Japanese ISPs Agree to Ban Pirates from the Internet
Written by enigmax on March 15, 2008Following a huge increase in complaints from the music, movie and software industries, the four major Japanese ISP organizations have agreed that they will work with copyright holders to track down copyright infringing file-sharers and disconnect them from the internet.
In 2006, a Japanese ISP decided to plan measures to stop their subscribers using file-sharing software, by tracking their activities and disconnecting them from the Internet. The plan didn’t come to fruition as the government stepped in and said that such monitoring might have privacy implications.
Now, under huge pressure from the movie, music and software industries, the four major ISP organizations in Japan are at it again, and have agreed to take drastic action against online pirates.
According to the report in Yomiuri Shimbun, the agreement would see copyright holders tracking down file-sharers on the Internet using “special detection software” and then notifying ISPs of alleged infringers. ISPs would first send out emailed warnings to those traced, then interrupt the Internet connection if action to cease the activity isn’t taken. For persistent breaches, the ISP would ultimately terminate the accounts of its subscribers.
These four major ISP organizations - which include Telecom Service Association and the Telecommunications Carriers Association - are made up of around 1,000 other ISPs, a large portion of the Japanese market. In collaboration with the copyright holders, the ISPs will set up a panel in April to decide exactly how the system should operate.
Right now, there is a lot discussion surrounding the suggestion that persistent file-sharers could be banned from the internet. So far there have been proposals in France, the UK and Australia.
During December last year we reported that the number of internet users file-sharing in Japan had increased by a 180% in a single year.
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You cannot ban me from the internet. The internet is my ocean and I will freely sail it for the rest of my life. If you want to be free, join me and fight for what you believe in.
> Filesharing is under attack in every
> place around the world. We file
> sharers need unity - not prejudice
>- in these times.
Wen need to organize since our enemy is organized. We need to quickly identify providers that try to censor out private information exchange. We need to leave them in thousands and hurt their MI friendly businesses. On the other side, we need to support providers that take our side and join them in thousands.
Any provider pigs that actively conduct MI friendly censorship need to go bankrupt. Quickly. To set a mark for other providers not to fuck with their customers and censor their communication. They live off our fees and have to serve us as we dictate. If they think that the MI is a better client than filesharers, they should try doing business without filesharers and with filesharers informing their friends and families of the censorship going on.
The moves the industry made in the last few years seem rather suicidal. Now obviously the providers decided to join the suicide train with no obvious goal. Like tha nazis who already 1942 knew they will lose the war, but kept killing and fighting for no obvious reason.
woah i’m gonna start a broadband company in japan without these restrictions and tell the other companies to fuck off and i’ll get rich in no time..
[quote comment="312009"]sure kiddy porn is fine there but they do this? Those wacky chinks…[/quote]
If you’re going to racialy slur a nation at least get it right dumbass, it’s Nips. Chinks are Chinese, not Japanese.
The entertainment industry in Japan needs to stop being so stupid. In Japan it is far more expensive to buy anime so it might be the same for music and software. To buy an anime dvd it costs about $30 for 1-2 episodes of a series.
They wouldn’t be losing so much business if they didn’t rip people off so much.
JAPANESE PORN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is really stupid.
By stopping low level “crime” they are decreasing the price of technologies/increasing the availablity of technologies that make it harder to tracker higher level crime on the net.
If they kick out all the people that fileshares, where the hell do they think they can sell high-speed? Do you need 16Mbit to check your email?
they eat cats
Thats great news, fuck thieving pirates.
VIVA LA GFY.COM
[quote comment="312091"][quote comment="312009"]sure kiddy porn is fine there but they do this? Those wacky chinks…[/quote]
Stay on topic. The readers of torrent freak are not here to entertain your racist misconceptions.
Filesharing is under attack in every place around the world. We file sharers need unity - not prejudice - in these times.[/quote]
Heh, maybe we all can ban together and protest to the people in charge of such things for a compromise (kinda like anon with Scientology)
After all, what makes a country is the people. There can surly be a way to legitimize file sharing.
I would also like to add it would have to be the common people who help legitimize it, not big corporations doing it for us.
Again, sorry if I don’t make much sense. I’m terrible with words.
Cox here in the U.S. does the exact same thing. They temporarily shut off my internet about a month ago because Paramount complained I was seeding Sweeney Todd. They told me if it happened repeatedly they’d shut it off permanently.
[quote comment="312114"][quote comment="312009"]sure kiddy porn is fine there but they do this? Those wacky chinks…[/quote]
If you’re going to racialy slur a nation at least get it right dumbass, it’s Nips. Chinks are Chinese, not Japanese.[/quote]
seriously get your racial slurs right because you made yourself look like a major idiot.
The entertainment and software industries are powerful and have lots of money. Face it. Most of the people who share files do not have money and that is why the are “sharing”. If it is copyrighted material that is shared, it is illegal. More individuals in these industries are demanding their share of the pie from electronic media. Expect more crackdowns as the companies try to maximize their profits. More web crawling software. More lawsuits. Lawyers REALLY like money too.
This won’t hurt the ISP’s like you guys think it will. Only a fraction of the customers are in this hardcore. The casual uploaders/downloaders will probably stop, and everyone else (the majority) won’t be affected at all.
