Virgin Media favours a 'sensible voluntary solution'
Virgin Media takes on illegal downloaders
/v3-uk/news/1949795/virgin-media-takes-illegal-downloaders
01 Apr 2008, Guy Dixon , V3
Virgin Media has joined forces with the British Phonographic Industry in a pilot scheme that could see warning letters sent to users who download music tracks illegally, according to the Daily Telegraph.
This is the first time that a UK internet company has taken a public stance to share responsibility for curbing piracy.
The move follows two years of wrangling between ISPs and record labels in an attempt to secure an industry-wide agreement.
"We have been in discussions with rights holders organisations about how a voluntary scheme could work. We are taking this problem seriously and would favour a sensible voluntary solution," said a spokesman for Virgin Media.
BPI technicians will trace illegal music downloads to individual Virgin Media accounts and hand over account details to the broadband supplier, matching them to names and addresses.
Due to go live within months, the pilot follows government warnings in February that legislation would be introduced by April next year unless ISPs reach a voluntary agreement with the music and film industries.
The record labels have been pressing for a 'three strikes' policy that would see a letter warning customers they are committing an offence, followed by suspension for a second offence.
A third 'strike' would see illegal downloaders having their accounts disconnected.
"This is not the time for ISPs to delay further. The government clearly shares the creative community's frustration at the failure of ISPs to take action," said BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor.
Six million broadband users are thought to engage in the illegal download of files each year, which record labels claim are costing them billions of pounds in lost CD sales.
© Incisive Media Investments Limited 2010, Published by Incisive Financial Publishing Limited, Haymarket House, 28-29 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4RX, are companies registered in England and Wales with company registration numbers 04252091 & 04252093
Do you agree?
Virgin Media takes on illegal downloaders
According to an article in Digital Spy VM have recanted and stated by their CEO talks are still ongoing with g'ment bodies etc
Posted by digitalfife, 03 Apr 2008
"Billions of pounds lost"
This is simply untrue, people have a finite amount of disposable income and if a new film warrants a trip to the cinema then people will still go. Illegal downloads do not detract from sales as that would assume that people would have bought what they downloaded. I'm not saying it is a good thing but the main argument is about money and I just don't buy it.
Posted by Andrew Dixon, 04 Apr 2008
obvious
Its not rocket science... 'make it cheap, make it easy'
This problem has come about because of IDIOT music and film execs dragging their feet, upping prices and delaying releases... its their own stupid fault... and what do they do to try and fix it?... they go blubbing to the ISP's and Government to try to force us to obey by their rules...
like I say... 'make it cheap, make it easy' ... most people are law abiding citizens and will happily tow the line if given the option.
Posted by photek, 01 Apr 2008
April 1st
April fool???
Posted by stuart, 01 Apr 2008
Lord Richard B.
Is a douche bag for promoting this
Posted by Stew Canuck, 02 Apr 2008
Lets KILL Freedom for CAPITALISM
I agree that illegal downloads should be dealt with but isn't that a matter for the police and not the ISP's?
I don't like the idea for a "company" monitoring and censoring what I view as it likes, especially NTL I mean "virgin media" (different name same incompetence).
Posted by Rodger, 01 Apr 2008
No Virgin for me
I was strongly considering moving over to Virgin as my supplier but won't be doing it because of this. I don't download illegal tracks, but am so sick and tired of the BPI bullies. Enough is enough. If they cannot embrace the digital age it's their problem.
Posted by Anonymous, 03 Apr 2008
Big Brother
On who's authority does Virgin Media, or other isp's, hand over customers private details to third party interests?,in this instance BPI, surely this is against all data protection acts immaterial whether the downloads are legal or so called illegal.
This is just another area of "Big brother is watching you"
If BPI want to stop people from copying discs then let them find some way of doing so,not getting others to do their dirty work for them and spying on private persons activities.
