Illegal downloading policy

jledru

Hi everybody,

I would like to know the irish policy for illegal downloading ?
What are the risks ?
Is there prevention or actions can be be take directly ?

Thanks

Cantona's Collars

jledru wrote: »

Hi everybody,

I would like to know the irish policy for illegal downloading ?
What are the risks ?
Is there prevention or actions can be be take directly ?

Thanks

It's illegal and nobody cares.Eircom is the only isp that had to take action.

Israeli Superiority

Death penalty.

jledru

Israeli Superiority wrote: »

Death penalty.

It s what i thought

It s just because I m living in a student residence, so it s not my own connection and they cut me internet for "abusive use" and said that they may involve the police ...

dilallio

jledru wrote: »

It s what i thought

It s just because I m living in a student residence, so it s not my own connection and they cut me internet for "abusive use" and said that they may involve the police ...

Tell us more

hfallada

Is abusive use going over board and using like 500gb in a month. I know someone who managed to use 500 gb in a month

jledru

I ve downloaded like 25gb over one day and a half or so.
The owner of the residence saw 'an excessive use ' of broadband and said that they are investigating illegal downloading and that they may have to involve the police ...

fleet

AFAIK copyright infringement (downloading music/films) is a civil offense here, so not illegal per se. The rights holder (music label etc.) has to bring you to court themselves i.e. the police are not involved.

I'm open to correction here.

CastorTroy

Was just looking quickly myself. Eircom have blocked Pirate Bay and have a 3 strikes policy. And have heard from a guy here who got a call from their ISP which had got a call from the owners of a movie he downloaded. He asked if they were gonna cut him off but they just said, no but be more careful next time.

Nonoperational

Provided we are talking about rights violations ya, but illegal downloading could be anything.

Probably just trying to scare you anyway.

superb choice of username

Did you admit to anything?

It's kinda unlikely that they can see the exact traffic. I'm guessing you were downloading via P2P if there is some kinda of legal issue being asked. If they were that tech savy, they would have blocked P2P traffic surely? I'd say they are bluffing? They could hardly go to the police and say "this person downloaded 25GB, arrest them!"? Be interesting to see what proof they have..

jledru

I could reach PirateBay therefore their ISP is not eircom.
Yeah I said I ve downloaded some shows ....
Are they on their right to cut my internet access ?
Anyway I m leaving the residence on Sunday

Nonoperational

The probably can cut it if you violated the usage policy. Don't worry about it.

superb choice of username

It's pretty naff on their part, but loads of places have their own rules. So yeah they can.

And poor move in admitting anything! They'd have trouble in proving between legal and illegal downloads. Perhaps you can say they were legal shows, such as from http://vodo.net/

How do you connect? Wired?

jledru

superb choice of username wrote: »

It's pretty naff on their part, but loads of places have their own rules. So yeah they can.

And poor move in admitting anything! They'd have trouble in proving between legal and illegal downloads. Perhaps you can say they were legal shows, such as from http://vodo.net/

How do you connect? Wired?

Yeah poor move apparently
No it s wifi.
But I cant find their policy.

Mr. G

The police thing is to scare you I'd say. I would be suprised if they cut you off since you only have four days left.

mad turnip

Just say you watched alot of youtube videos in HD that will easily amount to 25 gb in a day!

Israeli Superiority

mad turnip wrote: »

Just say you watched alot of youtube videos in HD that will easily amount to 25 gb in a day!

Wouldn't they be able to check what websites your IP address visited?

mad turnip

Israeli Superiority wrote: »

Wouldn't they be able to check what websites your IP address visited?

No lol, who on earth keeps records like that??????? they might aswell be putting in a terabyte harddrive every few minutes just to keep the storage above 1 gb.

Israeli Superiority

mad turnip wrote: »

No lol, who on earth keeps records like that??????? they might aswell be putting in a terabyte harddrive every few minutes just to keep the storage above 1 gb.

Good point. How do they know when to throttle you when you download torrents?

Here's an interesting blog on illegal downloading:

http://lifehacker.com/5870042/what-does-my-internet-provider-see-when-im-downloading-torrents

mad turnip

Israeli Superiority wrote: »

Good point. How do they know when to throttle you when you download torrents?

