The internet in ireland and china, not so different now ?

seclachi

This is based off the front page article on the Sunday business post today (22/2/09) I cant seem to find an online version. Basically Irish Internet providers will block access to file sharing websites. The sites will be decided by IRMA (on behalf of big music companies such as Warner and universal, who will then make a court application to have sites they decide on blocked. Eircom will not oppose the orders so they will be granted automatically. Now if doesn’t raise alarm bells for you, it should. I don’t support file swapping myself, as it is basically robbing from peoples livelihoods. But the fact is, what websites we can go to can now be decided by commercial organisations. So if your against file sharing big time you might say so what, its illegal. Thats fair enough, but what is file sharing in the eyes of these companies. Youtube has already had enough run ins, what will happen when they decide youtube should be banned here ? We cant do anything if eircom wont oppose the court order. What about sites that can be considered dual use, such as rapidshare which host files, which some file sharers use ? I was disturbed to hear about the 3 strikes rule, as entire households could be banned for one persons actions, not to mention there’s probably no comebacks or due process, but this really is insane, websites will be blocked on a whim basically. The title maybe melodramatic, but consider this, in china the internet is policed by the government for what they consider the good of there own people. Here its going to be policed by private organisations for the good of there own pockets (And you dont have to look far to see that there are many accusations about how they treat both artists and there customers). The most disturbing thing of all is that I couldn’t find any articles like today’s one in the business post online, or much discussion. Is this going to slip by because people are so rightly concerned about the economy that they wont take a stand ?

drunkmonkey

does the ruling only apply to eircom customers?

+1
It's a step 2 far....

sock puppet

Realistically though is it gonna be that easy to just block people from sites? Would it result in additional costs for Eircom? I wouldn't know myself I'm just wondering.

Amalgam

*cough* proxies *cough*

SeanW

Mother of God :eek:

Between the bank bailouts, the handgun ban, the ever increasing mountain of government red tape and now this ... the more of this I see the more I think we're on the road to Fascism.

thebman

It'll slip through because the average Irish person is too stupid to know what that means.

NewDubliner

What next, moderators censoring posts they disagree with?

galwayrush

NewDubliner wrote: »

What next, moderators censoring posts they disagree with?

Hahah, I doubt Boards will ever be like Indymedia.:D

Hillel

NewDubliner wrote: »

What next, moderators censoring posts they disagree with?

Why not, that's the private sector for you.;)

Dannyboy83

To the OP, I wouldn't worry too much.

Eircom can't enforce this against other ISPs using their infrastructure.

Eircom are the ONLY ISP in the world to do this, unless I'm mistaken.
Provide a link if you refute that claim please.

There are severe complications to Eircom asserting that you have breached File Sharing Regulations due to the Data Protection Regulations.
http://www.dataprotection.ie/docs/Home/4.htm
Essentially, they cannot prove that you have done 'xyz', they can simply kick and your money off their service and onto Smart Telecoms.

According the terms in the original settlement, Eircom don't even need to have proof or suspicion of file sharing. If the record company accuse a particular internet user, then Eircom have to take action.

To be honest, it looks like Eircom want to get out of the broadband market and this is one step on the road to accomplishing it.
There is no other way to explain accepting such exploitative (of Eircom) and unenforcable rules.

It also looks like Eircom are giving the Irish public the two fingers as a result of losing the NBBS and 3 being awarded the National Rural Broadband development scheme.
http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/eircom-loses-out-as-3-ireland-wins-836440m-contract-for-highspeed-broadband-service-1552726.html


Any customer with a half a brain will refuse to support these ridiculous abuses of Freedom of Speech and Data Protection, even Magna Carta i.e. the right to a fair trial!


As a matter of fact, I've been aware of this for a few weeks now, and I am purposely diverting my business from Eircom to Irish broadband.

I don't use Illegal File sharing.
I do download FREE & LEGAL OPEN SOURCE Linux distributions via torrents.
I do download FREE & LEGAL OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE such as NetBeans or Eclipse.
I do get the majority of my news from the internet on sites such as The Times, The Economist, New Scientist, LifeHacker, Strategy Page's Dirty Secrets etc. etc.

Eircom are well known for throttling people's connections, even when doing perfectly legal things with it.
Their contention ratios are vastly poorer than what they claim to be.

As you're no doubt well aware, there is not much that the average citizen can do in this country.
But this is one thing we CAN do.
And that is to vote with your bank account.

I'm just 1 person, how many more people will migrate to Imagine, or BT, or DigiWeb?

