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Thursday 24th July 2008

ISPs and music industry announce piracy crackdown

Posted at: 6:28pm 24th July 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

Major British ISPs confirm deal with the music industry to offer legal file-sharing facilities and educate customers about illegal downloads

Pirate Bay

Is this agreement better than legal enforcement of anti-piracy measures? Is it enough to stop widespread illegal file sharing? What sort of ‘user friendly’ music formats would need to be on offer for you to pay for a legal music download? Let us know your thoughts.



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Comments
IP tracking

Presumably you could use I.P. masking software to get around this? I know there's always a way of tracing if they really want you, but if it really is as simple as recording IPs then that's not that hard to hide. Not that I'd ever download anything illegal of course - perish the thought.

Comment by Ergath at 7:34am 28th July 2008



What a scam!

I had been dreading this for a while, as I loved being able to DL music that I wanted to "test before I buy" & also dl old music which I can never find anywhere. But, this is just another way to get money out of you, just like the record companies to want more money as the times change & prices go up. They have probably found that they won't be able to live their fancy lives with expensive cars, houses, food & champagne. What they yet have to realise is that some smart people will eventually find a way round this problem. Also, people will just setup websites that people can upload music to & download from, rendering this new ruling pointless. It's a joke & they are using it just as a way to push album prices up & enforce the fact that you have to now buy the songs. Just a thought, we could all listen to music that we may want to download or "try before you buy" on youtube or sites similar. (I stopped downloading as soon as I heard they were stopping us & I won't be starting again unless, they take away this ruling & say that we can dl it again.)

Comment by AJF355_Vaio at 2:58am 28th July 2008



Meh

I've downloaded music in the past too, but mostly for trail purposes. No, really. I downloaded My Chemical Romance and bought that within a week after download, along with Theory of a Deadman just a few days afterward. Of course, there's stuff I didn't like and thus deleted (such as Pendulum). But there are three things that bug me about this entire issue: 1) I know it's already been stated that they'll use BitTorrent to discover the 'target' ISPs (avoiding the use of the word criminal, hehe), but is that really their intended method? 2) On Mininova, you can download music from mostly-new artists that have legally put up their own work - will we still be able to rightfully download this without getting a dumb letter? and 3) Is this campaign against illegal downloads only just about music files? I'm not saying I download movies or games or cracked software or whatever, but it may confuse a few people who think that that they may still get away with this. The only thing I use my uTorrent for is downloading legal emulators, ROMs (for games that are now legal, due to their means of distribution being no longer obtainable) and fansub anime (of which I've become addicted to).

Comment by buzzer at 11:43am 27th July 2008



Still the same problem...

Yet again it seems the music industry is trying to control media distribution. Looking at the problem logically, we see that the music companies (representing their artists) need to be paid for each copy of a piece of music somebody has - fair enough. Consumers, on the other hand, want the music they like (big selection) in a format convenient to themselves. For example, I rip my CDs to my home media system in FLAC because I have a sound system suitable for lossless audio, and a duplicate library in MP3 for carrying around on my portable player, smaller files mean I can carry more around with me and I don't need the same quality on cheap headphones. Other people may have different requirements. So, if we go for lossless audio, it becomes clear that P2P is the only way to distribute without it becoming cost prohibitive for the music industry. What needs to be done therefore, is to link some form of cataloging software with a central database (something with fingerprinting, like MusicIPMixer) which logs which songs a person is allowed to listen to (and have in their library). The music industry therefore produces music and once it is out on the networks only needs a link for metadata and authorisation, while the audio data itself is available on P2P. A person's library can then convert the data to whichever format is preferred. Fingerprinting means you are still recognised as having the *same* piece of music. Okay, this won't completely eliminate piracy, but it will provide the consumer with what they want, minimise distribution costs for the music industry, and remove any and all reasons given for illegal downloading (besides theft).

