs Suspend Suspected Filesharers

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  • I pay a tax on blanks (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DrSkwid ( 118965 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @02:51AM (#15696238) Journal
    so I will download the content I have paid to "pirate"

    • Re:I pay a tax on blanks (Score:5, Informative)

      by arkhan_jg ( 618674 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @02:59AM (#15696249)
      There's no blank media tax in the UK as far as I'm aware, it's one of the few countries in the EU that doesn't have one.
    • First off, this is about sharing or making available, not downloading. I have yet to hear of any action against downloaders. Could someone point to an instance if ever there was one?

      Secondly, as another commenter wrote, there's no media tax in the U.K. But even if there were, it doesn't account for sharing, just downloading or local copying.

      But one thing I would love to see is a case in which someone were sued for acquiring or otherwise being in posession of entertainment content on media that has been t
    • That tax is for legal copying though, not illegal one.
      • But legal copying by its very nature is untaxable - if you in your country have such a concept as fair use (we don't, though, in the UK), enabling you to legally copy then there is no justification to extract a levy for exercising that right. You paid for the original resource, so you already have the right to do with it whatever is legal in your country. Why donate further cash for no reason?

        If it weren't for the fact that the government in the UK are utterly without capacity for rational thought, I would
        • >But legal copying by its very nature is untaxable -

          Huh? Why? You can tax basically anything you want. It is really just an issue of creating the law for it.

          > if you in your country have such a concept as fair use (we don't, though, in
          >the UK), enabling you to legally copy then there is no justification to extract
          >a levy for exercising that right.

          The fact that you DO allow private copying is the reason there is also a levy. It is supposed to compensate for the private copying. One can argue abou
          • Senseless.

            You either require an additional licence to do something (and must therefore pay for the privilege) or you don't, and therefore don't need to pay for it.

            The government can tax anything they feel like, as much as they feel like - air, olive oil, the use of escalators, whatever. In their infinite wisdom, they already charge VAT at 17.5% on blank CDs. So the government is taxing the purchase of CDs. But they are not extracting a levy from those who buy blank CDs, in order to compensate copyright hold

  • Not going to be a problem (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @02:55AM (#15696243) Journal
    Tiscali at least will fold like wet paper. They do not even have binary newsgroups because usenet is mostly used for piracy according to their helpdesk.

    Tiscali heeft 1 nieuwsserver, namelijk news.tiscali.nl. Deze nieuwsserver geeft alleen tekst bestanden weer en ondersteunt dus geen binaries. Tiscali heeft hier bewust voor gekozen omdat binarie servers veelal gebruikt worden voor het illegaal downloaden van auteursrechtelijke bestanden. Tiscali stimuleert juist de legale verspreiding van auteursrechtelijke bestanden via tiscali.music en tiscali.video.

    In dutch but I doubt it will be different for the english branch.

    Sadly at the moment it ain't my choice to use them. It ain't my connection and for 1 year getting a second line installed is to expensive but I can't wait to get my xs4all account back.

    Oh and did anyone else notice that if this happens then people are being punished without ever having seen a judge or even a police officer. No sworn in official will be involved just people from two companies. Welcome to the justice system of the 21st century.

    • Re:Not going to be a problem (Score:4, Interesting)

      by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @03:01AM (#15696258) Homepage
      Oh and did anyone else notice that if this happens then people are being punished without ever having seen a judge or even a police officer. No sworn in official will be involved just people from two companies. Welcome to the justice system of the 21st century.

      Grand stand much?

      A private business has every right to refuse service to anyone, for any reason ( despite what the equal rights groups may tell you ).

      This isn't a government organization exacting punitive measures against citizens on a private organizations say-so. This is one private org asking another to "punish" their customers.

      Their paying customers. Which to me seems like a bad idea. But whatever.

