Virgin Media Adopts Three-Strikes Rule for Illegal Downloads

[rynnor]

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...

Well my take on it is that Virgin DO appreciate how much this could become a pain and that by making the right noises they wont really have to do as much as the rights holders want.

Other scenarios dont make sense and would hurt the company and its a common practice that many industry's looking to avoid statutory legislation employ by adopting voluntary schemes - advertisers/estate agents etc. etc.

 

[Draylor]

Except the (clueless, corrupt) government would be guaranteed to implement something totally half-arsed and it would be ten years before it was workable

Ill take a voluntary scheme that doesnt mean shit to me over the unknown every time.

 

[Tom]

My take on this:

BPI - "Hey, this bloke on your network is downloading stuff, do something!"

Virgin - "Dear Mr. Bloke. Please stop downloading illegal stuff or we'll do something. Thanks"

BPI - "Excellent!"

Virgin - "Dear Mr. Bloke. Are you interested in upgrading to 20MB broadband....."

 

[Dukat]

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.

If thats all it is then like you say, no biggie - The article is very vague though, makes it sound like something else altogether, like some sort of Phorm-esk monitoring software.

EDIT: all of this seems like bollocks anyway - it seems to me that they'll be doing pretty much exactly the same thing as they're already doing, just calling it something different and maybe being a little more harsh on the example cases that are stupid enough to continue after the "third strike".

 

[bob269]

A few years back a mate of mine on NTL received an email from them showing a list of movies he'd downloaded from Kazzaa and was told to stop.

Needless to say the scaremongering worked as he stopped using it.

 

[GReaper]

Is this going to be one rule for the BPI (and any other organisation large enough) and another rule for all other copyright holders?

So whilst the BPI is probably going to scan torrent sites and immediately report users IP addresses with barely enough evidence which wouldn't stand up in court, regular users who want to enforce copyright on their own works will probably end up ignored.

I don't want my ISP to be in bed with groups similar to the BPI.

 

[Sparx]

things kazaa work differently to torrents as far as i know. With torrents its a tunnel service so they wont be able to track what you are downloading. Utorrent works that way i believe

Could be wrong if i am then someone enlighten me

 

[bob269]

things kazaa work differently to torrents as far as i know. With torrents its a tunnel service so they wont be able to track what you are downloading. Utorrent works that way i believe

Could be wrong if i am then someone enlighten me

yeah i know about the encryption etc, just saying what they did

 

[Chilly]

there are a lot of fools using public unencrypted trackers. That will only get you into trouble. And there is nothing stopping a snoop connecting to a given cloud and harvesting IP addresses and filename even on encrypted links

 

[cHodAX]

TISCALI

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

You are very wrong, the goverment will enforce these rules upon all UK based ISP's if they don't do it voluntairily by June 2009. The big squeeze is coming so milk it while you can.

 

[Draylor]

The big squeeze is coming so get a clue while you can.

Fixed

 

[Raven]

I don't download all that much anymore tbh, mostly due to my connection being awful where I live in the sticks so can't say I care really, it will mean I buy far less music as I won't get the chance to listen to albums, not buying stuff on anyone's word because I don't like to waste money. I tend to buy my games now too

ah well, I Probably download as little as a gig a week "illegally" a couple of episodes of TV shows etc.

 

[Talivar]

Its Tv shows for me aswell, and tbh if virgin/sky gave us an option to watch US shows then i probally would do it legally. I just dont think its fair we wait upto a year or more sometimes to MAYBE get to watch some great shows.

 

[DaGaffer]

You are very wrong, the goverment will enforce these rules upon all UK based ISP's if they don't do it voluntairily by June 2009. The big squeeze is coming so milk it while you can.

No, the government will try. This is the latest battle in a long war where the forces of IP and the law are always a couple of steps behind the filesharers. If this becomes a serious issue the filesharing techies will come up with a new wheeze. The BPI will still see their revenues drop, the great unwashed will still be getting free stuff and the ISPs will still see their data traffic rise. Any crackdown that relies on the rights holder identifying the file sharer then getting his or her ISP to send a nasty letter is doomed to failure, not least because the ISP is bound to get it wrong now and then and some little old lady will appear on Watchdog or in the Daily Hate talking about how evil Virgin made her have a heart attack and she doesn't even know what a "MP3" is.

