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

Scram · 29-01-2009 12:34am

jor el wrote: »

Yes, and under this new law, they can execute you for doing it.

Right so if you download a video from youtube, Rip the audio out into an mp3 on your own PC for yourself youll get done?

Westwood · 29-01-2009 12:41am

Tbh this is a disgrace, 4 record companies that release crap now wnat people to buy it? most like me download and peep. if the album is fantastic (once in a blue moon) ill go out and cop that the next day, if it sucks donkies balls and has 1 good track (like usual) You aint getting my money. it has been a sign of the times in the 00s. the music has declined and people dont want to listen to popcorn crap anymore, start making better music and people will suport you!! oh and ear come can eat a fat one (they'll never take me alive)

bk · 29-01-2009 12:42am

Microsoft wrote a brilliant paper on this back in 2002:
http://msl1.mit.edu/ESD10/docs/darknet5.pdf

The paper basically points out that you will never be able to defeat file sharing and that people will always naturally create Darknets either online or offline.

They point out that the most effect way of file sharing is something they call the sneakernet, basically people sharing massive hard drives full of mp3's etc. in the school, university, work, etc. and copying the files to their own pc.

Just think of all those cheap 500GB external hard disk drives floating around the place. And there is absolutely no way for the music industry to find this out or stop it.

This is a pointless exercise, it won't have hardly any effect. The music industry would be much better off putting it's effort into developing, all you can eat, flat fee, file sharing services.

BTW Personally I don't know why anyone would even bother to download music any more, what with all the excellent music streaming services like Pandora, last.fm and many internet radio streams, it just seems pointless.

nero1916 · 29-01-2009 12:42am

I'm curious as to how eircom ended up coming to the decision to settle out of court. Why would eircom accept such a deal? What is in it for them? Whether or not the ruling sets a precedent, I feel uneasy that Ireland has become the first country to implement such a device to catch/deter illegal downloading. Why us? Were we an easy target? Are our laws (which has come up time and again in debates in many areas such as gambling, paedophilia and human rights) so old and out-dated that we as a nation can be picked off by the big boys?

From relying on top of the pops to feed the musical tastes of the masses (and stunting it in my opinion), listeners are now being introduced to a broad range of music styles through the internet. From listening to alot of a little, we now listen to a little of alot. And that can only be a good thing. Having centralised control of music output in my opinion is just wrong. Perhaps I'm being idealistic and foolish to think that the music industry would not protect its massive profits but industries change and I for one will not feel the least bit sorry for them when they're gone.

The question of how musicians should be paid is a pertinent one. But with more bands then ever before reaching the public, it only bodes well for these acts who may never have had the opportunity if the labels still had the industry sown up. And they can make good money from live gigs and sales from there own sites. Labels are now jostling to sign bands who have already garnered a public and who want to take full advantage to squeeze as much money out of them before dropping them. Its a dog eat dog world and I hope we the public have the labels for breakfast, dinner and tea.

Before I fall off the topic cliff, I hope we as a nation have further discussions on this topic, and with IP privacy in general. In a democracy I must accept that certain decisions will be made that I will not agree with but I hope EVERYONE is well informed and that this is not swept under the carpet.

Discuss

Ernie Ball · 29-01-2009 12:44am

the_syco wrote: »

How the **** do you think. They'll join the torrent. They OWN the music, so they're legally allowed to join the torrent. And when they do, BING, they see everyone IP address, with a little flag of their country next to each one. They'll give said IP to eircom, who'll have your IP linked to your home address, as, unlike the RIAA, Eircom will have most likely have your phone number tied to your IP address, and thus know who you are through that.

Three letter response: V P N

PogMoThoin · 29-01-2009 12:55am

I don't see any change in this, it certainly won't stop me dl'in.

By this Eircom have just fobbed them off with the "We'll have a word with them"..............."We've a 3 strikes and they're out policy"....................... like all other ISP's do. In reality its dynamic ip, here is no tracability for the music industry, all they'll know is its an Eircom ip address.

Smart move Eircom, gets them off Your back and saves money on legal costs.

Jev/N · 29-01-2009 1:02am

PogMoThoin wrote: »

By this Eircom have just fobbed them off with the "We'll have a word with them"..............."We've a 3 strikes and they're out policy"....................... like all other ISP's do. In reality its dynamic ip, here is no tracability for the music industry, all they'll know is its an Eircom ip address.

Well afaik all you will need is a date and time to check eircom's log of IP licences and see who was using it at the time?

Anyways won't really affect me as 1. I'm not on eircom, 2. I rarely use p2p and 3. if I do, I'm not downloading stuff that those 4 companies would be targeting

jor el · 29-01-2009 1:28am

Scram wrote: »

Right so if you download a video from youtube, Rip the audio out into an mp3 on your own PC for yourself youll get done?

Uh. I said that because that poster obviously hadn't read a single word of this thread, or if they did, they didn't understand any of it. This has absolutely nothing to do with Youtube.

