Irish ISP Agrees To Shut Down File Sharers

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Irish ISP Agrees To Shut Down File Sharers


An internet provider in Ireland has reached an agreement with four major record publishers to shut down the internet access of anyone accused - by the record companies - of illegally downloading music.

The deal between actively encouraging [http://www.eircom.net/] file sharing.

The record companies had initially wanted Eircom to install software that could detect "fingerprints" of unauthorized music, but the company claimed it wouldn't be "technically feasible" to do so. Instead, a compromise was reached: The record companies will provide Eircom with IP addresses of people they detect downloading music, and the ISP will take action based on that.

How will the record companies monitor online activity to determine if music is being stolen? They didn't say. What will Eircom do to verify these accusations? Nothing, apparently; the company said it was "pleased" with the settlement because it wouldn't be required to upgrade its network or risk violating any privacy laws. Apparently, its quite happy to just roll along with whatever the record industry tells it to do.

And what happens when a customer is mistakenly accused of downloading music? It's a safe bet it won't be anything good. With no way to verify the accusations, there's no way to refute them, so unless the deal includes fine print that does require Eircom to somehow double-check the accusations, its customers will be at the mercy of the recording industry.

An article in the Irish Times [http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/0129/1232923373331.html] says that this is the first deal of its kind in the world but that similar schemes are being considered in other countries. Will the record labels be able to bully other ISPs into compliance with the threat of expensive litigation, no matter how baseless it may ultimately be? Sadly, it doesn't seem unlikely.

via: Boing Boing [http://www.boingboing.net/2009/01/29/irish-isp-will-disco.html]



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bad rider

The prodigal son of a goat boy
Dec 23, 2007
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It kinda sounds like they have a, sure if you want to track them which would be illegal go ahead kinda thing. I doubt this will stop any serious pirates, or affect their clientel that much.
 

Royas

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Apr 25, 2008
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Sounds like this will work up to the point they shut down the access of someone with some money and a will to fight. Ireland may not be as sue-happy as the USA, but there is a civil court system for lawsuits. Sounds like this sort of thing would result in a loss for the ISP, unless they could back the record company's accusations with cold, hard facts.
 

fix-the-spade

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Feb 25, 2008
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Well, if there is 'no' way to prove the allegations, surely the response is that they are making it up. Or that they are utilising some kind of illegal spyware system, although to prove such a thing you would have incriminate yourself.

I think this will continue and spread until:
i) The ISP's start blocking record industry employees en masse as most of the people I have ever met who are into or involved in music have vast pirate libraries alongside their vast legal library.
ii) The ISP cuts the services of some nutter who decides the best course of action is to drive to their head office and gun down anyone and everyone. I expect that to happen if this idea takes off in the US.
iii) The ISP blocks a big corporation's web access on the basis of an accusation, then get themselves and the record label well and truly in the shit. After all, they just cut the service based on a IP handed to them with no proof...
 
Nov 28, 2007
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fix-the-spade said:
ii) The ISP cuts the services of some nutter who decides the best course of action is to drive to their head office and gun down anyone and everyone. I expect that to happen if this idea takes off in the US.
Yes, because only America has nutjobs. Can you please leave anti-American sentiments out of this? On-topic, this is just a bad idea all around.
 

Rath709

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Mar 18, 2008
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There are inherent problems with people being accused of downloading things illegally by ISPs when they actually aren't. There are several recorded instances of Virgin assuming that people who were downloading games via Steam were doing some kind of pirating and when presented with the truth, they then had the audacity to advise at least one of their customers not to use Steam and buy physical media instead.
 

fix-the-spade

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Feb 25, 2008
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thebobmaster said:
fix-the-spade said:
ii) The ISP cuts the services of some nutter who decides the best course of action is to drive to their head office and gun down anyone and everyone. I expect that to happen if this idea takes off in the US.
Yes, because only America has nutjobs. Can you please leave anti-American sentiments out of this? On-topic, this is just a bad idea all around.
America has it's nut jobs just like everyone else, what it also has is cheap easy access to firearms and a long distinguished history of this sort of thing happening.
It's not so much an anti American sentiment as an observation of events.
 
Nov 28, 2007
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fix-the-spade said:
thebobmaster said:
fix-the-spade said:
ii) The ISP cuts the services of some nutter who decides the best course of action is to drive to their head office and gun down anyone and everyone. I expect that to happen if this idea takes off in the US.
Yes, because only America has nutjobs. Can you please leave anti-American sentiments out of this? On-topic, this is just a bad idea all around.
America has it's nut jobs just like everyone else, what it also has is cheap easy access to firearms and a long distinguished history of this sort of thing happening.
It's not so much an anti American sentiment as an observation of events.
Fair enough. I though you just posted that to say "Oh, those wacky irresponsible Americans and their guns!"
 