Either use you right now, or lose your rights forever.

SeanW

While I would like to believe that you are right, that this is an Eircom only thing, and that we're not looking at a Digital Imprimatur situation, if you re-read the article it would appear only to be the thin end of a thickening wedge.

In particular, IRMA, backed by the likes of rootkit distributor Sony BMG have threatened all the other ISPs that if they do not knuckle under, cave in and give them everything they want on a silver platter, they will be buried under a mountain of lawsuits.

In addition, the article shows that each site blocking will be by court order - so the machinery of the State is involved somewhere. Perhaps a law was passed allowing or mandating this kind of carry on?

After being burned a lot by media companies over my lifetime - moved back and forth to the U.S. and lost all my videos and games each time due to region lockouts, bought CDs that had hidden DRM malware and were even so far out of CD specification that my CD ROM drive that I had at the time crashed when I tried to listen to it and had to use the emergency pinhole (luckily I knew how to do that or I would have spent a lot more PC repair shops), their legal campaign of suing dead people, people who didn't even own computers etc.

I had finally started to have some faith in the media companies again when they started selling music by Mp3. But that's gone, IRMA won't get a damn cent off me anymore.

I've just donated some money to Digital Rights Ireland. Looks like they (we) may have a major fight on the cards.

cavedave

Sunday business post article here.

If record companies infringe copyright will they be taken off the internet? Because an awful lot of Jamiroquai songs sound a bit like Stevie Wonder...

Dannyboy83

SeanW wrote: »

While I would like to believe that you are right, that this is an Eircom only thing, and that we're not looking at a Digital Imprimatur situation, if you re-read the article it would appear only to be the thin end of a thickening wedge.

In particular, IRMA, backed by the likes of rootkit distributor Sony BMG have threatened all the other ISPs that if they do not knuckle under, cave in and give them everything they want on a silver platter, they will be buried under a mountain of lawsuits.

In addition, the article shows that each site blocking will be by court order - so the machinery of the State is involved somewhere. Perhaps a law was passed allowing or mandating this kind of carry on?

After being burned a lot by media companies over my lifetime - moved back and forth to the U.S. and lost all my videos and games each time due to region lockouts, bought CDs that had hidden DRM malware and were even so far out of CD specification that my CD ROM drive that I had at the time crashed when I tried to listen to it and had to use the emergency pinhole (luckily I knew how to do that or I would have spent a lot more PC repair shops), their legal campaign of suing dead people, people who didn't even own computers etc.

I had finally started to have some faith in the media companies again when they started selling music by Mp3. But that's gone, IRMA won't get a damn cent off me anymore.

I've just donated some money to Digital Rights Ireland. Looks like they (we) may have a major fight on the cards.

I just can't see how they're going to enforce it.
You will be free to go from 1 ISP to another.

If they accuse you of downloading, they will have to prove it.
In order to prove it, presumably they would have to admit to spying on your internet usage.
I believe thats inadmissable as evidence as could actually cause them a lot of grief.

How will they regulate independant people using satellite broadband?
It looks to me such a heavy handed fear tactic, nothing more.

The most enlightening thing really is that the like of Microsoft (Xbox 360) and Apple (iTunes) are doing everything they can to make content more available to the consumers.
You can rent digital movies online etc.

One day, sooner or later, they will understand that they simply cannot win and their monopoly is already eroded.
The longer they take to come to terms with reality and the future, the less chance they have of ever recapturing the market.

Its like candle making factories threathening Edison's customers and Tesla's customers, when the debate isn't to use electricity but has moved onward as wheter to use AC or DC.
You can't stop progress.

May sound like a crazy idea now, but what do you think are the chances that Microsoft, Apple, Google will become the next recording studios and the likes of Sony (already flapping with their nosediving share prices) will end up on the scrapheap.

Just as people use cds progressively less, i.e. the formats have changed to electronic means, equally the distributor is changing too.
At present this is only applicable to music files, given the small size.

As the broadband capabilities of this country improve (look to Japan for future trends), so will the method of media consumption.

At the present moment, I don't think Sony can even afford to release the Playstation IV because the Playstation III has been such a flop.
I pity anyone roped into wasting their money on a blu-ray player.

They ought to accept a reduced market share and innovate where they can, or wind up operations while they are still ahead.

turgon

Any thread with the title "The internet in ireland and china, not so different now ?" should be moved to CT straight away. Talk about over-exagerating things.