Jev/N wrote: »

Well afaik all you will need is a date and time to check eircom's log of IP licences and see who was using it at the time?

eircom will know who's doing what, but they will not be passing this information, or any subscriber details, on to the record companies. The record companies may be able to see the same IP coming up time and again, but because of eircom's DHCP servers, the IPs won't necessarily be from the same person each time. There is no visibility to who is actually sharing the music, from the record companies point of view.

People need to read, and understand, what's actually happening here, and stop jumping to wild and inaccurate conclusions.

Simi · 29-01-2009 1:28am

Am just use peerguardian?

Scram · 29-01-2009 1:33am

Simi wrote: »

Am just use peerguardian?

I used to always use that on XP but i cant it to work on Vista 64:(

thomashood10 · 29-01-2009 1:42am

In my opinion guys,

IF eircom are dealing with the companies directly it's just flat out illegal according to the Data Protection Act:

"6. Right to prevent use of your personal details

You can also ask a data controller not to use your personal details for purposes other than their main purpose – for example for marketing.

You can do this by simply writing to the organisation or person holding your details and outlining your views. Within 40 days, they must do as you ask or explain why they will not do so."

Asides from this;

(techies correct me if I'm wrong)

but the IP address that is given away by limewire/torrent sharing programs doesn't locate your computer specifically at all. Now as I said correct me if I'm wrong but it should only locate you to within a certain area. It's hardly pinpoint.

And as people have mentioned proxy/use the right programs and you'll be fine.

As for the ethics of it all; as long as the artist is fine with it I'm fine with it.

I refuse to pay upto 20-25 euros for a piece of plastic. considering how much tapes are worth now, it's just greed. I appreciate even the record companies need to make money, but cmon look at the price of a stack of blank CD's and compare them to any album/single.

It's like asking me to pay 5 euro extra for a pen because it shoots special pink ink that glows.

smellslikeshoes · 29-01-2009 1:43am

I personally don't think much of peerguardian to be honest, there is no way their blocked IP lists could ever do more than block the tip of the iceberg.

donmaga1 · 29-01-2009 1:51am

Try using http://hotspotshield.com/. It gives you an ip in the states I use it to watch tv programs on hulu.com. Which you can only get in the states

jor el · 29-01-2009 1:55am

thomashood10 wrote: »

In my opinion guys,

IF eircom are dealing with the companies directly it's just flat out illegal according to the Data Protection Act

No, they are not. Please read the thread again, and understand it this time.

eircom are NOT giving any of your personal information, or details, to ANYONE

thomashood10 wrote: »

but the IP address that is given away by limewire/torrent sharing programs doesn't locate your computer specifically at all. Now as I said correct me if I'm wrong but it should only locate you to within a certain area. It's hardly pinpoint.

Your IP address is assigned by your ISP, not the file sharing network. All eircom needs is an IP and the date and time, and they know EXACTLY who it was.

thomashood10 wrote: »

And as people have mentioned proxy/use the right programs and you'll be fine.

There really is no way to secure yourself on a file sharing network, as you are after all, sharing files. If you were invisible or untraceable, it wouldn't work.

thomashood10 wrote: »

I refuse to pay upto 20-25 euros for a piece of plastic. considering how much tapes are worth now, it's just greed. I appreciate even the record companies need to make money, but cmon look at the price of a stack of blank CD's and compare them to any album/single.

Albums can be bought online for as little as €10-15 for new releases, less for older ones. Anyone paying €25 for an album needs their head read. Legally downloaded music is still way over priced, and it needs to be dramatically dropped if they want to stem the illegal music sharing.

The price of music is not based on the cost of manufacturing the CD, you're paying for the right to listen to the music itself. The cost of the CD, and distribution, is a tiny portion of the final price.

Music CDs can be very reasonably priced, downloadable music is, in all cases, way over priced.

jor el · 29-01-2009 2:01am

Warning to all

People mentioning warez sites, or illegal downloading sites, are being, and will be banned. This thread is not a free-for-all on naming all the places you can download files without having to use P2P.

For those mentioning anonymising proxies, and so on, that's OK, but know that these will most likely not help to anonymise you on the P2P networks.

KoKane · 29-01-2009 2:02am

Someone mentioned Entrapment 2 pages ago...

Forgottenone · 29-01-2009 2:08am

Scram wrote: »

I used to always use that on XP but i cant it to work on Vista 64:(

ya you can i do anyway you need to do this

Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Right click Command Prompt -> Run as administrator.
Copy the following exactly (without quotes): "bcdedit /set loadoptions DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS". Right click on the title bar, go to Edit -> Paste. Make sure what was pasted is correct, then hit enter to execute the command.
Reboot the machine
Now the first time you load PeerGuardian you will see a message like windows requires digitally signed drivers, If you performed the above steps correctly, it is safe to ignore this. You can make sure by turning on Show Allowed under settings, and making sure an IP scrolls by when you visit a website.
you also need this well i did anyway

http://www.citadel.co.nr/readydriverplus/

thomashood10 · 29-01-2009 2:10am

jor el wrote: »

No, they are not. Please read the thread again, and understand it this time.

eircom are NOT giving any of your personal information, or details, to ANYONE

Your IP address is assigned by your ISP, not the file sharing network. All eircom needs is an IP and the date and time, and they know EXACTLY who it was.