TheWickerPopstar

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Dec 6, 2007
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I'll be anxious to see this idea spread internationally without sales numbers for physical media increasing.

That's sarcasm. Please leave us alone.
 

Aardvark

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Sep 9, 2008
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Here's where the consumer can fight back against this sort of thing. If you're with this company, cancel your contract and go elsewhere, your argument being you feel your civil liberties are at risk or some other hippy nonsense. If enough people take their business elsewhere out of sheer paranoia, they'll change their tune, give the record companies the finger and hunker down to weather the imminent legal assault.
 

Chaos Marine

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Feb 6, 2008
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Doubtful. Eircom are the Comcast of Ireland. The only reason they haven't gone bankrupt is because for a long time they were the only game in town and you know how lazy people can be. I dislike the fact that I have to get line rental from them for my ISP. But when my current contract expires, I'm going with a different company who actually have optical cable and promise 20Mb/s download and 1.5 Mb/s upload for about the same price as what I'm paying at the moment and getting 3Mb/s download 396Kb/s upload.
 

MosDes

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Jul 16, 2008
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As far as I'm aware, all Torrent shares and p2p networks exchange the IPs of users. Given this, the record companies could simply be "perusing" some downloads and collecting IPs from a given range. Albeit, this would entail that they violate the same law they are trying to protect...
 

Chaos Marine

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Feb 6, 2008
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RAKtheUndead said:
Uh. Oh. I'm going to curse Eircom right now.

Chaos Marine said:
Doubtful. Eircom are the Comcast of Ireland. The only reason they haven't gone bankrupt is because for a long time they were the only game in town and you know how lazy people can be. I dislike the fact that I have to get line rental from them for my ISP. But when my current contract expires, I'm going with a different company who actually have optical cable and promise 20Mb/s download and 1.5 Mb/s upload for about the same price as what I'm paying at the moment and getting 3Mb/s download 396Kb/s upload.


The fact that you're getting 3Mb/s at all for download rates from Eircom is something to be joyful about. We're paying for 7Mb/s download rates and only getting 1.5Mb/s. And when you're consistently downloading patches for Linux distros over a 1.5Mb/s connection, it does leave you with a feeling of resentment. Particularly as you hear of Koreans with 100Mb/s data rates, and (misguided and just plain wrong) plans to move towards cloud computing.
Sorry, my post could have been typed better. I'm renting my line from Eircom but I'm getting my broadband service from IrishBroadband.
 

SenseOfTumour

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Jul 11, 2008
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What bugs me is a lot of the ISPs actively sell their service based on how many movies, mp3s etc you can download in a certain time, and how they offer 'unlimited downloads (fairusagepolicyappliesseesmallprintaswewillcutyouoffifyoucutintomyprofits)'

Who out there needs more than say 20gb download per month or more than 1gb download speed normally? Unless they're downloading massive files, which I imagine are likely to be movies, mp3 collections , games , etc. To me, ISPs have made the foolish move of pretty much saying 'look how much free stuff you can get if you sign up to our extra fast broadband service!'

To me, I think there's always going to be piracy, and sure if the easy casual piracy can be cut down, that'll help the entertainment industries, but of course, all we seem to hear about is 'EMI take cancer teen to court over 10 mp3 files' and the like.

Of course, if I was being cynical (and I am), I might suggest that newspapers don't get torrented so they're safe to bash the big companies.

As for my internet usage, it's the highest it's ever been as I resintalled windows, had to get all new drivers, patch everything, reinstall the Orange Box, update all my steam games, and redownload all the GTAs (except 4)and X-Com games, and reinstall WOW (9 discs and huge patches)...

After all that, I still don't think I've downloaded more than say 60gb this month.

To me, I'd suggest looking into usage by customers, and maybe look into what they're downloading if they're using more than say 100gb a month, it's legit maybe, but maybe not. Also, with torrenting the most popular, look at customers with high levels of constant upload, too.

Or just pick customers at random and terrorise that one kid you plucked out of the list of thousands and tell him you're taking his parent's house. Nice move. Great publicity.
 

Rugged 13

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Oct 13, 2008
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Apparently I'm the only one that still gets music legally anymore. Oh well...


I don't care about it because i get all music legally and I'm with BT. But sucks a big one for pretty much everyone i know since they all p2p.

On another note, broadband in Ireland is only 66% as fast as they advertise on average, with Eircom at roughly 60%.