[Article] Eircom to cut off Music File Sharers ..

dub45

zenno wrote: »

ummm...
As if the record labels didn't have enough problems, now bands such as Radiohead are putting albums on the internet for nothing. Juliette Garside reports
Supporting a rock band used to be an act of rebellion. In the face of today's mounting music piracy, it has become an act of conscience.

• Embrace digital or die, EMI told

Radiohead, the contrarian giants of British rock, last week released their seventh album on an unsuspecting public with the challenge of paying as little or as much as they chose. In Rainbows is available on the internet only, and the only compulsory charge is a 45p credit card handling fee.
In the same week indie legends The Charlatans went one better and made their new single, You Cross My Path, available from radio station Xfm's website at no charge.
"I want the people to own the music and the artists to own the copyright. Why let a record company get in the way of the music?" says Tim Burgess, the Charlatans' lead singer.
These gestures are without doubt a two-fingered salute to the fat cats at the major record labels. More worryingly for the four international companies that account for 80 per cent of worldwide music sales, they could also sound the death knell for paid-for music.

The difference here is that the groups themselves (already fairly well off presumably) are making the choice to make their music available freely. That is a long way from people who do not own the rights to the music deciding to make it available on behalf of the group.

If say a painter decided to donate one of his works to somebody or other that is hardly a justification for someone deciding that on the basis of that decision they should 'steal' his other paintings and give them away as they see fit.

jor el

Spear wrote: »

The story's on the Inquirer this morning, they're being fairly blunt about it

Eircom betrays its subscribers

Interesting article, but I see see at least one thing wrong with it. It says "The ISP's subscribers won't have any right to contest the media firms' accusations either with Eircom or in a court of law.". eircom cannot deny your right to take a court case, or legal action, against them, should you see fit. They simply cannot deny your right to appeal in a court of law.

Another thing is "They will be convicted by default, with no presumption of innocence, no evidence needed, no due process of law, none of that.". I've yet to see any statement from eircom where they say they will not be investigating any of the claims made by the music companies, and that the claim is the only proof they will need.

It is something that's wide open to abuse by eircom, but so far, we have no evidence that this has/will happen, and no evidence that this is how it will be used.

MOH

BoB_BoT wrote: »

Did you try to contact the company that produces it "game world I think" and ask them for a refund or a working product?

Have you ever bought a game? They're not going to admit that, yes, this is a steaming heap of junk, please have a refund

PaddyTheNth wrote: »

Not true. All they need is to issue a notice is to see your IP supplied by the tracker. Doesn't matter if you actually download the stuff or connect to them. Its the tracker which handles initial identification. See the case of the printer being sued.

That's a bit alarming!

The researchers also suggest that users don't actually have to fall victim of an intentional attack. Instead, just using a dynamic IP address on a Wifi network that has been registered with a Bittorrent tracker can be enough to get in trouble.

I'm a bit confused by all this - what's the point of it?
The major downloaders are probably doing so in a way that's not going to get them caught by this.
The might catch a few small fish here and there, although even they're more likely to take some steps to disguise their IPs (even if that doesn't work).
And with all the publicity, there's bound to be at least a few new people who discover how easy it is to download music from the web.
Seems a lot of work for very little reward.

PaddyTheNth

dublin-texas wrote: »

So after reading 32 pages of this tread here is what I get out of it.
U2 manager McGuinness thinks that illegal downloads are bad for his Netherlands based business (and hence not paying taxes in Ireland) so he and others come together to form a cartel to stop Irish people from downloading illegal content.

Not that I doubt that he has a massive vested interest, and that there is a lot of nodding and winking going on, but have you got any sources for his involvement? I'd like to read about it.

dublin-texas wrote: »

So now the Music Industry pretends to make content available to get suspected illegal downloader’s so that they can get their IP’s. They then give this IP to Eircom who warns the suspected illegal downloader 3 times and then cuts the service off if the Music Industry reports him 3 times.

So a never happened act (because the file was never really available and even if it was there it was legal shared because otherwise Eircom would have to cut off the Music Industries Internet too) results into the ISP to cut you off.

