IFPI: ISPs Should Block BitTorrent and The Pirate Bay
Written by Ernesto on December 26, 2007The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is trying to convince European lawmakers that ISPs should take extreme measures to fight piracy. They suggest that ISPs should block access to websites such as The Pirate Bay, and block filesharing protocols, no matter what they’re being used for.
The IFPI - the anti-piracy organization that represents the recording industry worldwide - sees ISPs as one of their biggest enemies. “ISPs often advertise music as a benefit of signing up to their service, but facilitate the illegal swapping of copyright infringing music on a grand scale,” they said previously. In an attempt to restrict the Internet, the anti-pirates have sent a list of three absurd recommendations to the EU parliament.
Earlier this year the IFPI won a case against the Belgian ISP Scarlet. In this case the judge ruled that ISPs can be forced to either block or filter copyright infringing content on P2P networks. At the time, IFPI Chairman and CEO John Kennedy said: “This is a decision that we hope will set the mould for government policy and for courts in other countries in Europe and around the world.” That’s exactly what they are trying to do now.
None of the measures below are overly burdensome or expensive, or cause problems for regular services to customers, says the IFPI. Here’s what they recommend:
Content filtering
The IFPI suggests that ISPs should identify music files on their network and check them against a reference database of “audio fingerprints” to check whether the files are infringing copyright. This might work on Kazaa, but it is not clear what methods the ISP will have to implement to distinguish between copyright infringing and legal content on P2P networks, such as BitTorrent. That will be a tough job, if not, impossible.
Protocol Blocking
According to the IFPI, an easy but effective solution is to simply block all P2P protocols and forget about all the indie publishers that use it to share legal content, for free. If customers can’t use BitTorrent or any other filesharing protocol piracy will decline, and that’s basically all they care about.
Blocking access to infringing websites
What better way to censor the Internet than to block entire websites, especially The Pirate Bay. The IFPI tried to block websites before - last year they convinced a Swedish ISP (Perspectiv) that it was a good idea to block allofmp3. However, after The Pirate Bay decided to block all Perspectiv’s customers from its site, they backed down, re-enabled access to allofmp3 - and apologized.
These recommendations might seem absurd, but Heise.de reports that the IFPI has already convinced several European politicians to support these measures. Next month, The Committee on Culture and Education from the European parliament will discuss if these recommendations should be turned into European policy.
There is little doubt that it will cause quite a stir if they are.
(via P2P Blog)
Previously: Christmas Brings Freedom and Hope for Jailed BitTorrent Admin
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Content filtering - Use an existing protocol (or client) that enables encryption.
Protocol blocking - Introduce obfuscation into the protocols used. This will render protocol blocking useless unless they want to terminate the entire internet
Access blocking - the EFF already countered this by stating that this is introducing a police state. Who determines where you can go and where you can’t?
There’s noway this can happen…Everybody knows there is so much people in p2p that someone will find a way to go around all this.
Keep_your_insane_laws_on_your_own_side!
Better thell the Europarliament that this can’t happen. They voted to implement IPRED2 which basically turns ISPs into criminals if a user does something illegal with a download (Youtube is also a criminal organisation as well according to this directive).
When will they ever learn?
There’s only one solution:
Ban the internet!
What about all the open source software that is free to download using BitTorrent?
I run Linux, I like that I can spread the load by using BitTorrent when I download a new distro’.
And all perfectly legal!
I also distribute a free DVD I made using BitTorrent.
Bloody capitalists, they will always try to keep good caring and sharing people down.
Who cares? Restriction will only lead to innovation… this will seriously backfire on all of them, they will be sorry, soon enough, if this goes through.
WHAT THE HELL do these cocksuckers think they are, some sort of global authority with executive, legislative or legal powers? They are merely a shitty umbrella-corporation for modern waylayers and innovation-leeches, professionals for extortion and fraud. ROT IN FUCKING HELL.
[quote]WHAT THE HELL do these cocksuckers think they are, some sort of global authority with executive, legislative or legal powers?[/quote]
Yeah - it’s called capitalism.
The death of major labels is coming, and it will be celebrated throughout the whole world.
These guys are a bunch of fucking shitholes. I hope they are being hacked and their demise is being prepared as we speak. I really don’t see this happening though, ISP’s will lost tons of customers if they follow through with this.
Even if by some miracle they get this to happen there will just be new or encrypted protocols.
I can just say the politicians here in Germany have to fear for their jobs ! The small parties are going smash the big ones in the next elections. The people are unsatisfied with this great coalition.
Prepare to get fired politicians !
You are annoying us !
