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

dub45

jor el wrote: »

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.
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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.

This was a broad settlement on principles. It would be most unusual for the consequential procedures to have been worked out in advance. Eircom will most likely take this back to their managers and work out proposals on how it will be implemented both from an operational and other implications (privacy, legal etc etc) point of view.

dub45

Upward Spiral wrote: »

...........................

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!

So people should have the freedom to choose what to do on line? Total freedom? Unlimited spam, unlimited child porn upload and download? bullying emails, trojans viruses etc?

Or should faceless organisations be allowed in the cases that may suit us personally? Keep the spam away, keep the child porn away but dont interfere with copyright material?

Cabaal

dub45, I know we've had our differences in the past but your making sense in this thread

jor el

dub45 wrote: »

This was a broad settlement on principles. It would be most unusual for the consequential procedures to have been worked out in advance. Eircom will most likely take this back to their managers and work out proposals on how it will be implemented both from an operational and other implications (privacy, legal etc etc) point of view.

I would hope so anyway. The article claims that users will be kicked off without any investigation or appeals process. This seems very extreme, and as of yet, I have seen no statement from eircom to confirm that this is exactly what they intend to do.

At this point, most of that article is speculation, as are a lot of posts on this thread.

dub45

jor el wrote: »

I would hope so anyway. The article claims that users will be kicked off without any investigation or appeals process. This seems very extreme, and as of yet, I have seen no statement from eircom to confirm that this is exactly what they intend to do.

At this point, most of that article is speculation, as are a lot of posts on this thread.

Indeed I expect the sports clinics to be overwhelmed with groin strain and achilles tendon injuries and so on due to the extreme jumping to conclusions going on here.

dub45

Cabaal wrote: »

dub45, I know we've had our differences in the past but your making sense in this thread

The trouble is I was also making sense in the other threads where we disagreed:)

And the music companies have promised to let me have the cheque as soon as possible and I will 'share' it with you and the other mods asap!

yoshytoshy

Blind speculation

My name is URL

dub45 wrote: »

So people should have the freedom to choose what to do on line? Total freedom? Unlimited spam, unlimited child porn upload and download? bullying emails, trojans viruses etc?

Or should faceless organisations be allowed in the cases that may suit us personally? Keep the spam away, keep the child porn away but dont interfere with copyright material?

lol, classy move... comparing this to Child Pornography.

Everything you mentioned above are considered to be criminal acts, copyright infringement is a civil matter, so my point still stands.

If people were profiteering from filesharing, then it would be a criminal matter.

PaddyTheNth

dub45 wrote: »

So people should have the freedom to choose what to do on line? Total freedom? Unlimited spam, unlimited child porn upload and download? bullying emails, trojans viruses etc?

Or should faceless organisations be allowed in the cases that may suit us personally? Keep the spam away, keep the child porn away but dont interfere with copyright material?

It's a classic dilemma. If you don't choose an absolute - complete anarchy or complete control and supervision - where do you draw the line?

I favour the innocent until guilty approach myself. The problem is that it's much easier for law enforcement agencies - doing good things like stopping child porn, sex trade, drug dealing etc - to take the opposite approach.

I like the incitement law they have in the UK, and possibly here too for all I know. It would be nice to have a similar situation here for internet usage...eg do what you want as long as it doesn't directly result in someone getting hurt. The problem with that is when you stretch the argument and say that downloads = (a much smaller proportion of) lost sales = loss of revenue = financial hardships for artists/job losses in supporting services etc = possibly someone losing their home.

I do feel let down by Eircom on principle - they're a service provider, it shouldn't be their remit to regulate what people do with their service. They are not part of the constitutionally appointed police force.

Then again, what they are doing here is disincetivising people from commiting illegal activity.

But it shouldn't be because of the legal aspect - if they want to do it because their infrastructure can't handle excessive bandwidth usage, fine.

DeVore

dub45 wrote: »

So people should have the freedom to choose what to do on line? Total freedom? Unlimited spam, unlimited child porn upload and download? bullying emails, trojans viruses etc?

Or should faceless organisations be allowed in the cases that may suit us personally? Keep the spam away, keep the child porn away but dont interfere with copyright material?

We already have a group dedicated to ensuring the populace plays by its own rules and enforces those rules. We have another group for determining guilt (the judiciary) which are distinct and separate for good reason.

Let them do the job rather then this kind of corporate-vigilanteism. If the **AA's have proof, let them provide it to the police and take a court action. Thats the proper way of doing things. Its slow, yes, but its slow for all of us.