There really is no way to secure yourself on a file sharing network, as you are after all, sharing files. If you were invisible or untraceable, it wouldn't work.

Albums can be bought online for as little as €10-15 for new releases, less for older ones. Anyone paying €25 for an album needs their head read. Legally downloaded music is still way over priced, and it needs to be dramatically dropped if they want to stem the illegal music sharing.

The price of music is not based on the cost of manufacturing the CD, you're paying for the right to listen to the music itself. The cost of the CD, and distribution, is a tiny portion of the final price.

Music CDs can be very reasonably priced, downloadable music is, in all cases, way over priced.

Ahh yes I see your first point, they're just blocking you on their terms. Fair point.

Em I know I said techies correct me and all that, but I was being.. whats the word.. (i really dunno) rhetorical?

If the record companies have a list of IP addresses, then they are useless. The IP address that "locates" you on the internet is just a network gateway for your local area. Don't argue this with me, it's fact.

So the only way for this **** to work is if eircom tracked us themselves and handed out the warnings. Now frankly, eircom don't have keyloggers/trojans installed on my PC. I'm pretty confident of that. So all they can do really is monitor the volume of traffic.

Yes ok they could use a packet sniffer, and actually watch all the info come in over the network. But the info would be far too raw, and there'd be way too much volume. Asides from that, I'm sure there'd be a few privacy laws they'd be trampling, as they'd see all our emails etc.

If if they had an ISP only program that allowed them to sniff individual PCs within a network. The man hours needed to monitor and sift through it all would be ridiculous.

I believe Hotspot shield was mentioned, the program is very good. And frankly Limewire/most programs display whatever address is coming through the port at their end, which is gonna be the info the music companies get.

As for paying for the right to listen to the music. The buskers on grafton street are usually just happy your listening. But I agree, you should pay for it, I usually drop them a 2 euro coin. Plus it's live.

BoB_BoT · 29-01-2009 2:11am

I'm twitching a little bit when I see responses like "Sure that company only produces ****e music" or "It's 25euro for a cd", please show me some examples of the 25euro cds. Because the last couple of albums I've bought have all been under 15 and one of them was a 2 disk special edition! With the argument the music is ****e, I'm not paying for it, why the hell would you download it then?

If someone produces something, they charge X amount for it. You pay that price, or you don't. Ethically you're wrong, simple as. I'm not going to say I've never downloaded stuff, I have, but I've also bought plenty of cds dvds and software. If someone slaps me on the wrist for what I've done, it's to be expected.

With regards to eircom, they've only agreed to give said slap or reminder. They haven't agreed to put equipment into their exchanges or premises to monitor IPs or data to aid the companies in question. In fact eircom will probably have to open a disputes department for this, for people who feel they've wrongly been accused or if they believe someone else did it on their connection. In fact, it'd be a good area for eircom to open a department for "securing" connections and make some extra money off it.

Overall they don't have to put equipment into place, it won't need to be maintained, they won't be breaching any current laws etc... At most they've a few extra letters to send out.

If you download stuff that isn't yours, and you get caught, tough ****, take it standing up and either change ISP or move to a country without copyright laws.

Meh

dub45 · 29-01-2009 2:12am

jor el wrote: »

Albums can be bought online for as little as €10-15 for new releases, less for older ones. Anyone paying €25 for an album needs their head read. Legally downloaded music is still way over priced, and it needs to be dramatically dropped if they want to stem the illegal music sharing.

The price of music is not based on the cost of manufacturing the CD, you're paying for the right to listen to the music itself. The cost of the CD, and distribution, is a tiny portion of the final price.

Music CDs can be very reasonably priced, downloadable music is, in all cases, way over priced.

There is also the not inconsiderable cost of recording the music, payment to musicians etc etc.

It is a long time now since any new cd cost 25 euros.:rolleyes:

thomashood10 · 29-01-2009 2:17am

dub45 wrote: »

There is also the not inconsiderable cost of recording the music, payment to musicians etc etc.

It is a long time now since any new cd cost 25 euros.:rolleyes:

I worked in Virgin/Zavvi dundrum. (while Virgin were changing to Zavvi to be precise)

The amount of people that have looked at me cock eyed over the price of a dvd/cd. Yes sales are on now ofcourse. But I've dealt with plenty of angry women/men/kids who've tried to put a price over a sticker or just flat out think it's insane the price.

edit: to give an example, my friend bought chinese democracy in there for 20 quid when it came out. Now yes ok, it's come down etc. Not as expensive now.

But tbh, if there wasn't a recession and things were still booming, if piracy wasn't a problem, we'd be getting ripped off.

java · 29-01-2009 2:22am

thomashood10 wrote: »

If the record companies have a list of IP addresses, then they are useless. The IP address that "locates" you on the internet is just a network gateway for your local area. Don't argue this with me, it's fact.

