Virgin Media To Spy On & Threaten Downloaders

Mike writes "Virgin Media, the UK's largest cable-modem provider, has decided that it will spy on its users to protect record industry profits. Starting next week Virgin Media will send letters to thousands of households where they suspect music is either being downloaded or illegally shared. The campaign is a joint venture between Virgin Media and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), which represents the major record labels. The BPI ultimately wants Internet companies to implement a 'three strikes and out' rule to warn and ultimately disconnect the estimated 6.5 million customers whose accounts are (supposedly) used for regular criminal activity. In other words, you download a few songs and they'll come along and cut off the one wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly."

Cut the one wire that delivers alternative content

[Odder (1288958)]

How obvious can an anti-trust and privacy case be? You just know that the internet will become an RIAA only music store for those 6.5 million people.

People with wealth and power are doing this because they think they can and they must. The political opinions expressed outside of broadcast media will eliminated along with economic threats to the music industry. People who believe in justice and the rule of law are an economic threat too, so this is all the same animal and that's why media consolidation and broadcast itself suck. Society must prevent this and may be able to because so many stand to win as a few lose.

Virgin Music AND Virgin ISP?

[Simonetta (207550)]

Virgin Music AND Virgin ISP? Now the marketers that put this together for Sir Richard were convinced that this was a good idea. But it is turning out to be the marriage from hell. Did the lunatics who came up with Daimler-Chrysler have anything to do with this?

    Now if someone in Virgin were smart (and when are virgins ever smart?) they would give reduced or even near free downloads to Virgin Music's recordings. And do it in such a way that the anti-monopoly regulators can't do anything about it. Pure Syzygy. But these bozos are turning Virgin into the most hated conglomerate in the UK. Smooth move for a company that relies on its prominent logo as a universal brand of quality among youthful consumers.

    However it appears that in Virgin only Sir Richard has any brains. Does he hire dolts in order to appear that no one in the organization looks cooler than he does?

Re:Virgin Music AND Virgin ISP?

[mikael (484)]

It started because NTL (cable operator) decided to buy out TeleWest (another cable operator), mainly because Telewest was able to remain in the black and NTL kept making a loss and had poor customer service. Both networks had invested heavily in infrastructure and were struggling to make a profit.

NTL seals $6bn Telewest takeover [bbc.co.uk]

Then Virgin Mobile andd NTL:Telewest merged. Branson accepted a 10.7% shareholder offer in return for being able to use the Virgin brandname. The motivation for this was to compete against BSkyB, but the side effect was to cause the loss of Sky One and Sky News (a bit pathetic because Sky News can still be viewed using broadband, if only in 10 minute segments), and caused more financial loss to Sky (through advertising revenue) that to Virgin.

Virgin media [wikipedia.org].

From the viewpoint of a customer, the side effect of the cable network being bought out by Virgin, has been to have information packs translated into ValleyGirl Speak. The first line was "Hello you!" and an reassuring statement "We're not going to bamboozle you with technobabble, so we've renamed all our services in easy to understand S(mall), (M)edium, (L)arge and (XL)extra-large. Just as bad as sky referring to the receiver unit as the "digibox".

Re:Cut the one wire that delivers alternative cont

[snl2587 (1177409)]

The real issues are the domestic, warrantless spying and the attempt to bring down Bittorrent even for legal filesharing. Everything else is secondary.

I agree

[Odder (1288958)]

but you must understand that the attack on P2P is really an attack on free press and has the same purpose as the other, more serious violations. The point is to shut down political opposition, which in turn threaten established economic interests. All weapons are being used to identify, intimidate, harass, silence and eliminate opposition. Cutting a person's net access is the modern equivalent of exile. It will happen to those identified by wiretaps. Those that persist face the threat of search, arrest

Re:I agree

[Macthorpe (960048)]

but you must understand that the attack on P2P is really an attack on free press

I can only assume that you've found some form of political speech that is distributed in illegally shared music, because otherwise your point would be completely meaningless.

