Big clamp down on MP3 & DVD piracy in the UK. Ireland will follow.

Run_to_da_hills

It will only a matter of time before this country follows the UK with pressure coming from INFACT and PPI. Basically those that are file sharing can be easily traced and their ISP's are then forced to take action with a letter in writing. They recon this warning is enough to scare people off, usually the parents of the offending kids, the last thing they want is a 4 figure fine. . Some ISPs will be forced to throttle downloading of offenders. http://uk.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUKL417986520080724

The horse has already left the gate with the majority of music, IE anyone who is into classic rock and metal would have no trouble finding someone with a hdd full of this stuff, I think those that would be downloading anything now would be those trying to get the latest releases.

Maximilian

I'm no computer scientician but isn't it true that if you encrypt your data envelopes or whatever on the torrent yoke you use for the internets, the people dressed like familiar furry domestic animals in the ceiling can't tell what the hell you're downloading.

The other point is, once they find a way to defeat torrents, another system will pop up.

Kind of like Whack-A-Mole really.

The real reason piracy is so utterly rampant is that the Music Industry has been taking the absolute piss out of consumers for years and everyone knows it. Nobody really has any sympathy for them and now they have a way to extract revenge. Rather than change their ways, the music industry are blindly trying to hold on to the old system. Still trying to charge the same price for a product that now costs them far, far less as a download.

The music industry did this to themselves.

Its all about price. This will all end when some music company realises that people will pay €1 or €2 max for an album, probably what they earned off CD's anyway after all overheads, and then people will buy and not pirate. They'll make more money than they ever did I reckon.

Run_to_da_hills

Maximilian wrote: »

I'm no computer scientician but isn't it true that if you encrypt your data envelopes or whatever on the torrent yoke you use for the internets, the people dressed like familiar furry domestic animals in the ceiling can't tell what the hell you're downloading.

The other point is, once they find a way to defeat torrents, another system will pop up.

Kind of like Whack-A-Mole really.

The real reason piracy is so utterly rampant is that the Music Industry has been taking the absolute piss out of consumers for years and everyone knows it. Nobody really has any sympathy for them and now they have a way to extract revenge. Rather than change their ways, the music industry are blindly trying to hold on to the old system. Still trying to charge the same price for a product that now costs them far, far less as a download.

The music industry did this to themselves.

Its all about price. This will all end when some music company realises that people will pay €1 or €2 max for an album, probably what they earned off CD's anyway after all overheads, and then people will buy and not pirate. They'll make more money than they ever did I reckon.

ISPs can normally tell downloaders by the high volume traffic that they are downloading. A good it. detective can trace the IP address of this traffic. Also many down loaders are foolish enough to give their credit card / pay pall account out to gain a preferential membership with these torrent sites. these preferential services would provide a faster download, less leaching, less pop ups, less errors etc. Once a torrent site is busted all this information is handed over to the authorities. It happened with Pirate Bay not too long ago.

I agree that the music industry shot themselves in the foot, charging e20 for a 16 track CD that would only have two tracks that you wanted.

dr.bollocko

I think if you are seeding a torrent file then your IP address is stored as part of the torrent file.
As for my music, it's all mine mr. officer. I wouldn't download porn if you paid me, let alone hippidy hoppidy or whatever it is you are after.

Kold

Jihad tbh.

dr.bollocko

Kold wrote: »

Jihad tbh.

What did TBH ever do to you?

Kold

dr.bollocko wrote: »

What did TBH ever do to you?

He stole my favourite internet acronym. Burn the heretic.

dr.bollocko

Kold wrote: »

He stole my favourite internet acronym. Burn the heretic.

Cool.
You just invented one.
Instead of TBH, we now have BTH.
Nice. And mean to heretics.
Double word score buddy!

Blisterman

All they're doing is sending out letters.

Are the ISPs really gonna disconnect people, lose their business, and have the customer warn all their friends against using them, thereby losing more potential customers, just to please the record labels?

I highly doubt it. It's not the ISps fault people are downloading music. That's like blaming the national roads authority, for drunk drivers.

Maximilian

dr.bollocko wrote: »

What did TBH ever do to you?

Probably allowed pictures of Mohammad to be downloaded with Durka Durka ringtones.

dr.bollocko

Mr.S wrote: »

well when your downloading a torrent, you can see all the IP address that your sharing the file to, so its fairly easy for anyone to see what your downloading.