Bull****. Your ISP, whomever they may be, knows who has an ip address at any given time. ISP's keep tonnes of logs. Thats FACT.

thomashood10 wrote: »

So the only way for this **** to work is if eircom tracked us themselves and handed out the warnings. Now frankly, eircom don't have keyloggers/trojans installed on my PC. I'm pretty confident of that. So all they can do really is monitor the volume of traffic.

If you read any of the posts, you'd understand that eircom will not be doing the tracking.

thomashood10 · 29-01-2009 2:28am

java wrote: »

Bull****. Your ISP, whomever they may be, knows who has an ip address at any given time. ISP's keep tonnes of logs. Thats FACT.

If you read any of the posts, you'd understand that eircom will not be doing the tracking.

Yeh the record companies will be, that's my point. And the record companies will be handing those IP's to Eircom. Those IP's will NOT pinpoint your PC within a network.

edit: http://whatismyipaddress.com/

Zoom all the way in, this is how close those recording companies are going to get to you.

Apparently I'm located in the middle of a river.

gg

BoB_BoT · 29-01-2009 2:34am

thomashood10 wrote: »

I worked in Virgin/Zavvi dundrum. (while Virgin were changing to Zavvi to be precise)

The amount of people that have looked at me cock eyed over the price of a dvd/cd. Yes sales are on now ofcourse. But I've dealt with plenty of angry women/men/kids who've tried to put a price over a sticker or just flat out think it's insane the price.

edit: to give an example, my friend bought chinese democracy in there for 20 quid when it came out. Now yes ok, it's come down etc. Not as expensive now.

But tbh, if there wasn't a recession and things were still booming, if piracy wasn't a problem, we'd be getting ripped off.

If people don't like the prices of things, they should stop buying the item. Believe it or not, music is a luxury not a necessity. If bread was 5 euro a loaf and you can't afford it, then yeah, start stealing that!

If people were willing to put up with 20euro for a new release, then fine, but otherwise nothing happens. People keep buying, I decided to buy online if I can't get something at a reasonable price locally. If it's too expensive, I don't buy. Simple as.
Your friend was ripped off regardless, taking one new release, Bruce Springsteen - Working On A Dream, 11.99 euro. Nowhere near 20, (from play.com) Hmvs site is selling it at 8.99pound (even cheaper).

I won't deny that yes, we were being ripped off, but we allowed ourselves and this just isn't with music and video, it's a hell of a lot other things but that's probably best for the ROI or Consumer Issues forum.

FruitLover · 29-01-2009 2:35am

aidanodr wrote: »

"The ruling means a precedent has been set

It's a settlement (i.e. an agreement), not a ruling. There has been no legal precedent set. I would recommend you make sure to get your facts straight (and read things carefully) before flying off the handle in future, to avoid looking like a ninny.

niceirishfella wrote: »

more nanny state sh1te

It's nanny eircom, it's got nothing to do with the state. If eircom want to kick you off their service for warezing, there's nothing to stop you changing to another ISP and downloading whatever you want.

java · 29-01-2009 2:38am

thomashood10 wrote: »

Yeh the record companies will be, that's my point. And the record companies will be handing those IP's to Eircom. Those IP's will NOT pinpoint your PC within a network.

edit: http://whatismyipaddress.com/

Zoom all the way in, this is how close those recording companies are going to get to you.

Apparently I'm located in the middle of a river.

gg

Thats because google maps uses geo lookups based on the Ripe database. Don't be fooled into thinking just because google maps says your ip is in a river, that your ISP thinks the same! Your ISP knows exactly who has an ip at any given time.

Blazer · 29-01-2009 2:38am

tbh it's much better getting a warning from Eircom than threatening legal letters from the music gimps.
I reckon Eircom was very smart in settling this.
Knowing the stupid laws in this country a judge could easily have told Eircom to track all user stats etc and disconnect them asap as well as inform the record companies. Last thing I want Eircom to check is why the hell am I downloading 200GBs of stuff every month and what is it?
Now all Eircom have to do is to pretend to give a fcuk when the record labels coming whining so and so is downloading our music.
Eircom fire off a warning letter and the record companies are happy.
Except for the person who's still downloading via torrent etc.
Anyway stuff like this is always circumvented.

BoB_BoT · 29-01-2009 2:39am

thomashood10 wrote: »

Yeh the record companies will be, that's my point. And the record companies will be handing those IP's to Eircom. Those IP's will NOT pinpoint your PC within a network.

edit: http://whatismyipaddress.com/

Zoom all the way in, this is how close those recording companies are going to get to you.

Apparently I'm located in the middle of a river.

gg

IP and exact time can track you down pretty close enough on the likes of Eircoms databases. All they have to do is cross reference it with their logs and bam, they've got what REGISTERED CUSTOMER the connection belongs to. Spoofing IPS will circumvent a lot of that, but your average p2p program users doesn't even know they have virus or spyware on their machine. Trust me on this, I see so many computers with one particular p2p software, no antivirus (or if they do it's not functioning or expired), no windows updates etc....

