Virgin Media bows to record industry, to send P2P warning letters

Kemik

Kemik

Kemik

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As we noted yesterday, one of the fondest dreams of the recording industry is to get Internet service providers to help them police the content flowing across their networks. Now, British ISP Virgin Media has taken a halting step in that general direction by agreeing to work with the BPI, the UK equivalent of the RIAA which represents the interests of the recording industry in that country. The agreement will have Virgin sending out warning letters to those who the BPI has identified as sharing copyrighted material.

Early reports of the negotiations between Virgin Media and the BPI had suggested that the ISP was considering adopting a draconian "three strikes and you're out" policy, in which it would disconnect repeat offenders. That approach, however, has since found limited support in the European Parliament, although the UK Parliament is apparently considering legislation that would compel its implementation. For now, however, the two organizations will apparently settle for sending potential infringers nastygrams.
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Click here for the rest of the article. Source: Ars Technica
 
Spineless. Doesn't EU law say that ISPs do not have to appease record labels in any way at all, instead needing a court order to get subscriber details?
 
And wouldn't they (Virgin) be breaking the Data Protection Act and various other Privacy Laws by just simply handing their data over to the BPI?
 
ADSLguide got to it too.

It doesn't say VM will be handing over your details, just that they'll send you a nasty letter - ISPs have been sending nasty emails for years if they get any contact from the MAFIAA/BPI et al...
 
But they imply that they would be working "with the BPI" so surely they would be consulted at some point down the line if someone broke the AUP...
 
I assume since they will be breaking some kind of law if they actually scan the content of the traffic that they will just send these letters to anyone using Peer to Peer regardless of what they are actually sending/receiving, so what if you play a game that downloads its patches using a Peer to peer network?

This is stupid!
 
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The agreement will have Virgin sending out warning letters to those who the BPI has identified as sharing copyrighted material.
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J.T said:
I assume since they will be breaking some kind of law if they actually scan the content of the traffic
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I use SSL Usenet 99.9% of the time, and only use torrents to leech Linux distros without hurting the project's bandwidth. But from what little I understand, the BPI, RIAA et al. all basically employ people to connect to trackers. They then connect to you as a peer and log what you allow them to leech. If it's copyright material, you get the letter. Nothing illegal about that.

I wouldn't ever touch torrents for naughty stuff, you're just asking for it imho lol
 
tolien said:
ADSLguide got to it too.

It doesn't say VM will be handing over your details, just that they'll send you a nasty letter - ISPs have been sending nasty emails for years if they get any contact from the MAFIAA/BPI et al...
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Exactly. F2S did this while I was working for them 3 years ago.
 
J.T said:
I assume since they will be breaking some kind of law if they actually scan the content of the traffic that they will just send these letters to anyone using Peer to Peer regardless of what they are actually sending/receiving, so what if you play a game that downloads its patches using a Peer to peer network?

This is stupid!
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Negative, Read it again. BPI identify someone sharing P2P material. All VM do is send a nasty letter.

Assuming you don't break the law what is there to worry about? The less lechers that download hoards of illegal crap on the VM network the better as far as I'm concerned :)
 
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Surely this will not affect the good citizens of OCUK though.:p The only people who will be affected will be the ones breaking the law.
 
Richdog said:
Why does ANYONE stay with Virgin? Their TV is crap, their internet is crap... I can't understand it.
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Because if their Internet works for you its the best thing since ADSL :cool: As a long term NTL/VM customer I would never ever go to ADSL. The service is superb.

Although I wouldn't ever use their TV or Phone services :o
 
Richdog said:
Why does ANYONE stay with Virgin? Their TV is crap, their internet is crap... I can't understand it.
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Good question. Phorm, download caps, net neutrality, losing Sky channels, no commitment to HD content (1 channel for 5 hours, lol) and now this. The only thing they have I really like is their VoD service, but even that is problematic, slow to update and confused.

Wonder what they're gonna do next week?
 
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