Britain's six largest ISPs and BPI join forces to attack illegal filesharing

[Kymmy]

They can't, VM can't give or sell personal data to the BPI, even Phorm won;t know the names and addresses of the connections it profiles..

If VM or any ISP did so then they'd be in more trouble than any file sharer

Kymmy

Originally Posted by BenMcr

thinkbroadband.com have a response from Be broadband for all those interested

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3...e-sharing.html

Erm, isn't this what the other six ISPs are doing (in principle)
From the link -
"Where a content owner (like a record label or a games company) approaches Be and requests the details of a member because of an alleged copyright infringement we will not supply this information direct to the requester unless they have a Court Order. To keep members informed of what’s going on in most circumstances we will try to contact the member in question to make them aware that we have had a request from the rights holder."

From the OP Telegraph link
"The six internet companies are BT, BSkyB, Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali and Carphone Warehouse, which sells broadband access under the AOL and Talk Talk brands.
They have signed a memorandum of understanding which commits them to sending "informative letters" to customers whose accounts have been identified by the BPI as being used for filesharing."

[Eric Knapper]

With the problem VM have with cloned modems on their network what's the situation going to be for the customer's who have had their modem cloned would they get these warning letters when they have not used illegal file sharing?.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Eric Knapper

With the problem VM have with cloned modems on their network what's the situation going to be for the customer's who have had their modem cloned would they get these warning letters when they have not used illegal file sharing?.

I have asked the same question, However Virgin will never admit that cloned modems exist. As far as i understand it, Yes they would because when VM check the IP it will be logged against a Mac address. That mac address will be tagged to a users account. If the person doing the letter sending does not check for duplicate or more mac address on various DHCP servers then potentially the owner of that mac address will receive the letter while the **** bag cloner gets nothing done to him.

[dev]

Originally Posted by foreverwar

Erm, isn't this what the other six ISPs are doing (in principle)
From the link -
"Where a content owner (like a record label or a games company) approaches Be and requests the details of a member because of an alleged copyright infringement we will not supply this information direct to the requester unless they have a Court Order. To keep members informed of what’s going on in most circumstances we will try to contact the member in question to make them aware that we have had a request from the rights holder."

From the OP Telegraph link
"The six internet companies are BT, BSkyB, Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali and Carphone Warehouse, which sells broadband access under the AOL and Talk Talk brands.
They have signed a memorandum of understanding which commits them to sending "informative letters" to customers whose accounts have been identified by the BPI as being used for filesharing."

tbh any ISP has always sent on warning letters, if they don't they'll come under legal attack from the copyright holders, AOL were doing it years ago. All the BPI are doing is requesting something concrete that requires ISPs to warn their users and do something about the problem, which imo is fine and much better than starting legal procedings against users like the RIAA etc.

a question to those complaining about, you make a piece of software or a web site design and host it on your site for free. some person comes along, realises it's good, downloads it, makes a site and starts selling it. now i bet most of you will want that site taking down as that guy is making money out of you and i bet you'd be rather ****ed off if the ISP turned around and said 'meh, we'll ask them to take it down'

[ryuzaki]

So, they are just going to send letters but because there is so much doubt (cloned modems, dodgy evidence etc) there will be no legal action or "three strikes" or anything like that?

Seems pointless, just a waste of paper, designed to shut the government and BPI up.

The idea of a levy sounds better, although £30/year for music is a bit much as I don't spend anything like that much on music anyway. How would I decide which bands it goes to or would I still have to buy their actual CDs to support them?

[Angry@VMedia]

I smell BS here...
I party (that news article) stating that all these ISP's have signed up, yet there are a few ISP's who have categorically stated they will not do this, so i wish to know which side is telling the porkies and would love to see that lying side in court!!

[Barton71]

Originally Posted by ryuzaki

So, they are just going to send letters but because there is so much doubt (cloned modems, dodgy evidence etc) there will be no legal action or "three strikes" or anything like that?

Seems pointless, just a waste of paper, designed to shut the government and BPI up.

The idea of a levy sounds better, although £30/year for music is a bit much as I don't spend anything like that much on music anyway. How would I decide which bands it goes to or would I still have to buy their actual CDs to support them?

Apparently there will be a three strike rule in place. Firstly, they will send out letters, next is a suspension of your account, until you agree in writing not to "re-offend", and lastly, your account will be terminated.

Just for the sake of argument, there are 6 million file sharers in the UK, so that 1 million for every ISP. Say 10% of those file sharers (the figure will probably be higher) dont stop sharing files, are the ISP's really going to terminate 100,000 accounts each? I think not. I suspect that there is something else in the pipleline which will make sharing music, movies, TV shows, etc... legal. Whether its the ISP's getting together and developing their own file sharing network, or an yearly fee levied on each account, we dont know, but something must be being developed. If it isnt, then the ISP's have become the bitches of the BPI.

[ryuzaki]

Originally Posted by Barton71

Apparently there will be a three strike rule in place. Firstly, they will send out letters, next is a suspension of your account, until you agree in writing not to "re-offend", and lastly, your account will be terminated.

All the stuff I read says specifically that there will NOT be a three strikes rule, or any enforcement at all. Just threatening letters.

I wonder what you are supposed to do if you get one by mistake - just ignore it? If you have to write to them every time and explain, you had better hope no-one cloned your modem...

[Barton71]

I read about it on the Guardian website http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008...lmedia.piracy1

"The first step is a letter, "intended to be educational" to an internet user about the "account abuse", the second a suspension of the account until the customers agrees in writing not to offend again, and the final step is cancelling an account."

[ryuzaki]

BPI scaremongering I think:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...ompromise.html

"Note what's missing from the deal: a three-strikes rule. In fact, the deal contains no enforcement mechanisms of any kind."

[Horace]

Re: cloned modems.

The BPI collects IP addresses not MAC addresses so that completely negates the possibility a customer being warned/advised due to someone else using the same mac addy on a cloned modem. Pity because it might of pushed VM to do even more about the cloning problem if they had thousands of irate customers suing them.

I suppose the conclusion might be reached by a lot of people who are tier hopping, i.e. paying for the lowest tier and using a cloned modem for 20meg to cancel the subscription altogether due to worries about the BPI.

[Jelly]

As far as I know, cloned modem = cloned IP address.

[buckleb]

Originally Posted by Jelly

As far as I know, cloned modem = cloned IP address.

No, this can't be true. The cloned modem must have to pick up its IP address just like a legit one.

[Cobbydaler]

So would anybody pay £30 per year for legal downloads?

I would if the catalogue was huge & not limited to artists the industry wanted to promote to death...