As pointed out already, with torrents, the companies can simply join them and they've got access to all the persons seeding and leeching. If your IP is not masked they've got enough to send on a report to eircom.

dub45 · 29-01-2009 2:40am

thomashood10 wrote: »

I worked in Virgin/Zavvi dundrum. (while Virgin were changing to Zavvi to be precise)

The amount of people that have looked at me cock eyed over the price of a dvd/cd. Yes sales are on now ofcourse. But I've dealt with plenty of angry women/men/kids who've tried to put a price over a sticker or just flat out think it's insane the price.

edit: to give an example, my friend bought chinese democracy in there for 20 quid when it came out. Now yes ok, it's come down etc. Not as expensive now.

But tbh, if there wasn't a recession and things were still booming, if piracy wasn't a problem, we'd be getting ripped off.

Getting ripped off is obviously relative - people on the one hand complain about the price of a cd - which in most cases they wildly exaggerate - blame the record companies for producing lousy music, which of course they are under absolutely no obligation to buy and then without any irony or conscience proceed to download it by the ton, without feeling any obligation to the people who produce it - not just the 'fat cats' of the record companies who are easy targets but the musicians, composers, studio owners, engineers, record shop owners, small label owners and so on who are deeply committed to the music in their own particular way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/16/fashion/sundaystyles/16store.html?scp=14&sq=record%20shops&st=cse

Jev/N · 29-01-2009 2:42am

jor el wrote: »

eircom will know who's doing what, but they will not be passing this information, or any subscriber details, on to the record companies. The record companies may be able to see the same IP coming up time and again, but because of eircom's DHCP servers, the IPs won't necessarily be from the same person each time. There is no visibility to who is actually sharing the music, from the record companies point of view.

Yeh I know, I was just explaining to the poster that DHCP doesn't completely make it impossible to find who was using the IP for downloading music if Eircom did pass on the info, which as the report states they're not doing... I have to qualify that statement by saying "yet", as while the Data Protection Act is there, and all well and good, it can always be found that there is a so called "ranking" of rights and responsibilities and possibly breach of your responsibility to refrain from pirating music may negate your right to your information not being shared

thomashood10 · 29-01-2009 2:42am

I would agree.

But thats why I really don't feel to guilty about pirating things. Ripping people off is as bad as stealing in my opinion.

For example;

Stalker Clear Sky.

Bought the standard edition when it came out for 50 euro.

More bugs then god knows what. Had to reinstall it countless times, and at one stage it looked like I couldn't play it period due to a bug.

Now in my opinion it's a justifiable pirate. The game has a good chance of not working at all.

I would reckon most people don't think about this though, and just pirate it anyway.

But as far as I go, I do have certain things which I make a point of buying.

EDIT: as far as the DHCP servers, we have no idea how they're mapped, there could be sub-networks for different areas etc. Frankly if you ask me, considering the average download speed on broadband, i'm probably sharing the line with upto 50 different users. I'd say worst case scenario is, Eircom can narrow it down to 20 people before they start looking at where individual packets are going to what machine.

AlmightyCushion · 29-01-2009 2:45am

thomashood10 wrote: »

Yeh the record companies will be, that's my point. And the record companies will be handing those IP's to Eircom. Those IP's will NOT pinpoint your PC within a network.

edit: http://whatismyipaddress.com/

Zoom all the way in, this is how close those recording companies are going to get to you.

Apparently I'm located in the middle of a river.

gg

It puts me in the middle of a river too. How do the record companies know about my super secret under water base?????

Jev/N · 29-01-2009 2:46am

FruitLover wrote: »

It's a settlement (i.e. an agreement), not a ruling. There has been no legal precedent set. I would recommend you make sure to get your facts straight (and read things carefully) before flying off the handle in future, to avoid looking like a ninny.

Thank god someone set the poster straight :rolleyes:

And if there was a ruling, precedent need not be followed anyways

BoB_BoT · 29-01-2009 2:48am

thomashood10 wrote: »

I would agree.

But thats why I really don't feel to guilty about pirating things. Ripping people off is as bad as stealing in my opinion.

For example;

Stalker Clear Sky.

Bought the standard edition when it came out for 50 euro.

More bugs then god knows what. Had to reinstall it countless times, and at one stage it looked like I couldn't play it period due to a bug.

Now in my opinion it's a justifiable pirate. The game has a good chance of not working at all.

I would reckon most people don't think about this though, and just pirate it anyway.

But as far as I go, I do have certain things which I make a point of buying.

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

Or at least make it known that you are a disgruntled customer not happy with your product.

It's one thing to see a bad film after paying to see it. If I honestly felt that strongly about it, I'd seek my money back, but not from the Cinema or place I bought it, but from who made it. The shop/cinema did their job in selling it, the fact that I don't like it I'd take my gripe with the company.

I don't download another game/film/song from another company because another companies was crap.

Ripping people off is wrong, but it's not stealing. YOU paid the price, YOU agreed to hand your money over for it. If you were that unhappy you ask for a refund.

