ISPs To Send “Hundreds of Thousands” of File-Sharing Warnings
Written by enigmax on July 24, 2008According to initial reports, an announcement due later today will state that major ISPs in the UK have reached an agreement to work with the music industry to start mass warning file-sharers. The deal, brokered by the government, will see hundreds of thousands warned but not disconnected.
In what will be seen by the British Phonographic Industry as a partial victory in its war against file sharers, major ISPs in the UK have agreed to music industry demands to start sending out warning letters to those it accuses of sharing its copyright works.
The report states that the deal was agreed by six of the UK’s most prominent Internet Service Providers following intense government pressure. It’s estimated that these as-yet unnamed ISPs will send out hundreds of thousands of letters to suspected uploaders of music. The ISPs - thought to include Virgin Media who already did an early deal - are BT, Orange, Tiscali, Carphone Warehouse (AOL, TalkTalk) and BSkyB.
Demands from the music industry to disconnect uploaders from the Internet have not been met by the ISPs nor insisted upon by the government as Culture Secretary Andy Burnham had already stepped back from a government implemented ‘3 strikes and you’re out’ policy. One ISP, Virgin Media, already indicated that there was “absolutely no possibility” of them disconnecting alleged pirates from the Internet.
However, it’s being reported that other measures may be taken against alleged file-sharers, including traffic management techniques being deployed to punish persistent offenders. As we reported earlier, this element is likely to be negotiated by the UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom.
The Times is reporting that other steps may be taken by the government such as the introduction of an annual £30 ‘download tax’. Peter Jenner, a music industry player who has been supporting such a plan said that the tax could bring in enough turnover to support the music industry: “If you get enough people paying a small enough amount of money you can turn around the wheels of the music industry” he said. Although UK citizens are used to this type of charge with the current TV licensing system, this type of tax seems unlikely to succeed in the current environment.
A Memorandum of Understanding drawn up by the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR) and signed by all six ISPs states that not only must the ISPs commit to a “significant reduction” in music file-sharing in the UK but they must also help develop legal music services too. One can see how this might be attractive to certain ISPs, such as BSkyB who just days ago signed a deal with Universal to set up an online music service “to rival iTunes”.
All this will be backed up by an educational campaign to ensure that every customer knows that it is illegal to upload copyright music.
More on this breaking news as we get it during the day.
Update: Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI says reports of a levy are incorrect: “A levy is not an issue under discussion. It has not been discussed between us and government and as far as we are aware it is not on the table.”
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161 Responses
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this sucks, hooray for wifi connections!
The guys at anti-piracy gangs deserves death…
This is an absolute joke. Although I was planning on getting a seedbox anyway.
BT, Virgin, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse have all signed up.
Time to switch IPS i think
Ahh, more mail to light my fireplace with.
Solution:
Don’t use the Gnutella network!
So a letter about data protection to your isp would go down nicely? perhaps quoting this jugement:
http://www.out-law.com/page-4051
and here is the jugement
http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/form.pl?lang=en&Submit=Submit&docrequire=judgements&numaff=C-101%2F01&datefs=&datefe=&nomusuel=Lindqvist&domaine=&mots=&resmax=100
Why use Gnutella lol? Use Usenet or torrent + encryption ftw.
a £30 download tax?.. omg thats just as bad as gordon browns green tax, car tax, fuel tax and anything else tax.
its nice to see ips’ saying they will not disconect. i cant wait to get a letter from BT about my utorrent.
maybe peerguardian will hide me, who knows….
yeah, looks like we’re slowly being screwed on this one. Will have get onto leeching over wifi until someone comes up with a foolproof way of beating the record companies.
> The Times is reporting that other steps may be taken by the government such as the introduction of an annual £30 ‘download tax’. Peter Jenner, a music industry player who has been supporting such a plan said that the tax could bring in enough turnover to support the music industry:
Sounds to me like Peter Jenner is a lazy slug. Now he can lie on his couch all day, moan about how people aren’t buying his music which no one has ever heard of, and get a taxpayer handout. Tell me Jenner, why shouldn’t games programmers, magazine writers and book authors get the same? What a pretentious git.
As for the ISPs, I hope they include a list of alternate ISPs for their customers to switch to. VIRGIN is a rubbished brand name these days anyway, synomonous with crashed trains and overpriced mobile phones.
And how are the ISPs going to get your email address?
I haven’t checked the email address from my ISP in twelve years.
Well even though i seed and leech loads, i usually end up buying the music I like.
This just means that torrent sites may become a thing of the past, but blog sites hosted in “dodgy” countries will be the way forward for music downloads.
Before long, that one eyed cunt Gordon Brown will be taxing me every time I take a shit.
mehhh, sky will come running back when they dont get my £50 a month.
Oh dear. Can they detect when I copy my 500GB HD to my mates 500GB via USB? Hahaha, it’s far too late!!
Time to switch ISPs…
Time for the small ISPs to gain thousands of customers!
Check out the BBC News website for the latest on this. The ISPs have been named. Hmmm….oh well, it’s back to copying cds from the library.
“download tax” WTF???
as if we already dont have enough tax
ffs its £1.20 per litre of petrol
ans thats all gay
I think the GBP 30 charge is probably the lesser evil here. In principle it is wrong - why should the government prop up a failed industry?
But if it means that people can freely seed and download what they wish without any fear of any action being taken against them, then it’s probably the best solution.
http://www.bebroadband-uk.com/?tracking=be-online
The only way forward, how can BT still only provide 8mb, when these guys are offering 24mb. It costs less than BT, its better than BT and they are not signing up to this stupid aggreement, usenet all the way…
So if filesharing us illeagal, what about just downloading via usenet or rapidshare, i’m not uploading or sharing with anyone that way.
What if i downloaded legal files, iPlayer, 4oD, etc…will i still get a letter…
this country fcuking sucks…
there idiots therell always be away to download music and therell always be come someone being mardy about it.
also music tax becuase music people arnt rich enough .. aww did u want the big shiny plane when you could only afford the big not shiny plane awww
If it’s only educational then this doesn’t really affect us. We all know what we do breaches copyright. Most people don’t, and the music industry is trying to educate those users. It’s the best idea they’ve had in a while, and it’s better than those ridiculous law suits. If they really wanted to put piracy to bed they’d offer a new service that competes.
Sooo … sucks!
The one ISP that doesn’t work with the gov on this one, will be making a big buck I guess.
I’d switch immediately to the one who cares for it’s customers.
Already did it once, because my ISP send me an email because I had too much traffic.
http://www.bebroadband-uk.com/?tracking=be-online
enough said!
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