Comment by slowmongoose at 5:26pm 26th July 2008



@crazy_ceo

This isn't like the ID cards debate. ID cards ARE a waste of everyone's tax money (oh, and on top of that they expect you to pay for them again!). I already have a passport, a student ID card (both with my photo on) & my bank/credit cards, and I'm sure plenty of people also have driving licences, CIS cards etc etc, to prove who they are. A small piece of plastic will not prevent idiots from blowing things up, and themselves in the process, and since most bombs create heat, which melts plastic, I doubt ID cards will help the police identify the culprits, because the police seem to already be able to do that perfectly well without them! ID cards are a pointless exercise to make the government look like its doing something, the government isn't sure what it's supposed to make them look like they're doing, but it makes them look as if they have 'ideas'. And ID cards will also not stop idiots beating the crap out of each other, they won't stop people stealing, murdering, selling drugs or being racist/sexist/gayist. The only thing they Do offer, is the chance to fine people for not carrying them, so it's a lovely way of spending millions of tax money in order to create another stealth tax which, by-and-large, won't actually bring that much tax in.

Comment by EdArch at 5:25pm 25th July 2008



Uh-oh!

I don't think NicoBellic and pveater are giing to be friends anymore... :)

Comment by evanjdooner at 3:43pm 25th July 2008



NikoBellic

Pathetic. Lose argument = swearing. Hahah. BTW me off topic? Im only commenting on what YOU WROTE on this topic. Tool. How old are you 12!

Comment by pveater at 2:56pm 25th July 2008



Steal This Film

www.stealthisfilm.com . Down load that via torrents and view it. It has the most interesting debates ref this and pirate bay. Sorry but as time progress the industry's seem to embrace these mediums if the cannot control them after a while.. Look at some tv company's some use pear to pear networks to half there bandwidth load. Let's say that MP3's were made available on peer to peer networks at a cost then they could literately 1/2 the price of these albums as there costs would drop hosting the said items. Whats the cost to host a 1kb file to a 5mb file. They should embrace the medium and use it to there advantage as so should the film industry and gaming industry. imagine the bandwidth costs they would save alone and they if they didnt have there heads up there backside's they could all so save on other costs as well and then pass this back onto the customer while still taking the profit them selfs. imagine How much these company's make using this medium. 1) No cost of pressing the cd 2) Hardly any bandwidth costs 3) Supply to meet demand as and when needed 4) Full control of there medium 5) Happy customers

Comment by mayhem at 2:52pm 25th July 2008



Steal This Film

www.stealthisfilm.com . Down load that via torrents and view it. It has the most interesting debates ref this and pirate bay. Sorry but as time progress the industry's seem to embrace these mediums if the cannot control them after a while.. Look at some tv company's some use pear to pear networks to half there bandwidth load. Let's say that MP3's were made available on peer to peer networks at a cost then they could literately 1/2 the price of these albums as there costs would drop hosting the said items. Whats the cost to host a 1kb file to a 5mb file. They should embrace the medium and use it to there advantage as so should the film industry and gaming industry. imagine the bandwidth costs they would save alone and they if they didnt have there heads up there backside's they could all so save on other costs as well and then pass this back onto the customer while still taking the profit them selfs. imagine How much these company's make using this medium. 1) No cost of pressing the cd 2) Hardly any bandwidth costs 3) Supply to meet demand as and when needed 4) Full control of there medium 5) Happy customers

Comment by mayhem at 2:52pm 25th July 2008



@ mitchell2k7

several thinmgs dont really add up in your arguements. How are they makign it harder for you to buy albums? The ymay be making it harder for you to make your choices, but buying the cd is just as easy. If you want to sample the music first, most legal download sites have previews of all the songs they sell, surely half a minute of a song is enough to decide if you are going to like a song or not. Thirdly, you say you don't have time to listen to the songs on the radio, yet the radio is generally available for listening again to on the net, and if you have time to torrent an album then listen to it, surely you have time to find the songs you want to listen to in a legal fashion.

