Eircom to cut broadband over illegal downloads - READ POST#1 WARNING

Cabaal

Osu wrote: »

Can I ask a question, why are they just going after p2p?

P2P makes it extremely using to identify IP addresses when people connect to download stuff

blubloblu

Extremely easy^

watty

Cabaal wrote: »

P2P makes it extremely using to identify IP addresses when people connect to download stuff

Or, more significantly, upload stuff. Also P2P is free. Many of the other methods are not free, thus used by fewer people. The non-free methods can in theory be identified and shut down. As indeed has happened with some.

BrianD

Osu wrote: »

Can I ask a question, why are they just going after p2p?

I presume its because most downloads from web sites are legal? Even If they weren't its easier to track down the owners/operators of a web site.

wayforward

Nobody has the power to sign away their human rights under the constitution or an international treaty. Ultra vires. Any attempts by eircom or another ISP to use their “conditions” to disconnect a subscriber without judicial recourse under such conditions in unenforceable. You can’t sign a legal paper to waive you legal matters governed by law or treaty – eg there is no point signing a paper asking X to shoot you, outlining how you absolve him from all liability because you want it to be done. If he shoots you dead, he should and probably will be charged with murder.

Your ISP has to prove to the court that you were in breach of Irish law in your use of the internet. They can’t just “pull the plug” because some agent for the Hollywood Mafiosi sends them your IP number with a request for same, and they rely on “conditions” you “agreed” to.

Eircom should ask itself:

Who is our customer, who is paying our bills?

What country are we operating in? What laws is eircom subject to? Does eircom think it is above Irish and European law?

Has eircom lost all sense of reality, or is their 95% odd monopoly of DSL just too big that it has given them delusions of their power in the marketplace?

Is our regulator comreg so useless and such a waste of money and time that we can get away with dumping customers who pay our invoices, and totally ignoring our obligations to provide service in return, and their legal rights?

Perhaps the Minister responsible should be asking himself the same questions?

axer

wayforward wrote: »

Nobody has the power to sign away their human rights under the constitution or an international treaty.s?

What a load of crap? Internet access is not a human right in ireland. Your rant is full of ignorance.

blubloblu

axer wrote: »

What a load of crap? Internet access is not a human right in ireland. Your rant is full of ignorance.

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
The highest legal authority in France have judged this applied to Internet access, it's pretty obvious.

Batchkid

Things like this are so pointless. How are they going to catch you? Who's going to take the blame for downloading in your house if you have, for example, 5 siblings in the family sharing computers? You can't really single out one of them if non of them own up to it. And you can't just charge them all.

The music industry is bollocks anyways, as if they haven't made enough off us before the internet came.

FloatingVoter

Batchkid wrote: »

Things like this are so pointless. How are they going to catch you? Who's going to take the blame for downloading in your house if you have, for example, 5 siblings in the family sharing computers? You can't really single out one of them if non of them own up to it. And you can't just charge them all.

The music industry is bollocks anyways, as if they haven't made enough off us before the internet came.

They'll go after whoever pays for the connection.

Batchkid

It's not going to work very well then. What about students in college who can't be bothered to buy cds? That means the landlord's name would be on the broadband? I know plenty of people who have free broadband in their houses, which is not in their name.

wayforward

axer wrote: »

What a load of crap? Internet access is not a human right in ireland. Your rant is full of ignorance.

While one can't but agree with what blubloblu says above, my point is that it is up to the Irish court to decide whether or not you should be disconnected from the net. Nothing to do with the media mafia. The ISP does not have the legal authority to censor/disconnect - irrespective of what they might ask you to sign. Providing you pay the bill you should remain connected. Period.

jor el

blubloblu wrote: »

The highest legal authority in France have judged this applied to Internet access, it's pretty obvious.

France is not Ireland. Their ruling has no baring here.

Batchkid wrote: »

I know plenty of people who have free broadband in their houses, which is not in their name.

And if the landlord gets disconnected, they'll have nothing. It doesn't matter who's name it's in, the disconnections will still come.

blubloblu

jor el wrote: »

France is not Ireland. Their ruling has no baring here.

Well, obviously their ruling isn't legally binding here. That doesn't make their interpretation any less valid.

wayforward

jor el wrote: »

France is not Ireland. Their ruling has no baring here.

While one has to agree that the French codified legal system does not apply to IRL, it has been adopted by most of the world (ie China and much of the rest of Asia, all of Europe (aside from the Anglo Saxon ejits of GB and IRL who are still living in 1,000 year old antiquated confused, complex, badly thought out, and confusing common law land), Latin America, many African countries, and even parts of North America all copy the French system - one can't escape logic - freedom of speech on the internet is at the core of human rights in 2010. Any legal system that has not woken up to this fact is defunct and obsolete.