Thank god hentai is still free.

TwoShedsJackson

If you're using a wireless connection, unpassword it and give it the 'who me guv?' approach if they say anything. 'Nah must have been someone in one of the fifty houses with 300 yards of here'.

Blisterman

If they brought in this law, I'd just connect to my neighbours or local coffee shops networks every time I wanted to download music.
Or I'd leave my network unsecured, and claim it was someone else piggybacking on it.

It's completely unenforceble.

Edit: Looks like great minds think alike TwoShedsJackson.

dr.bollocko

I think because IP addresses are transient anyway, its the MAC address that the IP is tied to that they'll gitcha with Blisterman.
The mac is one of those things that doesnt change and is a unique id for your pc.
They really are bastards.

Fresh Pots

Mr.S wrote: »

its your responsiblity to secure your network, at least thats the law in other countrys, no idea what ol' Ireland has in place.

But with MAC address, they could in theory, prove it was your PC downloading the stuff.

Yeah i don't think they'll fall for the shaggy approach of it wasn't me. Would they not be able to get a warrant to search the laptop of the offending mac address?

Dave!

If I got a letter from my ISP then I'd probably stop tbh. But at the mo it's worth the risk because f*ck all people have been fined over here, and those that are fined are usually sharers, which I am not. I'm a leech

5starpool

Feck the music, it's tv shows that we can sometimes wait years here for on tv that will affect me most if this does happen, and it is bound to sooner or later, in a limited fashion at least.

thelordofcheese

Mr.S wrote: »

its your responsiblity to secure your network, at least thats the law in other countrys, no idea what ol' Ireland has in place.

But with MAC address, they could in theory, prove it was your PC downloading the stuff.

Mac spoofing, ain't it grand

Terry

Zipped files.

Degsy

Is there any easy way to copy and burn dvds?I cant seem to get DVD shrink to work,it keeps saying "no disc" even though there is a blank one in the drive.

justbringit89

download from rapidshare will still work as the files are zipped and a direct download

Dave!

Is it legal to rip DVDs (for backup purposes)? I believe it is for CDs.

And is there any free DVD ripper about?

Terry

Dave! wrote: »

Is it legal to rip DVDs (for backup purposes)? I believe it is for CDs.

And is there any free DVD ripper about?

Still illegl as far as I know.
Same law as CDs.

If you want to know about burning DVDs, there's a thread in the computer section.

Run_to_da_hills

Blisterman wrote: »

If they brought in this law, I'd just connect to my neighbours or local coffee shops networks every time I wanted to download music.
Or I'd leave my network unsecured, and claim it was someone else piggybacking on it.

It's completely unenforceble.

Edit: Looks like great minds think alike TwoShedsJackson.

Unauthorised piggybacking of WIFI accounts will be the next big clamp down and will be treated the same as stealing, already a serious offence in some countries.

When they start to bring in these strict rules making the owner of a wifi responsible for what is being downloaded people will be fast in securing their WIFI accounts. Free wifi is getting harder to pick up in apartment complexes, alott of this is also to do with ISPs having a cap, ie once bitten twice shy, someone gets a huge bill for excessive downloading when they only use it for brousing. They then secure it. (There is ways around this too )

Any PC on the net using WIFI or not can be tracked within several feet if wanted to by the authorities. Internet cafés are cra^p for downloading because their speed can be very limited.

With regards to those letters, It will be the parents of school kids that will take these serious and will police their kids using the PC. The letters will probably be in the same format and style as a solicitors letter to give added freak out.

It BeeMee

Dave! wrote: »

Is it legal to rip DVDs (for backup purposes)? I believe it is for CDs.

And is there any free DVD ripper about?

Available free for a limited time:
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/

dr.bollocko

DHCP Logs maybe?
From those evil ISPs?
Trust me bedlam, they're monitoring it all. Porn, scat, boards, MP3s, russian brides, thai brides, phillipino brides, S and M, M and S, PMs to dudess. They got me for everything.

