A big pile of horse manure

[Guest Wolfeymole]

UK Internet Service Providers to crack down on File Sharers in their own way.

 

Are you a media pirate? Do you live in the United Kingdom?

 

One side of the coin.

 

 

If so, be prepared for the deluge of warning letters that will soon be sent your way, followed by possible sanctions – like internet monitoring, speed caps, and blacklisting – from your ISP if you fail to comply.

 

Widespread opposition to France’s “three-strikes and you’re out” approach to curbing internet piracy – which sees pirates disconnected from the net for a year if caught three times – led UK record labels to request a new kind of remedy, brokered between the country’s six top ISPs and Ofcom, the UK telecommunications authority.

 

The deal manifests as a memorandum of understanding between the UK music industry association BPI, and ISPs Carphone Warehouse, BT, Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali, and BSkyB. (A press release posted by at the BPI’s website indicates that the MPAA signed on as well.) Under the MOU’s terms, “hundreds of thousands” of strongly-worded letters will be sent out to suspected internet pirates – giving them a chance to change their ways before more severe punishments set in.

 

Critics have raised a variety of concerns over the scheme. What happens when the offender is the child in a household? What happens in cases of computers controlled by hackers or botnets? What happens when the “pirate” is making fair use of the copyright materials he downloads?

 

 

The other side of the coin.

 

"Absolutely No Possibility of disconnecting people"

 

__________________________________________

 

How to lose business overnight if they do and I make no issues regarding advocating Piracy whether it be the Internet or the High Seas.

[petef]

What is the current status of Music Downloading?

 

I'm not heavy into downloading music and I know there has been much

controvesy over piracy issues and the various protection schemes as well

as peer to peer networking that involves illegal sharing of *.mp3 files.

A few questions come to mind...

 

Have any peer to peer networks gone legitimate?

 

What is the current status of cases against average people caught downloading pirated music files? What are the typical fiines or punishments?

 

Is it true that you can now download music legally in MP3 format which would allow you to play the music on any device of your chosing? If true, which sites would you recommend?

 

I recall that many were boycotting iTunes and DRM protection schemes, but has anything new developed from that? Does iTunes now offer MP3 files for download?

 

What are the various options for downloading legitimate legal music files these days?

 

What much does it typicaly cost to download legitimate music files these days?

 

Are there any time limits on music related to copyrights?

In other words, if a song is more than x number of years old does it become public domain?

 

Answers to any of the above questions would be greatly appreciated.

 

---pete---

Edited July 27, 2008 by petef

[Guest Wolfeymole]

It depends which country you are in Pete, some allow it like Canada but you you can't do free downloads in the UK.

 

Last I heard it costs 75p to knock out a music cd which then sells for £10-15.

[Dalo Harkin]

I read about this the other day - ISP are meant to be making it 'easier' for people to download music in particular - ie not a million and one steps to buy the one song you want.

People I have spoken to about this mention that this was tried a while ago by film companies to crack down on the illegal download of their movies.

 

And as for getting a letter off your ISP - I have never heard of anyone getting a letter from theirs unless it was a bill :(

The letters come directly from the film company - ie Warner Brothers - there were loads of 'incidents' about T3.

 

Bottom line - I can't see them enforcing this.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Entirely Dave, it would be like cutting your nose off to spite your face or biting the hand that feeds.

[petef]

Is it true that you can now download music legally in MP3 format which would allow you to play the music on any device of your chosing? If true, which sites would you recommend?

 

 

I found some answers. At rhapsody.com they recently started offering MP3

music downloads in unprotected (DRM FREE) format for 0.99 USD / 0.50 GBP

per song. The downloaded files will play on any MP3 player including the ipod

and you are free to move them between any device. I did the currency

conversion to BGP, but I'm not sure if this service is available to anyone on

a global scale with any currency.

