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.”
Previously: BitTorrent Users Seek Compensation from Comcast
Next: Torrentz Celebrates 5th Anniversary
161 Responses
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!
I still don’t understand who they’re gonna tax and how they’re gonna find out who to tax.
Does anybody have a list of good smaller ISPs that aren’t dicks?
they have a no hope in a cat hell chance of stopping the sharing ever.
what about all the otherways you can attain the music from the net.
audio editing is a great enjoy & easy when you know how.
like water, some people will always find the path of least resistance.
So what, we have to pay this £30 tax to support the music industry which is being ‘destroyed by piracy’, yet we’re still not allowed to pirate.
Logical.
@23 – it would be an annual tax which everyone with a home internet connection would have to pay. Your ISP would bill you for it and pass it on to the government.
I don’t believe that it would be possible for the current government to implement this so close to a general election. I wonder what the conservatives say about this.
So could somebody tell me some ways to lessen my chances of getting caught?
I use waffles.fm, what.cd and torrentleech.org never any public trackers. Will this be enough to stop them snooping?
cheers
@26 – But it’s pretty damn unfair on the people who don’t file share. These people have more of a right to be up in arms over it than us seeing as they aren’t doing anything which deserves them to be taxed.
Funny stuff. Wait until the next general election. Gordon Brown and his carnival of a party will be gone.
warn me all u like…im a horrible man and i will continue to P2P till the day i die!! come on peeps, can any1 really c the end of P2P?
Im currently with BT and im thinking of changing ISP’s anyway cos they definately throttle and im generally not impressed…where r these small ISP’s???
Ooooh a big scary letter. Will they use fancy words too? The very thought of those big, hard to pronounce, words makes me shit my pants. Quick, turn of the internets!!!!
if your in the UK and upload music i recommend O2 broadband
Time to go on a downloading spree, I say! Permanently if possible… Never give these bastards a cent!
It may start off at 30 quid, but then what, a tenner increase every year along with your council tax, road tax, tax on beer, tax on cigs, the TV tax, the soon to be digital TV tax, income tax, this tax that tax, hell we’ve got more taxes than cctv cameras do we really need another one? BTW, Talk Talk have not signed. Shame they’re shit though.
If there was a legal, voluntary “£30/year download all you want” solution that was completely DRM free and ***cross-platform***, I’d go for it.
But I wouldn’t be forced into it.
Now I may be being really dumb, but will this affect downloading TV shows/movies and such? And also the majority of the time I download music off of rapidshare/megaupload/netload etc, can they really trace you through there?
tbh it sounds like the isps arnt into this, theyve been made to do it kicking and screaming cuz they know it will lose them money. also so what if they send a letter nothings gonna come from it, its an idle threat because they know their business would be crippled if they got rid of all the downloaders(nobody would get unlimited for a start)
Its up at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7522334.stm. The ISPs involved in this are BT, Virgin, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse.
I like the bit where Mr Sharkley from the [mediocre] band ‘The Undertones’ says how it all has to change, but if i’m not mistaken they originally received fame from John Peel’s pirate radio station??
I would love to know as well, if this encompasses downloading TV programmes, or is it only music. ?
My IP is Pipex and I download 24 hours a day, and they dont care .. try ‘em out.
This debacle is an absolute joke, I grin with humour not fear about proposals being introduced, why? Well several months ago I switched back to BT as an ISP and was fully enticed like a child with a candybar on the phone by the BT salesman who asked me when offering me their top pakage: “you wanna download music and stuff yea?” to which i replied: i will be yes.
This in no way incriminates me as I can download legal music allday if I want to but it is funny how on one hand they are publicly agreeing to proposals yet on the other are teaching their sales people ways and means to get filesharers on their network.
I won’t worry about the £30 tax (scaremongering tactic) but if it did ever come to light and was not challanged I suggest Everybody here goes to their local mp’s and protests, mass protest organisation via filesaring networks and so on would stop such laws.
£30 “tax” a year to prop up a failing industry because it can’t make a profit? Two words:
F**K OFF.
I’ve stood by Labour in the current political climate, but if such a proposal comes even 100m within Westminster, someone’s gonna get egg on their face (and I don’t mean metaphorically)
If only this much effort was put into tracking down people sharing child pornography – oh but that isn’t costing them anything is it..