      • Not correct (Score:3, Informative)

        by aepervius ( 535155 )
        In many EU country, you cannot refuse to serve somebody on ground of gender, disablities, religion or race, nationality (well I should say skin color since the concept of race for human is blatantly bunk). There are naturally a few exception (like where serving a disabled person where it would be impossible to ensure their security or would be contrary to the purpose of the service), but the law is quite clear on that point. And I think the anti segregation law are the same in the US (feel free to correct m

      • Re:Not going to be a problem (Score:5, Informative)

        by arkhan_jg ( 618674 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @03:29AM (#15696316)
        A private business has every right to refuse service to anyone, for any reason ( despite what the equal rights groups may tell you ).

        Under UK and EU law, you're entirely wrong. You cannot refuse service based on race, sex, age, disability and now I believe religion - based upon the Race Relations Act, Disability Discrimination Act and Equal Opportunities Act.

        'Needing my internet fix' however, I believe doesn't fall under any protected class at this time.

        • Your post would have been so much more useful if you'd cited your references.

          The Race Relations Act 1976 is not yet on OPSI.

          The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (III,19) [opsi.gov.uk] says (amongst other things):

          19.(1) It is unlawful for a provider of services to discriminate against a disabled person (a) in refusing to provide, or deliberately not providing, to the disabled person any service which he provides, or is prepared to provide, to members of the public;

          The Equal Opportunity Act 1984 is not

          • >For those thinking (correctly) that no party can be forced to enter into a
            >contract against their will, recall that a general announcement of goods or of a
            >service (e.g. an advertisement, a price tag) is an offer, indicating willingness
            >to enter into a contract.

            Are you talking about UK specific or in general? Because if you talk in general it is not true. In many countries such general announcements, advertising and such are not an offer for a contract but a more of a show of products or goods

        • Re:Not going to be a problem (Score:4, Funny)

          by FireFury03 ( 653718 ) <slashdot@NoSPAm.nexusuk.org> on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @04:42AM (#15696447) Homepage
          'Needing my internet fix' however, I believe doesn't fall under any protected class at this time.

          You could probably start a religion requiring Internet access though :)
      • Once the ISP has agreed to deliver a service, he is bound to that contract. IANAL but I think refusing to provide the service would be a valid reason for the customer to cancel the ISP contract immediately and take his business somewhere else.
        An interesting side note (from Germany, where I live):
        ISPs frequently offer a nice hardware package (DSL router, often with WLAN) in exchange for a minimum contract duration of 1-2 years. If the provider now breaks the service contract, chances are that you could cance
      • It's not about refusing a service, but about a breach of contract. If you are in breach with their Acceptable Use Policy, which will likely state that you should not spread illegal content, then they have all rights to end your contract, both the provider and the user agreed with this at the start of the contract.

        An end of a contract happens all the time, you can end your contract with your employer if you don't like your work, the other way around, etc. etc. Therefore you shouldn't see this as a punishme

        • >If you are in breach with their Acceptable Use Policy, which will likely state
          >that you should not spread illegal content, then they have all rights to end
          >your contract, both the provider and the user agreed with this at the start of
          >the contract.

          And who decide if you have done that or not? Some third party entity just claiming so? Typically that (if you commit an illegal act or not) is decided by courts.

        • An end of a contract happens all the time, you can end your contract with your employer if you don't like your work, the other way around, etc. etc

          Under UK law, an employer CANNOT end your contract if they "don't like your work". They have to prove (before the unfair dismissal tribunal that is now almost inevitable) that you are incompetant, acting in bad faith, or that they have made a determined effort to explain why they don't like you and to get you to change your behaviour. The employee is free to leav

          • Under UK law, an employer CANNOT end your contract if they "don't like your work".

            Correct, but note that the Right not to be unfairly dismissed has a qualifying period, during which any dismissal is considered fair,

            Employment Rights Act 1996 [opsi.gov.uk] (two years) reduced to one year by Statutory Instrument 1999/1436 [opsi.gov.uk] sections 2-4.

