Virgin Media (UK ISP) to crack down on illegal downloads

[TheInsideMan]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/03/30/cnvirgin130.xml

Virgin Media looks set to become the first British internet company to crack down on customers who download music illegally.

Record labels are lobbying for a "three strikes" regime that would see those who collect pirated material disconnected from the internet, and the government is expected next month to consult on how such curbs could be legally enforced.

Music trade body the BPI is working with Virgin on a pilot which could see dozens of customers sent warning letters.

The trial by the UK's largest residential broadband supplier will go live within months and disconnecting customers who ignore warnings, a sanction favoured by the record BPI, remains an option. The trial will also be open to film and television studios.

This would be the first time a British internet company has publicly moved to share responsibility for curbing piracy. Two years of negotiations between record labels and internet service providers (ISPs) have so far failed to produce an industry-wide agreement.

And so it begins....

 

[Bob The Skutter]

There's been something similar going on on my ISP for a while now. If you get caught they disconnect you. If you sign a form saying you apollogise and won't do it again they reconnect you, if it happens again you have to pay £30 to get reconnected, and then I think 3rd time they won't let you back on.

 

[Deleted 2]

Isn't Virgin also a record label, albeit small?

 

[TheInsideMan]

There's been something similar going on on my ISP for a while now. If you get caught they disconnect you. If you sign a form saying you apollogise and won't do it again they reconnect you, if it happens again you have to pay £30 to get reconnected, and then I think 3rd time they won't let you back on.

I'm curious, which ISP is that?

I wonder how this going to work. How are they going to detect illegal downloads which are encrypted, by people using IP filters?

 

[Bob The Skutter]

There's been something similar going on on my ISP for a while now. If you get caught they disconnect you. If you sign a form saying you apollogise and won't do it again they reconnect you, if it happens again you have to pay £30 to get reconnected, and then I think 3rd time they won't let you back on.

I'm curious, which ISP is that?

I wonder how this going to work. How are they going to detect illegal downloads which are encrypted, by people using IP filters?

Karoo, provided by Kingston Communications only available in Hull. I don't know if they do the same thing on Eclipse, their service outside Hull.

 

[Pingfah]

Isn't Virgin also a record label, albeit small?

Its not that small, it owns other record companies too, like Hut who have a very big roster of talent. It also has TV stations here too now. If your point was that they have a vested interest in stopping filesharing, then you are right.

 

[Pingfah]

There's been something similar going on on my ISP for a while now. If you get caught they disconnect you. If you sign a form saying you apollogise and won't do it again they reconnect you, if it happens again you have to pay £30 to get reconnected, and then I think 3rd time they won't let you back on.

I'm curious, which ISP is that?

I wonder how this going to work. How are they going to detect illegal downloads which are encrypted, by people using IP filters?

You mean like Peerguardian? They can't block your own ISPs IP addresses or your internet connection wouldn't work.

 

[TheInsideMan]

Isn't Virgin also a record label, albeit small?

Its not that small, it owns other record companies too, like Hut who have a very big roster of talent. It also has TV stations here too now. If your point was that they have a vested interest in stopping filesharing, then you are right.

The ironic thing is, this would help out Sky a lot more than Virgin.

Thanks to Sky TV and Virgin Media being unable to come to terms regarding the value of Sky Basic channels in March last year, Sky withdrew those channels (Sky One included) from Virgin. Sky One shows US imports like nBSG, Lost, and The Simpsons.

Virgin TV customers unable or unwilling to switch to Sky have had the option of downloading the shows via their cable broadband connections.....but perhaps, not for much longer. Cue more TV customers for Sky.

 

[Count Zero]

But doesn't that mean that the ISP has to control what you're doing on the internet? I don't see any other way of identifying copyrighted material. How can such a total surveillance be legal?

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Isn't Virgin also a record label, albeit small?

Its not that small, it owns other record companies too, like Hut who have a very big roster of talent. It also has TV stations here too now. If your point was that they have a vested interest in stopping filesharing, then you are right.

The ironic thing is, this would help out Sky a lot more than Virgin.

Thanks to Sky TV and Virgin Media being unable to come to terms regarding the value of Sky Basic channels in March last year, Sky withdrew those channels (Sky One included) from Virgin. Sky One shows US imports like nBSG, Lost, and The Simpsons.

Virgin TV customers unable or unwilling to switch to Sky have had the option of downloading the shows via their cable broadband connections.....but perhaps, not for much longer. Cue more TV customers for Sky.

Apparently they're back in talks over the channels.

 

[TheInsideMan]

Its not that small, it owns other record companies too, like Hut who have a very big roster of talent. It also has TV stations here too now. If your point was that they have a vested interest in stopping filesharing, then you are right.

The ironic thing is, this would help out Sky a lot more than Virgin.

Thanks to Sky TV and Virgin Media being unable to come to terms regarding the value of Sky Basic channels in March last year, Sky withdrew those channels (Sky One included) from Virgin. Sky One shows US imports like nBSG, Lost, and The Simpsons.

Virgin TV customers unable or unwilling to switch to Sky have had the option of downloading the shows via their cable broadband connections.....but perhaps, not for much longer. Cue more TV customers for Sky.

