BPI and Virgin Media Agree to Start Warning Uploaders
Written by enigmax on June 06, 2008The British Phonographic Industry and UK ISP Virgin Media have done a deal which will see thousands of file-sharers getting warnings. The BPI will use its resources to track file sharers and will then hand the information to Virgin who will send out their own warnings to the customer along with a letter from the BPI.
In 2008, the ‘three-strikes-and-you’re-out’ concept has been gathering pace around the globe. Get caught uploading three times, and the anti-piracy groups would like your Internet connection disconnected. Unsurprisingly, most people aren’t that keen on this plan, and ISPs who revealed to be considering such systems have received lots of bad press.
In the UK and at the forefront of this controversy has been Virgin Media. Various reports suggested that Virgin would implement the 3-strikes policy with the BPI but this proved very unpopular and it took just a few days for Virgin to deny any such deal had been struck.
Undeterred, the BPI has carried on working with Virgin who, according to a Music Week report, have now agreed to some sort of halfway-house. Virgin will not (yet) disconnect persistent uploaders, but after receiving information from the BPI about users making unauthorized uploads, Virgin Media will start sending out warning letters along with ‘educational’ advice about how to ensure that the customer’s account isn’t ‘misused’. Included in the advice will be links to authorized music sources, along with the usual fear mongering about viruses and spyware.
In this 10-week trial, along with the letter from Virgin, the subscriber will also receive a warning letter from the BPI. It will state that persistent offenders will be disconnected and/or taken to court, despite the fact that Virgin appears to be refusing to disconnect users so far.
BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor said: “Virgin Media is the first ISP to publicly address the problem. It is a socially responsible ISP and I think other ISPs will look at this and see progress. I am very encouraged they have engaged with us. They understand the rights of musicians.”
A Virgin Media spokesman added: “We want people to enjoy music online without infringing the rights of musicians and music companies. This campaign is about helping our customers understand how they can do this.”
It’s unclear what the BPI strategy will be on this but to really put Virgin under pressure, it will probably decide to put IP-addresses it collects into a database. This way it would be easy to flag IP-addresses that had already been ‘caught’ before, and put these IPs forward to Virgin as persistent users - prime candidates for disconnection. Virgin Media (unlike comparable ADSL ISPs in the UK) hand out static IP addresses, so most users will be an easy target as they display the same IP address all the time. But for those Virgin customers with a router, simply changing the MAC address of the unit will force Virgin to hand over a new IP, which then offers the user the same perceived ‘protection’ as a dynamic IP ISP.
So at the end of it all lies a very large inconsistency. If a casual uploader simply gets a warning from the BPI/Virgin and only persistent, regularly-caught users MIGHT be disconnected or MIGHT get taken to court (in a civil action, of course), why has the BPI ignored all of these things while effectively directing the police that the recently arrested uploaders from OiNK should be treated as serious criminals?
TorrentFreak knows that at least two of those accused uploaded just a single album. Persistent? Hardly. Conspiring to Defraud? Give us a break.
Where were their friendly, education-based warnings from the ISP?
Update:The Register ran a piece and are also hosting copies of the letters that will be sent out to users. You can find the Virgin letter here and the BPI letter here.
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92 Responses
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If broadband isn’t for downloading content then what is it for?
So users will now have to some how check the copyright status of everything they download or play safe and stick to the BBC iplayer.
Unbelievable!
****SPAM REMOVED****
Bye virgin you cunts, getting rid of you as soon as I can and will use UK2 free dialup, slow but i can do what the bloody hell i like
So the best advice would be… Flee from this provider as fast as you can! Make them suffer! You pay them! Repeat that to yourself cause they think it’s their customers who need them and not the other way around. After all they are living good lives off the money you pay for your so-called flat-rates…!!!
Fuck you Virgin (hrhr) you’re not the police…
Fuck Branson and his coterie.
f.u.c.k. branson and his coterie.
how exactly are they going to find out what you have shared?
F U :)
the scissors are on the virgin line… snip
@4 do some research - they track you by connecting using a bittorrent program. Your ISP shows up as participating in sharing a given file, they grab the ISP and send it to VM who then forwards the letters to you. They avoid the Data Protection rights issue by not informing the BPI of who you are… although it is arguable (in law) about whether we have the right to privacy given issues of legality in the first place.
> how exactly are they going to find
> out what you have shared?
Hmmm, let me think. By doing the exact same thing people who download from you have to do? Are you really that clueless or just trolling around?
And in other new BPI and Virgin Media shares plunged sharply following a sell-off by investors, realising fears that customers would dump the ailing companies.
SELL! SELL! SELL!
i’m glad i didn’t go with virgin :) i nearly did. there’s gonna be some fucking exodus going on right there.
Bye bye Virgin Media.
“Get caught uploading three times … ”
In reality, uploading has virtually nothing to do with getting a copyright infringement notice.
You can get an infringement notice if your IP address gets harvested off a torrent tracker or ED2K server. If using a “classic” P2P network, revealing a shared file list (even if you aren’t actually sharing any of the listed files) can also land you an infringement notice.
So in many situations, you can get hit with these infringement accusations without even sharing or uploading anything.
Virgin have a monopoly on the cable network, thus some people will be incapable of changing ISP if they live in an area where ADSL is particularly slow.
Well its simple…
Everyone who downloads stuff will just go to another Internet provider.
Virgin Media loses crap loads of money, no other internet provider will do the same as they wouldnt want to lose customers.
Virgin Media dies, everyone else lives.
Happy Days!
If you can’t switch and have VM, you’re really fucked. I hope LOTS and LOTS of people dump their VM line so they will notice what the hell they are fucking with. VM, they are your main customers ffs!
Next will be other major UK providers; Pipex, BT, Talktalk, AOL etc. I hate to admit defeat but it’s my honest belief that filesharing will soon have no place in the UK. This really sucks…
ADSL isnt ‘particularly’ slow in many areas of england, apart from out in the sticks. Cable users are just greedy :D.
Virgin do have a bit of a monopoly though so i can see them losing a lot of business over this…
Well, I have been a happy customer with Virgin for well over 3 years now and will be cutting the cord as soon as this hits the public.
Sorry virgin but I won’t be dealing with people who fold in to every request any fool throws at them.
@14
I don’t think this is true, I’m sure someone will bring out new technology to mask incoming/outgoing I.Ps it’s just a matter of time.
@14
carphone warehouse have already said they won’t give customers’ details over, therefore talktalk should be safe for the moment.
if they do sell out to the BPI then
there are bound to be smaller ISPs who will pop up to offer unrestricted uploading… until there is legislation to stop them.
Lol, Virgin Media is gonna go dooowwwnnnnn the drain.
They’re hugely failing with customer service right now, and they’ve decide to start doing this? WOW, they’re actually TRYING to be failures.
Virgin Media can’t even get Caller ID in all areas yet, the only thing they have going for them is that they’re still using the ineffective Nagravision 1 to encrypt their second rate TV service.
Listen as long as prices for any product big company make are that big ..ppl will keep downloading/uploading stuff. Filesharing will never stop nor do the companies have a fair chance of stopping this.
If products were lowered in price ppl would of course buy the real product instead of downloading..its common knowledge. After all having a real product with cover and everything is much better than have to download something via p2p. Wake up and lower the prices on products you money greeding cakeboys..you’re disgusting.
Ill share till i die…!
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