At the very least, eircom's attempts to cut customers off without a court order should be make illegal and unenforceable. Else Ireland is no longer a republic. It becomes a kingdom of the ISP.

dub45

wayforward wrote: »

While one has to agree that the French codified legal system does not apply to IRL, it has been adopted by most of the world (ie China and much of the rest of Asia, all of Europe (aside from the Anglo Saxon ejits of GB and IRL who are still living in 1,000 year old antiquated confused, complex, badly thought out, and confusing common law land), Latin America, many African countries, and even parts of North America all copy the French system - one can't escape logic - freedom of speech on the internet is at the core of human rights in 2010. Any legal system that has not woken up to this fact is defunct and obsolete.

At the very least, eircom's attempts to cut customers off without a court order should be make illegal and unenforceable. Else Ireland is no longer a republic. It becomes a kingdom of the ISP.

When will people realise that there is a big difference between freedom of speech and the so called freedom to download unlimited free music and films?

And if the choice is between living in Ireland for all its faults and the beacons of freedom that are China and some of the other countries you quoted then I wont be emigrating anytime soon.

I really would be far less cynical about all this 'freedom of speech' stuff if it was being aired in relation to a real abuse or a real issue and not in relation to claiming the right to download unlimited amounts of copyrighted material.

watty

wayforward wrote: »

one can't escape logic - freedom of speech on the internet is at the core of human rights in 2010.

But what about people that can't get Broadband?




Anyway this actually has ZERO affect on your freedom of speech. Only 2/3rd of households even have a phone line. A significant percentage of phonelines don't support Broadband.

Anyone can set up a Blog and update it at an Internet Cafe or Library. Even if you have NO internet, you can publish your opinions on the WWW.



Your name/Identity is never passed to a 3rd party. IRMA or other ISPs.

IRMA can't even assume an IP is the same person each time. Only eircom knows who had the IP at the reported date & time. Only eircom contacts people. No matter how many IPs eircom is given they will only process 50 a week. It's vanishingly unlikely (less likely than wrong court verdicts) that an innocent person would be cut off.

It's a lottery to enforce the "no infringing copyright clause" that they already have. It's not the same system as proposal in France or the UK.

Unless a law is passed (and there isn't) there can't be any database of alleged malefactors passed on to other ISPs or IRMA.

Standard of Criminal Justice don't apply to Civil contracts (You and eircom) or to Civil Suits (Rights holders and Copyright Infringement).

conor.hogan.2

I dont know whats more concerning:

Peoples complete lack of understanding for the web and technology
or
peoples complete lack of understanding for open source.

(Why would google open its search algorithm so it could be manipulated and ruined?)

axer

wayforward wrote: »

The ISP does not have the legal authority to censor/disconnect - irrespective of what they might ask you to sign.

Yes, they do. They can disconnect you if you breach the terms of your contract with them. Not paying for the service is also a breach of contract and both result in the same termination of the contract.

conor.hogan.2

Ye that is one point I agree with you on - of course they can disconnect or censor or whatever they want to their service.

blubloblu

axer wrote: »

Yes, they do. They can disconnect you if you breach the terms of your contract with them. Not paying for the service is also a breach of contract and both result in the same termination of the contract.

It could be that the terms of the contract are in breach of the users' rights in this case. But that is up to someone taking Eircom to court.

z0oT

watty wrote: »

It's a lottery to enforce the "no infringing copyright clause" that they already have. It's not the same system as proposal in France or the UK.

Nice way of summing it up.

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

(Why would google open its search algorithm so it could be manipulated and ruined?)

Naturally they're not going to, it is their main product and business after all. That was my point when I cited Red Hat having to open source their main product for the world to replicate. (Thanks to the GPL)

conor.hogan.2

You made the comment is a snarky ''but google wont open its search algorithm'' sorta way.

Anyway I am not up on Redhat but they chose to enter into GPL or a field which was covered by that, but as I dont know much on them or the point you are trying to make can you be more clear?

you can be open source and profitable many companies do it - open or free does not mean no profit sort of free.

Most of the most profitable web companies and services are like that and a lot of traditional software altho less so.

dub45

blubloblu wrote: »

It could be that the terms of the contract are in breach of the users' rights in this case. But that is up to someone taking Eircom to court.

Its very simple really - if you do not like the terms and conditions of a particular isp then you do not take out a contract with them.

And I doubt very much if any court is going to find fault with any isp's proviso that you cannot download copyright material. Particularly as it would be clearly stated before you took out the contract.

z0oT

Admittedly this is getting somewhat offtopic, but nonetheless..

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

You made the comment is a snarky ''but google wont open its search algorithm'' sorta way.

Anyway I am not up on Redhat but they chose to enter into GPL or a field which was covered by that, but as I dont know much on them or the point you are trying to make can you be more clear?

Red Hat essentially give away their main product for free and charge for support and services, and they've done very well thus far and are continuing to do so. But the catch is that their product is open source, free for replication by anyone who wants to do so. Case in point they are several Red Hat clones that have popped up, such as CentOS, Oracle Enterprise Linux and a good few more aswell, but yet they still do very well despite such competition, despite the fact that the likes of CentOS costing nothing to run.

My point (which stemmed from the whole "Free Culture" argument) was that little enough companies will permit others to replicate their main product at will, no matter what the industry. (Red Hat are an example, but one of few)

you can be open source and profitable many companies do it - open or free does not mean no profit sort of free.