      • Hmm the BPI has my IP address, the ISP has my personal details. The ISP cannot provide my detail to the BPI due to the data protection act. How will the BPI *know* whether or not the ISP terminated my contract? If the ISP cannot inform the BPI in a reliable fashion that they did terminate a particular account (after all the IP changes and is dynamic), then why should the ISP bother to lose a customer? SoM

  • They'll give in, and they probably should... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by HMC CS Major ( 540987 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @02:59AM (#15696250) Homepage
    ISPs have very strict AUPs, and will probably kill the cheap accounts rather than risk a lawsuit. Realistically speaking, if I were running an ISP, I'd do the same thing.

    It's worth noting that the users may not be intentionally violating the (civil) law, it may just be open proxies or misconfigured P2P clients, in which case the accounts can be re-established later (after reasonable assurance that the problem's been 'fixed').
    • ISPs have very strict AUPs, and will probably kill the cheap accounts rather than risk a lawsuit. Realistically speaking, if I were running an ISP, I'd do the same thing.

      If the ISP gets paid by other networks to recieve data from the ISP then the ISP might think twice about closing accounts that create large amount of revenue for it.
      • If the ISP gets paid by other networks to recieve data from the ISP then the ISP might think twice about closing accounts that create large amount of revenue for it.

        I think the point he was trying to make is that the revenue generated by those users who own the accounts which are being used to illegaly download music generate less revenue than it would cost to deal with the flood of lawsuits from the BPI. Also keep in mind that in many European countries the party that loses a civil lawsuit pays the costs o
        • On the other hand, what lawsuit would the ISP lose and thus pay the costs for? If THEY were doing anything wrong, the BPI would obviously go after THEM, not the costumer. If the customer breaches an agreement with the ISP that is of no bussiness to anyone else than those two. A third party can't drag you to a court for not fullfilling an agreement between you and someone completely different.

      • If the ISP gets paid by other networks to recieve data from the ISP then the ISP might think twice about closing accounts that create large amount of revenue for it.

        As others have pointed out, the tiny number of customers in question probably aren't generating large amounts of revenue for the ISP.

        Moreover, the fact that the ISP has been told about the infringing use of their network potentially lays them open to huge legal liability. We had Godfrey vs. Demon [zdnet.co.uk] back in 1999, and ISPs in the UK have bee

    • It's worth noting that the users may not be intentionally violating the (civil) law, it may just be open proxies or misconfigured P2P clients

      Which, as the innocent denizens of Slashdot often remind us, are no doubt being used for purely non-infringing purposes, such as downloading home made movies and Linux distros...

      Or perhaps you meant 'misconfigured' in the sense of 'not running PeerGuardian'.

      Realistically, it is quite likely that the individuals being targeted are uploading copyright material. The more

  • Well at least they aren't suing them. That means I still have a little respect for the BPI. (although not much)

    • Re:Look on the bright side (Score:5, Informative)

      by arkhan_jg ( 618674 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @03:07AM (#15696270)
      The BPI have sued some people in the UK for copyright infringement, it's at the bottom of the FA.

      "BPI has taken legal action in 139 filesharing cases. The four that have gone to court have produced verdicts in BPI's favour, while 111 individuals have settled out of court."

      Remember, the RIAA and BPI are just the legal mouthpieces of the major international record labels. Anything they do, they do at the behest of:

              * Universal Music Group ($7 billion revenue), which includes A&M, Decca/London, Deutsche Grammophon, Geffen, Interscope, Island Def Jam, Motown, Philips, Rampagge, Universal, and others;
              * Sony BMG Music Entertainment ($5 billion), which includes: Arista, (American) Columbia, Epic, J, Jive, LaFace, Ravenous, RCA and others;
              * EMI Group ($4 billion), which includes Angel, Blue Note, Capitol, European Columbia, Elektrola, Odeon, Parlophone, Pathé Marconi, Positiva, Virgin and others;
              * Warner Music Group (a.k.a. WEA) ($2.5 billion), which includes Asylum, Atlantic, Elektra, Erato, Heiress, Reprise, Rhino, Rykodisc, Sire, Sub Pop (49% Warner ownership), and others.