Comment by NewParadigm at 1:55pm 25th July 2008



@ Woodspoon

It's true buddy, when was the last time you heard a news story in which Jenna Jameson reported she was sicj and tired of people watching her be dirrty for free?

Comment by mitchell2k7 at 1:34pm 25th July 2008



I think it's interesting to note that it's only the record industry that are getting upset here because as far as I'm aware porn is one of the most downloaded things from the internet, yet you never hear the porn industry complaining about pirates and illegal downloading and their still making pots of cash, why? because they have their online distribution sorted out properly. It's also interesting to see they say "It’s not some great conspiracy where the BPI goes rifling through someone’s personal records", no but a record of your IP and what your downloading will have to be logged, so it's not far off is it? question is how long will that log be kept for? and what else will it be used for?

Comment by WoodSpoon at 12:27pm 25th July 2008



@crazyceo

Its comments like that which show how short sighted people are when listening to the media about torrenting. There are perfectly legitimate reasons to torrent high volumes of trattif. I manage somewhere in the region of 100GB upload a month and just over 80GB down through my virgin 20meg cable line. Its only that low as im sitting on the 70k upload limit. I will admit in the past I have downloaded some illegal stuff but recently (at least the past 6 months) I havnt touched anything illegal and have still been hitting that kind of usage. Just because the majority of people see a computer as a way to view youtube and pirate music does not mean thats what everyone does.

Comment by reashlin at 1:07pm 25th July 2008



its not just pirates who will lose out though...

I typically download 1 linux distrobution a month. Plus many legally shared files. Often I will even use torrent to download TV shows as I can't be arsed to watch them when they are on. I usually watch Top Gear on a wednseday evening ;). Theoretically this system could have a letter sent to me asking me to stop downloading music. Hmm. Seems like some nice scare tactics to me. TBH i'll set up the SSL tunnles tonight just so my data is high in volume and they have no idea what it actually is. Then they can send all the letters they like, ive not done anything wrong.

Comment by reashlin at 1:06pm 25th July 2008



its not just pirates who will lose out though...

I typically download 1 linux distrobution a month. Plus many legally shared files. Often I will even use torrent to download TV shows as I can't be arsed to watch them when they are on. I usually watch Top Gear on a wednseday evening ;). Theoretically this system could have a letter sent to me asking me to stop downloading music. Hmm. Seems like some nice scare tactics to me. TBH i'll set up the SSL tunnles tonight just so my data is high in volume and they have no idea what it actually is. Then they can send all the letters they like, ive not done anything wrong.

Comment by reashlin at 1:06pm 25th July 2008



Wait and see

Look what happened when Microsoft tried looking into people's data! They got sued big time! MP3 are rubbish why in hell would you try and make money from it I don't know! Maybe the music industry should start by bring out encrypted DVD data which can't be cracked and sounds good at the same time. Also I want music on a vinyl where can you buy it oh you can’t!! I don’t think the government should even get involved in theses matters. Look at the consol market they have done a really good job at stopping people from copying games! Why doesn’t the music industry do the same!

Comment by blunder12 at 12:34pm 25th July 2008



It's like the ID card debate....

If you have something to hide then this is going to upset you. If you don't use the torrent sites then this isn't going to bother you anyway at all. The best trick is to use the unsecure wireless networks in your street then they get the calls and not you. Just kidding!

Comment by crazyceo at 12:09pm 25th July 2008



CPC resents illegal downloaders

A recent opinion from one of the CPC staff, can't remember who (Ben maybe?) stated that he was very tired of illegal downloaders. I thought it was really well written, and basically said that while the author had downloaded music in the past; when a skint teenager; now that he has the means to pay for stuff, he pays for it. He basically called grown working adults who illegally download stuff as being pathetic. I urge you to read the column. IF teenagers were able to get hold of music to supplement what could afford to buy, but then as adults started paying for stuff, we would be less likely to face the wrath of the music industry. After all, no-one cared two hoots when as a child I used to take a tape copy of my mates Ultravox LP. (Showing my age now). Its the adults who think that they deserve something for nothing, and the people who abuse the system that have brought this on themselves. But human nature dictates that people will always take as much as they can get away with.

