Virgin Media as copyright cop
p2pnet news | P2P:- Yet another broadband provider looks ready to pull the plug on customers who anger the Big 4 record labels.
Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG ‘trade body’ the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) is, “working with Virgin” to have customers spammed with “warning letters,” says the Telegraph.
“The trial by the UK’s largest residential broadband supplier will go live within months and disconnecting customers who ignore warnings, a sanction favoured by the record BPI, remains an option. The trial will also be open to film and television studios.
“This would be the first time a British internet company has publicly moved to share responsibility for curbing piracy.”
Earlier today, “Having made zero headway with their efforts to sue the P2P filesharing community into submission, the entertainment cartels, with the members of the Big 4 organised music gang up front, have switched their attack to ISPs, trying to browbeat them into becoming corporate copyright cops,” said p2pnet, going on:
“Britain is ready to roll in that capacity, so are Japan and Sweden, and the Hollywood’s MPAA reckons it’s, ‘in the best interests of Internet providers to sift through data traveling across their networks and interrupt transmissions that violate copyright law’.”
“Now, ‘After being blown off by the Norwegian police, MPAA lawyer Espen Tøndel is now demanding that ISPs disconnect Norwegian file-sharers from the Internet’ …”
The BPI has, “teams of technicians to trace illegal music downloading to individual accounts,” says the Telegraph.
“It will hand these account numbers over to Virgin Media, which will match them to names and addresses.”
(Thanks, catflap)
Telegraph – Virgin Media takes fight to illegal downloaders, March 31, 2008
p2pnet – Norway says No! to Hollywood, March 31, 2008
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March 31st, 2008 at 11:59 am
What about our privacy you fucking dickheads.
March 31st, 2008 at 1:19 pm
It looks as though Virgin Media is about to lose a large chunk of money…
March 31st, 2008 at 4:45 pm
At the first warning letter, most sensible people will request a MAC and leave.
Many will leave even if they are not threatened purely through bad press and word of mouth.
That’s what I did with my first ISP when they sent me an equivalent letter.
I was disgusted that they were monitoring my use of the internet and imposing such restrictive limits (at the time it was an abysmally small monthly limit that was hidden under mountains of small print in the precursor to a FUP)
If your ISP is willing to hand out your personal info to a third party without a specific warrant for that info, it’s time to find another that has a little respect for your privacy and hasn’t grown a massively inflated head about just what is their position in the scheme of all things legal, moral or intangible..
March 31st, 2008 at 6:24 pm
I don’t think the ISP will be giving out any subscriber information, rather they’ll be contacting their subscribers directly on behalf of the copyright owners.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:31 am
it my internet connection i pay for. fuck them.