Here's an interesting blog on illegal downloading:

http://lifehacker.com/5870042/what-does-my-internet-provider-see-when-im-downloading-torrents

Throttle you? In Ireland? Are you mad? They let you go way over your limit then send a nice big bill your way that costs an extra 50 quid or something. If you manage to get terabytes down the line then that's a different issue but unless your running some big websites that's not gonna be you.

When downloading a linux ISO I get my full speed whenever I download it so I would presume little to no throttling is being done (monitoring this activity is also very costly).

Israeli Superiority

mad turnip wrote: »

Throttle you? In Ireland? Are you mad? They let you go way over your limit then send a nice big bill your way that costs an extra 50 quid or something. If you manage to get terabytes down the line then that's a different issue but unless your running some big websites that's not gonna be you.

When downloading a linux ISO I get my full speed whenever I download it so I would presume little to no throttling is being done (monitoring this activity is also very costly).

Apparently UTV throttle their customers when they're downloading, but you can argue they're British. Luckly it has never happened to, but I use a private tracker and a proxy when using Pirate Bay - which isn't too often.

Edit* I'm not a UTV customer, by the way. Members of Boards.ie have complained on here about UTV throttling their speeds.

jantheman91

Who cares? - I guarantee you people at the top of these ISPs that are promoting piracy prevention go home at night to their cosy houses and do exactly what they are preaching against.

Potatoeman

CastorTroy wrote: »

Was just looking quickly myself. Eircom have blocked Pirate Bay and have a 3 strikes policy. And have heard from a guy here who got a call from their ISP which had got a call from the owners of a movie he downloaded. He asked if they were gonna cut him off but they just said, no but be more careful next time.

I know someone that had the same thing. He left a download running all weekend with no limits and it was a new release. I seems it's the unsecured hosting that they can track.

thiarfearr

superb choice of username wrote: »

It's pretty naff on their part.

Its fair enough imo, presumably the connection is being shared by whoever lives in the residences, 25gb is heavy usage for a day for one person.

superb choice of username

thiarfearr wrote: »

Its fair enough imo, presumably the connection is being shared by whoever lives in the residences, 25gb is heavy usage for a day for one person.

Yeah, but you could easily have an off day - one newish game from steam would possibly amount to this. Else some other game - eg Guild Wars 2 - just a simple disk, then have to download the game, and then get the latest updates / patches. If it were that amount on a consistent basis then yeah, fair enough - block.

And lolz to all the other posters about throttling.

Kromdar

When a customer receives the third letter informing them that their service will be withdrawn, how long will the service be withdrawn for?

The service will be withdrawn for seven days. The service will be automatically restored after that period.

from the eircom site.

a friend of mine got a first letter. after several years of downloading. it was a new release - so again, it looks to point at upload traffic.

funny thing is, he owns the cd, it wouldnt rip properly to his mp3 so he had no other choice. aaaah, DRM...

gazzamc

Simple answer to this is DON'T GET CAUGHT.. Take every precaution possible and don't use TORRENTS.. There are many methods out there which can't be tracked by ISP's .

Putting caps per day is ridiculous... as some steam games are 20+GB in size and then you have other usages like Netflix.. Then you need to think about the size of the household... Someday's i download close to 40GB (alone).

Dcully

gazzamc wrote: »

Simple answer to this is DON'T GET CAUGHT.. Take every precaution possible and don't use TORRENTS.. There are many methods out there which can't be tracked by ISP's .

Putting caps per day is ridiculous... as some steam games are 20+GB in size and then you have other usages like Netflix.. Then you need to think about the size of the household... Someday's i download close to 40GB (alone).

Can torrents be tracked?

Israeli Superiority

Dcully wrote: »

Can torrents be tracked?

Yeah, when someone deliberately connects to a torrent so he can note down IP addresses and report it to your ISP.

Baneblade

just to give the most extreme scenario for context

Downloading copyrighted material is against the T&C off all ISP's so they would be with their rights to cancel the service without any prior notification

tricky D

mad turnip wrote: »

No lol, who on earth keeps records like that??????? they might aswell be putting in a terabyte harddrive every few minutes just to keep the storage above 1 gb.