Arathorn

Wouldn't it be the mac address of your wireless router anyway

Conor108

Peerguardian 2 and proxies ftw

Dman001

I heard on the radio that if thy catch you downloading illegally, they will slow down you internet speed. I love the way the Music Companies and Studios give out about illegal downloading butthey don't give us any decent downloading service. I suppose we do have iTunes but if they are so unhappy with people illegally downloading, they would give us DRM free music and a decent video downloading service. I know there is alot to do with the Rights to obtain, but it doesn't take 4/5 years to get the rights. Even if they gave us a digital copy on a DVD to put on our iPods/MP4 player. And the fact that its illegal to put your own CD/DVD on you device would drive anyone to get music/videos illegally. There's so much they could do but they are too busy giving America all the download services and leaving us in the cold. It's such a joke they way they go on and then they wonder why people do it.

Supercell

Cant see this affecting newsgroup downloaders as they don't upload any content. AFAIK they still operate with impunity even in RIAA riddled GBushland.

Holsten

I have to LOL @ any type of so called 'crackdown'.

They'll never stop it, never.

Rapidshare 4tw.

tech77

TwoShedsJackson wrote: »

If you're using a wireless connection, unpassword it and give it the 'who me guv?' approach if they say anything. 'Nah must have been someone in one of the fifty houses with 300 yards of here'.

Fairly sure that wouldn't work.
You're responsible for the security of your wifi connection i would've thought.

FruitLover

Ha, I remember all sorts of guff in the days of Napster about 'cracking down on music piracy' etc etc. Nearly 10 years on, and not a whole lot has been done - in fact, it's easier than ever for Joe Average to get pirate material.

tech77 wrote: »

Fairly sure that wouldn't work.
You're responsible for the security of your wifi connection i would've thought.

No, I'm pretty sure there have been precedential cases in the US and UK of people being acquitted of hax0ring due to operating open wireless networks. Think about it - if you left your car unlocked, and someone stole it and ran someone over, you wouldn't be prosecuted for this.

However, it's a shaky defence, and I wouldn't be surprised if some sort of legal effort is made to make people take responsibility of the security of their own networks.

yoyo

Mr.S wrote: »

obviosuly they'll never stop it, but they'll make it harder/easier to get caught.

Rapidshare? half the stuff on that is gone within the hour anyway.

Not if you have decent sources , also a trick is to use rapidshare after 6 when theres no one around to delete the stuff

Nick

Agamemnon

Mr.S wrote: »

doesn't RS have a 100mb limit anyway? so you have to download in parts, which is just messy.

Not as messy as an angry letter from a recording company. Putting the parts together is a piece of piss with something like WinRAR.

Queen-Mise

2 quick comments on this thread:

1 TV shows are a very grey area for downloading, as they are free to air anyway. it is the one thing I would miss the most though

2 I have to agree with one of the previous posters, itunes is a poor choice, as it is the only really available. I object to being tied to one service provider - a monopoly - I use mp3 players and my phone a lot for music. I cannot be bothered with the whole converting of files to different formats: hence i keep using .mp3 format.

hope this makes some sense, getting tired here:p

yoyo

Mr.S wrote: »

doesn't RS have a 100mb limit anyway? so you have to download in parts, which is just messy.

Not if you have premium , With premium you stick links in flashget, choose it to login with premium credentials, it will download full speed all files in the download manager, then alls needed is unpacking the data with WinRAR and thats it, also I think free users can download 200meg or 300meg files a hour now?

Nick

Helix

is my understanding of this correct, in that they will be sending letters to ANYONE who has downloaded above a set figure, based on the ASSUMPTION that theyre likely to be downloaders, as opposed to actually having any proof in the slightest?

if you dont upload to limewire, dont seed torrents, and dont do anything stupid, youre far too much hassle to bother with because theres numbers numpties who leave their downloading habits wide open for the world to see

yoyo

Helix wrote: »

is my understanding of this correct, in that they will be sending letters to ANYONE who has downloaded above a set figure, based on the ASSUMPTION that theyre likely to be downloaders, as opposed to actually having any proof in the slightest?

if you dont upload to limewire, dont seed torrents, and dont do anything stupid, youre far too much hassle to bother with because theres numbers numpties who leave their downloading habits wide open for the world to see

Afaik they will only "go after" uploaders mainly, if its anything like happens in the states, the isp may recieve a letter from said organisation, with ip and details on it, then the isp may send it on to you, with a warning, but I can't see this happening here anytime soon, and probably only p2p apps will be affected by this as when used your ip address is directly viewable by your peers, which one could be a organisation

Nick

Helix

pretty sure theyve expressly mentioned downloaders here

yoyo

Helix wrote: »

pretty sure theyve expressly mentioned downloaders here

I said mainly uploaders :$ not only , they could possibly go after downloaders, although I would think this would be harder to prove as your not sending any data as evidence to be receiving a file, I'm no expert here but I think I read on here a while back under some fair use law in copyright it may actually be legal to download most stuff for personal use!