Comment by do_it_anyway at 11:33am 25th July 2008



Sorry for the double post but...

A thought just struck me there. This is an agreement between ISPs and an organization that represents the record companies, not the music industry. The problem with the record labels (the big ones, I mean) is that they always want the whole pie. This provides a huge stumbling block for legal alternatives to file sharing. There's plenty of examples where a record company sets up a profitable business model (most times by accident) which involves other content providers or a media portal. Then, when the money starts rolling in and the RC see that it's not getting the whole pie, it sues or shuts down the service. It's their pigheadedness and the fact that they are used to abusing monopoly rights by being the only content provider for many years that needs changing before real progress can be made. Having said that, that would be a way for the record companies to survive while "beating" piracy. There's no reason to believe that the record companies deserve to survive or that the music industry at large requires them to thrive. Just something to think about there...

Comment by evanjdooner at 11:04am 25th July 2008



as i have talked about with my work partners the stupid thing is, that the UK goverment is currently founding a hugh scheme to increase the internet speed across the UK, upto 1Gbit download speed per second to each house hold through fiber optics, and also increase the upload speed, but they have not stated the upload speed as of yet. If they get a 1Gbps speed or even a 100Mbps to every house hold in the UK and then they use it for Legal downloads from iTunes or napster. What services in the world would be able to handle that demand. nothing. the internet servers will crash. the only thing that will support speeds of that is Peer-to-peer connections. So if i am downloading a file when i am at 50% and someone else starts it they can download of me aswell as the server. and soforth. excactly how BitTorrent works. so why are the goverment inversting the Tax payers money to increase the internet speed upto the speed of the likes of Korea, and they are killing the need of it. Grantered, i am not supporting piracy, but they should plan together before speeding money on two driving force's that will kill each other.

Comment by zaphod54 at 10:50am 25th July 2008



@Cyberspice

I totally agree. The BPI and it's ilk are never going to defeat piracy as long as the incentive to pirate music remains. Instead of focusing on punishing illegal sharing it should be concentrating on a better, legal alternative. As it stands, the choice for some is: do I buy a CD that I've heard little or none of or do I DL it and see if I like it first. That's a pretty easy choice, if you ask me.

Comment by evanjdooner at 10:57am 25th July 2008



The best way to prevent piracy and recoup lost revenue would be to embrace file sharing. I know that sounds like a total contradiction, but hear me out. I used to be a member of Oink (RIP) and the reason was, I could find hundreds and hundreds of bands that I would never have heard of through legal downloading (another reason of course, is that oink provided a much better service than any legal download site, ie. no DRM, higher quality mp3's better choice of formats...) Many of these bands simply don't get the exposure through mainstream radio, and as a result, I found, downloaded and later bought albums I might never have heard of otherwise. I did this because I'm a great lover of music. Now, Oink had an infinitely better selection and variety of music than any other legal download store, because people would upload and share there collections. So, heres the thing, imagine if oink had been a legal, service that you had to pay for. I imagine NOBODY on there would have objected to paying £10 a month for the service, I know I wouldn't. Now, Oink had 180,000 members. £10 a month would make £1.8 million EVERY MONTH for the respective authorities. If Oink was a legal service, imagine how many more users there would be? In this situation, everybody wins. Artists get paid for their hard work, the record companies get their cut, and we, the consumers, get a great service, great value and lots of new music, all legally. Good idea no?

Comment by cyberspice1 at 9:32am 25th July 2008



@pveater

STFU - I oinly see you moaning about this, just stfu and get back on topic!!

Comment by NikoBellic at 9:29am 25th July 2008



Next stage...

Well new rules means new ideas, inovations and encryptions to get round things. just pushes the matter to be more underground again.

