Filehsharers on eircom, BT or Irish Broadband - Get ready for court

dan99989

Counsel for BT Communications Ireland Limited and Irish Broadband Internet Services Limited, Cian Ferriter BL, outlined his latter client’s position, as they had not been named in the earlier, July, court case.
They did not condone unlawful use of their services.
Clause 18 of their Terms and Conditions of Use forbid unlawful use of this kind.
Irish Broadband couldn’t monitor usage. They had been caught up innocently in the matter. His clients did not want a perception that they had lost a court case to be given out if the court ordered that they should hand over their subscribers details. He stated that they were precluded from handing this information voluntarily as, per previous judgements, they have duty under Data Protection legislation to their subscribers.

Interesting...

Gegerty

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

Newsgroups all the way...

It's only a matter of time before they whack Bittorrent and then I'm screwed! It's all about uploading and keeping your ratio up, I rarely download without uploading 100%.

What Newsgroup server do you use and is there good content on Newsgroups? i.e Can i get Lost on the day and all the movies that you see on bittorrent?

I'm not too concerned about music, it's all mostly chart muck and there's 1 p2p network that RIAA don't know about anyways. Hasn't even been hit in the US yet, don't know why because its pretty popular.

Gegerty

This seems a little too easy but why don't the ISP's just stop keeping logs? I'm sure there's reasons why they need to keep logs but can there ever really be a reason? Without downloads most people won't need broadband, most people can surf in work and thats good enough. So its in their best interests. Let people pay their monthly fee, drop these ridiculous caps and just let people connect and surf download etc without keeping a log of everything they do.

axer

Gegerty wrote:

This seems a little too easy but why don't the ISP's just stop keeping logs? I'm sure there's reasons why they need to keep logs but can there ever really be a reason? Without downloads most people won't need broadband, most people can surf in work and thats good enough. So its in their best interests. Let people pay their monthly fee, drop these ridiculous caps and just let people connect and surf download etc without keeping a log of everything they do.

They have to keep logs for themselves, for troubleshooting & for customer complaints e.g. Customer says "I could not connect to broadband all week" - they just check the logs and see the customer has been connected etc etc Bandwidth costs money - why should they give unlimited downloads that will cost them more when they can get away with just keeping up with competitors.

Gegerty

axer wrote:

They have to keep logs for themselves, for troubleshooting & for customer complaints e.g. Customer says "I could not connect to broadband all week" - they just check the logs and see the customer has been connected etc etc Bandwidth costs money - why should they give unlimited downloads that will cost them more when they can get away with just keeping up with competitors.

Because once they start suing people and people are too scared to download then they won't want broadband anymore and they'll lose customers. If you want broadband for the purpose of downloading do you think you're going to go to one of the 3 companies that are handing out your details? Of course not. It's not in their interest to hand out customer details, thats why they went to court.

As I understand the US brought in laws to force ISP's to keep log of their customers activites, obviously they know ISP's will just stop keeping logs or encrypt them.

People always point out the Terms and conditions. How about terms and conditions that say "We do not keep track of your connection nor do we keep log of your IP address. this has the following implications...blah blah blah"
They could even say "If you cannot connect to our service we cannot help you as we do not keep logs. If the problem persists you are free to leave" Even better "we do not hold you to a contract, you can leave at anytime if you are not happy with the service"

If you don't like the T&C's don't sign up. I've heard that line so many times.

Blaster99

Presumably the ISP's want someone to blame for copyright infringements or they could possibly be found liable themselves. If I ran an ISP I would keep as much of that info as possible and would hand it over ASAP. No ISP wants P2P users in any event.

Gegerty

mikeruurds wrote:

I second that motion!
Newsgroups + Securetunnel

Securetunnel just play on peoples fears. There's no way to hide. The only way is to use freenet, it doesn't mask IP's, it just doesn't use them at all! I tried to give it a go recently but I could only get into the main menu page and none of the subsections. I might give it a go again now with the increased speeds. It's the only real way to surf anonymously, not even the Chinese can do anything about it! They'll get it eventually but by then we'll be moving on to something new again ;-)

axer

Gegerty wrote:

Because once they start suing people and people are too scared to download then they won't want broadband anymore and they'll lose customers. If you want broadband for the purpose of downloading do you think you're going to go to one of the 3 companies that are handing out your details? Of course not. It's not in their interest to hand out customer details, thats why they went to court.

