Eircom caves in to Big 4 labels
p2pnet news view Music:- In a first for Ireland and perhaps anywhere, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG last year targeted Eircom, an individual ISP, demanding it, “take measures to prevent its networks being used for the illegal downloading of music,” said the Irish Times.
Now, Eircom has without reservation caved in to the Big 4, not only leaving its customers wide open to attack, but also promising to provide the labels with ammunition.
“The Big 4 recently ramped up their efforts against their customers to try to force internet service providers to act as corporate copyright cops, using feral filtering against their own customers,” said p2pnet when the story broke, quoting Ars Technica as saying »»»
Imagine a world in which a single industry could control an entire continent`s access to particular web sites, force ISPs to install expensive deep packet inspection gear that would search the complete Internet data streams of millions of users, and force Internet applications to conform to its design parameters or risk being blocked.
If you`re a European consumer, this might sound like a paranoid dystopia, but it`s actually a vision of paradise – if paradise were designed by the IFPI.
‘Three-strikes-and-you’re out’
A “landmark settlement” at the High Court in Dublin between the Big 4 and Eircom, “will give the labels the firepower they need to curb music piracy,” says Silicon Republic.
Eircom will operate a three-strikes-and-you’re out policy “against illegal peer-to-peer (P2P) downloaders, while also agreeing to work with data provided by the big four labels to help them pinpoint and pursue illegal downloaders and uploaders,” says the story, going on:
“The ruling means a precedent has been set, and all other ISPs in the Irish market will now have to co-operate with the music industry.
“The move will have global ramifications as other labels in other jurisdictions will be able to follow a similar route to punish illegal downloaders.”
New Zealand recently became the first country in the world to act against its own citizens on behalf of Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US), agreeing to implement the industry’s ‘Three Strikes’ move.
In Ireland, “A spokesman for Eircom explained to siliconrepublic.com that the collaboration with the labels will not involve any network intervention,” it says, adding:
“Effectively, a third party will be hired by the labels to find out who are the largest illegal P2P downloaders. They will then come to us with the IP addresses of the suspected parties.
“We won’t reveal the identities of the users, but we will contact them and if they fail to comply we will follow the process agreed with the music industry. Currently the industry pursues these individuals in the court. We will now begin a three-step process that will begin with the issuing of a warning.”
One thing is certain: the ‘third-party’ won’t be MediaSentry, recently fired by the Big 4’s RIAA.
Or will it?
Irish Times – Eircom taken to court over illegal music downloads, March 10, 2008
p2pnet – Irish RIAA goes after ISPs, March 12, 2008
feral filtering – Big 4`s IFPI demands Feral Filtering, December 27, 2007
Ars Technica – IFPI`s European Christmas list: content filtering and P2P blocking, December 9, 2007
Silicon Republic – Big four music labels and Eircom in landmark piracy settlement, January 28, 2009
act against its own citizens – New Zealand ISPs against anti-P2P law, January 28, 2009|
fired by the Big 4’s RIAA – RIAA fires MediaSentry: confirmed, January 4, 2009
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January 30th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Exactly the same as Rogers, Bell and others have been doing all along. It’s been a much more deceptive act here. They’ve been warning, and if warnings didn’t do it then they found reasons or attacks on their network, spam, breaking of contract under their end user agreements and much more.
As a matter of fact if you were running your site in Ontario or Quebec you’d be kicked off so fast it’d make you head spin
February 1st, 2009 at 7:37 am
Here in the states TimeWraner does that crap too the send you warning letters if you download “copynoright” content.