Comment by Grinder at 9:21am 25th July 2008



I resent the BPI

When I hear a song on the radio, I may only get to listen to around 30 seconds. If I like that 30 seconds, i'll go and DL the song. If I like the song, i'll DL the album. If I like the album, i'll go out and buy it on CD. I use DLing of music to "try before I buy", what the hell is wrong with that? That's how i've been deciding which albums to buy for several years now, and I still buy 6 or more albums a month, but now I can get my wrists slapped with an angry warning from my ISP for doing what I could already be doing with a lot less hassle and time (for free) if i had the time to sit and listen to a full song on the radio, which I don't. The BPI are therefore making it harder for me to buy CD's, which will affect sales. I don't buy digital music online, because if my HDD failed, i'd have no way of getting my music back without either re-purchasing, or ripping from CD (which I don't mind) however ripping does take a great deal of time when you have several thousand CD's to do in one go! BPI = Fascist

Comment by mitchell2k7 at 8:23am 25th July 2008



Imagine..

if we said this about other criminal activities... "oh the latest campaign to crack down on car theft is just an attempt to scare the public" Scare the public about what... doing something illegal?

Comment by NewParadigm at 8:11am 25th July 2008



@NikoBellic

You're first comment was still completely stupid and your response kind of backed it up. Yes not everyone has a pc for gaming, or this or that or the other. So then why as you said before will people revert to using pc's only as 'business machines' if they cant get illegal downloadable music? They have many uses and if you are suggested most people you know only bought PC's for this purpose then take a survey because I can assure you there have been hundreds of uses for PCs before DL music came along and will still be when the illegal DL is stopped.

Comment by pveater at 1:34am 25th July 2008



Id probably be happy paying for downloads (I like Jazz in particular, and those guys scrape a living from their music), but It'll have to be in loads of formats (FLAC especially) and you have to have the rights to it if your computer gets completely wiped . . . unlike itunes.

Comment by Frohicky1 at 12:44am 25th July 2008



Hmmm...

Why are ISPs responsible for being the copyright cops for the music industry? They are a service provider. They are not responsible for the actions of their users. Just as a website isn't liable for the actions of its users. Also, yes musicians deserve to be paid like anyone else. Like everyone else, but unlike them, I don't get paid for work I did 50 years ago.

Comment by evanjdooner at 12:23am 25th July 2008



Cause for panic?

This wouldn't affect most people anyway, they're not going to take millions of people to court. I would think only the most serious offenders would be targeted. This "letter" is just a stint at scaring the public. On a side note: Play.com's sales are amazing, I haven't downloaded anything in months all because of Play! Maybe there's something to be learned here...

Comment by Zhaoman at 12:10am 25th July 2008



bally199

If only we could put snowy owls in the comments section...

Comment by hardwidge at 11:43pm 24th July 2008



O RLY?

I can't see this happenening. A) It will be too damn expensive to implement B) It is an invasion of privacy So..O RLY?

Comment by bally199 at 11:28pm 24th July 2008



Rapidshare

are the BPI working with rapidshare as well to get IP adresses of people who download stufff??

Comment by PB94941 at 11:25pm 24th July 2008



Games industry

Only hope the games industry takes note and starts doing the same and saves the dying pc market.

Comment by JohnW at 10:56pm 24th July 2008



scan in airports??...

I'll just lower the CPU multiplier so they decide that they cant be ars*d to wait around for 8 hours searching for illegal DL's

Comment by NikoBellic at 10:33pm 24th July 2008



As I stated in an earlier thread.... The EU Convention on Human Rights guarantees everybody the rights to 1) "receive and impart information and ideas" and 2) "freedom of association". Any ISP that infringes your rights without a court order will be skating on very thin ice. This is just to scare the masses into stopping 'illegal downloads'. It is unenforceable - just like their plans to check your laptop for 'illegal downloads' at airports (can you imagine the queues as they attempt to go through a 500GB hard drive trying to identify which songs you have receipts for?)