The Communications (Retention of Data) Bill 2009 obliges ISPs to retain internet traffic data for at least 1 year.

gazzamc

Dcully wrote: »

Can torrents be tracked?

When you download a torrent you display your IP to everyone (downloading).. it's riskier if you use public trackers (Piratebay).. Although if you use a private tracker it isn't 100% safe (Same goes for everything else) but torrenting is the easiest way to get caught...

Most ISP won't do anything until they're contacted by the copyright holders (or representatives of them)...

Safest way to torrent is to use a vpn or a seedbox... But i just avoid it altogether...

If the U.S made Hulu & HBO available here people would be less likely to torrent... I hate waiting for Game Of Thrones.

Cantona's Collars

gazzamc wrote: »

... I hate waiting for Game Of Thrones.

All 18 hours of a wait:D

I just use peerblock (when I think of it) and torrent a fair bit.I know people who work for isp's & was at a meeting one day when illegal downloads were mentioned and everyone laughed,99% of those in the room torrented.

gazzamc

zerks wrote: »

All 18 hours of a wait:D

I just use peerblock (when I think of it) and torrent a fair bit.I know people who work for isp's & was at a meeting one day when illegal downloads were mentioned and everyone laughed,99% of those in the room torrented.

Are you mad, 18 hrs wait is far too long :P

hfallada

Blame it on HD streaming. I can go through a GB an hour HD streaming.

The reason ISP hate heavy usage is that it slows the whole network down

briany

zerks wrote: »

All 18 hours of a wait:D

I just use peerblock (when I think of it) and torrent a fair bit.I know people who work for isp's & was at a meeting one day when illegal downloads were mentioned and everyone laughed,99% of those in the room torrented.

Peerblock is a bit of a placebo but it's better than nothing for those who torrent.

I think when your download speed outstrips the server side speed of illegal sources, you're going to see a fair drop in torrenting etc. off as people ditch the free alternatives and we'll see a much increased uptake of reasonably priced legal download services serving legal content, looking to get the value out of their connection, (until they get complacent and jack up the price, of course) and who can max out most clients' connections. Just a theory but I know that my YT (legally a grey area, true) and Grooveshark usage go up when my connection is faster. It's just more convenient than a traditional download.

moc moc a moc

jledru wrote: »

said that they may involve the police ...

a) They won't.

b) Even if they do, the police will tell them to PFO.

mad turnip wrote: »

No lol, who on earth keeps records like that??????? they might aswell be putting in a terabyte harddrive every few minutes just to keep the storage above 1 gb.

They don't need to log the data transferred to know what you're connecting to, just small fractions of each packet (parts of the IP header, plus parts of upper layer headers if applicable). And even then they could choose to log only sessions, rather than individual packets, to keep the amount of information logged even smaller. You're talking a handful of bytes per transaction.

java

mad turnip wrote: »

No lol, who on earth keeps records like that???????

tricky D wrote: »

The Communications (Retention of Data) Bill 2009 obliges ISPs to retain internet traffic data for at least 1 year.

Not correct. They are required to retain data related to ip ownership at a particular time, email to/from etc. Not content. Act is 2011, details here:

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2011/en/act/pub/0003/sched2.html#sched2-part2

mad turnip

tricky D wrote: »

The Communications (Retention of Data) Bill 2009 obliges ISPs to retain internet traffic data for at least 1 year.

Your completely right, being from a professional background I feel I should aknowledge that. But as some states later on they only log some part of the information and not the whole connection. Possibly even the header. For these reasons there is not enough information to prove what torrent / data was downloaded due to the way the torrent system works. Not to mention this information could be on an IP basis which in todays society will change about every 24 hours. And from several stories i've read, it is done like this and they dont record what user was on what IP. And if they do the police apparently can't track this record? (This is in the united states, so i'm presuming there security is abit higher? but maybe not?).

Cantona's Collars

As an example of how much illegal downloading is done,take a look in the tv forum to see the discussions on shows that are only airing in the States atm.

The same goes for movies,there's a huge spike in posts about certain movies as soon as the appear on torrent sites.