That is one of the somewhat sadly amusing aspects of this, that they are effectively engaging in illegal practices if they confirm that other people are doing the same thing. However they can easily get around the issue with Eircom by using another ISP...

dublin-texas wrote: »

Enraged ISP customers try to discuss ways around this (for whatever reason) and because the wonderful liable laws of Ireland they can’t do that in a public forum because the boards owner might get sued by the Music Industry. Free speech is just a concept in this country.

I agree that the libel issue is a joke - there should be a provision for accountability for incitement but that's about it in my opinion. However, in the end of the day you are talking about how to do something illegal. Yes the music labels made obscene profits, and yes they don't treat artists well, but the fact of the matter is that peer-to-peer sharing of music is infringing copyright in the overwhelming majority of cases.

dublin-texas wrote: »

So as a next step the Irish TV companies that hold rights to US television shows are going after Eircom to ensure that nobody downloads shows from certain websites because that infringes their rights to show them 12-24 month after they have been shown in the US.

That's a somewhat different issue, in that its not peer-to-peer. It would require cooperation by the websites' owners or traffic inspection by Eircom. Eircom already maintain logs of connections and I suppose traffic, but actually inspecting this on a real time basis would require an enormous investment on their part and would seriously impact traffic speed. Not to mention being very shady in terms of privacy. Hence the current agreement which is being discussed here which gets around that issue.

dublin-texas wrote: »

And as internet is not a guaranteed right (or is it) nobody can do anything if you get disconnected for something you might not even have done.

The thought of a fair trial if you are accused of something has just gone out of the window due to 2 private organisations making an out of court settlement. Yes you can now be punished for something you might not even have done just because someone says so.

It is indeed massively open to abuse. One would hope that Eircom would have mechanisms in place to appeal disconnection notices and executions. Wouldn't bet on it though

dub45

telemakus wrote: »

At the expense of your audience!!

So you should not try to stop theft as it reduces the numbers of users of your particular product or service?:rolleyes:

yoshytoshy

what percentage of eircoms network is wifi ?
Does eircoms wifi log user accounts ,or does your account automatically get you an i.p address without any log on the user account?

watty

Open to all kinds of abuse:

• Wrong IP or date/time given. But 4 times? Even so eircom is likely to look at usage logs.
  
• eircom can use this as an excuse to disconnect heavy users. There might not be a report at all.
  
• Rights holders only see IPs + date/Time and *MAYBE* eircom reports of how many warned how many times and how many disconnected. They can have no idea how firmly or not eircom implement reported IPs. There is NO 1:1 user/IP mapping and an IP of a disconnected user can be reused by another copyright infringer. One IP can come up 100s of times. The Rights Holders can't know if that's one person or a hundred.
  
• How to you appeal on 1st warning if you KNOW it's a mistake as you NEVER do warez etc?

However many press reports and posts here are badly inaccurate and sensationalist.

Something was going to be done and honestly I can't think of a better arrangement. Especially if eircom is flexible to a point and neither exploits the Rights Holders nor the subscribers lack of transparency.

eircom don't actually need to change T&C. They can already disconnect you very nearly at their own whim. (excess traffic, suspect copyright infringement).

There is no criminal prosecution here in this. If the Rights Holders did get court orders for users details (which they could), then it's a civil prosecution (sue), the burden of proof is very much less than in a criminal case.

People are also not going to get sued or investigated*. Ignore REPEATED warnings and you get disconnected. eircom can do that anyway if they want to heavy users.

Other questions

• Are repeated infringers ever "light users"?
  
• Does a "warning" expire with time so you are back to "zero"?

There are lots of intelligent questions to ask that we don't have answers to. Hysteria and trying to justify copyright infringement or "rubbish" the deal are not logical responses.

(*People involved in OTHER illegal activities of course will be discovered by Court Order and investigated. No change to that as it already happens. Garda even traced a scammer to an Internet Cafe in Dublin and caught him when he came back. The scammer didn't know to use each Internet cafe only once and for minutes).

watty

yoshytoshy wrote: »

what percentage of eircoms network is wifi ?
Does eircoms wifi log user accounts ,or does your account automatically get you an i.p address without any log on the user account?