      Let this inform your music purchasing choices appropriately.
      • Here's an easy way to figure out if an album is a release...

        from a BPI label:
        BPI Radar [magnetbox.com]

        from a RIAA label:
        RIAA Radar [riaaradar.com]

        I haven't used the BPI one yet, but I use RIAAradar all the time. My advice, for what it's worth, is to support the independant labels by buying their stuff. On the other hand, if you want a physical copy of a RIAA/BPI album, consider buying it used.

      • The BPI have sued some people in the UK for copyright infringement, it's at the bottom of the FA.

        "BPI has taken legal action in 139 filesharing cases. The four that have gone to court have produced verdicts in BPI's favour, while 111 individuals have settled out of court."

        Please read your comment again, noting the part I've emphasized. These people broke the law, and were found to have done so by a court, not by some sort of recording industry shady dealing and barratry.

        Now, you can bitch about h

  • Doesn't the U.K. have a court system? Don't those people deserve to go to court before having anything done to them? The BPI isn't even a government agency or anything, right?
    • It doesn't really matter. BPI has a bunch of lawyers. That's really all that matters in the end. They have enough legal resources to make it so that its cheaper for the ISPs to just fold than to fight it out. Isn't it sick that legal systems designed to give the little guy a chance are still subject to this kind of crap? Consider the nuisance lawsuit itself, and why they're even legal. The idea of essentially punishing someone you dislike by filing meaningless suits when its barely a scratch on your finance

    • Re:Do they have court? (Score:5, Informative)

      by arkhan_jg ( 618674 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @03:16AM (#15696290)
      The way this works, the BPI is asking the ISP's to enforce their Acceptable Use Policies. Since the AUP's UK users agree to are pretty draconian in order to get internet access, the ISP has the right to terminate our accounts at any time based upon breach of them. Of course, the ISP's don't actually monitor the traffic as such, because then they might be expected to catch all of the dodgy traffic going across their wires.

      So in effect, the BPI are doing the same thing that anti-spammers do; ask the ISP to enforce their existing contract terms with the user, and terminate it for 'abuse'.

      Once the contract is terminated, then the ISP is done. No further action would be taken by the ISP, so the courts don't get involved. Of course, the customer could start a civil suit against the ISP for breach of contract (good luck with that!), or breach of EU data privacy laws if the ISP handed personally identfying info over the BPI without a court-order. Note, I'm not a solicitor, so the previous paragraph could be complete rubbish, but it's how I understand it.

      The BPI are a trade organisation, like the RIAA; no government powers at all. They have to go to court to pursue civil cases, or ask the police to investigate criminal cases, just like everyone else. This however is just one company asking another to enforce their contract against a 3rd party, i.e. the users. No doubt the ISP's will jump through hoops to do it though, they've not got a great history of standing up for their users against accusations that may or may not be true.
      • >The way this works, the BPI is asking the ISP's to enforce their Acceptable Use
        >Policies. Since the AUP's UK users agree to are pretty draconian in order to get
        >internet access, the ISP has the right to terminate our accounts at any time
        >based upon breach of them. Of course, the ISP's don't actually monitor the
        >traffic as such, because then they might be expected to catch all of the dodgy
        >traffic going across their wires.

        And how would the ISP now if you breached the contract in this parti

        • Quite easy, they have a contract for an internet service and is not geting any at all. How hard is THAT?

