Virgin Media Adopts Three-Strikes Rule for Illegal Downloads

[Starman]

he UK's largest residential broadband provider, Virgin Media, has announced its intention to introduce a warning system for those caught engaged in illegal downloading (piracy). It is expected to be very similar to the controversial "Three-Strikes" method proposed by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and will go live within the next few months.

Customers found to be involved with piracy could expect a warning and possible disconnection from their ISP if the activity continued:

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.

A spokesman for Virgin Media said: "We have been in discussions with rights holders organisations about how a voluntary scheme could work. We are taking this problem seriously and would favour a sensible voluntary solution."

The government has already threatened to introduce enforced legislation by April next year unless ISPs agree to some form of voluntary measures with the creative industries.

The Telegraph reports that the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform is due to publish its consultation paper outlining potential legal measures this April. Meanwhile, readers seeking to catch up on the issue should check out our recent "To Ban or Not to Ban (Illegal File Sharers)" special editorial summary on the subject.

ISPreview - Virgin Media Adopts Three-Strikes Rule for Illegal Downloads

 

[old.user4556]

I think it was only a matter of time before the squeeze happened

 

[Aesgir]

Fair enough, now if they are gonna start tackling copyright infringement, what they blame bandwidth hogging on, does that mean they are gonna stop throttling me at prime time for gaming?

 

[ECA]

IP infringement is a civil issue, not a criminal one.

Which means:fuckioff.

I hope Everyone leaves Virgin Media and shows them the error of their ways but too many sheep exist.

 

[gohan]

bit gash..... but means my brother will have to stop DLing shit all the fucking time and lagging me

only gay thing is on my Zen i ahve to DL stuff to watch as i can't transfer from a DvD onto it and bollox am i paying to DL in zen format when i already have it on Dvd

 

[Ch3tan]

IP infringement is a civil issue, not a criminal one.

Which means:fuckioff.

I hope Everyone leaves Virgin Media and shows them the error of their ways but too many sheep exist.

The problem is, leave and go to whom? Guarenteed the other isp's will follow suit.

 

[gohan]

The problem is, leave and go to whom? Guarenteed the other isp's will follow suit.

TISCALI

they wont follow suit, they also wont give you interweb that works but nvm

 

[old.user4556]

The problem is, leave and go to whom? Guarenteed the other isp's will follow suit.

Agreed; they'll all start to squeeze.

 

[ECA]

Also I dont think this changes much anyway, most nub donkeys use streams these days rather than more easily traceable peer 2 peer sources.

By this I mean more people will start streaming + better encryption on torrents.

 

[Yaka]

fucking ell is this also for usenet?

 

[Chilly]

IP infringement is a civil issue, not a criminal one.

Which means:fuckioff.

I hope Everyone leaves Virgin Media and shows them the error of their ways but too many sheep exist.

Er, why? They are trying to reduce illegal activity on their networks. It's perfectly reasonable and they can kick you off for any reason they like - they dont have to give you three chances.

As much as I dislike the way media distribution is currently handled, I still not try to fool myself that I have some right to get torrents and wouldn't blame any ISP for booting me if I were to do so and get caught.

 

[Draylor]

Good good, ban the stupid people, leave more bandwidth for the rest of us.

 

[MYstIC G]

Virgin haven't got a fucking clue what they're doing. Every mention of them is a publicity whoring exercise. Premium rate support, then back to national rate support, bandwidth caps, etc, etc.

Every time a thread appears about them however I'm more and more glad that I'm on Sky now.

 

[ECA]

Er, why? They are trying to reduce illegal activity on their networks. It's perfectly reasonable and they can kick you off for any reason they like - they dont have to give you three chances.

As much as I dislike the way media distribution is currently handled, I still not try to fool myself that I have some right to get torrents and wouldn't blame any ISP for booting me if I were to do so and get caught.

It's not illegal to slander you, or to libel you, but if you choose to you can sue me for damages.