Tiny proportion of traffic is free WiFi points. On free ones your MAC may be logged with date & time. Or not.

Any WiFi that isn't free that you have access to via being an eircom broadband customer the user is logged.

Nick_oliveri

Nick_oliveri wrote: »

I bow down to thee, O' powerful greedy scumbag overlord, dictate to me how i should look and act, assign to me an image consultant and bleed me and "my" works dry, you ****.

yoshytoshy wrote: »

sorry but the same goes for food. do you steal food that is made by multinationals ?
thats the type of stuff that peniless students come up with ,so they can leech off everyone.

What? That was from the veiwpoint of an artist, albeit fictional, not any attempt by me to justify my "copyright theft". I dont need to justify that to anyone, pennyless as I am.

yoshytoshy

watty wrote: »

Tiny proportion of traffic is free WiFi points. On free ones your MAC may be logged with date & time. Or not.

Any WiFi that isn't free that you have access to via being an eircom broadband customer the user is logged.

Cheers watty.

susiegalway

Hiya,

Just wondering when this rubbish is introduced.
I can't find any dates for the ban to come into force.
If I download music now, will I be in danger or is it kicking in later sometime?

yoshytoshy

Nick_oliveri wrote: »

What? That was from the veiwpoint of an artist, albeit fictional, not any attempt by me to justify my "copyright theft". I dont need to justify that to anyone, pennyless as I am.

it's a sticky thread ,loads of similar but different views ,apologies for that so.

watty

It's not a ban.

The rules have always applied. The ONLY change is that eircom have explicitly agreed to set up a IP reported to user disconnected mechanism.

It's in almost every ISPs T&C that you can be disconnected for infringing copyright or downloading too much. Even on "so called" Unlimited accounts.

Nick_oliveri

I wonder if there'll be a backlog of IP's from these shady third party overseers from the last few months or hell, years. There'll be a few threads about that.

yoshytoshy wrote: »

it's a sticky thread ,loads of similar but different views ,apologies for that so.

No problem, were you referring to the links I posted or my sentance at the end?

akenny01

telemakus wrote: »

Im sorry Paul Brewer, you cant respectfully talk to people like that!! Google did censor china and if we dont want IMRO and their like and mindset, to do that to us! We need to do something simple! DISAGREE with them. Thats all.

Calling people Sad, stupid, whatever, pointing out bad grammar (you've made typos as well) is not going to do anything good at all. It says more about you than the person your mocking!

well said .


btw 'paulbrewe'r, we know you think you know all, but can you not let everyone else have an opinion I mean that is what the site is for, I'm sure this a a forum??. and stop with your grammer corrections ffs

'TL' FTW . FTW F YEAAAAAAh

yoshytoshy

Nick_oliveri wrote: »

No problem, were you referring to the links I posted or my sentance at the end?

Nah it wasnt the links ,I didn't really read through them as they are dated back to 2000 and 2001.

It was the sentence at the end ,defying the big companies.
I always have the view that without them we don't have the drive in other sectors like technology etc.
We can't choose which sectors of multinationals we want ,they all co-exist with each other.

My name is URL

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Actually if all you theivin' b@&tards would please send me Euro 20 each we'd all be squared up ....

Wow, your ignorance astounds me!

So you work in the music business? Have you considered fending for yourself in that industry rather than relying upon the greed and underhanded techniques used by your bosses? Which is the main reason people choose to download.

This issue is not totally about ripping music, it's about peoples freedom to choose what they do online without having to worry about a faceless organization watching their net usage, and reporting them based on hunches.

Don't be so obnoxiously patronising!

Nick_oliveri

yoshytoshy wrote: »

Nah it wasnt the links ,I didn't really read through them as they are dated back to 2000 and 2001.