Well, i live in Denmark, and i think this could very well, become a reality here, we got these crappy kapitalist politicians, they say: “Yes we promise to lower taxes, but in return we will give you even better healthcare and so on, but it will be cheaper than ever before!!!!ONE11!!!”, no way in fucking hell is that possible…!
Anyways, we already got an ISP in Denmark who was forced by law to restrict access to allofmp3, and then almost every other ISP got scared and blocked it too :(
Ernesto, a very OT question but I’ve always wondered why. I’ve seen it elsewhere too (like Cisco web course), so it must be some kind of reason to do it?
What I’m wondering is why type a caption in the middle between 2 paragraphs?
IMO it just makes text harder to read.
example:
“…recommend:
<>
The IFPI suggests th…”
Let’s shoot the politicians and all those motherfuckers riia mppa ifpi whatever they must go away like the dinosaurs
Lol, I bet that within 24 hours, someone has come up with something that goes around this anyway, why bother? Stupid IFPI people.
In a worst case scenario, the end user would get a shell acct capable of handling their bandwidth. Then, just tunnel through the shell acct. Would cost an extra ~$10/mth.
Merry Christmas all!, Go Fuck Santa MAFIAAS shitHEADS….
Well first I think that we Finns use lot off bad words but now I know how wrong I was… but Hamster is right,
WHAT THE HELL do these cocksuckers think they are, some sort of global authority with executive, legislative or legal powers? They are merely a shitty umbrella-corporation for modern waylayers and innovation-leeches, professionals for extortion and fraud. ROT IN FUCKING HELL.
These guys are a bunch of fucking shitholes.
@13 Lars
If I understand it correct Denmark has already implemented the IPRED 1 which makes all isp and telecom companies track all the citizien.
All your internet traffic is surveillanced and all your mobilephone calls.
Sweden is about to implement it soon, the government is discussing it now and a lot of ppl is doing everything to stop it.
Contact your local politicians and tell them this is a very, very bad way to go ahead.
/Perty
What these rocket scientists don’t realize, its the people paying the ISP’s, not them. For ISP’s to survive, they need clients, clients needs service, pure and simple. Linux distro’s and all sorts of free software gets distributed via BitTorrent. If you ask me, these entertainment companies must make a deal with the internet service providers. Instead of paying for your cable company, pay your ISP. And the IFPI wont ever win, there are far more intelligent people, and much faster thinkers out there. Moral of the story, get with the program. Its people that drives the people, not organizations. Successful companies, gives the people what they want!
Well, just dont vote for those politicians next time.
block bittorrent lol, will it will stop piracy?…no, it will hurt more the legit stuff rather than piracy as it will just be available more for DDL(piracy stuff). The IFPI should realize that there are actually a lot of legit ppl who use bittorrent and blocking them would turn the net into a waste land. Blamming ISP’s?…wth. Why should ISP’s care as it is their customers who download the content, not them nor should they have to spend their time trying to regulate their customers. They are an organization btw in the competitive business and steering their customers away from them interferes with their business to keep their competitive edge. Why should they waste their own money and lose customers just cause the IFPI want money. The net ppl have already changed when bitorrent came out, isn’t it time for the IFPI to change and create a way to profit from the net or if this their current tactic LOL.
Firstly, let me wish every illegal downloader, P2P’er, and pirate a merry Christmas, and I hope that there are even more richer pickings for us all to plunder in 2008.
I am sick to death of the attempts by the shitheads in the IFPI, the MPAA and the RIAA and others in their employ to control every aspect of what we can and cannot download. I say to them all “FUCK YOU!!!” I care nothing for them or the laws which they have bought. The sooner those bastards go the way of the dodo the better.
In my own way I have been doing my bit for piracy - a few months ago I started giving away copies of my entire music collection to anyone who wanted it. It is currently comprised of over 220 albums ripped at 192 Kbps and takes up just over 17 GB and I can fit it all on 5 DVD-R’s. I have not asked for nor received even one single penny for my efforts - I am doing this so that I may help in the destruction of entities such as the IFPI. My distribution method is a simple, filter-proof one - I place the DVD-R’s in an envelope with the recipients name on it and I then leave the package with the barman at my local watering hole. My only instructions to the recipients is to make at least one copy of the collection and pass it on to someone else who shall do the same, etc, etc. And I’ve just recently added Led Zeppelin’s ‘Mothership’ and Dire Straits’ ‘Private Investigations’ to the collection too. I would encourage others to do the same as myself in addition to your P2P work.
God bless Pirates, good luck and have a happy new year.
Christmas is a hoax
Holiday are made by these so called
lawmakers so that we spend money on useless stuff
Great for big business
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