As I understand the US brought in laws to force ISP's to keep log of their customers activites, obviously they know ISP's will just stop keeping logs or encrypt them.

People always point out the Terms and conditions. How about terms and conditions that say "We do not keep track of your connection nor do we keep log of your IP address. this has the following implications...blah blah blah"
They could even say "If you cannot connect to our service we cannot help you as we do not keep logs. If the problem persists you are free to leave" Even better "we do not hold you to a contract, you can leave at anytime if you are not happy with the service"

If you don't like the T&C's don't sign up. I've heard that line so many times.

I dont think you are being realistic here. ISPs have to have a contract/T&Cs with customers to cover themselves otherwise they could be sued for suspending a customer's broadband connection for doing something illegal. They must reserve that right. IT IS NOT LEGAL TO DOWNLOAD ITEMS THAT INFRINGE ON SOMEONE ELSES COPYRIGHT. It is as simple as that. ISPs are not going to just turn a blind eye to the law and make it as easy for the customer as possible to break the law, at the same time they won't make it impossible for their customers to infringe on copyright.

Gegerty wrote:

Securetunnel just play on peoples fears. There's no way to hide. The only way is to use freenet, it doesn't mask IP's, it just doesn't use them at all! I tried to give it a go recently but I could only get into the main menu page and none of the subsections. I might give it a go again now with the increased speeds. It's the only real way to surf anonymously, not even the Chinese can do anything about it! They'll get it eventually but by then we'll be moving on to something new again ;-)

Theres no way to surf anonymously as every computer on the internet must have some sort of identifier so that the information can get back to them. Im not sure where Securetunnel's servers are located but I presume they must be in a place where the judiciary of the country do not issue warrents to ISPs for logs often. I dont use it but maybe some people have reason to.

Gegerty

axer wrote:

I dont think you are being realistic here. ISPs have to have a contract with T&Cs to cover themselves otherwise they could be sued for suspending a customers broadband connection because they are doing something illegal. They must reserve that right. IT IS NOT LEGAL TO DOWNLOAD ITEMS THAT INFRINGE ON SOMEONE ELSES COPYRIGHT. It is as simple as that. ISPs are not going to just turn a blind eye to the law like that and make it as easy for the customer as possible to break the law.

There's plenty of software out there that will help you mask your activity and sell the fact that you can download anonymously. The above mentioned secure tunnel, freenet and many more if you google. It's not illegal to use the net anonymously or to mask your IP. You're right though, why should ISP's help downloaders? They could if they wanted to.

Freenet allows people in China to bypass censorship, its not just about downloads.

An internet without filesharers is going to put alot of ISP's out of business, if not it'll put a big dent in their profits. At the moment masking software and freenet are seperate from ISP's. It could be sold as a service. Surf the net anonymously! It's not far fetched.

Gegerty

axer wrote:

Theres no way to surf anonymously as every computer on the internet must have some sort of identifier so that the information can get back to them.

Have a look at freenet:

freenet

There's another US project as well. They call the technology Darknet and at the moment its 100% anonymous. I'm sure that'll change with popularity.

axer

Gegerty wrote:

Have a look at freenet:

freenet

There's another US project as well. They call the technology Darknet and at the moment its 100% anonymous. I'm sure that'll change with popularity.

I've seen freenet but cannot surf The Internet with it, its a peer to peer network running over The Internet.

Gegerty

axer wrote:

I've seen freenet but thats not The Internet, its a peer to peer network running over The Internet.

OK yea I see what you're saying. What I'm saying is you can share files and chat anonymously and nobody can trace it back to you. Like the good old days when even pron was rampant! They need to do something about child pron though, that puts me off it but not as much as the risk of being sued!

dubadubdub

Download - copy file to itunes - delete downloaded file from your shared folder.

DemonOfTheFall

HelterSkelter wrote:

huh??!!

I was agreeing with axer, that theres no way for a group to be able to see everything that you're sharing at that moment on bittorrent.

I was saying that on the other hand, it's very easy for them to net thousands of users from one torrent in one go, just by joining one big torrent.

So what you gain in one way, you lose in another.

Gegerty

dubadubdub wrote:

Download - copy file to itunes - delete downloaded file from your shared folder.

Unfortunately deleted files can be recovered. Even formatting your hard drive doesn't delete the information.