I am surprised at Virgin Media, and future other isp's agreeing to this no matter what the government say, there is surely other ways to combat this "illegal downloading",after all, if its there to download why not download it as you do any other downloadable material.
Posted by sparkyj, 03 Apr 2008
How to lose their customers..!?
Virgin need to be very careful, people will avoid them if they go down this road because people won't want to risk it. They need to appreciate that downloading is rarely the price of a lost CD or DVD...or even stealing. The BPI need to rethink their figures and reconfigure the industry to get more money to musicians and less to the greedy middlemen.
Time for the labels to recognise that Steve Jobs' approach with iTunes is the right one - ie reduce the price of tracks to make it attractive to everyone. That's why it's the only credible service today.
Posted by Virgin Customer, 02 Apr 2008
DOWNLOADERS WONT STOP
THIS WILL NOT STOP DLOADING AT ALL, ITS JUST ANOTHER LIMITNG FACTOR AND A BAD ONE, IF V MEDIA WANT TO LOSE CUSTOMERS THIS IS THE RIGHT WAY TO GO AND I FEEL AN INFRINGEMENT ON PRIVACY, I UNDERSTAND THE VIEW OF THE RECORD LABELS / ARTISTS BUT THE WORLD MUSIC INDSTY HAS CHANGED AND THAT IS THAT, THE LABELS NEED TO FIND OTHER WAYS TO GENERATE INCOME LIKE FROM CONCERTS, MERCHANDISEING & PUBLIC APPEARANCES ITS JUST THE WAY IS IS NOW THE SINGLES GLORY DAYS ARE GONE... MOVE ON..... THE CUSTOMER BASE HAS!
Posted by SHAUN, 02 Apr 2008
rip off britain
Yet again we have Virgin media rip off again like the £5 charge that they force on their customers who refuse to pay by direct debit what will it be now VIRGIN ?a fine to help pay for invasion of privacy?IT'S ABOUT TIME PEOPLE STOOD UP AND AND SHOUT ABOUT THE RIP OFF MERCHANTS LIKE THE POWER COMPANIES WHO HIKE PRICES BY 15% AFTER THE OBSCENE PROFITS THEY MAKE AND THE GOVERNMENT WONT SAY A THING ABOUT IT EITHER THEY'RE GETTING THE EXTRA IN THE VAT COMON PEOPLE REBEL AT RIP OFF BRITAIN WALK AWAY FROM THESE COMPANIES
Posted by BRIEN HAWTHORNE, 02 Apr 2008
Ridiculous
Perhaps the RIAA and other industries should look at the reasons why people download illegally in the first place, rather than spending their depleting profits going after people and lobbying governments.
People download, in a large part, because of the insane prices they would be forced to pay in stores. £14 for a new release DVD, £24 for a BluRay movie. £10 for a music cd. Why would anyone pay these ridiculous prices if they could download for free, or a nominal fee?
I'm all on for legal downloads and whatnot, sure some companies have experimented with such services, but these industries need to work with people who download illegally and find a common ground that would make the population not download. All this is going to do is alienate people even further.
Posted by Neil C, 02 Apr 2008
meh
How about virgin media fix the modem cloning issue first, before they even think about issuing letters.
Posted by someguy, 03 Apr 2008
Downloading is not to Blame
The people running the recording industry are a bunch of greedy and delusional people clinging to a business model that is not working any more. Back when the CD came out, they fed us all a line about how they would come down in price; they never really did. What these people did was make a shed-load of money off of people upgrading their record collections. The trouble is that in the intervening years, they proved themselves incapable of finding talent of much worth. When the upgrade market died, they were screwed; the mainstream contained nothing but a load of derivative and manufactured acts with no staying power pumping out albums with one or two tracks that might actually be of interest to someone.