          Having seen my and some other peoples phone, internet and other (usually Direct Debit) service contracts, they usually have a clause that states something along the lines of "We withold the right to terminate the service/contract at any point". The principle being that if they want, they can stop providing the service and the contract ends at that point, if you have already paid for a period after that

          • you have to get the bank to stop the Direct Debit (which the banks do not like doing)

            Really? It's three clicks with my Internet banking service (Barclays, for reference). The problems come when the telephone company decides that you are in their debt and notifies the agency responsible for your credit rating. A better bet is to pay, then take them to the small claims court for breach of contract and get the money back.

          • The principle being that if they want, they can stop providing the service and the contract ends at that point, if you have already paid for a period after that time then your going to have trouble getting you money back.

            If they terminated the contract without cause (ie you didn't cause them any harm), then they would almost certainly have to pro-rate any fees collected. It would probably be a simple matter in small-claims court to collect a partial refund.

            In fact, most contracts I've read and written in e
          • >Having seen my and some other peoples phone, internet and other (usually Direct
            >Debit) service contracts, they usually have a clause that states something along
            >the lines of "We withold the right to terminate the service/contract at any
            >point". The principle being that if they want, they can stop providing the
            >service and the contract ends at that point, if you have already paid for a
            >period after that time then your going to have trouble getting you money back.

            Considering the UK is part

        • >The way this works, the BPI is asking the ISP's to enforce their Acceptable Use >Policies. Since the AUP's UK users agree to are pretty draconian in order to get >internet access, the ISP has the right to terminate our accounts at any time >based upon breach of them. Of course, the ISP's don't actually monitor the >traffic as such, because then they might be expected to catch all of the dodgy >traffic going across their wires. And how would the ISP now if you breached the contract in th

          • So your basic idea is that the the ISP should trust outside sources but not the customers? If the BPI doesn't even go to court, what would the reasonability be about there being an illegal activity? If they go to court, what would be the reasonability about not await what the court says? One can of course also wonder why the ISP should at all try to become a court in deciding what is illegal and non illegal activities.
      • Since the AUP's UK users agree to are pretty draconian in order to get internet access

        Speak for your own ISP's AUP; mine [eclipse.net.uk] isn't what I'd call draconian (scroll past the terms for the one month trial). In summary, my obligations are to obey the relevant laws, and not try to claim that it's Eclipse's fault if I get caught breaking one.

    • Yes but since this isn't a legal matter that doesn't matter. It's an acceptable use policy.

      It's just a business refusing to serve you. If you feel they've done it unfairly, THEN you can sue THEM.

  • I wonder . . . (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pembo13 ( 770295 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @03:19AM (#15696293) Homepage
    What these kind of organisations would say if pirating were to totally dissappear and they still kept "losing" money.

    • What these kind of organisations would say if pirating were to totally dissappear and they still kept "losing" money.

      I would venture a guess that they would make claims that the distinct lack of piracy is causing them to lose money. After making those initial claims, I bet they would start a campaign to sue people who purchase large ammounts of albums legally from their local music stores. Once they sue and ruin their most loyal customers, they will revert to their "piracy bad" statements and start the wh

    • They'd (US oil barons) create an enemy that no one could see (terrorists) and declare war on weaker nations (iraq) and plunder their resources to improve their bottom line (profit).
    • That we should make books illegal. After all, for competition they are the epitome of unfair (they don't require a player, they have free rental distribution, they don't effectively track users, they are portable, user friendly, and have low power consumption, and, goddamit, people have been training to use them since the age of five!), and clearly if there were fewer books distracting people, they would see more movies and listen to more music.
    • They wouldn't. They are not losing money in the traditional sense; that of starting off with more money than you have at the end of a specified period. They are, in fact, making money by the traditional definition. Their definition of 'losing money' means 'making less money than they would make if everyone who pirated a track bought it instead.' If piracy stopped, then their losses (by this metric) would become zero.