People need to stop being in denial about privacy issues as well. You have no privacy NOW. All of you file sharers that start making noise about your “rights” are just attracting attention to yourselves in a very bad way. Privacy does not trump profit, especially when the “privacy proponents” are just using that argument as a cover for illegal activities.
Some of the previous commentors seem to be confused.
This ISP is NOT doing the detection, it is the copyright holder that must NOTIFY THE ISP. No, the ISP isn’t going to watch your traffic for p2p or too much encrypted traffic etc etc, so don’t worry about that. It will essentially still be the status-quo as far as detection of piracy, because copyright holders already send notices to ISPs all the damn time, based on IPs they gather in torrents or other p2p networks.
What changes is that the ISP is making a policy to kick you off after you hit a certain threshold for complaints over time. A pretty fucking stupid business decision IMO to take reports from a third-party at face value without any sort of scrutiny. It’s a good way to alienate your customer base.
They think customers don’t talk to each other, but I’d bet for every ONE they kick off they lose at least three more off bad publicity.
I’m willing to bet that the smaller ISP’s in Japan are going to get a LOT bigger…
Hmm time for japanese file sharers to pay for VPN services..
It’s all in vain, regardless. ISPs all over think they can catch their users pirating content and they probably will catch some unsuspecting ones but they won’t be able to catch the craftier ones. Lets face it, they can spend all day and night, 7 days a week, etc trying to monitor and catch pirates in the act but eventually they’ll be outsmarted.
How many times is it going to take these ISPs to realize they’re going about things all wrong?
Really folks, what else would you expect from a country that continues in the face of international condemnation to hunt whales (for supposedly scientific reasons) and have had their collective brains fried from lethal doses of radiation for decades.
Lets decrease our profit by banning the people paying us! Great idea.
Yeah, that’s great. I smell blood n’ here.
Anyway, If they cut’em p2p they’ll use megaupload or smth else. There’s plenty of possibilities.
Used to work for one of UK’s biggest ISP’s… gotta tell you that NO-ONE in the building gave a rats-arse what their customers did online as long as they did not abuse the bandwidth and thus generate complaints about slow e-mail servers…
In fact…most of my collegues would d/l stuff at home (using the competitors ‘always on - no limnit access) and some would temp ‘increase’ their alloted webspace on their accounts (all employees needed a company account), d/l a movie in the office, go home, d/l the movie to their PC (the company hated macs and offered VERY LIMITED support…) then phone a buddy (on nightshift) and get them to delete the file and reduce their webspace back to default. The next day…lots of 700mg CD’s in the office!
As long as you gave one to the managers…no probs!
X-mas was great…networked FPS in-between very low call volumes!
My point? Only when outside forces come into play (anti-competitive laws, etc) will the ISP do ANYTHING that pisses off the customers/threatens profits.
If Japanese ISP’s have reacted this way, then it must be political or business pressures (conflicts of interest) that provoke the reaction.
[quote comment="312052"]
So if a 10Mbit connect cost 50$, they will downgrade to 512Kbps LoL
so they will pay only 8-9$/month.
Decrease of 90% income for JAP ISP’s
![/quote]
Sorry, but the real world doesn’t work like that (pity). The customers will still pay the full cost of monthly subscriptions but get the lower speed. If/when they phone the helpline, they will be pointed at whatever part of the T&C (Terms & Conditions) of their contract that covers this. Customer with ISP before these new T&C came into affect? No problem. All ISP’s (also banks, etc) have a clause hidden in saying that the T&C can be updated at any time and it is in the customers best interest to check the latest version online frequently. They know that no-one will do this so…
Don’t believe me? Good for you (shows independent thought and intelligence). Check your ISP’s T&C. If you cannot see it then it is in one of the parts of the legal mumbo-jumbo towards the bottom.
What’s that? Unjust? Unfair? Too right! Feel free to find another ISP (they are all the same) but you will have to pay your full term of contract before we let you go. Are you swearing at me sir? I’m afraid that we are not expected to put up with that sir…please calm down. If you have a problem, I can give you the address of our complaints department? Still swearing sir? I’m afraid that we are terminating your service as you have violated the T&C (the part about abusing our staff). Your web access will be terminated immediately and a bill sent for the remainder of your contract. Not going to pay sir? That’s between you and our recovery department. Have a good day!
Think I’m joking? Go work for an ISP. Easy to get in (through an agency). Ask questions then GET OUT like I did before you turn to the dark side…
Guess that’s why they are rich…
P.S. For anyone thinking that there is a legal solution to the above… their lawyers are paid bags of money to make the contracts airtight (they poach the best ones straight out of lawschool by throwing fast cars and big houses at them). Talk about a motivated law firm…
Unfair? Damn straight! If its any consilation though…those ’smug’ helpdesk employees have just found their jobs ‘outsourced’ to India (glad I finished there some time ago).
Who am I? I was the helpdesk employee who DIDN’T put you on hold then terminate the call, DIDN’T pass you to sales when you had a tech enquiry, who KNEW enough about the business to know that he did not know EVERYTHING about how ISP’s work (and found the answer from those who did instead of BS’ing you) and who CALLED you back when he said he would and stayed on the phone until your ISP related fault was fixed…a rare creature indeed!
Encrypt your torrents my Japanese friends.
Someone compile a list of Japanese ISPs that *aren’t* part of that agreement.
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