Baneblade

mad turnip wrote: »

Not to mention this information could be on an IP basis which in todays society will change about every 24 hours. And from several stories i've read, it is done like this and they dont record what user was on what IP.

They have that logged. If anyone is with eircom their stats page is a almost a direct dump from the access server. It would definatly include ip address - start time - end time - some unique identifer maybe ph or account number.
so it does not matter how regulary the ip address changes they will know who it was assigned to.
they would not know what devices are inside the house so cant id a particular user but the account holder is responsible for the traffic coming from their network

they might not proactively enforce it due to the cost and staffing levels it would involve. but the would act if the perforamnce of their network was affected or they received a legal request

tricky D

java wrote: »

Not correct. They are required to retain data related to ip ownership at a particular time, email to/from etc. Not content. Act is 2011, details here:

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2011/en/act/pub/0003/sched2.html#sched2-part2

Content != traffic data (access logs and acc identifier) afaic. Retaining content would so obviously be totally impractical, absurd, etc. Never heard of any relevant entity ever retaining content in my experience.

As for legal requests, what's the Statute of Limitations for legal stuff like Section 8 requests? 7 years is the number I recall.

jarvis

What about services like Furk.net. Are they safe. They index torrents and then give you a direct download so you're not in any swarm and just connect to them. I find them excellent. I just don't feel comfortable with a swarm of unknowns connecting to my computer on my request.

And, is the op saying that the landlord has done this?if so, then Surely that's a breach of privacy? Could he have put in the agreement that he's allowed read all his incoming text messages???

thiarfearr

jarvis wrote: »

And, is the op saying that the landlord has done this?if so, then Surely that's a breach of privacy? Could he have put in the agreement that he's allowed read all his incoming text messages???

He's living in a students residence, there is usually something in the lease about both data use and not using it for illegal activity. Not comparable at all, for one the op isn't using the landlords phone, a more comparable example would be the misuse of a business phone

TheDoc

I'd very much query the landlord from the OP being able to specifically find out the content being used.

Few months back had an issue with excessive uploading coming from my house. UPC were extremely helpful as the upload capacity and the speeds, were absolutely bottlenecking bandwidth, and at speeds that I'd never experienced ( They clocked an upload at 24mb/sec)

They never queried or eluded to illegal downloading, just tried fixing and diagnosing the problem. We never truely figured out the problem, but after a router replacement everything was fine.

Throughout the 10 days of diagnosis with the Tier 2 technical team with UPC, not once could they specifically see what the traffic content was. They had to ask me about my habbits and stuff like that. So I doubt a landlord is monitoring traffic, unless he has a very high end system like an enterprise level firewall installed in the house, which I very much doubt he does....

thiarfearr

TheDoc wrote: »

I'd very much query the landlord from the OP being able to specifically find out the content being used.

Few months back had an issue with excessive uploading coming from my house. UPC were extremely helpful as the upload capacity and the speeds, were absolutely bottlenecking bandwidth, and at speeds that I'd never experienced ( They clocked an upload at 24mb/sec)

They never queried or eluded to illegal downloading, just tried fixing and diagnosing the problem. We never truely figured out the problem, but after a router replacement everything was fine.

Throughout the 10 days of diagnosis with the Tier 2 technical team with UPC, not once could they specifically see what the traffic content was. They had to ask me about my habbits and stuff like that. So I doubt a landlord is monitoring traffic, unless he has a very high end system like an enterprise level firewall installed in the house, which I very much doubt he does....

He lives in a student residence so I'd assume the college have their own private system, or at least they did when I was in college

RangeR

In short, you are making the network point owner liable for your surfing [it's them that will be brought to court if challanged]. It's their network, they set the rules. You already know you are doing wrong. Being a student is not an excuse.

pikachu2010

Hey, just wondering if there anything wrong with downloading a series illegally. I have internet with Eir and I'm not sure if I could actuatlly download stuff with eir
Thanks

P.lane78

pikachu2010 wrote: »

Hey, just wondering if there anything wrong with downloading a series illegally. I have internet with Eir and I'm not sure if I could actuatlly download stuff with eir
Thanks

Illegal downloading is illegal

bk

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