DeV.

watty

Cable TV pirating
Civil case for Copyright Infringement in Ireland = €180,000 + costs just last year.

Criminal penalty for Theft of Cable service About €7500 fine or 6 months jail.

Just because it's civil and not criminal justace doesn't reduce the seriousness.


The problem is that in Ireland you can under civil penalties be just as liable for aiding copyright infringement. My guess that eircom (and other ISPs) feared legal enforcement as a result of losing a court case. They had weakened their "common carrier" argument by already having in T&C a clause to disconnect for copyright infringement. If eircom had lost, all ISPs would have to install expensive and largely ineffectual monitoring equipment.

I'm not saying what eircom has done is right, but I think your argument DeVore is a bit simplistic. I do think the Rights Holders would do better to lower retail costs and make Digital sales easier than expend so much effort on this "Copyright War" that no-one can win and everyone can lose.

Unless NEW artists get money somehow from particular sales rather than blanket taxes or subscriptions there will not be any new music. Not that it's been any good lately.

dub45

Upward Spiral wrote: »

lol, classy move... comparing this to Child Pornography.

Everything you mentioned above are considered to be criminal acts, copyright infringement is a civil matter, so my point still stands.

If people were profiteering from filesharing, then it would be a criminal matter.

I didnt compare it to child pornography. I cited it as I did others (which you conveniently ignore) as examples of people doing what they liked online as the poster claimed was everyone's right.

Originally Posted by Upward Spiral
...........................

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,

My name is URL

watty wrote: »

Cable TV pirating
Civil case for Copyright Infringement in Ireland = €180,000 + costs just last year.

Criminal penalty for Theft of Cable service About €7500 fine or 6 months jail.

Just because it's civil and not criminal justace doesn't reduce the seriousness.

It's still not OK to police people for civil obedience though, the policing should only be done by independent enforcement agencies, not by a paid group of unknowns. That's called racketeering in any other aspect of law.

dub45

DeVore wrote: »

We already have a group dedicated to ensuring the populace plays by its own rules and enforces those rules. We have another group for determining guilt (the judiciary) which are distinct and separate for good reason.

Let them do the job rather then this kind of corporate-vigilanteism. If the **AA's have proof, let them provide it to the police and take a court action. Thats the proper way of doing things. Its slow, yes, but its slow for all of us.

DeV.

Given that we haven't got the faintest notion yet of how Eircom propose to tackle this situation in practise it is absurd to call it corporate vigilanteism.

And again to use an extreme example if this 'arrangement' pertained say to child pornography would you be calling it corporate vigilanteism?

Unfortunately my cynical side tells me that it is the 'threat' to downloading
copyrighted material which is agitating people here rather than idealism about privacy issues or freedom of speech!

Hank Scorpio

Whats with all the paranoia ?

Lads as already stated this was settled outside of court, meaning theres no legal agreement!

Last night i downloaded 4 Discographys and didnt think once about it and i still wont. When i SEE people getting warned i MIGHT start to use alternative ways to download stuff!

If eircom were to hack off people who download music then surely they`ll loose 50% + of there client base in Ireland. We all no how eircom operate, im 100% sure they`ll do there best not to enforce this and find some legal loophole when they signed the settle agreement papers


I dont believe its "wrong" or "right" though. Piracy has crippled the games/movies/music industry.

Fighting Irish

Just stay away from uploading

Fairly simple really

thebman

I'm sure they'll pay as much respect to the Music industries complaint emails as they do to their own customers complaint emails.

Cabaal

Upward Spiral wrote: »

It's still not OK to police people for civil obedience though, the policing should only be done by independent enforcement agencies, not by a paid group of unknowns. That's called racketeering in any other aspect of law.

It is perfectly ok for an ISP to enforce its T&C's if it is notified of breaches of them, thats all the music industry will be doing is notifying Eircom of breaches by its users of its T&C's.

Do you not think Eircoms Terms & Conditions are fair?

dub45

Upward Spiral wrote: »

It's still not OK to police people for civil obedience though, the policing should only be done by independent enforcement agencies, not by a paid group of unknowns. That's called racketeering in any other aspect of law.

But Eircom will not be policing people. As has been pointed out here already it is already in the terms and conditions of isps that downloading of copyrighted material is prohibited. And IRMA are not faceless unknowns they are a representative body acting on behalf of their members. I don't know how you can define that as racketeering? If a trade union points out that the rights of one of its members are being infringed is that action by a paid group of unknowns?

DeVore

pwd wrote: »

the thing they are missing with this is the big hole in the security of eircom's wireless modems. There will be a lot of people getting warnings who don't even know what p2p is.