 

 

Excerpts from article at link below:

 

Indeed, Rhapsody has decided to sell digital rights management (DRM) free MP3s to users that will finally be able to play on the popular mobile music device. The decision to go DRM free opens up the service to users who want to own the music they've paid for and have the freedom to play it on any device they choose.

 

Rhapsody also takes a shot at Apple's iTunes store by matching price: individual songs can be purchased for $.99 and whole albums can be bought for $9.99.

 

Rhapsody In Bloom With Verizon, DRM Free Downloads

July 01, 2008

Rhapsody In Bloom With Verizon, DRM Free Downloads - The Channel Wire - IT Channel News And Views by CRN and VARBusiness

 

---pete---

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Yeah but the ones at 50p will be the bottom of the barrel Pete, I bet that's what they "Start from".

[Dalo Harkin]

Taken from Custom PC:-

 

The music piracy game could soon be up for illegal file sharers, as a new deal has been announced between the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and six of Britain’s major ISPs. The aim of the deal is to crack down on piracy, while offering better music download services.

 

The ISPs in question are Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali, BT, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse, all of which are now listed as a part of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the BPI. The idea is that the music industry will make its music available online in a ‘user-friendly format, while ISPs will send out letters to known prolific file sharers, telling them that their activities have been noted.

 

Adam Webb from BMR (British Music Rights), which helped to negotiate the agreement, explained to Custom PC that ‘the ISPs have agreed to educate people about downloading – in essence that means that the others are going to replicate what Virgin Media have been doing [sending out letters], and BT started doing the other week. Then the record industry will take their side of the bargain by voluntarily agreeing to make available their music online in a wide range of user-friendly formats.’

 

The BMR sees this as a positive step in the battle against music piracy, which has often seen a hostile attitude between ISPs and the music industry. ‘ISPs and the music industry haven’t necessarily had the best relations in the past,’ said Webb, ‘so this is a really good starting point.’ He also stressed that this was a ‘voluntary agreement’ on behalf of the ISPs.

 

So how would the system work? Webb explained that ‘If you go onto BitTorrent, everyone else on BitTorrent can see your IP address. That’s essentially what the BPI would do - they would go onto BitTorrent, find out an IP address and ask the ISP to send a letter out. It’s not some great conspiracy where the BPI goes rifling through someone’s personal records.’

 

Webb explained some of the reasoning for the decision, saying that ‘the BMR commissioned some research from the University of Hertfordshire. It was really concentrated on young people, aged 14-25, and around 65 per cent of them admitted that they downloaded music form file sharing websites illegally, but 80 per cent of those said that they’d pay for a legal service.’

 

The BMR sees this as the start of a new generation of digital music services, where people are given what the music formats they want from the music industry, while the music industry gets a crackdown on piracy in return. ‘There’s obviously a way of making this work; monetising what people are doing and developing new business models,’ said Webb, ‘but you need an ISP on board in order to make that happen.’

 

Orange says that it ‘welcomes the industry-wide memorandum of understanding with content owners around improving consumers’ access to legitimate online download services.’ The ISP also said that it will ‘work with content owners and alert customers if they are allegedly in breech of any copyright laws.’ However, Orange also stressed that it will ‘not disconnect internet accounts for alleged copyright infringement or disclose customer details to content owners without a Court order.’

[Seth]

What a wonderful world we live in.

 

Crack down on file sharing sites, but child porn sites are ok.

[petef]

What a wonderful world we live in.

 

Crack down on file sharing sites, but child porn sites are ok.

 

That's an easy one to figure out. Cracking down on file sharing sites has

potential in the end to bring millions of dollars to those pushing for the

crack down. Whereas, cracking down on child porn sites has no real

potential to make much money for anyone. It's all about money and how

money motivates people. That's life.

 

---pete---

[petef]

Webb explained some of the reasoning for the decision, saying that ‘the BMR commissioned some research from the University of Hertfordshire. It was really concentrated on young people, aged 14-25, and around 65 per cent of them admitted that they downloaded music form file sharing websites illegally, but 80 per cent of those said that they’d pay for a legal service.’