@40: “My IP is Pipex and I download 24 hours a day, and they dont care .. try ‘em out.”
Pipex were bought out by Tiscali a while back, and Tiscali are on the list.
Looks like I’ll be switching to BE Broadband later today then. :D
file sharing gives them all excuses to illegally penalize and screw users who remain “criminals” in spite of it.
That means anyone, including companies, that do questionable things or things we don’t like, is fair game to attack and vilify with impunity. I must remember that.
I don’t download any music, but lots of other torrents such as documentaries etc. I assume I’ll be caught up in this too as there is now way for them to know the difference is there?
Some earlier posts said this only applied to Gnuttella, is that the case?
@40 watch out pipex has recently been taken over by tiscali !
If I get a letter from BT they can be rest assured I’ll be switching to BE the same day :)
Never ever buy another CD or DVD, unless its pirated or dirt cheap. Spread the word on how they’re screwing the world. Lose the Net if you like, but get into swaps and trades of burned audio, mp3 and video as a sideline and future insurance. Don’t go broke. Include copying charges where relevant. Use direct debit.
£30 download tax… that would seem reasonable if it was for all the music you could download. That is actually forward thinking for once by the music industry rather than just endless lawsuits etc.
The article in the times (which made frontpage btw) says that the BPI (WTF!?!?!) ‘moniters log on to websites where music is available to copy’. This is either a mistake by the times research team that seem to know nothing about the matter except for a few interesting numbers or claiming that the BPI hack TPB and mininova to check ips (ROFL).
Just seen the sources for their article – Torrent Freak W00t!
http://spamdaily.blogspot.com/2008/07/internet-firms-in-music-pirates.html#links
Just start encrypting your torrents, using PeerGuardian 2..
Anyone else know of any alternatives?
Bob
if the music industry will one day find a way to make it impossible to share their music, then people will start downloading creative commons stuff. there is already a lot of legal, free music out there, why should i go back to paying for the crap that the industry releases?
It will never work, they may get the people who download the stuff once in a while to comply but heavy downloaders who I believe are the people they are really targetting here will find other ways to download
What’s up with Demonoid btw? Been down for afew days.
Also what if a virgin customer is downloading a show only availiable on skyone are they going to get warned as well
So let me get this right.. The BPI complain that ‘music piracy’ harms CD sales. Therefore the government is going to slap a tax/tarrif on all British internet users and then with that tax/tarrif revenue the Government is then going to ‘State subsidise’ the British Music Industry!!!!
I fail to see how subsidising the BPI will help support a failing business model.
Next thing you know Hollywood will be asking for a share of loot too.
” 52 Jul 24, 2008 at 12:30 by bob
Just start encrypting your torrents, using PeerGuardian 2..
Anyone else know of any alternatives?
Bob
”
None of which will mask your IP address Bob.
demon is a good isp
30 quid download tax…that makes me bluddy angry. what about the people who dont even download music.
even if the bpi converts users to legal ways, they will still charge tax?!!!!11!!
i dont care less bout the letters.
whos up for a d d o s of bpi?
i presume tv / movies/ porn/boooks wont matter as bpi is only concerned bout music but this might encourage other anti-p2p firms
The Motion Picture Association of America has also signed up. from bbc
“uploading and downloading music. ”
what if i be an arsehole and dont upload
would they still be on my case
this just want to make me use DTA on gnuttela
this just want to make me use DTA on p2p networks
And they still talk is if the music industry is hurting.. is everyone blind?
FUCK copyright.
Welp, time to hop back on the ol’ VPN connection.
Id like to see how they can see what we are downloading if we run encryption. For all they know we could be downloading something legal. Like a online game.
Frigging idiots. I know there are spelling mistakes but am tired :)
go plus is a good isp. speeds are awesome, no throttling and its pretty cheap.
what a shame the full facts were not included in the tv news reports. it’s easy to fall on the side of the music industry when the real truth about file sharing and its advantages, including those to the music industry, are not revealed. complete one sided report!
@23
ENTANET (UK based) suppliers, I am with TitanDSL, £29.99 gives me 60Gb on peak, 330GB off peak and an ‘up to’ 8Mb account, I only get 1.5Mb, but that has always been so since my line is very poor.
