One of the more notable usages of P2P-assisted downloads is that utilized by Blizzard’s hit game StarCraft 2 which went on sale a few weeks ago. All downloadable copies of this title have been distributed through Blizzard’s BitTorrent downloader. With the custom downloader gamers download the full game and subsequent patches.

This type of peer-to-peer distribution service benefits both the consumer who gets faster downloads, and the distributer who saves on bandwidth costs. Unfortunately, however, not all Internet providers are happy with these types of transfers.

In the United States both Verizon and AT&T prohibit the use of peer-to-peer services on their wireless networks. Despite the large Net Neutrality lobby, nobody calls them out for it. But across the pond there are even worse examples. In Ireland, for example, broadband users with a monthly download limit of 300GB are still not allowed to use peer-to-peer transfers.

In the tariffs and price list for Vodafone, the second largest ISP in the country, there’s an unusual sentence at the bottom that prohibits the use of all P2P transfers, legitimate or illegitimate.

“The service may not be used for peer to peer data usage,” it reads.

To find out why this limitation is in place and what purpose it serves, TorrentFreak contacted the Irish ISP a few days ago. Unfortunately, the company failed to respond to us before publication. Meanwhile, customers of Vodafone have also taken notice of this unusual limitation. One TorrentFreak reader who has a Vodafone subscription asked his ISP whether there are any penalties for those who dare to use P2P, but this inquiry went unanswered as well.

Without an official comment we can only guess at the true reason behind Vodafone’s decision to prohibit certain types of traffic. What we do know is that Vodafone is currently negotiating with the music industry to install a three-strikes policy for repeated copyright infringers. However, banning all peer-to-peer traffic at once seems to go a bit far. Even the music industry would agree with that.

There is hope for Irish Vodafone customers though. While researching the issue we noticed that references to its peer-to-peer prohibition started to disappear from some parts of the Vodafone website. The text is still listed at the bottom of this page, but was removed recently from another section (Google cache September 3rd).

Perhaps Vodafone has silently responded to our inquiries and those of worried customers? That would be good news.

Update: Apparently Vodafone banned P2P by mistake, they promised to fix it. An official statement has not been released.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Using data gathered by Danish company DtecNet, IRMA said it would begin supplying Eircom with suspected infringing IP addresses for a 3 month pilot period. Thus far, Eircom has sent around 800 warnings to its customers.

Part of that out-of-court settlement was a promise from IRMA that it would not leave Eircom at a competitive disadvantage. Clearly, once word spread that Eircom is a ‘bad’ ISP for file-sharers, potential customers would see huge benefit in choosing another ISP. To avoid this eventuality, last month IRMA filed papers against mobile operators O2 and 3 for their apparent non-cooperation.

Not everyone is digging their heels in though. Two other mobile ISPs, Vodafone and Eircom subsidiary Meteor, said they were in “advanced negotiations” with the IRMA to bring the graduated response to their networks.

Today there is further news that IRMA is well on its way to soaking up the majority of the Irish market with its “3 strikes” (technically a 4 strikes) scheme, this time by targeting Eircom arch-rival, Vodafone. Market leader Eircom has been in a price war with No 2 player Vodafone for quite a while now, so any action IRMA takes against the ISP will be warmly welcomed by Eircom. It’s even more convenient for them that Vodafone is playing along nicely.

According to a report in the Irish Times quoting IRMA Chairman and EMI Ireland chief executive Willie Kavanagh, “significant progress” had been made with Vodafone in negotiations to bring file-sharing disconnections to the ISP.

In a statement, Vodafone said that file-sharing represents a “serious issue for the Irish music industry” and that it is looking at introducing “appropriate steps” consistent with “applicable legislation and recent judicial decisions”.

The “judicial decision” refers to April’s ruling from Dublin’s High Court which effectively gave the music industry the go ahead to start warning and disconnecting file-sharers.

Getting Vodafone on board would be a significant success for IRMA. Eircom and Vodafone control almost two-thirds of all Ireland’s fixed broadband connections.

Another ISP, UPC, continues its refusal to introduce disconnections for its customers. Tomorrow it will face the start of action in the Commercial Court brought on by the music industry.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Arcor, the fixed network operator for Vodafone in Germany has received an injunction forbidding it to advertize on P2P sites in the future.

The injunction was issued by the state court in Frankfurt after the German Association of Video and Media Retailers has complained that Arcor had been advertizing on the BitReactor.to BitTorrent tracker, a site it claims is used to facilitate the sharing of movies, tv shows and music.

The court agreed with the complaint and declared that Arcor must stop advertizing on P2P services or face fines in the future.

TorrentFreak spoke to the administrator of the popular BitTorrent site btjunkie, and he said in a response to this news: “Telling companies which web sites they are allowed to advertise on is a big step towards a non-neutral Internet. P2P web sites consist of a hard to reach demographic and blocking companies from accessing that is also a blow to free economic principles.”

Acor stole a few headlines back in September after claims that following pressure from a porn media outlet to clamp down on unauthorized sites, it blocked free porn sites (such as YouPorn) at the router level.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.