Comment by michael at 10:14pm 24th July 2008



lol

So the BPI will 'go on to bittorrent' at which point i hope some other bpi department picks up their isp and gets a letter sent to them... we all know none of the departments are likely to speak to each other and co-ordinate in any way... can't wait. Oh and I stopped d'l illegaly when it became quicker to get it from legal sites. I currently use warchild music because it not only delivers a boat load of files, it alo gives some of your pennies to a worthy charity... hint, hint... use warchild music

Comment by NewParadigm at 10:17pm 24th July 2008



Oh and...

PCs only REALLY took off when they became much more of a media center than a expensive typewriter with teletext enabled.

Comment by NikoBellic at 10:04pm 24th July 2008



@pveater

Most people that I know who have purchased a PC in the past 5 years have purchased them because this phase that we're going through with our digital content, Its just the same as when we all purchased CD or Tape players to play our music, and not everyone looks at PCs as Gaming machines... not everyone is a HW enthusiast, and as for a DVD player, well I would personally preferre to watch my DVDs on my TV because the PC takes too much time to setup just to watch a film, maybe it would look better on PC, but again, people want simplicity, and not all of this annoying setup process before hand (which is why many of people are still console gamers)

Comment by NikoBellic at 9:57pm 24th July 2008



tbh...

I think that even the people behind the scenes still enjoy DL'in their music because its that easy to do, I dont think that I have ever spoken to someone that hasn't DL'ed at least 1 song before, So I'm sure that people secretly dont want anything to come out of this, Maybe it would be nice to see them put a stop to illegal content, But I think that a better Idea would be to add advertisements to the beggining of the content and once the advert has finished you have officially "Purchased" the content, and then I would be sure that all of these companies can make their money, while people are still getting their media with nothing but simplicity!, otherwise they can forget ever putting a stop to illegal content because it would never happen! - Sorry just fancied a rant :P

Comment by NikoBellic at 9:45pm 24th July 2008



below

sales. not says

Comment by benji182 at 7:39pm 24th July 2008



NikoBellic are you serious?? You think people will (sorry, a lot of people) look at PC's as a 'business box' if they cannot download illegal music. Where do you come up with this? How about a games machine, a DVD player, a sound system, a PVR, a glorified typewriter and organiser, photo and video editor, programming tool, web browser etc etc etc. Did 'a lot' of people only buy into PC's with the advent of illegal music?

Comment by pveater at 9:53pm 24th July 2008



BitTorrent Terminology...

Mr Webb should learn about which he speaks. He mentions BitTorrent a number of times and then comes out with "...and around 65 per cent of them admitted that they downloaded music form file sharing websites illegally...". I think this sort of thing is enormously, and most likely deliberately, misleading. It is not possible to download *any* form of media content from a torrent website or torrent tracker (legal or illegal!). This simply is not possible with BitTorrent, no "server" for shared content exists, *all* data is sourced from other users. The press and media should know their facts and pull people up on such inconsistencies (shame on CustomPC for allowing this news-post without comment). People like Webb should not be allowed to represent any side of the debate if they cannot be concise and precise in describing what they claim to be an illegal activity. The fact that BitTorrent is a perfectly legal, hugely effective, data distribution system needs to be outed. The issue here is with how people use the BitTorrent system for illegal gain. I know that many people reading this will of course be fully aware of what I'm saying, but it still has to be said for those that do not.

Comment by alcalc at 9:38pm 24th July 2008



erm

now all these isps are going to send out letters saying we may chop your interent but state on the news etc they will not chop your net regardless or release your details without a court order, great, i'll just carry on downloading like everyone else, and use the letters to stick my cup of tea upon, i think the word 'D'oh' comes to mind, oh and just to state, i by no means download illegal music, that was just an example, all people named an mentioned are fictional, any similarities to the real world are coincendental, :)

Comment by DLEProductions at 9:25pm 24th July 2008



Eh?

"So how would the system work? Webb explained that ‘If you go onto BitTorrent, everyone else on BitTorrent can see your IP address. That’s essentially what the BPI would do - they would go onto BitTorrent, find out an IP address and ask the ISP to send a letter out." They must be kidding, right?