Apparently they're back in talks over the channels.

They've been saying that for a year now. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to be resolved.

VM have made it clear that they are focusing on their 'hero' product, Broadband, since the current broadcast rules make it next to impossible to compete with Sky for premium TV content.

It doesn't help either that Sky wanted 3x more money from VM for Sky Basics, while Sky wanted to pay next to £0.00 for VM's channels, despite Sky One's ratings falling through the floor while ratings for VM channels like Living have actually gone up.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Apparently they're back in talks over the channels.

They've been saying that for a year now. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to be resolved.

Apparently it was a new development at the beginning of this month. Because of their 4th quarter results.

 

[TheInsideMan]

But doesn't that mean that the ISP has to control what you're doing on the internet? I don't see any other way of identifying copyrighted material. How can such a total surveillance be legal?

I'm sure there's loads of EU Data Protection laws which the UK Government seem willing to walk over in order to enforce this scheme.

 

[TheInsideMan]

Apparently they're back in talks over the channels.

They've been saying that for a year now. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to be resolved.

Apparently it was a new development at the beginning of this month. Because of their 4th quarter results.

The recent management changes at Sky and VM may help with the return of Sky Basics to VM, but even then, I doubt if Sky would let VM put Sky One in VM's basic TV package. That was one of Sky's conditions - put Sky One in the XL TV pack only.

 

[Pingfah]

But doesn't that mean that the ISP has to control what you're doing on the internet? I don't see any other way of identifying copyrighted material. How can such a total surveillance be legal?

I'm sure there's loads of EU Data Protection laws which the UK Government seem willing to walk over in order to enforce this scheme.

I'm not sure if it will be legal or not frankly, if not, that will be something in our favour.

It is easy for them to identify filesharing traffic and throttle it without looking at the individual files themselves though. And its a pretty fair bet that any traffic being transmitted using filesharing protocols is going to be illegal.

 

[TheInsideMan]

But doesn't that mean that the ISP has to control what you're doing on the internet? I don't see any other way of identifying copyrighted material. How can such a total surveillance be legal?

I'm sure there's loads of EU Data Protection laws which the UK Government seem willing to walk over in order to enforce this scheme.

I'm not sure if it will be legal or not frankly, if not, that will be something in our favour.

It is easy for them to identify filesharing traffic and throttle it without looking at the individual files themselves though. And its a pretty fair bet that any traffic being transmitted using filesharing protocols is going to be illegal.

Since when?

BBC iPlayer and Channel 4's VOD system use P2P systems right now, as will the proposed 'Project Kangaroo' service. They can't blindly think 'P2P traffic = Pirate!!'.

 

[Count Zero]

It is easy for them to identify filesharing traffic and throttle it without looking at the individual files themselves though. And its a pretty fair bet that any traffic being transmitted using filesharing protocols is going to be illegal.

Actually, those protocols are becoming more and more attractive to those that provide legal downloads and applications as they reduce server load enormously. Apart from that, many open source and creative commons downloads have been available in this form for years. In fact, I just read a big America ISP retracted its policy of throttling p2p-traffic.

I wonder, though: Wouldn't this 3 strike policy have to be agreed with by the users? After all, it's a massive change in the contract originally signed. And what happens if you refuse to accept it?

 

[Pingfah]

I'm sure there's loads of EU Data Protection laws which the UK Government seem willing to walk over in order to enforce this scheme.

I'm not sure if it will be legal or not frankly, if not, that will be something in our favour.

It is easy for them to identify filesharing traffic and throttle it without looking at the individual files themselves though. And its a pretty fair bet that any traffic being transmitted using filesharing protocols is going to be illegal.

Since when?

BBC iPlayer and Channel 4's VOD system use P2P systems right now, as will the proposed 'Project Kangaroo' service. They can't blindly think 'P2P traffic = Pirate!!'.

I know it's used for legal purposes, but the vast majority of it is illegal. That's why I said "fair bet".

And yes, they do blindly think P2P = pirate, that's the whole problem.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I'm sure there's loads of EU Data Protection laws which the UK Government seem willing to walk over in order to enforce this scheme.

I'm not sure if it will be legal or not frankly, if not, that will be something in our favour.

It is easy for them to identify filesharing traffic and throttle it without looking at the individual files themselves though. And its a pretty fair bet that any traffic being transmitted using filesharing protocols is going to be illegal.

Since when?

BBC iPlayer and Channel 4's VOD system use P2P systems right now, as will the proposed 'Project Kangaroo' service. They can't blindly think 'P2P traffic = Pirate!!'.

And BBC and various other EU broadcasters are currently researching ways to run P2P streaming video services too.

 

[Vendikarr]

I wonder, though: Wouldn't this 3 strike policy have to be agreed with by the users? After all, it's a massive change in the contract originally signed. And what happens if you refuse to accept it?

I don't know how they do it in the U.K., but in the U.S., the providers usually include language in their contracts that the terms of service can change at any time at the discretion of the provider, and that continued use of the service is implied as agreement with these changes.

Big changes are usually mailed out in booklets with extremely small print that you have to use a microscope to read.