      They have yet to prove a link between piracy and fewer sales. I suspect that pirates

  • Going after the offenders (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xav_jones ( 612754 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @03:32AM (#15696322)
    Everytime a story appears about the music or movie industry coming up with some draconian method[1] for protecting their copyright (illegal to even own circumvention devices, DRM, DMCA, etc etc) -- wherein it appears as though they assume all people are criminals unless they happen to have been proven innocent -- I usually think, 'Why don't they go after the offenders and leave the rest of us be?'

    Now, in this case, they do appear to be going after the offenders and so good luck to them. I believe they do have a right to protect their copyright but I don't believe it should be at the expense of everyone, just those who are offending.

    [1] Which (as a side "benefit") means you often cannot use your own legally purchased media in legally/morally accepted ways.

    • Yes, but they should go after the offenders the proper way, that is through the police and the courts. They should not turn the judge themselves and then go after ISP's and ask the ISP to carry out the judgement.

  • ISPs are not going to like this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ravenspear ( 756059 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @03:34AM (#15696327)
    Even though most ISP AUPs prohibit illegal music downloading, most broadband providers know that illicit downloading is one of the primary allures of their service and that a significant portion of their customer base engages in it. Some even advertise the ease of it (albeit circumspectly) in their advertising. If they project the image that they actually enforce their AUPs that may drive customers to competing providers that are more willing to overlook such behavior.
    • Some even advertise the ease of it (albeit circumspectly) in their advertising

      Yep, one of the local ADSL providers here advertising their "advanced" package: "Chatting and downloading a movie or music at the same time? No problem!"

      I mean, "downloading a movie", I have never been able to download (as in, completely download, burn and view at a later time) legally.

  • ISPs move away from that practice in Sweden (Score:5, Interesting)

    by peope ( 584706 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @03:40AM (#15696338)
    Here in Sweden ISPs have warned and disconnected people accused of copyright infringement.
    However in recent time people have been aware of the issue and some ISPs has gone against the practice.
    Nowadays ISPs here are reluctant to be known as a party to disconnect you because of those reasons.
    Customers simply move away from their services.
    • Here in Australia similar things happen. ISPs forward emails to users whos IP has been identified by the the "so-called owners" of data. Further action beyond this is unheard of.

    • Well the problem is simple (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @04:20AM (#15696399) Journal
      If you can't use an ISP to "pirate" then why should you use it? At least in holland several ISP's have advertised with "download music/movies/games at high speed" while they had no service to offer these products in a "legal" manner. So where they advertising piracy?

      Perhaps in the same way that a fast car ad advertises speeding. What after all is the point of a fast car when you can only drive as fast as everyone else?

      ISP's might realize that there intrests are not the interests of the copyright holders. Same as xerox interests are not the interests of book publishers. If xerox made their copiers incapable of copying copyrighted works they might possibly find their entire market share collapsing faster then you can say "cheap chinese clones".

      It reminds me a bit of those pay sex phone lines. Nobody likes them, banks hate doing business with porn companies. The phone company hates them because they are a hassle but both the banks and the phone company love the money they bring in. As long as you keep your company "clean" enough to touch they are happy to help you peddle smut.

      Same with ISP's, while they would love to be just email and light web browwsing comapnies the momey is in p2p and porn. Nobody is going to need 24/7 super adsl to check their email.

  • This is somewhat offtopic, but if we want universal wireless Internet access (which we do... well I do), then eventually AUPs are going to have to go away, and network protocols that take this into account will have to be used (email and universal IPSEC come to mind)...

  • The most correct approach so far (Score:5, Interesting)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @03:47AM (#15696344) Homepage
    I'm really very sympathetic to the cause of file sharing. I only see the file-sharing-universe as the participant that I am. I don't do it all that much but I feel a bit grateful for those that share stuff... whether intentionally or not. (Hehehe... one of my favorite boredom-killing past times is to open a gnutella client and search for p*.jpg or *.doc or *.xls... you might be surprised as what people are stupid enough to share!)

