VirginMedia have said "we know what your upto" to subscribers who download music

[Inside_man]

from >> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7486743.stm


Warning letters to 'file-sharers'
A CD and computer
The music industry says new laws could be introduced

Virgin Media has sent about 800 letters to customers warning them that they should not be downloading illegal music files via file-sharing sites.

It is part of a 10-week campaign it is running in conjunction with the BPI to "educate" users about downloads.

The BPI, the body which represents the UK record industry, told the BBC that "thousands more letters" would be sent.

Its stricter stance on illegal downloaders might result in some ISPs being taken to court, it told BBC News.

Refuseniks

The BPI wants all UK ISPs to sign up to a so-called three strikes policy - where users of file sharing networks get two warnings and are then disconnected if they are sharing copyright files.

Will McGree, aged 20, talks to Newsbeat about the letter he received from Virgin claiming he illegally downloaded content

So far only Virgin Media has officially signed up and it is keen to stress that currently it is running an education-only campaign and that no-one has been thrown off the network.

Virgin said the wording on the envelope which contains the warning letter sent to 800 customers - which threatens consumers with disconnection - was a "mistake".

This would be reviewed in mid-August, said a Virgin Media spokesman.

BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor told BBC News that the body was prepared to back up the education campaign with legal action, including taking ISPs to court.

"If we have to go to court, we will go to court and we will win," he said.

One customer who received a letter told BBC Radio 1's Newsbeat programme that he was unhappy with Virgin Media.


It is doomed to fail
Virgin customer Will McGree

Newsbeat talks to Virgin customers

Will McGree received a letter in June, warning him that legal action could be taken against him.

He said: "It's doomed to fail. Virgin Media will lose a lot of customers over this because people don't like to be accused of stealing music over their morning coffee.

"It made me feel betrayed. I was under the impression that I paid Virgin Media money to keep my internet connection protected and safe."

He said no-one in his flat had been file-sharing and that it was possible someone had accessed his wireless network from outside the building.

Becky Hogge, executive director of the Open Rights Group, said the letters were a disproportionate response from the music industry.

"We need to protect users from punitive measures," she said.

She said the music industry had to be in a position of offering a viable alternative before it clamped down on the activities of some users.

HAVE YOUR SAY

This is by no means the most effective way to stop file sharing

James, Belfast
Send us your comments

"Stopping illicit file-sharing might not be as effective a measure as trying to monetise it," she said.

Some ISPs such as Carphone Warehouse, have refused to participate and the BPI did not rule out the possibility of taking such refuseniks to court.

Others, such as BT, have sent letters to subscribers threatening them with disconnection although it said this is not a new policy.

"We have not joined any "crusades", the telco said in a statement.

"We do work with various bodies to help them protect their copyright material and will sometimes pass on warning notices to customers on their behalf where we feel this is appropriate.

If a customer continues to be in breach of our terms and conditions then BT has the right to suspend or terminate that customer's account, though we work closely with customers to avoid this where possible," the statement read.

The industry has been given until spring of next year to find a solution to illegal downloaders or face legislation.

Youth-skewed

The current system involves the BPI policing file sharing networks. It looks for illegal traffic and identifies the IP address from which it has come and informs the ISP.

There is no distinction made between someone who has downloaded one illegal track and someone who has downloaded thousands.

A joint letter from Virgin and the BPI is then sent to the individual.

"This is about education. We make no assumptions about who is at fault. It may be someone in the family or someone illegally using their wi-fi connection," said a Virgin Media spokesman.

With conservative estimates suggesting a fifth of Europeans are involved in file sharing, some experts question how much impact such a system can have.

"File sharing is very youth-skewed. The BPI isn't going to close the door on the problem but it can get at the families whose kids are file sharing without their knowledge," said Mark Mulligan, an analyst with Jupiter Research.

Virgin is keen to stress that the 800 or so letters it has so far sent are a drop in the ocean compared to its 3.8m user base.

"In the scheme of things that is a relatively small number," said Ian Fogg, analyst with Jupiter Research.

He said that ISPs faced a difficult balancing act between conforming to the BPI's new rules and pleasing their own customers.

"It is a sensitive issue for providers. File sharers are using up network capacity and therefore pushing up their costs and illegal downloads compete with their own music services," he said.

"They need to be seen to be doing enough so they don't get sued and to control their costs but also need to be careful not to upset their customers."

Three strikes and you're in

The record industry has long grappled with how to wrest back control of digital music.

According to Jupiter Research, a fifth of Europeans use file sharing networks. Paid-for digital music services such as iTunes are used by just 10% and make up just 8% of overall music revenue.