This point is key. imho Eircom were neglient when they chose to publish part of the key as the SSID.... after that they havent fixed the problem retroactively (though I noticed that my router arrived with WPA set up).
That said it will take a court challenge for breach of contract because they will withdraw their service rather then take you to court; in that case it will boil down to the Ts&Cs which I'm sure are in Eircom's favour.

Ultimately this is just another reason to leave Eircom's warm embrace...

DeV.

dub45

nuxxx wrote: »

Whats with all the paranoia ?

Lads as already stated this was settled outside of court, meaning theres no legal agreement!

Last night i downloaded 4 Discographys and didnt think once about it and i still wont. When i SEE people getting warned i MIGHT start to use alternative ways to download stuff!

If eircom were to hack off people who download music then surely they`ll loose 50% + of there client base in Ireland. We all no how eircom operate, im 100% sure they`ll do there best not to enforce this and find some legal loophole when they signed the settle agreement papers


I dont believe its "wrong" or "right" though. Piracy has crippled the games/movies/music industry.

Surely a demonstrable inability to face up to reality (its not right or wrong but it has crippled three industries! oh and by the way I downloaded 4 discographies last night!) should be explored in the Personal Issues forum?

DeVore

If it pertained to Child Porn, I would want the police to handle it.

Just as I want the police/courts to handle this.

DeV.

dub45

DeVore wrote: »

This point is key. imho Eircom were neglient when they chose to publish part of the key as the SSID.... after that they havent fixed the problem retroactively (though I noticed that my router arrived with WPA set up).
That said it will take a court challenge for breach of contract because they will withdraw their service rather then take you to court; in that case it will boil down to the Ts&Cs which I'm sure are in Eircom's favour.

Ultimately this is just another reason to leave Eircom's warm embrace...

DeV.

Well then some good will come out of it. People will get such a shock when they get the first warning that they will immediately turn on wpa and their file sharing neighbours will have to find another source.

So between them IRMA and Eircom will improve loads of people's knowledge about router security and at least some people who wont even pay for an internet connection never mind a cd will be frustrated at least for a little while!

DeVore

My favourite game (LotRO) uses torrenting to distribute very very large updates. As does Wow. As does most Blizzard games.

Are they going to discriminate or is all P2P and torrent traffic fair game?

DeV.

techdiver

nuxxx wrote: »

Piracy has crippled the games/movies/music industry.

Yes the likes of Sony, EMI and Microsoft are really crippled.

My name is URL

dub45 wrote: »

But Eircom will not be policing people. As has been pointed out here already it is already in the terms and conditions of isps that downloading of copyrighted material is prohibited. And IRMA are not faceless unknowns they are a representative body acting on behalf of their members. I don't know how you can define that as racketeering? If a trade union points out that the rights of one of its members are being infringed is that action by a paid group of unknowns?

If a Trade Union reported it it would be investigated by whoever is in charge of implementing the outcome.

In this case, Eircom are the ones supposedly implementing any limits put on people, but they will not even investigate any reports made by that "Trade Union"...

Cabaal

DeVore wrote: »

My favourite game (LotRO) uses torrenting to distribute very very large updates. As does Wow. As does most Blizzard games.

Are they going to discriminate or is all P2P and torrent traffic fair game?

DeV.

They are simply going to connect to a tracker running a copyright file for download and log all the IP's connected, they are not saying they will throttle or block P2P. As such any other uses of P2P are perfectly ok

Cabaal

Upward Spiral wrote: »

If a Trade Union reported it it would be investigated by whoever is in charge of implementing the outcome.

In this case, Eircom are the ones supposedly implementing any limits put on people, but they will not even investigate any reports made by that "Trade Union"...

I'm still curious Spiral, do you agree with Eircom's Terms & Conditions?

zenno

i can see this blog is going nowere with people complaining about how illegal it is to d/l music/movies big deal at the end of the day if this deal reaches to all isp's then they will all lose a hell of alot of customers but there again i will always bet on the hacker as they will always find a way to crack their earwigging software on customers. plus this is really about p2p downloading as you have to upload as you d/l but there are tons of other ways to do it invisable which i can't say here as i'd be banned so i don't really see a big problem out of all this whinging.

My name is URL

Cabaal wrote: »

I'm still curious Spiral, do you agree with Eircom's Terms & Conditions?

I neither agree nor disagree with them. :pac:

What do you want me to say?

My point in all of this is that I don't agree with the way Eircom plan on implementing these proposals, it goes against things that I believe in, such as a fair trial if I were to be punished for an alleged crime.

My views on the T&C's are moot when it comes to this issue.