When I call you a stupid fucking **** you could technically bring a lawsuit against me, but the police won't come and arrest me, and my ISP won't throw me offline. Yet Virgin Media is acting proactively on behalf of the rights holder?

Wanna know why?

It reduces their costs a ton.

 

[gunner440]

It's not illegal to slander you, or to libel you, but if you choose to you can sue me for damages.

When I call you a stupid fucking **** you could technically bring a lawsuit against me, but the police won't come and arrest me, and my ISP won't throw me offline. Yet Virgin Media is acting proactively on behalf of the rights holder?

Wanna know why?

It reduces their costs a ton.

Why should people get away with these illegal activities? I don't see anything wrong with what Virgin are doing. In fact, I'm happy they've taken these actions.

 

[ECA]

Why should people get away with these illegal activities? I don't see anything wrong with what Virgin are doing. In fact, I'm happy they've taken these actions.

[]Illegal
[x]Troll

 

[Scouse]

Jeez. I didn't know there were so many trolls on these forums


I'll wait until 3rd strike then move ISP...

 

[rynnor]

Actually I think Virgin media may be doing this to avoid a statutory solution - they dont want an expensive to police solution forced on them - instead they opt for a voluntary solution - ban a few tards - rights holders are happy and they can get on with making money...

 

[Dukat]

How will this be enforced without some sort of DPA-busting software to monitor everyone?

 

[DaGaffer]

How will this be enforced without some sort of DPA-busting software to monitor everyone?

They don't need to monitor everyone; they'll apply it selectively (which is easy enough) and make a few examples of people. Of course the big leechers will start using encrypted files which will make for some interesting court cases if VM have a pop at someone where they're not certain what the files actually are (but are guessing). Of course, they probably won't bother, and in true RIAA fashion will go after the easy targets.

Personally I think they're making a huge mistake. The ISPs have always maintained they are not responsible for the data carried over their networks, and are just the carrier (like the phone system); by doing this there is a tacit admission that they have responsibility for data, so next time some parent finds little Johnny looking at hardcore pr0n, they can theoretically sue the ISP.

 

[Dukat]

They don't need to monitor everyone; they'll apply it selectively (which is easy enough) and make a few examples of people. Of course the big leechers will start using encrypted files which will make for some interesting court cases if VM have a pop at someone where they're not certain what the files actually are (but are guessing). Of course, they probably won't bother, and in true RIAA fashion will go after the easy targets.

Personally I think they're making a huge mistake. The ISPs have always maintained they are not responsible for the data carried over their networks, and are just the carrier (like the phone system); by doing this there is a tacit admission that they have responsibility for data, so next time some parent finds little Johnny looking at hardcore pr0n, they can theoretically sue the ISP.

Isnt that what they do already? with the "going after the easy targets and making examples" bit.

By doing this, have Virgin set a precedent that the whole industry will be expected to follow?

arse

 

[DaGaffer]

Isnt that what they do already? with the "going after the easy targets and making examples" bit.

By doing this, have Virgin set a precedent that the whole industry will be expected to follow?

arse

Yes, but to date, the ISPs have only gone after people based on excessive bandwidth use, not based on the specific files they've been downloading. Its a fundamental change.

 

[Talivar]

So in theory someone that buys pc games online and downloads them legally , also downloads lots of demos and betas ect , maybe some movies from xbox live, this type of person could be in trouble since virgin cant actually see he is doing it all legally?

 

[ECA]

So in theory someone that buys pc games online and downloads them legally , also downloads lots of demos and betas ect , maybe some movies from xbox live, this type of person could be in trouble since virgin cant actually see he is doing it all legally?

Also add slingbox in there.

 

[DaGaffer]

So in theory someone that buys pc games online and downloads them legally , also downloads lots of demos and betas ect , maybe some movies from xbox live, this type of person could be in trouble since virgin cant actually see he is doing it all legally?