Then there was the downturn just after 2000. They went looking for someone to blame and started suing Napster and anyone who followed them into oblivion. There was no acceptance of the fact that the industry had a problem, or that they were in the business of selling a luxury item in a period of economic instability, or that they had undermined the quality of their output such that the public only wanted individual tracks, there was only a convenient scapegoat. They did this out of ignorance, the head of Universal admitted this in an interview for Wired; they did not know what it was, they did not know who to ask, and were not prepared to trust anyone they could ask for fear of being screwed over by that person. The result of this was that they turned their back on the most powerful marketing and market research tool they could ever have laid their hands on, and they could have had it for absolutely nothing.
Let me clarify that statement.
I would much rather listed to some folk music (or some jazz, blues, country, world, etc) than what is in the charts, but very few radio stations cater to this need. The same applies to television. How do I get to hear something new? The big recording industry players do not market to me and they have the broadcast channels tied up in what they thing should be popular. I could rely on reviews, but I do not necessarily agree with the reviewer, and thirteen quid plus is too high a risk on something I have not heard. So suppose instead of killing Napster, the industry went to them and said "Look, we'll let you carry on, but you'll limit the download quality to nn Kb/s, you'll get a certain amount of information from your members, and you'll supply us with marketing data. Do that and we won't sue you."
But what do we have instead? A beligerant bunch of idiots suing everone left, right and center who thing that we are all beholden to them and are willing to give up our rights so we can be fair to their precious artists. They are not fair to their consumers otherwise we would not have had the Sony rootkit fiasco, or CDs that damage computer and audio hardware. And there is an article out there by Janis Iain that explains exactly what "fair" meant to her.
Hollywood is not much better. They are prepared to spend millions to hire big name actors to appear in films ladened with millions worth of special effects on the back of a bad script they payed peanuts for. It is no wonder I have not been to the cinema in years. You can tell exactly what the film is just by looking at the trailer, they are all so predictable. There have been very few films in the last decade or more that I have actually paid to see. The rest I have ignored; I wouldn't download them if they paid me to as there is more interest to be had looking at a blank wall.
What this story and the pending government legislation demonstrate is that they are willing to bully ISPs into spying on their customers and that is just wrong. It will lead to abuse. It will lead to falsely raised lawsuits. What do you do if someone uses your wireless network without your knowledge? How do you prove what they allege is not true, or that it was not you? How far does this go? It the mere act of connecting to a P2P network an offence even if it is to download Linux? Or a copy of a Grateful Dead concert tape? Or something in the public domain? Or a work where the copyright has expired?
The idiots in the film and recording industries should get off their fat behinds and sort out their own problems rather than blaming everyone else and victimising those who are acting perfectly legally. They should remember that in order to survive they need to sell something that people want at a price they are prepared to pay. This is something they have not been doing for a couple of decades now.
Posted by pinkle, 02 Apr 2008
What happened to innocent until proven guilty ?
Sending a warning letter to customers accusing them of illegally downloading is very dodgy territory. Where is the burden of proof ?
Just because an IP address is seen on a torrent does not prove a user has broken copyright law. My views:
a) It doesn't prove that the IP address has illegally up/downloaded a copyrighted material in it's entirety or in a usable format such that the copyright has been infringed
b) That the data up/downloaded is verified independantly to be copyright protected. ie just because the Torrent name is a recognised artist does not prove that the data downloaded by that IP was in fact their work
c) Whilst the IP address can be linked to a given ISP account at a given time, assuming the ISP audits their DHCP allocations for sufficiently long enough, it does not prove that an specific individual was responsible for the activity behind the IP address. For example, there is sufficient ambiguity over the security of an individuals wireless network to prove that reasonable doubt exists over whom downloaded what, assuming the above two points have been proven.
d) The downloading of the material, if proven on the above points is all irrelevant if the individual already owns the copyrighted material. In which case, obtaining a copy for backup purposes makes the accusation difficult to stick. There, the difference between burning yourself a copy, versus downloading a spare copy is vague in legal terms, as you do own the material
Unless the ISP / BPI are able to provide this burden of proof at the point of warning, then fair enough. If not, to falsely accuse soemone of an offence is dangerous territory for all.