The BPI admitted that the current mechanisms for selling music were "broken".

The new strategy will see it negotiating licensed content deals with ISPs who have pursued file sharers.

"We want people to see this not as three strikes and you're out but three strikes and you're in to legitimate music services," said Frederico Bolza, head of strategy at SonyBMG.

Some DRM-free material may be made available and the new subscription models will allow users to keep some of the tunes they download, he said.

Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI, said the details of the services were yet to be decided but that there are likely to a variety of models on offer that would be "easy and cheap".

The form they take will be crucial, thinks Mr Mulligan.

"Charging a tenner a month hasn't worked. Ideally it needs to be incredibly cheap or free, with a massive catalogue that can be tranferrable," he said.

Mr Taylor admitted that the BPI's current campaign was unlikely to stop file sharing completely but he did think the idea that the web was home to free stuff needs to be challenged.

"There is a phenomenal amount of piracy out there and we believe that the idea that 95% of content on the net is free is not sustainable. We don't believe that society can allow the free consumption of content to persist," he said.

[tommy t]

well i for one would be canceling the contract with my isp should they ever do a three strikes thing or similar, after all i do not pay a monthly fee just to browse a very unsafe web that has thousands of infected pages or read emails i pay so i can d/load music movies ect and why not,? as for the saying that we would buy their products if they could not be d/loaded for free is bull ive never bought a film or music cd for around 10 years and am not about to start now i think our nanny state saying what we can or cannot do is against our human rights as it is for these people to snoop on you

[silver]

He said no-one in his flat had been file-sharing and that it was possible someone had accessed his wireless network from outside the building.

good luck making that one stand up in court

BPI sounds like it stepping up activities,. in the US it's the end user who is prosecuted (from what I've heard) so I wonder if the BPI can take ISPs to court - certainly would be easier for them rather than prosecute individuals

[Worldlife]

I support all action taken on behalf of impoverished performers to ensure they get the royalty earnings they deserve

OTH perhaps there should be a different set of rules apply when an older recording is no longer available through the artistes website or official sources.

Well done Virgin - dump these excessive users and give faster speeds in the evenings to those of us who lead real lives

um...doesn't this violate the Privacy Laws or the Interception of Communications Act? If they start monitoring your internet line then why not monitor your phone line too? oh wait! phone tapping is illegal. Therefore it stands to reason that internet line tapping, which this appears to be - call it monitoring all you like they're still tapping in to see what you're doing, is also illegal.

So they're solution to illegal downloading is to illegally tap your internet line????

Personally I fail to understand how the movie and music industry is losing millions when they have just announced Will Smith as the highest paid actor with the ability to command a fee of $40million PER FILM....where exactly does this $40 million to pay him (let alone the rest of the people involved in the film) for one film come from if they're losing so much money?? Cameron Diaz is able to get $25million PER FILM.

Some people, no matter how good they are, get paid silly amounts of money. Let's face it Actors are not Fire Fighters or First Response guys and what do these people that put their lives on the line get? They don't even break the 50k a year mark for saving your life. Some peoples wages/salaries need to be put into perspective. I'm sure the local hospital losing money wouldn't be able to afford $40million for their entire First Response Service, let alone to pay just one person. Where the movie industry gets off saying they're losing money while paying out so much for one Actor is beyond me.

Radiohead went the right way with their "Why don't you pay us what you think?" for their In Rainbows album...people had a choice and a fair many people still paid...Furthermore some independant artists view downloading and sharing as a means of free publicity. I know people that use it as a preview, so to speak. When I ask them "why not just go watch it?" I get the response, "Can't afford to drive out to the cinema. Can't afford the gig ticket prices. This way I can still see it before I buy it. Why would I buy an album or film I don't like? If I like what I see then Ill go out and buy it as soon as it hits the stores."

Or make it compulsory that people who download pay $1 a year....there's over 6 billion people in the world. if only half that download then only that 3 billion gave $1 a year, and the rest continue to go to the cinema/gig or buy that CD/DVD, then the industry is guaranteed $3 billion a year just from the downloads. They'd possibly make much more than what they currently do. Of course these are rough figures...still if only 3 million gave $1, who can quibble at making $3 million a year, guaranteed, for doing nothing?

In my humble opinion....

[Inside_man]

one hell of a humble opinion ;{)

[Austin_KW]

I dont think they are 'tapping in to see what you're doing'.
When you are file-sharing, using p2p etc, you are connecting to numerous other peoples computers.
If one of these happens to be a media company (or their agents) then you have just told them what you are doing.