They are a little pricey but they won’t bother you and offer a top-knotch service and aren’t working with the BPI as far as I know, I hope.
it’s funny how high and mighty you/we all feel. idk if you guys realize how much work and money it takes to make records that sound as good as MJ’s Thriller or anything.. worth listening to. everyone in the chain has to get paid.
Utter fecking shite! They will simply “SELECT CUSTOMER_ID FROM CUSTOMER_DOWNLOAD_STATS ORDER BY DOWNLOAD_AMOUNT” and start firing letters from the end of the list! They won’t give a feck what you actually did, just that you did it!
So two distros and a full copy of Oracle software and patches ( about 5GB ) will land you with a nice cease and desist!
Go with Bethere or Virgin fibre package, get a Seedbox, do FTP SSL Explicit, then keep your mouth shut! What could be simpler.
@ 55
Working fine here. Try hxxp://demonoid.cc/files/ instead.
O2 broadband FTW
It seems like people in the UK have a lot of choices for internet. Is that usually correct in most areas? Because in the U.S. I’m pretty sure there are few choices, for example where I am.
I have BT (8MB connection) and during the day I can not even stream from youtube. Seems like they throttle everything. At night its fine.
Thank god Im moving home to Germany in September.
relakks.com ,free month to try it out.then just use another email and try another month.the speeds are good,no problem with web speed.its interesting though,the government can sort this out in a few short months,Fergal Sharkey was on the news saying that the government have started to listen to the music industry.bollocks they dont give a damn about them,they just think about the tax they are losing on sales of music.
Oh no, it loks like another stealth tax everybody, the government has got its beady little eyes on yet another cash cow. £30 a year download tax which will inevitably go up each year at twice the rate of inflation.
And another thing, pirate stuff has been going on for years and years, ever since the blank cassette was introduced. As a kid i remember having a tape collection the size of London and out of all of those tapes I probably bought about 3 originals from a shop, so when the p2p gets kicked into touch(which it will) pirating (as always) will just take on a new form. Can’t wait to get my letter from aol, I’ll probably publish it online then frame it and hang it on the wall.
there are a plenty of services for paranoid community out there
http://torrelay.com leeches torrents for you
http://instant-torrents.com allows to securely download torrents via VPN link
and many more, just google it
It is time people of the UK standup to this shit goverment and show them they are pushing to far and it will not be tolerated.
we can be better organised than the goverment using the internet and show them that we will not bow to this shit.
they are planning on monitoring all your communitations, they wanna store your dna, they already have alot of resigration plate readers on motorways tracking your movemnts.
they cannot be trusted with this data, nor can they be trusted to run this country without corruption and bowing to lobby pressure from the money
the government need to be shown they are here to work for US and if they fail todo so then we WILL stand up againt them.
stop taking up the brown in the showers by this government lets get organised and stand up agains them
@86 Yeah you’re right about that. Twice I’ve been driving and heard on the radio that some gov have lost or had stolen medical and bank details.
Just send a bunch of copyright infringement accusations to the ISPs of the anti-piracy organization headquarters as well to the employees. Their download and upload speeds will crawl. Do it to all of Parliament as well.
Don’t know enough about BE, or more specifically O2 broadband as that’s who owns them. However ENTANET are really good and also not on that list find a reseller and switch.
Watch this Vid> http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/07/24/government-to-consult-on-legislation-to-curb-illicit-filesharing-as-industry-agrees-voluntary-scheme
Then join ORG, if you give a crap about these issues…
I’m sick and fed of hearing about the BPI and there constant rubbish!
Tax me 30 bucks, go ahead… Just don’t get pissed off when I make it worth it.
To be fair, I would love to pay a £30 a year tax if it would make me immune from disconnection/capping/legal issues. No more looking over my shoulder when I download a new album or track.
“Rights owners, like the BPI, can identify suspected filesharers by searching for copyrighted music files, but they can only discover their Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. They will then notify the ISPs who know who the account holders are and they will then send warning letters out to them. The people most likely to be monitored in this way are those making available a large amount of copyrighted material for sharing with others.”
From the guardian Website but appearing alot elsewhere too.
Its easy: DON’T download with a UK IP.
How to change your IP: use a VPN provider based outside of the UK.
Will the ISPs start sending out warning letters to people saying “You aren’t doing anything illegal since you are going to be able to pay $60 per year in unlimited music tax to download and share as much music as you want”?