Nick

R0ot

All you damn leechers. :pac:

Run_to_da_hills

Remember about two weeks ago when we read that the EU has given the digital records of every ISP and IP address in Europe over to the US authorities, This is where all the surveillance is going to come from. The FBI take Video and Music Piracy very seriously because they are getting pressure from the likes of Viacom and other home industries that are losing serious revenue in recent years. The US has the resources to track down and monitor every pc on this planet that is downloading unauthorised data.

These letters will be to the point and will be addressed at random to the accounts of people whos ISP has records of defaulting clients. It will be up to the person whose account has downloaded the offending material to prove himself innocent. These letters would be warnings but would follow up with local raids, seisure of equipment and fines if the problem persists.

AntiRip

Same as a previous poster, been hearing this since Napster & when this closed down, hundreds of torrent sites opened. I only download the odd tvshow and odd movie, no music whatsoever. But what I can't understand is, that if typed in any song you would find it on YouTube anyways! I know it's bad quality and that but still, there are video sites all over the net with tvshows, movies and music streaming. I cannot see this ever stopping. People will just move on like they did before from p2p - torrents - file hosting sites - usenet - ?? - ?? and so on. The Pirate Bay are even working on new streaming torrents. Who knows whats in a passworded Winrar file anyways :rolleyes:

Zonda999

I'm not sure if anyone else does this but i use realplayer to download stuff from youtube and then use other freeware to convert the files from flv into more useful ones.I can even extract songs from music videos.There are concessions in quality but i live in the security that i cant be touched because what i do isnt technically illegal in any way afaik.I stopped "leeching" a few years ago when i noticed the virus's were killing my pc

Tar.Aldarion

Mr.S wrote: »

obviosuly they'll never stop it, but they'll make it harder/easier to get caught.

Rapidshare? half the stuff on that is gone within the hour anyway.

There are also far better ways and if you want anything, it is on rapidshare.

these preferential services would provide a faster download, less leaching, less pop ups, less errors etc.

Lol at anybody payingo for torrents. It already dls damn fast, you can decide how much leeching you want there to be, there are no pop ups or errors.
As for MAC address that people mentioned, you can change mine at a click of a button.

nobodythere

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

ISPs can normally tell downloaders by the high volume traffic that they are downloading.

The line begins to blur though with the rise of youtube etc, 25mb per video? Heavy users of those kind of sites could watch 30+ videos a day is about 25gb per month of bandwidth

Flaccus

My understanding is that currently in this country file sharing of music, videos whatever.. is seen as copyright infringement and is a civil matter. It is not illegal in the criminal sense and the gardai certainly don't get involved at any stage. It's up to the corporations to try and persude the ISP's to give them the logs and then take you to court. I think it will be a while here in this country before people have to worry about criminal prosecutions being taken against them.

Run_to_da_hills

grasshopa wrote: »

The line begins to blur though with the rise of youtube etc, 25mb per video? Heavy users of those kind of sites could watch 30+ videos a day is about 25gb per month of bandwidth

As you are probably aware already the US authorities have access to ALL UTube files for the last five year this was even before the Viacom court case saga. The Patriot act gave them the right to access anything if they suspect terrorism, They know what UTube videos you are watching and what stuff you are interested in and have watched in the past, They can tell immediately whether you are watching videos or downloading / leaching from an illegal torrent site, These guys are not stupid.

Timans

Anyone have a torrent link to the news story?

DonJose

It wasn't too long ago that Eircom reported a serious flaw with wireless broadband routers which allowed the security encryption of an Eircom wireless network to be bypassed by outsiders, who can then "piggyback" on a customer's internet connection. This makes for a great, "it wasn't me your honor", case.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/02/eircom_wireless_security_flaw/