Posted by Concerned Citizen, 02 Apr 2008
...
Dennis2m : Suggest you read the smallprint on your contract before spouting off about data protection act, Also, i havent read anywhere that VM or any other ISP is going to give out your details; it is the ISP themselves whom hold your personal details, and it is them whom write to you and then cut you off not the BPI, not the MPAA or the RIAA
Posted by R34S0N, 07 Apr 2008
Illegal Downloads
Maybe, just maybe, if legal downloads were cheaper then there would be winners all round. No loss of "billions" (which music companies never had in the first place and how many poor music company executives/rockstars are there?) and everyone paying a fair price regardless of their geographics (itunes for example, plenty of others). Pretty radical I know. Go on give it a try, you never know it might make you more money in the end.
Posted by aldo13, 02 Apr 2008
Why bother?
People will just find ways to cicumvent controls. Is it an mp3 - is it an encrypted file? Totally pointless.
Posted by Pete, 03 Apr 2008
Virgin Media Complaints
Virgin Media should first sort out its customer service and then start making people leave them more rapidly.
Posted by Virgin Media Complaints, 03 Apr 2008
Virgin how Virgin are they really?
OOOH am scared lol virgin are going to give 3rd partys personal details. Haven't they read the data protection act yet? Well if they did they would find out they need written consent from the person/persons that they are gonna give personnal details about. I know i haven't gave anybody the right to give my personnal details to other 3rd partys or to anyone in that matter. BPI/MPAA or RCIAA is a 3rd party to any ISP so if anybody's data goes walking to any of these 3rd partys make sure you sue the pants off Virgin or any other ISP thats willing to give your details out to anybody without your consent. Read data protection act Rights of data subjects and others
Posted by Dennis2m, 05 Apr 2008
Virgin will lose customers
I am a Virgin Media customer I pay Virgin Media to act as my gateway to the internet, I do not pay them to police my internet usage, although I do not agree with flagrant downloading of copywrite material I feel that the Bpi has brought this on themselves exactly how long have they been charging over the odds for a CD? if Virgin Media do this then I shall be reviewing my subscription with them and I expect will thousands of other customers, after all what exactly will you need that 10mb connection for? online radio and U-Tube work perfectly well on 2mb, also Virgin Media are trialling phorm which monitors your internet usage and targets you with advertising mmm i think the term shooting oneself in the foot springs to mind, I personally will not be paying for this type of intrusion into my private life, Peter
Posted by peter bayliss, 10 Jun 2008
MOVING TO SKY .....
Ok yes i Dont Download Anything i use the internet For Networking Sites ..School Work....And Gaming on several Consoles
Since When Was it Legal To snoop Around In Out Business Scanning what we Are Doing what We Are up to And What We Download ....There Are SEVERAL Programs U can Find on google to Hack Wireless Routers Even With the Most secure Passwords ........ME PERSONALLY i Dont like my Internet Use and What im looking at/Downloading Is being Scanned and peered at When i have Dont NOTHING wrong .... IF i wanted Music i would ask a Friend for their CD then Copy it Onto My ps3...computer etc etc ...
Posted by SomeONE MOVING TO SKY, 13 Jul 2008
Illegal downloads
Hiya people, I want to say I think its about time something is done about illegal downloads, as I feel if something dont be done then everything from music to films & software wont be able to make money to be able to produce new products in order to entertain us. As the old saying is if you want something in life then go and pay for it! If not save up until you can afford it! It is killing music industrys! I think Virgin Media is doing a fantastic job in trying to cut people off who illegally download and I think its about time these people are punished, before its to late. Also I think the people who move to a different ISP good ridans! Because at least then Virgin Media will have genuine customers and not people complaining about stuff they shouldnt be doing! I welcome the 3 strikes rule!
Posted by Annonunmous!, 23 Apr 2010