Do yourself a favour and read them, they are still valid, the tactics and what have you have not changed, please take the time to read the link about the contracts and what is contained within them. Its nothing short of disgusting.

It was the sentence at the end ,defying the big companies.
I always have the view that without them we don't have the drive in other sectors like technology etc.
We can't choose which sectors of multinationals we want ,they all co-exist with each other.

There shoudn't be a middleman, well such a profiteering middleman, 95% of revenue is what ive heard goes to them, although that could be wrong and im open to correction. Drive in sectors like technology? Please my friend, they have stigmatised digital downloads for ages, refusing to progress and desperatly clinging on to their some would say "outdated" means of media.

Itunes was the first sanctioned distribution for digital media.

To make 40billion a year and then give out about piracy is laughable. Ive seen pirates support independant labels and musicians and even games. Not by downloading their stuff for free mind you.

Also, Paulbrewer, what artists have you produced for?

TheInquisitor

What i don't understand is why eircom were so stupid to accept this agreement. Europe rejected it, so did england and the US. The other ISP's will clean up now by fighting the music companies and taking a lot of eircom's younger subscribers. The Music companies don't have to even provide any proof that you downloaded anything illegally and if you are cut off by eircom you cannot fight it or defend against it. What is this the middle ages?

lmimmfn

jor el wrote: »

Another thing is "They will be convicted by default, with no presumption of innocence, no evidence needed, no due process of law, none of that.". I've yet to see any statement from eircom where they say they will not be investigating any of the claims made by the music companies, and that the claim is the only proof they will need.

The article ment that youve no right to contest having your connection shut down, it'll be shut down by default, then you can take them to court but youll have no internet in the meantime

I like how the article ends and hope it happens.

watty

TheInquisitor wrote: »

What i don't understand is why eircom were so stupid to accept this agreement. Europe rejected it, so did england and the US. The other ISP's will clean up now by fighting the music companies and taking a lot of eircom's younger subscribers. The Music companies don't have to even provide any proof that you downloaded anything illegally and if you are cut off by eircom you cannot fight it or defend against it. What is this the middle ages?

We don't know yet what recourse to object to accuracy there is if you have been warned.

Irish law may make it a bit easier to attack the ISPs. eircom is biggest. None of the other ISPs are willing for an expensive court battle. I'd expect all of the national ISPs to join this if it is deemed to "work".

It's making it LAW that was rejected elsewhere. Here it's simply a civil contract/agreement. Not enshrined in law.

lmimmfn

watty wrote: »

Irish law may make it a bit easier to attack the ISPs. eircom is biggest. None of the other ISPs are willing for an expensive court battle. I'd expect all of the national ISPs to join this if it is deemed to "work".

Theres absolutely no incentive for other ISPs to follow Eircom. The action was directed specifically against Eircom, i dont see others following unless theyre individually taken to court( entirely possible )

Its arguable that ISPs would prefer to get rid of high usage users but would probably end up spending more money investigating who downloaded what than they would handling complaints calls on the network being slow.

I hope an example is made of Eircom and that their business suffers as a result of this

watty

Theres absolutely no incentive for other ISPs to follow Eircom. The action was directed specifically against Eircom, i dont see others following unless theyre individually taken to court( entirely possible )

There will be a cooling off watching period and then the Rights Holders will approach the other ISPs. I don't think one will contest if it works for eircom.

Its arguable that ISPs would prefer to get rid of high usage users but would probably end up spending more money investigating who downloaded what than they would handling complaints calls on the network being slow.

All the national ISPs can nearly instantly know who are the top 100 downloaders. That's trivial. As long as they can be sure all the others are going to disconnect heavy users, then they all will. No-one wants the negative marketing on being first or the only. No-one will get disconnected without repeated warnings and time to cut back.

Havn't ISPs that didn't have Caps or wern't inforcing them started doing so?

yoshytoshy

Nick_oliveri wrote: »

Do yourself a favour and read them, they are still valid, the tactics and what have you have not changed, please take the time to read the link about the contracts and what is contained within them. Its nothing short of disgusting.