Comment by donce at 8:48pm 24th July 2008



yer-but-no-but-yer

I've downloaded music in the past, but in fairness, I've downloaded music that I've either listened to and thought "that's good", and made attempts to buy it, or I've thought "what a load of cock" and just deleted it. Some pieces of music I wouldn't have found if I hadn't been searching for something else, so 'illegal' downloading has enabled me to listen to less-well-known music. The music industry will have to create websites where people can search for music in a number of ways and listen to tracks, it should also include smaller music producers/labels so that the less well known artists have a level playing field. Also private artists, say DJ's, garage bands and individuals can upload (their own) content to be sold. if this is to work well, it has to be a level playing field for artists & consumers alike, not just big labels associated with the BPI, although somehow I doubt this will happen. And they won't be 'just picking an IP address, they'll be monitoring IP addresses to see if they come up frequently in music downloads. I do side with the copyright law in that yes, musicians are entitled to make money from their profession/art, just as anyone else is, but I'm against the same ideals penalising people who may download music, but have every intentiion of paying money for it if they think it's good & I'm also against the law not giving small independent artists & labels an equal standing to the big players so they can earn a respecable income that they are also entitled to.

Comment by EdArch at 7:38pm 24th July 2008



below

sales. not says

Comment by benji182 at 7:39pm 24th July 2008



alot of the gigs i go to are for small bands from the US supporting someone alot bigger and often thank the crowd for downloading their stuff as it isn't released in this country until they've made it big. greedy record labels. says on music was already on the down before downloading became wide spread.

Comment by benji182 at 7:29pm 24th July 2008



alot of the gigs i go to are for small bands from the US supporting someone alot bigger and often thank the crowd for downloading their stuff as it isn't released in this country until they've made it big. greedy record labels. says on music was already on the down before downloading became wide spread.

Comment by benji182 at 7:29pm 24th July 2008



I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. How does going onto bitTorrent, and looking for an IP address mean that they are downloading music. Either the media have just completly simplified it, or the BPI/BMR are just being arses. I suppose Carphone warehouse is TalkTalk isn't it. Oh well, I'll just have to be careful now, not that I download music anyway. I did used to download from Tescos and Woolworths, but now that Play are having sales more often, I can usually get the CD for about £2-£3 cheaper and not have any crappy DRM getting in the way of putting it on my MP3 player or onto an MP3 CD so I can listen to it in my car.

Comment by Cerberus_xiii at 7:21pm 24th July 2008



TBH

on some tools (used for DL'in) you can just encrypt the files... so that'll be the quick workaround for the time being...

Comment by NikoBellic at 6:50pm 24th July 2008



my 2 cents....

im with virgin media, i admit that i do download music, however the music i download was only ever released on vinyl and even then the vinyls usually only go to print once so i feel that its the only way i can get the music that i want, i do however spend thousands of £s on vinyls, new cd releases and tickets going to the raves in the first place ( yup im Hardcore til i die! ) so i feel that im putting plenty into the scene while taking very little out! if virgin ever send me a polite letter as the ITV reporter calls it, then i ll be promptly changing my ISP to one of the other 244 that hav nt signed up, and in the end its only virgin and the other 5 ISPs that will lose out coz your never ever gonna stop piracy nowadays!

Comment by garrynicol69 at 6:45pm 24th July 2008



I'm sure...

that we'll hear news that many people are downgrading their internet connection speed soon after the ban has taken place - I have even spoken to police who download music illegally before, at the end of the day it all comes down to simplicity, and soon people will just start looking for a new way to get their media easilly - I'm not saying that I'm enthusiastic about illegal file sharing for a moment, but this will only have a negetive impact on how many people want a computer, and if they cant find a way to get past this then alot of people will just look at computers as a buisness box again instead of an entertainment machine :(

Comment by NikoBellic at 6:39pm 24th July 2008



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