Most of the most profitable web companies and services are like that and a lot of traditional software altho less so.

But how do you charge for something when you give the people the capability to get it for free? *That's* the conumdrum of the whole "Free Software" mantra.

conor.hogan.2

Most of the major websites that we use today are built upon free standards and products and are open to be replicated as is with free ''traditional'' software but less widespread and mainstream.

You do not seem to grasp open source - it is free as a philosophy - but not always free as in money.

There is still and will probably always be a need for closed proprietary products - for example Gimp will never be photoshop but openoffice is as good as Word or Pages etc.

It is somewhat of topic, yes.

---
For the purposes of this Eircom are not monitoring anybody - but do they have logs?

z0oT

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

You do not seem to grasp open source - it is free as a philosophy - but not always free as in money.?

That's the whole GPL philosophy, and I've never tried to contest that, as I've said it's difficult to make money off directly.

vectra

Without reading through this full topic.
I heard the other day that all ips's in Ireland are now doing this.. Is this true or is it just Eircom??

blubloblu

vectra wrote: »

Without reading through this full topic.
I heard the other day that all ips's in Ireland are now doing this.. Is this true or is it just Eircom??

just eircom for the moment. IRMA are bringing UPC, vodafone, O2, meteor and others to court inthecity next few weeks.
Apparently there is one other ISP that has made the same agreement, it might be Digiweb but that is unconfirrmed.

watty

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

Most of the major websites that we use today are built upon free standards and products and are open to be replicated as is with free ''traditional'' software but less widespread and mainstream.

You do not seem to grasp open source - it is free as a philosophy - but not always free as in money.

There is still and will probably always be a need for closed proprietary products - for example Gimp will never be photoshop but openoffice is as good as Word or Pages etc.

It is somewhat of topic, yes.

---
For the purposes of this Eircom are not monitoring anybody - but do they have logs?

Yes, eircom have logs or else they could not connect a reported IP and time/date to a user. Everyone (even people that claim they haven't) has some sorts of logs. You need them to debug faults, settle arguments about "lack of service", track Cap & etc.

Actually you obviously don't grasp "Open Source".

A Free standard is also nothing to do with "Open Source" or "Creative Commons" in the Stallman/Lessing philosophies. Even free schematics and freely available "open" free source code is nothing to do with "Open Source" or "Creative Commons" in the Stallman/Lessing philosophies.

Morally and legally, any creator automatically has Copyright when they create a work. In USA these rights can be traded outright (IMO wrong) and in Germany only Licensed.

A Copyright holder can relinquish any or all rights, place material in Public Domain or licence the material in any legally compatible manner.

The real agenda of some of the central figures in the "Open Source Movement" is to make the above paragraph obsolete and essentially make GNU+copyleft and/or Creative Commons type licences the default and abolish traditional copyright. This philosophy and viewpoint is what fuels the "extreme" "Freetards" who believe wrongly that downloading anything should be free and as much a Human Right as Clean Water, Food, Right to express an opinion or read/listen/watch other opinions.

Downloading copyright material for free (in a manner that infringes the owner's rights) is not a Basic Human right.

Existing Copyright law allows people to put material in Public Domain, abrogate all their rights in manner similar to Public Domain (Creative Commons) or have more restrictive licenses than Public Domain such as BSD, BSD free, GNU, Apache, Zlib or various "copyleft" schemes. In no way should such schemes be automatically foisted on people when they upload to a Website. It should be made clear that they are practically making the content Public Domain and that is actually Big Business Exploiting them!

The FSF/FOSS/copyleft/Creative Commons/GNU is fine if that is what YOU want to do with your creative output. It's NOT the norm, nor a justification for Online Copyright Infringement others' work (Sharing or Downloading).

This website is using vBulletin, not free software. Though the source is available.

Nitpicking:
Your assertions (conor.hogan.2) are misleading:
Apache in 2009 was just above 50%. I'd call that a slim majority rather than most.
http://ostatic.com/blog/apache-holds-steady-market-share-still-dominating-microsoft-iis
http://trends.builtwith.com/websitelist/Apache

Also Open Standards doesn't at mean "Open Source". Two quite different concepts.

conor.hogan.2

I didnt say or mean that a free standard = open source.

There is many different types of ''open source'' - you discussed a few, garbled up in jargon.

Anyone who makes an original work is entitled to copyright - not just anything (i can nitpick too).

No you just used ''real agenda'' and ''freetards'' argument over.

we are discussing copyrighted material as in music and no one in this thread said it should be free and in the case of software it is up to the developer if they want to charge or to do whatever they want with it.

Websites are allowed to do what they want - if people dont read the terms that is their fault, for example facebook owns your photos and twitter owns the tweets.

a majority is a majority - and you seem confused as to what i am saying should be free (ie not music unless it is allowed by the artist).

open standars sometimes goes hand in hand with open source as you made the point earlier in your post and as did I.

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674018587

Again if you only want to count Apache and Redhat of course your agenda against open source will seem correct.

how much browser percentage does gecko and webkit have between them including mobile?