There shoudn't be a middleman, well such a profiteering middleman, 95% of revenue is what ive heard goes to them, although that could be wrong and im open to correction. Drive in sectors like technology? Please my friend, they have stigmatised digital downloads for ages, refusing to progress and desperatly clinging on to their some would say "outdated" means of media.

Itunes was the first sanctioned distribution for digital media.

To make 40billion a year and then give out about piracy is laughable. Ive seen pirates support independant labels and musicians and even games. Not by downloading their stuff for free mind you.

Thanks for taking the time to post back to me ,I completely agree with you about digital being the way forward. I don't think the downloading thats been done at the moment is good for anyone in the long run.
I would love to see a better balance on digital supply of music ,not everyone has broadband though and those that do ,have cd players:(
We're probably coming to a crossroads were the change has to happen ,who knows ?

lmimmfn

watty wrote: »

There will be a cooling off watching period and then the Rights Holders will approach the other ISPs. I don't think one will contest if it works for eircom.

dont get me wrong, i know that will happen, but i wonder will they actually take them to court, i mean there arent many ISPs in ireland for them to chase.

watty wrote: »

Havn't ISPs that didn't have Caps or wern't inforcing them started doing so?

Exactly, i mean if the advantage to ISPs was getting rid of top downloaders then surely they would first enforce caps before they'd want the bad publicity of disconnecting their customers, in that respect i se absolutely no advantage currently for ISPs to implement this and it will probablty cost them a lot to implement it

jor el

This thread is not for discussing Paul Brewer, the musician, or Paul Brewer, the Boards user. That stops now. Respond to his comments if you wish.

watty

lmimmfn wrote: »

dont get me wrong, i know that will happen, but i wonder will they actually take them to court, i mean there arent many ISPs in ireland for them to chase.

We have LOADS of ISPs!
Given the population or Geographic area there are 5x to 10x more ISPs than we need. Without even counting all the tiny one off community worthy efforts!

If they are prepared to take eircom on, they will take on the rest. Attacking the largest one sent a message. The out of court settlement sent a different message.

lmimmfn wrote: »

Exactly, i mean if the advantage to ISPs was getting rid of top downloaders then surely they would first enforce caps before they'd want the bad publicity of disconnecting their customers, in that respect i se absolutely no advantage currently for ISPs to implement this and it will probablty cost them a lot to implement it

Some have always enforced caps, many are starting to. This costs almost nothing to implement. The alternatives cost millions.

The heavy downloaders if unthrottled can traffic 160Gbyte to 200Gbyte a week. A Terrabyte a month!

Legal P2P may be be attractive to BBC, Sky, ITV, C4 for distribution as it saves them paying for bandwidth. The sucker users pay for it eventually. It triples the internet traffic compared to straight download and is 10,000 to 100,000 the internet traffic compared to a Broadcast DVB based smart PVR fro people to watch missed shows or VOD content. However that's nothing to do with the Copyright Infringement Reporting agreement

zenno

alot of people are going on about illegal torrent downloading for music. sure these days you don't even have to use a torrent tracker you just use google. ie. parent directory xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and any album you want is there it's a joke. people are leaving all their uploaded music and movie and important documents there so anyone can access them. no one i know uses torrents for music anymore cause they say it's just easier to download straight from google. security has alot to do with this like i said before. it's a losing battle when you can get all this stuff on google without any program been used.

Nick_oliveri

dub45 wrote: »

''You get a lousy deal from your management and I will enjoy your music for nothing while giving out about your lousy management ripping you off!!!'

I cant see anything wrong with what i said, just want people to know where the cash is going. 40 billion a year, if that second link (or Courtney Love :pac:) is to be believed, whats the problem?

jor el

One more time. This thread is about eircom's decision to cooperate with music companies in curtailing copyright infringers use of Internet services. It is not for discussion about people who work in the music industry, the price of CDs, how much the music production companies make, or whether or not it's OK to download music from millionaires without paying them for it.

No more discussion of other users, posts will be removed and further action may result, and no baiting of other users to provoke a response either. Warning goes to everyone.