PaulBrewer · 29-01-2009 2:57am

dub45 wrote: »

Getting ripped off is obviously relative - people on the one hand complain about the price of a cd - which in most cases they wildly exaggerate - blame the record companies for producing lousy music, which of course they are under absolutely no obligation to buy and then without any irony or conscience proceed to download it by the ton, without feeling any obligation to the people who produce it - not just the 'fat cats' of the record companies who are easy targets but the musicians, composers, studio owners, engineers, record shop owners, small label owners and so on who are deeply committed to the music in their own particular way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/16/fashion/sundaystyles/16store.html?scp=14&sq=record%20shops&st=cse

I think if Record Companies were doing ok this would be a half-arsed attempt at getting more cream.

However that isn't the case. Labels are in big trouble, it's now do or die. Things will get dirty.

Wait 'til Apple (the biggest music retailer in the US) or similar get involved in bunging the leaks - that's when the fun will start.

There can be no argument, if you download music that isn't free without paying for it you're a thief.

thomashood10 · 29-01-2009 2:59am

Yes actually many people have. The game is notoriously buggy, and thousands of other people had the same problem I had.

..but they released it anyway.

I shouldn't have to get a refund. It was a deal between me and them, they gave me the game, I gave them my hard earned cash.

And I'm sorry but being ripped off is just as bad as stealing. Thats just my opinion. It might be dressed up in a pretty box with a bow. But at the end of the day I was ****ed over.

BoB_BoT · 29-01-2009 3:11am

thomashood10 wrote: »

Yes actually many people have. The game is notoriously buggy, and thousands of other people had the same problem I had.

..but they released it anyway.

I shouldn't have to get a refund. It was a deal between me and them, they gave me the game, I gave them my hard earned cash.

And I'm sorry but being ripped off is just as bad as stealing. Thats just my opinion. It might be dressed up in a pretty box with a bow. But at the end of the day I was ****ed over.

If something doesn't work the way it should, you get a refund. If the disk didn't work, you'd return it. If it was the wrong product, you'd return it. If the game engine... you see where I'm going here.

Did you personally write/send an email/letter requesting a refund or of complaint?

You're still not getting the whole rip-off thing are you? They're not ducking in front of the counter, opening a door and slipping their hand in your pocket. you WILLINGLY handed over your money. That's the difference.

thomashood10 · 29-01-2009 3:29am

My point is, on the box it didn't say it wouldn't work due to the hideous errors the game has. I shouldn't have had to get a refund.

Yes I did ofcourse go to their website, and stumble upon the 3 or so patches that came out after the game was released. But they didn't help either. Just gave up on it after a while.

Yes, but I handed it over because I expected a product in return. It's trade. I stand by my principle. Breaking it down to the bone, they took my money and didn't deliver on their end, they broke the deal. So they screwed with me and took my money. For what reason? I don't know.

jos22 · 29-01-2009 3:36am

The 3 strike approach has already being ruled out by the UK and would not have been possible If the french president didnt viteo a bill.
The European Parliament had voted in favor of an amendment that would prevent member states from implementing three-stikes laws. Disconnecting alleged file-sharers based on evidence from anti-piracy lobby groups restricts the rights and freedoms of Internet users, according to the amendment.
The amendment, drafted by Guy Bono and other members of the European Parliament, was adopted by an overwhelming majority. 573 parliament members voted in favor while only 74 rejected. Satisfied with this outcome, Bono stated in a response to the vote: “You do not play with individual freedoms like that,” and said that the French government should review its three-strikes law.”
The vote was welcomed in other member states as well. Swedish EU parliamentarian Christofer Fjellner said in a comment: “What’s important about this decision is that now it’s clear that you can’t force [internet service] providers to ban people from the Internet without a legal process.”
It is scary to see how lobby groups are awarded powers that should only belong to law-enforcement agencies. Evidence should never be collectedly by parties who gather it in their own interests, and it is a relief to see that the European Parliament agrees on this.

but now all that matters is alleged loss by 4 multi billion dollar records and our freedom are taken away.
opposed this strongly , cancle your eircom accounts home phone and broadband, and boycott Sony BMG, EMI Warner and Universal
the amendmnet can be ready here which would be in place now making the 3 strikes not possible if it was not for the french president.
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_Package_Plenary_Amendments#Amendment_138_.2B.2B.2B

also read

http://www.digitalrights.ie/2008/03/11/irma-v-eircom-why-isp-filtering-for-the-music-industry-is-a-bad-idea/

thomashood10 · 29-01-2009 3:51am

http://hotspotshield.com/

problem solved guys.

sceptre · 29-01-2009 4:02am

Cabaal wrote: »

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0128/download.html

Poor reporting imho

Agreed. Spelling "copyright" with a w as they've done doesn't really help them either.