    As a rule, if I really want something, I buy it. I would like to assume (and from what I hear it's generally true) that when people fully appreciate something or functionally use it, they buy it. That goes for software, music, movies... whatever... okay, I admit I don't buy porn... but anyway.

    But if ever there was a "correct" approach to their handling, this would be it. Their [the clients'] anonymity is preserved. They don't get a criminal record. They don't pay thousands to defend themselves. They don't settle for large amounts of money. And in my guess, the worst they might initially get is an interruption of service as a warning and probably resume connectivity (after turning off sharing) shortly thereafter and lives go generally unharmed.

    It's not that bad really.
    • Hehehe... one of my favorite boredom-killing past times is to open a gnutella client and search for p*.jpg or *.doc or *.xls... you might be surprised as what people are stupid enough to share!


      Thanks! You've just entertained me for an evening.

  • I hope they give a little time before disconnect (Score:5, Informative)

    by brunos ( 629303 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @03:56AM (#15696363)
    About 4 years ago, I was working in quite a large company that had many online shops all over the world. We had two connections to BT. One day they did not work anymore, we checked the equipment, all was OK, we phoned BT and they said that we had payd in time and that there was no problem at all. This basically took a lot of our servers down, and we lost a lot of money. The next day, whe phoned BT again and asked what had happened, and they told us that someone had posted a file to a newsgroup, and therefore they disconnected us. (The file in question was a BSD package). So a stupid employee at these companies can really do some damage without a proper legal procedures.
  • In the US, our ISPs aren't supposed to filter or block anything, at all. It's what allows them to stay neutral parties. Does the UK have anything similar?
    • The law isn't so clear in the UK: rights like free speech don't seem to carry so much weight over here.

      There was a case [bbc.co.uk] a while back where someone sued an ISP when they didn't remove libellous Usenet posts which was settled out of court in favour of the plaintiff. I'm not sure of the effect that has had on ISPs, or if the law has changed since.
    • On the contrary, the UK government is pressuring ISPs to introduce "voluntary" censorship of a (secret) list of alleged child-porn sites. Most of the big ISPs have already complied. Of course the unspoken threat is that this will be made compulsory unless they all "volunteer".

      At the moment this is to confined to blocking porn, but once all the ISPs have caved in, the infrastructure for more general censorship will be in place. And the list of sites to be censored is supplied to the ISPs in an encrypted fo

  • Why shouldn't ISPs turn a blind eye? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by IAmAI ( 961807 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @04:43AM (#15696451)

    In the article, it quotes Peter Jamieson, BPI chairman:

    "We have said for months that it is unacceptable for ISPs to turn a blind eye to industrial-scale copyright infringement."

    Is it really in the interest of ISPs to not turn a blind eye? As I see it, it is potentially against their interest: First of all, ISPs are barely, if it all, affected music piracy. In fact they may even benefit from 'pirates' choosing to use their service because they, for example, don't block P2P ports (although on the flipside, the increased bandwidth usage of P2P may be to their detriment). If I recall correctly, Tiscali attempted to set up a music store of some kind, which was thwarted, presumably by the music industry, so ISPs can't get in the way of effects of piracy, even if they wanted to! I'm fairly confident that piracy having a direct negative impact on the business is not a reason for why it is disallowed in their EULAs (legal requirement, minimisation of legal action against them are probably more likely reasons).

    So even if ISPs kindly decided to be altruistic towards their fellow big business, the BPI, and help root out big-time pirates, they would have to go to all the trouble of trawling through all of its paying customer's activity, invading their privacy, handing them in as criminals and then loosing their custom. That seems like a great deal to give up for no gain!