Demonoid is just fine here…
Why dont they concentrate on tracking down Peodophiles instead! Then the world would be a happier place.
LOL, Gotta love free Hot Spots! yey, Keep the warez FREE!!
JT
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com
This is mass extortion. This is not how copyright law was ever supposed to be applied. Copyright was invented to try to benefit society, not individuals. How can you justify threatening thousands of people like this?
I find it amazing that you are all crying because the music industry is doing something about you people illegally downloading copyrighted material. I buy everything I use from DVD’s to games why should I subsidise your illegal activity. About time I say. ISP’s should take responsibility and disconnect you for downloading which would hopefully prevent the government from charging us this unfair tax. Afterall you wouldn’t steel a car would you.
This nonsense is like 19th century horse whip manufactures wanting to put a tax on cars or the piss collectors of the 18th century wanting to be paid out of a tax on those new fangled sewers! Or look at the printing press; they killed some of those poor bastards!
Hey, music providers, It’s a whole new ball game out there , Live with it!
Any way most of the music downloaded is only listened to once , it’s like the old booths in record shops but now people download it because it’s easier than going to the shops. If they like it they will go and see the artist but as 99% is crap no one would have bought the CD in the first place, so it is not bypassing sales of CDs!
What has happened , and some artists understand this , is that the album has become the advertising for the concert.
I would happily pay £30 a year for the ‘download tax’
I get annoyed with quotes in the media saying how everyone has to get paid. Why? Are they saying that if no-one got paid then music would disappear?
It’s nothing but a big greedy pointless industry.
I’ve also heard rumours of a civil disobedience day this saturday where everyone is encouraged to file share as much as humanly possible.
VPN’s boys… VPN’s
so you get a couple of scary letters… so what?
@47
Some what related:
If i download child porn, im supporting the industry but if i download music, im killing it?
So, what can we do about this?
“So, what can we do about this?”
=
civil disobedience day where everyone is encouraged to file share as much as humanly possible.
“ISPs To Send “Hundreds of Thousands” of File-Sharing Warnings”
What happens if 100’s of thousands of people email them back telling them to blow it out their ass?
J.
UK Pirate party?
would get my vote ;)
+ the 6 million other downloaders in the uk
Would be happy to pay a (resonable) download levy if it meant the bpi, mpaa etc just fucked right off. Should a busdriver get royalties on every fare? do binmen get payments every year for bins? no they get paid for what they work, thats what they expect thats what they get, those “stars” are greedy fucks. “oh noes i only have FOUR million instead of six”
“Before long, that one eyed cunt Gordon Brown will be taxing me every time I take a shit.”
Yak, yak.
ahahahahahahahahahahaha hahaha ahahaha ahaha hahaha ahahaha ahahaha ahahaha ahah aha ahahahaha ahahaha ahahaha aha ahahahaha aha hah ah ah ah ah ah ahahahahahahahahah ahahahaha ahah ah ah ah ah ah ahahahahahahahaha its hard not to laugh about this, clearly no isp in the UK wants customers! ffs wake up and smell the fucking coke
and let me add this. Let it be and example on how _NOT_ to do business. if they bow so easily to pressure what else are they willing to share with RIAA/MPAA/ETC
Seems to me that the down load tax they spoke of would be a license to download anything anytime. I’ve heard rumors of this type of thing in other places, including the US(where I’m at) and if something like that went through you shouldn’t have to worry any more. What it means to me is this; Copyrights holders would no longer have a leg to stand on for prosecuting uploaders. Said uploaders would have receipt(ISP bill) showing that they paid for any and all content that they download/upload. And only those that have paid this tax would have access to the uploads as well. If they pursued people for “making available”(uploading) they should 1)be thrown out of court and fined for wasting the courts time, and 2)be required to “make available”(upload) any and all IP due to the fact that everyone with an internet connection has already paid for it.
Isn’t it funny how hopeful people were for Labour back when Blair won the election… they turned out to be the stuff of nightmares, a bunch of criminals apparently taking inspiration from 1984. We need to throw these fucks out, for starters!
Thank GOD! I am in Russia!
Here in China, the “Criminals” make money on a DVD-copy network selling excellent DVD rips for UK30p. I kid you not.
For this UK30p you get a printed DVD as good as the original, a plastic sleeve in a cardboard envelope-sleeve, and a DVD printed sleeve, again as good quality as retail, to put into your own plastic case.