Is the log file enough proof for them or do they need your hard drive? If so, as soon as you get the letter burn your hard drive. you lose everything but its better than losing your house if you get sued. I can't see how they can use a log file as proof. It's just a file. You could do you up yourself with textpad and stick the judges IP on it and go there ya go your honour you've been downloading like a bandit too.

dubadubdub

Gegerty wrote:

You could do you up yourself with textpad and stick the judges IP on it and go there ya go your honour you've been downloading like a bandit too.

Good idea:) Though I reckon judges are probably more inclined to download even more dubious material than a couple of music tracks:eek:

skyhighflyer

Well to be honest they almost always settle cases for between €2-4k it seems so far.

Think about it like this: it's all a publicity stunt just to stop people filesharing. They sue a few users for something ridiculous like €120k, word gets out, filesharers piss themselves and the user numbers on FS networks drop for a while. Then they say to the user in question 'Ah sure we'll settle with ya for €2,000 just be a good little lad and don't download anymore' User settles admitting liability and the record co doesn't have to go through the rigmarole of proving in court that the files even exist on the computer in question...

Their legal fees for one day in court would run them well over €2,000 and they're not going to sue the billion or so filesharers out there...

Slippin Jimmy

Is it only people that upload files that are being done for it? Or are the downloaders being caught aswell. Surely the courts will get feed up with this and move onto something else. Will they?

skyhighflyer

Also, my hardrive would be thrown in the Liffey the day I got a letter through the door...

skyhighflyer

DonnybrookGhost wrote:

Is it only people that upload files that are being done for it? Or are the downloaders being caught aswell. Surely the courts will get feed up with this and move onto something else. Will they?

You mean if the record companies get fed up with sueing people. The court will deal with whatever is in front of it.

Copyright infringement can be a criminal offence however it's not like the gardai are going to givea flying fcuk about downloaders.. that's why the record companies have to go after filesharers themselves and pay handsomely for it.

And they are only targetting uploaders, it makes more sense as no uploaders=no sharing and there's fewer uploaders than downloaders

axer

skyhighflyer wrote:

You mean if the record companies get fed up with sueing people. The court will deal with whatever is in front of it.

Copyright infringement can be a criminal offence however it's not like the gardai are going to givea flying fcuk about downloaders.. that's why the record companies have to go after filesharers themselves and pay handsomely for it.

And they are only targetting uploaders, it makes more sense as no uploaders=no sharing and there's fewer uploaders than downloaders

Plus how could they catch the downloaders red handed - that would be kinda like entrapment - the prosecution/PI would have to be the ones uploading the song. Its different when they have the option of downloading the files and can see the list of songs available to download. That brings me to another questions:

Wouldnt it be the case that an uploader could only be caught for sharing the files that the prosecution/PI actually downloaded from the user. As I could have a list of files being shared that are named after tracks e.g. "eminem - when i'm gone.mp3" but the file even though it is called that may not actually contain the copyright infringing material. Even with the logs that they get from eircom etc that show the transaction of said song (filename & size of file) from the IP address of the uploading offender to the prosecution/PI - who is to say that the actual file contains the copyright infringing material the uploader is being sued over? The uploader can create a file of ANY size using software and the logs of eircom etc. to the best of my knowledge would not show the result of CRC checks needed to prove that it was in fact the same file. (hope this doesn't sound all mixed up)

Duiske

skyhighflyer wrote:

And they are only targetting uploaders, it makes more sense as no uploaders=no sharing and there's fewer uploaders than downloaders

As they appear to be targeting users of P2P programs, it follows that in order for you to download a file, someone else must upload it to you. Thats where it gets tricky. Did the uploader place the file in the shared folder with the sole intention of making it available to others ?? Think this is a case of "Be safe, DON'T be seen" Never leave copyrighted material in your shared folder. Not that anyone illegally downloads this stuff anyway, right ? :rolleyes:

Gegerty

axer wrote:

Plus how could they catch the downloaders red handed - that would be kinda like entrapment - the prosecution/PI would have to be the ones uploading the song. Its different when they have the option of downloading the files and can see the list of songs available to download. That brings me to another questions:

Wouldnt it be the case that an uploader could only be caught for sharing the files that the prosecution/PI actually downloaded from the user. As I could have a list of files being shared that are named after tracks e.g. "eminem - when i'm gone.mp3" but the file even though it is called that may not actually contain the copyright infringing material. Even with the logs that they get from eircom etc that show the transaction of said song (filename & size of file) from the IP address of the uploading offender to the prosecution/PI - who is to say that the actual file contains the copyright infringing material the uploader is being sued over? The uploader can create a file of ANY size using software and the logs of eircom etc. to the best of my knowledge would not show the result of CRC checks needed to prove that it was in fact the same file. (hope this doesn't sound all mixed up)

Exactly, I think they need physical evidence and most people who settle are parents of kids who are completely ignorant to anything to do with p2p. I'd say another reason they only target uploaders is because mediasentry etc have to download the files to gather evidence. If mediasentry are downloading as well then they're in violation of copyright laws too right? But no cause they only download they don't upload. It would also explain why they haven't touched bittorrent, because u obviously have to upload as u download which would put mediasentry in violation of copyright laws.

Gegerty

Its kind of similar to money launders. They can trace the electronic money trail but at the end of the day they still have to find the money don't they?

robinph

halenger wrote:

I don't think it has been released yet. http://www.bbc.co.uk/imp/

Unfortunately it's still in testing and also says:


It's possible they'll change this, but perhaps not.

Unless the Beeb starts oficially broadcasting over here and we start paying two license fees I don't think we will get access to their player officially.

However, I get a lot of the UK programs from www.uknova.com. It's free to register, but they have a restricted number of members so it may take a while for them to kick someone else off before you can sign up, then you just need to keep a good ratio of upload/ download to keep access.

wheresmybeaver

Now, if I was a filesharer, I'd have to say that €2000 isn't the worst penalty ever.... pretty good value for all that downloading!

Its the criminal conviction that would cripple me... don't fancy one of those!

Duiske

Gegerty wrote:

Its kind of similar to money launders. They can trace the electronic money trail but at the end of the day they still have to find the money don't they?

Not really. If someone from Media sentry downloads an mp3 from "Paddy's" computor via a p2p program, say bearshare for example, they then check the ip address to see if its irish. At this point "Paddy" is guilty of uploading copyright material. The person from media sentry can then search for other files that "Paddy" has available in his shared folder. If he finds any other files which are copyright, then "Paddy" is also guilty of making these files available to others. He does not have to upload any of them, just having them in a publicly accessible folder is enough to get him done (for EVERY file !!)

I don't think anyone will be done for downloading, as the investigators would have to prove, not only that you downloaded the music, but you also LISTENED to it. Impossible to prove. I suppose it could be argued that there is no proof that the people you uploaded music to actually listened to it, but it would take someone with euros to burn to try to argue that point in court.

Plenty of other issues, privacy, entrapment, etc, but the ordinary Joe Soap would find it hard to argue these points, again, mainly due to cost of legal representation.

On the point of Mediasentry downloading files in order to get prosecutions, I would assume that they have permission from IRMA to upload/download copyright material as part of their investigation.

axer

Duiske_Lad wrote:

Not really. If someone from Media sentry downloads an mp3 from "Paddy's" computor via a p2p program, say bearshare for example, they then check the ip address to see if its irish. At this point "Paddy" is guilty of uploading copyright material. The person from media sentry can then search for other files that "Paddy" has available in his shared folder. If he finds any other files which are copyright, then "Paddy" is also guilty of making these files available to others. He does not have to upload any of them, just having them in a publicly accessible folder is enough to get him done (for EVERY file !!)

But how could they prove that those other files are the actual songs just from seeing the filenames listed. And again even if they download them from that user how can they prove that it was that track that they downloaded and not some empty track named after that track - they would have to seize the violator's computer and even at that I don't think it can be proven. Then again the judge would more than likely not understand this technology and rule in favour of the record label.

Big P

Gegerty wrote:

Unfortunately deleted files can be recovered. Even formatting your hard drive doesn't delete the information.

Of course formatting your harddrive will remove any trace of information that was on it. And no, it cannot be recovered.
I think what you might be confusing this with is a "quick format", which obviously doesnt rewrite all the 1's and 0's on the disk.

ronbyrne2005

when are the greedy record companies gonna start realising that people want artists to earn their money by performing etc and not just for a few days work laying down tracks in a studio. with mp3 players with wireless connections are common anyone could swap mp3's with their mates without internet and they wont be able to do anything to stop it.
theres enough money for artists in performances and merchandise and endorsements without having to screw your fans.