 

The quote above tells me that most people can be tempted to pirate

music but most would be willing to pay if the price is right. I firmly believe

that the solution to the majority of piracy issues is to sell the product at

very reasonable rates and then prosecute those who get caught, but

make it a reasonable penalty that can be easily enforced and collected.

 

Sell unprotected MP3 files for $0.25 per song that can be played on any

device, but embed the the buyer's name in the file. Now it's tracable .

Impose a fine of $1.00 per song/file if the files with the buyer's name

are found to be distributed to others. Don't even bother to proscecute

anyone unless you can prove that they had thousands of files distributed

to others. Allow P2P networks to operate and use it as a means to

target the biggest violators of piracy. Of course, there will always be

a minority of folks who pirate large quantities of music and those are

the ones you go after to make an example of and to keep most people

in line.At $0.25 per song most people could afford a nice collection of

music and will not risk being fined for participating in file sharing piracy.

If the fines were reasonable they could be enforced and collected

easily instead of having court cases that go on for years. At the same

time, many people will share their MP3 files with their friends and

continute to pirate on a very small scale. No big deal because they

probably would not be buying any extra MP3 files anyway due to

having no more money in their budget.

 

Jusy my 2 cents :)

 

---pete---

[Seth]

That's an easy one to figure out. Cracking down on file sharing sites has

potential in the end to bring millions of dollars to those pushing for the

crack down. Whereas, cracking down on child porn sites has no real

potential to make much money for anyone. It's all about money and how

money motivates people. That's life.

 

---pete---

 

That's it exactly.

 

I was just waiting for someone to post the $$$ answer. I'll be back on the p2p stuff.

[Dalo Harkin]

I think as you do that there are far more worse things happening in the world than people downloading music -

War, homelessness, we in the UK in terms of the government - I hate the government in the fact that they are so bothered about taking care of the rest of the world when they cannot even take care of their own -

and its the same for the music and film industry they just want to make more money and when someone downloads something for free they are basically just taking money away from them -

Its the same old story of ''the rich get richer''

[Guest Wolfeymole]

This government is more right wing than Maggie ever was, talk about a party for the people, my arse.

 

They have increased everything price wise, banned smoking and robbed me of my married mans allowance.

 

The sooner they are gone the better, give me an AK47 and I'll do it right now.

[Dalo Harkin]

This government is more right wing than Maggie ever was, talk about a party for the people, my arse.

 

They have increased everything price wise, banned smoking and robbed me of my married mans allowance.

 

The sooner they are gone the better, give me an AK47 and I'll do it right now.

 

 

Wolfey if you ever decide to plan a trip to number 10 give me a shout :D

[maynardvdm]

What is number 10? A prison :D:D

[Guest Wolfeymole]

It's where the Prime Minister lives Maynard you plank lol.

 

That fat scottish oaf who is quite correctly portrayed as Scrooge.

 

And good old 2 Jags Prescott has done very nicely for himself thank you very much.

 

2 Jags you say?

 

When John Prescott was Transport Minister he advocated that we should all use Public Transport, what he failed to mention was the fact that he owned 2 Jaguar cars.

 

Hypocritical *******.

[Dalo Harkin]

Lol - I only come here to see my friends that too have escaped from the looney bin :D

I will now just refer to Maynard as *Plank* (just like in lock stock ROFL)

[maynardvdm]

And i shall call you Wacko :D rofl

[Dalo Harkin]

Must have missed that one Maynard, as in Jacko???

lol

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Are you saying this is Dave,Maynard?

 

http://deephousepage.com/smilies/jackson.gif

[maynardvdm]

Wacko as in Animaniacs :D

 

http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll57/mjsmileys/wakkocls.gif

 

:D:p

[Dalo Harkin]

I cant see the pics :(

[maynardvdm]

Buy a laptop :D;)

[Dalo Harkin]

Have 2 mate - the blackberry is much much smaller lol