Now, if these “Criminals” can make money for all this on UK30p, which includes manufacture and distribution with profit to all who parties in the chain, the question is:-
How much profit do the “Criminals” in the west make at UK£10 and more foe a DVD?
Just a thought, which may explain why people are aggrieved at paying for them.
Nwotnot.
we really need to organize a weekend of protesting via file sharing make it around the world event spread the world intact lets make it a once the month thing let saturate our networks and if we get isp letters lets sending them back to them along with a letter of our own stating our cause
I am from Canada and am on Shaw cable internet they have vowed to never rat out their customers or issue cease and desist letters well that is until they may be force to by Bill c61
I just got a warning I guess its not related though, it came from Road Runner, in the US.
119 send it back with a response see what happens tell them you do not need to be harassed
£10,000 for that paki Baroness Vadera’s head…
hxxp://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4387283.ece
@108 Jul 24, 2008 at 20:01 by jack
####################################
“ISPs To Send “Hundreds of Thousands” of File-Sharing Warnings”
What happens if 100’s of thousands of people email them back telling them to blow it out their ass?
J.
####################################
LOL! Best answer yet. :P
Better still; send it back without a stamp so they pay the postage ^_^
Anyone know of any non-deepthroating ISPs excluding O2/(Be*) or Demon?
This country is a complete fucking joke with a clown for PM. Do they really think we will sit back and put up with this continued rape of our finances? Every ‘initiative’ this government develops is another fucking tax! These MPs are the same bastards who in the same breath award themselves 26% pay rises, £24,000 expenses to furnish their 2nd homes and another £350,000 to employ their families working as “researchers”. Double fucking standards don’t even come close. Bunch of thieving tossers.
Anyone remember the poll-tax riots? Because there’s a real feeling of discontent building in this shithole of a country. I’ve got an ‘initiative’ Gordon – why don’t you fuck off to Iraq, you’d probably be more welcome there…
Everyone who has received a warning should e-mail them back with insulting messages.
@123
Perhaps even send multiple such insulting letters so that they pay even more.
Oh well.. Guess the entire UK is now on my Block list. Until the people knock some sense into their Politicians that is.
@108 very true we really should
shockingly the goverment wants more money becuase there all greedy twats and then they just spend it on more useless bolloks. anyway if every1 switch to o2 or be demon or whoever n well be sorted. the tratorous isps will backdown once there customer base fucking plumits. anyway 02s really cheap and really good apaprently im switching from virgina asap
at the end of the day isp will never stop p2p as its far to big there must be fucking millions of people at it and and sending all them letters wont do much as people will just light there fires with there letters or wipe there arses on it may the p2p live on for many years years to come and we all know the isp cap us 12 hours a day and thats illegal any way as we pay for an unlimited service so fucking give us it
All of the providers that have signed up to this scare tactic are completely rubbish anyway. BT are probably the worst ISP in the world, so they will lose even more customers than they already are if they do this.
My advice, join up with any of smaller ISPs mentioned here, and hope the likes of BT and Virgin all go broke. Bring on the recession and fuck em all.
I think the ‘download tax’ is a great idea. I would pay at least the suggested £30 for unlimited downloading of materials. This would help ensure artists are reimbursed for their efforts fairly and the film industry will continue to produce better films. The problem would be allocating the funds to the artists. Without there being a global standardisation of the ‘tax’ I dont think it would work. Its very unlikely that all countries would agree on a policy in my opinion.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how you could ‘mask’ your torrent downloading activities from you ISP?
“I think the ‘download tax’ is a great idea…The problem would be allocating the funds to the artists.”
Exactly, it would never work! What is to stop people starting to release crap music put together in ten minutes and then apply for a share of the funds?
It’s yet another non-workable idea from the failure Gordon Brown Labour government. Here’s a better idea, why not accept that making a fast buck from selling overpriced music is over and concentrate on touring & live performances? Revenue from ticket sales for live gigs is the way forward for music – the days of the rich music exec are over, they can cry all they want, they were holding us to ransom anyway.
well this sucks, can they still get you if you encrypt the torrent you donload? and or use proxy websites?
hmmm?
The tax could work if the funds were allocated by the popularity (frequency) of the track or film being downloaded. Getting the artists to agree on the payment they are due per download would be difficult.