Jev/N · 29-01-2009 4:03am

jos22 wrote: »

and boycott Sony BMG, EMI Warner and Universal[/B]

LOL, isn't that essentially what everyone is doing already!?

jos22 · 29-01-2009 4:10am

Jev/N wrote: »

LOL, isn't that essentially what everyone is doing already!?

yes but but some idiots still by music
also who actually still uses p2p these days
always good to check
http://www.riaaradar.com/
to check record labels which those scum own

sceptre · 29-01-2009 4:15am

galwaytt wrote: »

...what I want to know is, if you're an Eircom customer, how do the music co's get your i.p. address ?

Oh that's easy. If anything too easy. Every time you make a page request or any other request on the Internet, the recipient has your IP address (yes, I realise I'm being simplistic here). They don't have to ask Eircom for it, if they pretend to be another downloader or uploader, your torrent app just gave it to them. Eircom have a particular block of addresses so it's easy to see whether User X who just asked your computer for file Y is an Eircom customer. You can do that at home yourself.

I'm sure the record companies would like a few high profile court cases to scare people off. I'm also sure they quite like this solution - they don't have to go to the trouble of trying to get names and addresses from Eircom based on the IP addresses they hand them. That's hassle, takes time and even Eircom would probably fight every such application for information. This way, they don't have to.

And under Data Protection legislation, what gives Eircom the right to give out your info, without your express permission ?

See above, on my reading of the news story Eircom aren't handing out any info, they're being given the info.

If by 'posing' as a P2P the music co's set about entrapping people, then surely they are guilty of encouraging the behaviour they are giving out about.....

Entrapment is a legal term. What you've described isn't entrapment. You mightn't like their actions, perhaps I don't either but it isn't entrapment. What entrapment is has been confused for most people by inaccurate Hollywood thrillers for the sake of entertainment (nothing wrong with that but it's hardly a course in law 101). Posing as a normal downloader isn't entrapment, it's only entrapment when, say (for example) a police officer encourages you to commit a crime that you would have been unlikely to commit without their encouragement (and even then it's not a universal defence). Record companies aren't police and pretending to have 45kb of the latest Britney Spears album so people can start or complete their downloads isn't entrapment.

And, of course, it won't be long before some bright spark will come up with a way to defeat it anyhoo.

Those already exist and have done for years. What they're trying to do is go after the common or garden downloader who doesn't go to lengths to obfuscate their IP address. That's most people. Those higher up the downloading pyramid aren't using something as public as bittorrent all that much anyway.

Ultimately this agreement really isn't going to defeat downloading, even if every ISP signed up to it. Even the record companies know that isn't going to happen. What they're now interested in is lessening the blow by putting as may as possible off downloading stuff in case they get caught. They know there's always going to be a core group who don't give a fiddler's monkey about their threats. They're trying to keep that number as small as they possibly can. From their perspective, I suspect that's what it's been about at least since all those apps popped up after Napster went under - before that they quite possibly thought they could totally take down widespread internet distribution but these days they reckon it's all about mitigating the blow on their wallets. Mitigation through litigation, that's all it is.

jos22 · 29-01-2009 4:19am

sceptre wrote: »

galwaytt wrote: »

...what I want to know is, if you're an Eircom customer, how do the music co's get your i.p. address ?

Oh that's easy. If anything too easy. Every time you make a page request or any other request on the Internet, the recipient has your IP address (yes, I realise I'm being simplistic here). They don't have to ask Eircom for it, if they pretend to be another downloader or uploader, your torrent app just gave it to them. Eircom have a particular block of addresses so it's easy to see whether User X who just asked your computer for file Y is an Eircom customer. You can do that at home yourself.

See above, on my reading of the news story Eircom aren't handing out any info, they're being given the info.

Entrapment is a legal term. What you've described isn't entrapment. You mightn't like their actions, perhaps I don't either but it isn't entrapment. What entrapment is has been confused for most people by inaccurate Hollywood thrillers for the sake of entertainment (nothing wrong with that but it's hardly a course in law 101). Posing as a normal downloader isn't entrapment, it's only entrapment when, say (for example) a police officer encourages you to commit a crime that you would have been unlikely to commit without their encouragement (and even then it's not a universal defence). Record companies aren't police and pretending to have 45kb of the latest Britney Spears album so people can start or complete their downloads isn't entrapment.

Those already exist and have done for years. What they're trying to do is go after the common or garden downloader who doesn't go to lengths to obfuscate their IP address. That's most people. Those higher up the downloading pyramid aren't using something as public as bittorrent all that much anyway.

yes since non profit copyright is a civil matter entrapment dosen't apply entrapped only applies to criminal cases.

nero1916 · 29-01-2009 4:28am

I absolutely agree with those who define copyright infringements as piracy and thus against the law as it is written. But it was written before the world wide web came to be. People share, the internet has made it easy for people to do this. All across the world, information is just a fingertip away. Do you think musicians will stop making music because they wont get paid? As I said earlier, more musicians are living the dream of playing music precisely because the internet has given musicians the opportunity to SHARE their music and open up opportunities to play live (and if they make a few quid from it, all the better). The industry is filled with greedy executives who see only the monetary value in something, squeeze every last cent out of it and then move on. Its a terrible industry and the movement online that has so put the labels up against the wall should continue until it goes away and a new system of music distribution is created that supports the musicians and no one else. I say finish the labels off, see what grows from their ashes and start afresh. We don't have to keep doing things the same way. Call it the revolution of the music industry. You could look at it as stealing, but then who is losing out? Great musicians will always rise to the top... always. And people will flock to see them. If a band needs a massive marketing campaign, airbrushed posters, and seedy music videos then you have to ask yourself were they all that good in the first place? It ends now. This recession is gonna sober us up, people are going to expect more, and accept no bull****. I'm tired of this crap. And so are many others.