 

[GReaper]

This entire fucking thing started because of Paul McGuinness (the U2 manager) suggested that ISPs should become responsible for users actions and tried to convince others about it too.

Just how would they expect it to operate fairly? What if some evil monitoring service accused me of file sharing when I did no such thing? The entire reason that they haven't rushed to legislate something like this is because it's damn awkward to implement and enforce. Organisations such as the BPI just want to click their fingers and expect ISPs to do the dirty work for them, trying to create at atmosphere of fear for the end user.

Instead of dealing with it themselves they're trying to abuse their dominant position to try and maximise their profit. The days of easy money from music have gone and they need to get over it instead and adapt.

 

[bob269]

Virgin are denying this, obviously it was a cheap marketing ploy from Carphone Warehouse

 

[Yaka]

BBC NEWS | Technology | Europe rejects anti-piracy plans

 

[Draylor]

Just means the bribes havent been flowing at EU level - yet.

Thatll change now that theyve asked.

 

[bob269]

BBC NEWS | Technology | Europe rejects anti-piracy plans

Yay another freddyshouse sponsored bbc link

Virgin already denied such reports 2 weeks back

Virgin Media Denies Doing a Deal to Disconnect Pirates | TorrentFreak

So if its law or not this thread was dead from day 1

 

[Jarakin]

Will programs like PeerGuardian help block the ISP from singling out traffic routing through to you? I tend to leave that on whenever I'm signed on to the net, it's amazing how many unwanted/unnecessary connections it catches...

 

[Draylor]

heh

no

 

[megadave]

I use rapidshare to download and i seem to get away with everything now

 

[Tom]

You are aware that Virgin Media have plans to throttle certain applications? Not only will they cap your connection if you exceed so many gigs in a day, now they're planning to put the brakes on specific applications.

You can guess which.

Oh and check this out

Virgin Media CEO: Net neutrality is "bollocks," promises to breach agreement with customers - Boing Boing

 

[GReaper]

More anti-VM news.

They're doing trials for even longer traffic management (from 11am to 9pm) in various areas of the country (details at NEW stm - Virgin Broadband - Digital Spy Forums).

They've also made it onto the front pages of Slashdot and Digg.

I've never known an ISP who has attempted to destroy their own reputation so quickly. The Virgin Media brand only started just over 1 year ago and they've come up with so much shit it's unbelievable.

Trying to switch to BT/bethere as soon as possible.

 

[svartalf]

The Virgin umbrella encompasses a gargantuan cluster of shit companies. But hey! Branston's smiling, and he's got some slick adverts, so everything's cool! Right?

 

[Zarjazz]

Well personally I'm proud to be in the top 5% of customers / leechers @ Vigin Media who get rate capped every day!

Is my average of 12 GB download a day really too much ?

 

[Trem]

Well personally I'm proud to be in the top 5% of customers / leechers @ Vigin Media who get rate capped every day!

Is my average of 12 GB download a day really too much ?

Most days I don't get close to 12gb and they still cap me after 5pm.

I would ring and complain but we all know where that will get me.

 

[bob269]

Most days I don't get close to 12gb and they still cap me after 5pm

You are currently capped after 4pm for exceeding 3gig. Altho lately i've not seen speeds above 10meg in the evenings regardless of how much you've downloaded.

 

[Trem]

Even if I don't touch the poota I get capped in the evening.

Wankers tbh.

 

[Jarakin]

Im currently with UKFSN - reseller of Entanet, have completely unmanaged 8MB down/800k up. Monthly 40 gig limit from 8 am-10pm, 350 gig limit from 10pm - 8 am. Costs me £30 a month tho, thinking of switching to UKOnline's local LLU service which is unlimited, non-shaped with no FUP, £5 cheaper and up to 16MB max on ADSL2... they use the same reseller as sky.