Chinese people, who cant even search the internet fully and are constantly moderated, would be insulted by you claiming we are getting in any way like them. The fact that you are even voicing your own opinion is proof that what you said is wrong.

thebman

Why the Chinese had to start censoring somewhere?

This is the start of Irish censorship of the Internet.

turgon

thebman wrote: »

This is the start of Irish censorship of the Internet.

So you whole heartedly believe this?

Laughable.

SeanW

Nonetheless it appears we're moving in that direction.

Boston

sock puppet wrote: »

Realistically though is it gonna be that easy to just block people from sites? Would it result in additional costs for Eircom? I wouldn't know myself I'm just wondering.

Could all be easily automated.

turgon

Well in the end I wouldnt be too worried, we can all use our tin-foil hats as aerials to hook onto some broadband satellite in outer space.

thebman

turgon wrote: »

So you whole heartedly believe this?

Laughable.

Believe what? It is undeniably the start of censorship of the Internet in Ireland.

They are censoring sites with links to copyright infringing material. Have you any idea the scope that gives them if they want to take advantage of it to say block bad news about eircom services etc...

Not to mention once you have one form of censorship it becomes much easier to introduce new forms of it as they can say well we already block these type of content so we are just widening this to cover another area. That other area could be more than unacceptable to censor but because people generally don't know a whole lot they will accept a lot easier.

Personally I think the porn industry should get all the sites infringing on their copyrights blocked in Ireland too, then maybe people would actually care :rolleyes:

wes

Terrible news, this. I think it sad that our freedoms can so easily be taken from us in this manner.

The Raven.

seclachi wrote: »

This is based off the front page article on the Sunday business post today (22/2/09) I cant seem to find an online version.

Is this the article?

http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=NEWS-qqqs=news-qqqid=39782-qqqx=1.asp

There are lots of articles on line about it. They are actually threatening disconnection. These two are interesting:

http://torrentfreak.com/music-industry-orders-bittorrent-blackout-090223/

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2009/02/23/irish-isps-to-block-piracy-websites/1

The Raven.

cavedave wrote: »

Sunday business post article here.

Sorry, Cavedave. I forgot you already posted the link after the OP !!

Dannyboy83

Lets think about this for a second.

The average abuser may download 4 films or 4 albums per week.
Probably still buy the odd album, film or cinema trip.
Are these figures anywhere near accurate?........Anybody?

If they no longer have access to the internet, they will have to organise LAN parties where they swap possessions.
Instead of 4 films per week, they'll meet once per month and to make it worth their while, will be exchanging upwards of 500 films and albums per month.

So this would probably increase pirating by 5000%

This is of course ignoring the fact that people sell 'pre-prepared' Ext HDs full of content on places such as GumTree.

These Ext HDs already cost a pittance.
The new SD cards are easily capable of hold 16 DVD quality films or 64 top quality albums.

Perhaps Sony think that people will use BluRay discs to pirate the software?

Fighting Irish

This won't be a problem, unless you use ****ty sites like mininova or piratebay

thebman

Fighting Irish wrote: »

This won't be a problem, unless you use ****ty sites like mininova or piratebay

This leaves the door open for any other type of company to do the same thing and say well you do it for the music industry.

It could lead to massive problems in the future which is why it should be stopped now.

djpbarry

Correct me if I'm wrong (and I may well be), but are people complaining about the enforcement of copyright law?

thebman

djpbarry wrote: »

Correct me if I'm wrong (and I may well be), but are people complaining about the enforcement of copyright law?

It is the manner of enforcement that is incorrect.

sovtek

turgon wrote: »

Well in the end I wouldnt be too worried, we can all use our tin-foil hats as aerials to hook onto some broadband satellite in outer space.

My God...what a bunch of conspiracy nuts in here.
I mean it's not like if I mentioned a specific company in Ireland I won't get banned from Boards.

sovtek

djpbarry wrote: »

Correct me if I'm wrong (and I may well be), but are people complaining about the enforcement of copyright law?

This isn't law enforcement. This is enforcement by a private tyranny. That's when you get past the dubious nature of copyright law in the first place.
Oh but you know all those artists would be starving otherwise instead of the poor record companies that expoit the majority of them.

OhNoYouDidn't

thebman wrote: »

It is the manner of enforcement that is incorrect.

Exactly. Why should film and music companies be exempt from new technology?

How come the provider of the service is expected to rat on its users? Are Vodafone held responsible for hoax calls made on their network? Ford for speeders?

Its a dangerous legal precedent.

One thing for it, and thats for anyone on eircom to move.