“Concentrating on touring and live performances” would not work for all genres of music. Many producers of trance music for example are unlikely to tour and yet should be paid for their efforts if they produce a great track.
A licencing system with various tiers depending on the amount you download could work. And would benefit producers and consumers alike.
i won’t download/buy/listen/watch anything that has to do with the music industry. If we this for a month then maybe they will reconsider banning/overcharging free p2p advertising misnamed “piracy”
Filesharing is a joke anyway.
If it’s not the industry screwing people over, it’s some pompous cunt who thinks his private ‘members only’ sharing website is promoting free music.
Both as bad as each other.
Are they looking out for torrent downloaders too??!?
Its a huge mistake what they are all doing..
Gordon Brown is a popular guy.. isn’t he? HA!
With reference to ‘good’ ISP’s for torrenting, I’ve just spoken to a colleague who has received a warning letter from BE.
Another ISP off the list. This isn’t looking good folks.
A download tax?! Here in the states, I think that would be called “Corporate Welfare.” Poor, poor beleagured music industry execs… mean internet pirates are cutting in on their already ill-gotten gains (read: they steal from the artists with impunity, then complain about filesharing). Hypocrisy? You bet!
Regarding the BPI wanting UK ISP’s to cut off, after 3 strikes, the estimated 6 million customers illegally downloading music. I read somewhere that the BPI estimates that they are ‘loosing’ over a billion in annual sales due to this practice. I did some quick calculations and assuming that these 6 million customers are paying around £30 pm for their b/b service, this comes to a loss of over a billion pounds annually to the ISP’s. The BPI is in effect asking UK ISP’s to take this loss instead of them. Given that the 6 million b/b down loaders are actual paying customers, as opposed to a notional similar loss to the BPI from people who might have bought music, this is a ludicrous suggestion for them to make.
That sucks,
I hope the persons WIFI I am using does not get into to much trouble :P
Oh.. fuckk.
What next.. are they going to put CCTV cameras in our toilets….
First there is no longer a GREAT Britan!It is the same with anything that you buy in the UK weather it be a car,a suit or CD!A complete RIP OFF!Most things are produced here,printed and packaged etc.Then we can go th the shops and pay say £11.99 for a cd in the charts top 40 etc in the uk where as i said it was produced,to then go on holiday to say the usa and buy what was produced here for half the price!!!!!!!!!!!ie should only cost a Fiver here which most people would be willing to pay if the album was half decent.So the morale is RIPP OFF BRITIAN!!!What do they expect to happen,Dim gits,best way if any threats is to just not use net at all ie no connection!Lets see how much they would loose from that!Probably nothing as the great MR BROWN (brown is also the colour of something i leave in the tiolet the PRATT)WIll just tax us on something else,the lucky motorist probably.I agree with what others have said and need to stand up to them!WE pay more for everything now lets enjoy the new gas prices! ENOUGH SAID.
i suggest you guys. sign up to private trackers and enable encryption. so they dont know what ur downloading. also piratebay has ssl encryption on there site. so is useful for concealing shit. and stop them from sniffing. if this shit gets out of hand. im guess rapidshare and similar sites will get very popular. these cunts are already monitoring gnutella network. anyone using limewire of similar client protocol should reconsider
regarding us getting ripped off here in the UK. its because of the stupid VAT tax 17.5%
the government are cunts. they tax us on everything. soon we gonna get taxed on air
Encryption won’t help from your torrent downloader that just hides you from the ISP – if even that. The BPI watch the IPs of a bunch of MP3s trace all the IPs they see to the ISP, if its one of the big 6 then post them an IP, date and whatever – they can’t get much more then the ISP, who can identify who was on that IP at that time will send you a letter. there is no data protection breach there is no encruption – the BPI – the end user can see your IP the encryption in things like Utorrent only encrypts the transfered data not your IP.
One really decent way is to mask your IP, VPNs work really well, the BPI would ONLY see your IP as foreign and leeve you well alone, your isp can also then only see a bunch of encrypted data. Just choose a ’safer’ country to host your VPN – ie NOT here or USA.
Say goodbye to people bying seperate Hard-Drives, DVD+-R/W, CD+-R/W, unlimited internet connection etc. lol.
I don’t find it completely funny as I do download alot of stuff but the goverment have not thought this through.