jos22 · 29-01-2009 4:40am

nero1916 wrote: »

I absolutely agree with those who define copyright infringements as piracy and thus against the law as it is written. But it was written before the world wide web came to be. People share, the internet has made it easy for people to do this. All across the world, information is just a fingertip away. Do you think musicians will stop making music because they wont get paid? As I said earlier, more musicians are living the dream of playing music precisely because the internet has given musicians the opportunity to SHARE their music and open up opportunities to play live (and if they make a few quid from it, all the better). The industry is filled with greedy executives who see only the monetary value in something, squeeze every last cent out of it and then move on. Its a terrible industry and the movement online that has so put the labels up against the wall should continue until it goes away and a new system of music distribution is created that supports the musicians and no one else. I say finish the labels off, see what grows from their ashes and start afresh. We don't have to keep doing things the same way. Call it the revolution of the music industry. You could look at it as stealing, but then who is losing out? Great musicians will always rise to the top... always. And people will flock to see them. If a band needs a massive marketing campaign, airbrushed posters, and seedy music videos then you have to ask yourself were they all that good in the first place? It ends now. This recession is gonna sober us up, people are going to expect more, and accept no bull****. I'm tired of this crap. And so are many others.

agree and disagree
piracy was oringay only applied to those who profited from others work not non profit.
the only "artist" will disappear will be manufactured crap like what pop idiol craps out each year.
as well as crap bands who only care about money
all that piracy means is less crap will be produced as no one will be giving IRMA, BPI, IFPI their money.
but will go to support their favourite acts live.
example of "artist" only in it for the money girls aloud concerts around 85 euro tickets.

in it for the music
drop kick murphies tickets avg 25 euro plus free gigs in their home towns from time to time.

also the records labels were about 5 years too late when they finaly offered a legal approach, to buy poor quality crap at an over priced tag. with region restrictions.

AntiRip · 29-01-2009 6:25am

thomashood10 wrote: »

Yeh the record companies will be, that's my point. And the record companies will be handing those IP's to Eircom. Those IP's will NOT pinpoint your PC within a network.

edit: http://whatismyipaddress.com/

Zoom all the way in, this is how close those recording companies are going to get to you.

Apparently I'm located in the middle of a river.

gg

I tried that site you mentioned above. I'm down in Cork at the moment but according to that I'm in Dublin 7 :rolleyes:

Btw, just my opinion. Don't think this will work at all. There are so many ways of getting media now online. At work here, there are 15/16 guys including myself that swap external hard drives and 16gb memory sticks on a daily basis sharing files obtained from other friends who got from other friends etc etc.

This is only setting a presidence(sp?) for all copyright material down the line

cgarvey · 29-01-2009 6:49am

thomashood10 wrote: »

EDIT: as far as the DHCP servers, we have no idea how they're mapped, there could be sub-networks for different areas etc. Frankly if you ask me, considering the average download speed on broadband, i'm probably sharing the line with upto 50 different users. I'd say worst case scenario is, Eircom can narrow it down to 20 people before they start looking at where individual packets are going to what machine.

There's not one part of that correct, best I can tell. In fact, all of your networking-related points on this thread are highly inacurate.

An eircom IP address is associated with a registered account at any given time (and logged). If you have 20 computers on your own network, it doesn't matter, the account holder is still responsible.. if that's what you're getting at? eircom don't share IP addresses across a number of registered customers simultaneously.

jos22 · 29-01-2009 6:50am

AntiRip wrote: »

I tried that site you mentioned above. I'm down in Cork at the moment but according to that I'm in Dublin 7 :rolleyes:

Btw, just my opinion. Don't think this will work at all. There are so many ways of getting media now online. At work here, there are 15/16 guys including myself that swap external hard drives and 16gb memory sticks on a daily basis sharing files obtained from other friends who got from other friends etc etc.

This is only setting a presidence(sp?) for all copyright material down the line

of course it wont work.
p2p being around in one form or another for years.
then there the warez scenes also around for years.
plus there encrypted rar
can say if a file called random.rar is contains copyright material without dowloading it and extracting with the correct password.

even if they shut down the internet all would have would be larger decrease in sales and nothing to blame it on.
any one who would still buy there crap would be using russing mp3 sites. which IRMA dosnt like so if you buy tracks from them dont be surprised if they give you a strike. also all the sites like play and american sites which sell albums for less than half the cost you buy them here.

either way if an album cost 50cent or 20 euro. if the copyright belongs to
IRMA, BPI, IFPI ,RIAA
I am not interest in it.

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

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