    • The vast majority of these pirates are likely to be among the heaviest downloaders on their system, akin to the biggest hogs at the buffet line. Depending on what kind of system you are talking about, it is likely that these hogs are making the system slower for everyone else. My ISP (the local cable company) never performs anywhere near their advertised "up to XXX megabits/sec" speed because so many people in my apartment complex use them (which I can infer from the absurd number of wireless systems I ca

  • Unequivocal? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kaemaril ( 266849 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @04:53AM (#15696468)

    "We are providing unequivocal evidence of copyright infringement via their services"

    I'd like to see that evidence. The article suggests it's IP addresses associated with uploads. At worst it's simply the IP address and at best surely it could only be a list of IP addresses and what they uploaded - i.e, IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx uploaded (file) on (date and time) to (server).

    Is that enough to be 'unequivocal'? And if so, since the article also suggests they're only after those who upload a lot ('It was unacceptable for ISPs to turn a "blind eye to industrial-scale copyright infringement", said BPI chairman Peter Jamieson.') why aren't they going after these guys for damages in court instead of going the easy route of simply shutting them off? After all, it's likely they'll simply go to another ISP ...

    • Re:Unequivocal? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Pofy ( 471469 )
      >And if so, since the article also suggests they're only after those who upload a lot....

      Which makes one wonder how they know someone has uploaded "a lot".

      • Re:Unequivocal? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Tim C ( 15259 )
        Which makes one wonder how they know someone has uploaded "a lot".

        Well, you could simply download a lot from them, making a note of their IP address. Any IP that uploads more than X to you, you go after.

        Yes, a lot of them will be dynamic IPs, in which case the ISP can simply reply to that effect and that's the end of it. However, a lot of people have static IP addresses - I've had one for about 5 years now at no extra cost, and a lot of ISPs hand them out either by default or on request, often for free.

        Shor
      • AFAIK they go after those who have a lot of files available to share, not necessarily those who upload a lot of data. Open up emule, browse to a user, view shared files, if > 1000, book him.

    • At worst it's simply the IP address and at best surely it could only be a list of IP addresses and what they uploaded - i.e, IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx uploaded (file) on (date and time) to (server).

      ISPs (at least in th UK, and I think in the USA and elsewhere) are required to log which customer was using which IP address at what time for tracability reasons. This means that the information above would quite easily identify a household, and I imagine it is a short jump from there with appropriate legal

  • The music industry gets more money out of Britain than most other countries combined when it comes to music. Small wonder we're called 'treasure island'. It just seems really, really, really rich coming from them. They even seem to be completely redefining the definiton of ownership:

    BPI has identified 17 Tiscali IP addresses and 42 Cable & Wireless IP addresses which were used to upload "significant quantities of music owned by BPI members".

    Stuff them. I'd just give a two-fingered salute and move
  • A couple of years ago, the German magazine C't did a comparison of the various DSL services available, I think there were around 3 main services (Telekom/T-Online, Tiscali and maybe Arcor) plus several resellers. One thing that came out clearly was that Tiscali were artificially putting the brakes on certain services/ports - specifically those used for file sharing.

    C't speculated that one of the reasons for encouraging file sharers to use another service was to reduce bandwidth consumption, another to redu

  • checks or abuses? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @06:56AM (#15696752) Homepage Journal
    There's one major issue here: How does the ISP know the names or numbers it gets are "guilty" in any sense? Who checks what these lobby groups send you? Who verifies that they indeed shared copyrighted material and not something that's perfectly legal to share (say, a Linux .iso)?

  • Pot - Kettle - Black (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DrStrangeLug ( 799458 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @07:09AM (#15696779)
    Wasn't the BPI found guilty back in 2002 of defrauding the artists they represent by not passing on the royalties ? If we could find some artists who think they're getting ripped off then it's a safe bet that some of the financial dealings are done over the BPI's internet connection so thats grounds for having their connection terminated. It's unacceptable for an ISP to turn a blind eye to corperate corruption and lawbreaking by their customers.

  • Proxies? (Score:3, Funny)

    by The MAZZTer ( 911996 ) <(megazzt) (at) (gmail.com)> on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @10:05AM (#15697631) Homepage
    It'd be funny if it was one user using 59 proxies.

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