Virgin mulls suspensions of file sharers
Summary: Virgin Media could start suspending persistent filesharers on a temporary basis, using information provided to it by the Universal record company.
The ISP announced on Monday that it would, before Christmas, launch an all-you-can-eat music download service for its users, based on a monthly subscription fee. The tracks will all be DRM-free.
"In parallel, the two companies will be working together to protect Universal Music's intellectual property and drive a material reduction in the unauthorized distribution of its repertoire across Virgin Media's network," a statement read. "This will involve implementing a range of different strategies to educate file sharers about online piracy and to raise awareness of legal alternatives. They include, as a last resort for persistent offenders, a temporary suspension of internet access."
Virgin pointed out that "no customers will be permanently disconnected and the process will not depend on network monitoring or interception of customer traffic by Virgin Media".
A spokeswoman for Virgin told ZDNet UK on Monday that the suspensions "could be as little as five minutes, an hour or a day". She said the idea of suspensions was very much in the process of being worked out — they may not even happen — and would only be launched on a "trial" basis.
As for how Virgin will know which persistent file sharers it should be suspending, the spokeswoman said this knowledge would be derived from information coming from the record company.
Universal will use technology from the Danish anti-piracy firm DTecNet to scour file sharing networks — not Virgin's own network — and log the IP addresses of "persistent" file sharers, along with the time of the transfers in question. That information will go back to Virgin, who will use it to identify the file sharer and begin warning them of possible action that could be taken against them.
DTecNet has already been working with UK content companies for some time to do much the same thing, and is also working with RIAA in the United States.
Virgin's spokeswoman did not give any further details of the number of warnings a persistent file sharer would get, the exact pricing of the music service (although ZDNet UK understands it will be somewhere around the cost of two CDs a month) or which other record companies Virgin is in talks with regarding a similar service.
This article was originally posted on ZDNet UK.
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Talkback
And after they lose alot of customers.. they will do what?
Its dumb. Let the courts handle it and if they dont want to, then i guess you are out of luck.
The best way to handle this is through asking nicely and being persistant with the file sharers. Their education plan seems good, that may also help.
The hard core folks are not going to care or they, like many others, will move to MIRC or even encrypted fire sharing networks.
Agreed
Fact - IP address of a 'persistant' sharer actually means zero, and will never be conclusive proof of offense. If someone hacks my wireless network and steals my internet, shares files, and gets caught - I will get the suspension. Multiply by a few thousand users and BAM, class action. Not to mention all the other ways there are of spoofing IP addresses. The system is flawed and will target more innocent bystanders, except this time it will actually come after them on a large-scale basis. All it will take is for one person to loose a few hundred thousand due to an internet outage and Virgin will be hurting, not to mention the negative press that will come about because of this.
Bottom line - you can't use an IP address to systematically punish consumers. I have no doubt that many 'persistant' file sharers are doing so without their knowlege because they've been compromized and are now sitting on a botnet. Back in school we had a similar system, except that any file sharers were warned first and they other desisted or argued that they did nothing wrong, in which case a tech (me) went out and made sure the system wasn't hacked. 95% of the time it was, resulting in a disk format and a crash course in internet security. Is Virgin going to do the same for each and every one of its customers? A warning maybe, but beyond that, I highly doubt it.
Bottom line, this will never fly. Just like every other attempt to stifle piracy, this is going to punish innocents while actual pirates will simply adapt and continue as they have for decades. And as every person will tell you, the problem isn't piracy, the problem is that there hasn't been much Intellectual "property" worth paying for. Maybe if these record lables starting hiring artists based on talent rather then using a flavor-of-the-week mentality, they'd see some sales. Simple fact of the matter is, you can't charge the same amount of money for a good arist and a bad one. I realize these are very subjective terms, but there it is.
Subscription-based unlimited downloads are a good idea, especially if the price is right, but THAT won't fly if you the best format you offer is 128KB. If I'm getting digital, I want quality that will match hundreds if not thousands of dollars I have invested in musical amplification equipment.
And even with all of the above aside, I still don't understand why these companies refuse to akgnowlege that people that download music illegaly actually spend more money on music related merchandise then those that don't. It seems to me that the business model is all wrong - but I have an idea!
1) Give all music away for free. People will take it anyway, might as well give them what they want.
2) Merchandise like crazy. Artists love to tour (not all of them, but many). Artists also get a lot higher percentage of my money when I pay for a show ticket then if I buy a CD. a LOT more. If I get a hoodie or a T-Shirt, its even more. That's where the money is for future business and record cos need to recognize and embrace it. They don't even need to give it away for free - if CDs were $5 a pop, piracy would drop to negligible levels and show attendence/merch sales would spike through the roof. But no, keep up this hard-line stance. Its working out great.
But what do I know - I'm just a Wharton graduate...
"The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the official opinion of my employer or the organization through which the Internet was accessed."
RE: Virgin mulls suspensions of file sharers
RE: Virgin mulls suspensions of file sharers
Unlikely
Clean ID is impossible
As I understand it, when plugged in, it sniffs the network for MAC addresses and spoofs them. Thus my P2P traffic would be logged by the content "protector", the IP looked up on Virgin's records, and some other poor sap get the blame, and the suspension, while my cable modem would be off spoofing someone else's MAC.
I pay for my 20Mb service from Virgin, and it's very good, but it irks me to know the real reason why I only get a 2Mb connection at peak times is the sheer volume of hacked cable modems in use in these parts about which Virgin has done SFA.
lol