No, because most of that activity is trackable; however, Kontiki-based stuff like BBC iPlayer and 40D is more of a problem because that's legitimate P2P traffic. I'm no expert though, so I guess they will have white lists and black lists of P2P traffic (based on where the trackers are hosted?) Thing is, this kind of thing is always a battle and torrent devs are usually one step ahead.

 

[Draylor]

How will this be enforced without some sort of DPA-busting software to monitor everyone?

Nah, you are missing the point. Understandably, since the original article is shit and the folks replying to it so far are either clueless, or just too lazy to explain it to the stupid people

The rights holders are already complaining to the ISPs about individual customers, due to their monitoring of torrents etc. So far UK ISPs have 2 ways of handling these complaints: filing the in the bin, or occasionally forwarding them to the person concerned with 'please dont do it again or we wont be happy' cover notes.

They arent saying theyll start monitoring what their customers download themselves, only that theyll respond to the complaints they already receive by actually doing something.

And that, for anyone with a clue, is a good thing - since itll leave more bandwidth for the rest of us.

 

[DaGaffer]

Nah, you are missing the point. Understandably, since the original article is shit and the folks replying to it so far are either clueless, or just too lazy to explain it to the stupid people

The rights holders are already complaining to the ISPs about individual customers, due to their monitoring of torrents etc. So far UK ISPs have 2 ways of handling these complaints: filing the in the bin, or occasionally forwarding them to the person concerned with 'please dont do it again or we wont be happy' cover notes.

They arent saying theyll start monitoring what their customers download themselves, only that theyll respond to the complaints they already receive by actually doing something.

And that, for anyone with a clue, is a good thing - since itll leave more bandwidth for the rest of us.

Yeah, except that by making this formal, its only a matter of time before the rights holders can force the ISPs to do the grunt work on their behalf. This is my point, by accepting responsibility for the type of content their customers are seeing, they're setting themselves up for a world of trouble in the future. Although you could see this is as a good thing in the short term, as it may ease network congestion (although I doubt it, as legitimate P2P like iPlayer is proving to be a huge problem in its own right), in the long-term its not so good; once ISPs start getting sued by rights holders, or by customers, they're going to say they need tools to track customers in order to fulfil their legal obligations, and voila! the government gets the monitoring tools it wants.

 

[Draylor]

Theyve 2 choices DaGaffer, something along the lines of what Virgin are suggesting, or wait for the (clueless, corrupt) government to force them to do it.

Ill take this every time, otherwise thanks to the generous campaign contributions by the rights holders we'll have them writing the laws ...

 

[ECA]

It really sucks though, because the RIAA and MPAA dont want to do online distribution properly ( they want DVD prices with no extra cost... ) they are basically dicking the market over.

If you could buy a film for $5 online and download it and have your own library you'd cut out a HUGE % of copyright infringement, same for albums.

But they need to cut that DRM shit out so I can watch my film on my desktop, my laptop, stream to my TV etc.

And no I dont want to be locked into some shitty brand of music player and not be able to keep my downloaded and paid for library when I switch brand of hardware.

Its really quite simple, $5/film and $5/album, without restrictive DRM and they will

A) make more money
B) cut piracy

but C) they dont have the balls to do it.

 

[DaGaffer]

Theyve 2 choices DaGaffer, something along the lines of what Virgin are suggesting, or wait for the (clueless, corrupt) government to force them to do it.

Ill take this every time, otherwise thanks to the generous campaign contributions by the rights holders we'll have them writing the laws ...

Except the (clueless, corrupt) government would be guaranteed to implement something totally half-arsed and it would be ten years before it was workable (by which time we'll all be on fibre and the market will have fixed the problem). By doing it this way the government gets what it wants by the back door with no public oversight. I just don't think Virgin really appreciate how huge a pain in the arse this could turn out to be. There are good reasons why ISPs haven't bent over for the rights holders before now...