They will lose out as people who download movies and music are people who wouldn’t buy the stuff if it wasn’t free.
So they lose revenue in form of the above extras (dvd-discs, cd-discs, hard drives, unlimited internet connection charges) and don’t gain anything because no-one would buy the stuff they’ve stopped us downloading anyway.
lol, I know I’m right and can’t wait for the goverment and industries to realise this (no free advertising, no nothing).
Fucking whingeing twat stains
Just to update with a extra bit of news… http://www.openrightsgroup.org/newsblog/2008/07/government-targets-80-filesharing-reduction/
They plan to reduce downloading piracy by 80%
This seems rather a high mark considering how the UK goverment has shown it’s self to be useless at any aspect involving computers.
Brits. Try this out.. Getting more popular all the time. Totally anonymous + encrypted.
http://www.stealthnet.de/en_index.php
I feel sorry for you guys that your government is so stupid and cruel.
KILL THE QUEEN KILL THE ROYAL INBRED FAMILY !
james 150
How do you download torrents in stealthnet
Yeah like this is the Queen’s fault. I love the Royal family, unlike that wonky-eyed cunt Gordon Brown and his money grabbing/wasting bunch of imbeciles.
“Regarding the BPI wanting UK ISP’s to cut off, after 3 strikes, the estimated 6 million customers illegally downloading music. I read somewhere that the BPI estimates that they are ‘loosing’ over a billion in annual sales due to this practice. I did some quick calculations and assuming that these 6 million customers are paying around £30 pm for their b/b service, this comes to a loss of over a billion pounds annually to the ISP’s. The BPI is in effect asking UK ISP’s to take this loss instead of them. Given that the 6 million b/b down loaders are actual paying customers, as opposed to a notional similar loss to the BPI from people who might have bought music, this is a ludicrous suggestion for them to make.”
_______________________
Even the price of stamps to warn us will be high…. just think about how many people will recive letters then times it by 3 because thats how many we will recive… 5p per stamp at the most? thats a lot of money…
Lets face the facts… they are never going to stop us even if they catch the occasional person and fine them we have still downloaded more then the fines worth in dvds, cds, games…
if there going to start this well i hope the fcukers goes bankrupt and everyone canceling,to be honest can,t see this working by sending everyone a letter………..
How’re they gonna tell whats legal from illegal?
also BE unlimited is owned by O2 as of 2006
Pirates used to be a few guys in boats stealing sugar, they tried to get rid of them then and now there are 6 million. they should just cut their losses and leave the filesharers to it.
Simple solution when they send the letter, contact the ISP and explain that your network is wireless and not encrypted, therefore it could easily be one of your neighbours!
There is no current law to force you to protect your network from other people; therefore they have no grounds to ever cut you off. There wouldn’t be a court in the land that would be able to find against you. Plus this is simply a civil matter so you can tell them to go f**k themselves ultimately.
Not long to go anyway, Gordon Brown’s pisspot excuse for a government is about to implode under the weight of it’s own shit policies…
“The Dark Knight is now estimated to make somewhere between $155 – $160 million this weekend, shattering the $151 million record held by Spider-Man 3 and massively out-performing expectations. To put it in some perspective, Batman Begins’ opening weekend take was less than a third of that, at $48,745,440. In fact, the opening weekend of The Dark Knight will be make more money than the entire theater run of George Clooney’s Batman And Robin ($107,325,195)”
Proof that file sharing isn’t hurting the profits of these industries. Their greed is the problem. They don’t like the idea of someone sharing their music,films etc with others because they foolishly believe that these people would buy the product , which we all know simply isn’t true. Most people before the Internet would share their records/tapes/movies with friends directly.
Now it is via the Internet these industries can ’see’ the sharing, but it has always been there. Their greed is the problem, no one is going to go out of business and the so called lost revenue is a lie.
Everyone must start using Peerguardian or an isp guard to make it harder for there isp`s to see what they are downloading, its a free download. They want a war lets give them one!!!!
BE are owned by O2!!!
https://www.bethere.co.uk/generalFAQ.do#faq3
Death to those who dare force there ways against the will of the people.
Market forces are in action – people have the right to share with each other, it is a natural premise aand those who oppose sharing are going against this order.
We would not exist if their selfish wways were the natural order, the sselfish and greedy will die out because they have no place on this planet.
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