Don't even pretend to mull that over - your point is seriously completely meaningless.

Re:I agree

[dedazo (737510)]

Implying that we're all getting shipped off to the Gulag for using Azureus: Sensationalist

Deliberately confusing copyright with freedom of speech and trying to make a point that it should be eliminated because you don't like it, when the problem is really in the enforcement: Disingenuous.

Posting on the same thread with four different accounts and trolling Mactrope and willyhill: Dishonest.

I would add that I feel that P2P traffic (or any type of traffic) should not be throttled, regulated, filtered or otherwise meddled with simply because the vast majority of it revolves around copyright infringement is wrong. However, that's also disingenuous because it ignores the problem and makes the case that it could be fixed if the people who produce the content would just be nice enough to bend over and enjoy it.

Re:I agree

[Mistshadow2k4 (748958)]

You eliminate the incentives, you cut back drastically on peoples' willingness to produce, not just the willingness to publish or distribute. Which means that the spread and development of culture and ideas slows down.

Yeah, that's why open source software is decades behind proprietary software and there are so few open source developers.... oh, wait, it's not like that. Maybe they have plenty of developers and state-of-the-art software in most areas because they attract the people who care about producing a good product, rather than manufactured stars who just want their money. Kind of like the musicians of old whose copyright privileges only covered someone else trying to steal the credit of composing music. You do know that there were musicians before music could be recorded and controlled by the record companies, right? I wonder why, as their copyright so limited, they would bother, since there wasn't much incentive for them to be musicians at all by your argument.

Re:I agree

[thtrgremlin (1158085)]

Cutting a person's net access is the modern equivalent of exile.

Or even cultural excommunication. Something typically reserved for convicted felons that received due process... but in the way we communicated in the past, felons were still capable of rebelling against the system that was against them. In a growing way, internet ban means an inability to fight back.

I remember when I didn't understand how people equated free speech with a right to net access. I am certain this is what they feared. This broad and loose way of getting dissidents off the net opens the door for keeping "other types of criminals" off the net. That doesn't necessarily make sense to me now, but I have a feeling it will be no surprise when lobbyists start pushing and making headway with a list of "others".

Re:Seems simple enough!

[MightyYar (622222)]

Are you talking about the politician-buying, 95-year-copyright-term corporate assholes or the people who are ignoring their asinine little power grab?

There's more than one "criminal" here.

You can't ignore them.

[Odder (1288958)]

These are the reasons corporate assholes fear a free press [lewrockwell.com]. They want to be above the law in every way and they don't want you to have a way to complain or do anything about it.

Re:they aren't doing anything

[Adriax (746043)]

No, see, they just cut access, but not the accounts. The billing keeps going, the customers can't log into their banking sites to cancel auto-payments, and they can't cancel their service because you have to log onto virgin's website to request a cancellation form.

Hyperbole

[whisper_jeff (680366)]

In other words, you download a few songs and they'll come along and cut off the one wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly.

For those who are unclear on the definition of "hyperbole", please read the above quoted sentence.

Re:Hyperbole

[The Angry Mick (632931)]

Seriously. Here's the headline and teaser text from the same story as presented by ArsTechnica, which is painted in a vastly different light:

UK ISP bows to record industry, to send P2P warning letters:
British ISP Virgin Media has come to an agreement with the BPI, which represents the record industry, to warn filesharers on its network about the dangers of copyright infringement.

.

Re:Hyperbole

[Albanach (527650)]

Yes, The Register had a much more balanced article too: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/06/virgin_media_bpi_deal/ [theregister.co.uk].From that article, 'At this stage there will be no "three strikes" process; customers who continue to fileshare illegally will not be disconnected.'

Virgin are also quoted as saying it was unwilling to disconnect customers who don't stop accessing illegal music. A spokesman said: "It's a bit of a judgement call for us to be making threats of disconnection or account suspension. We weren't willing to do that. There are now so many lawful cheap and free music services out there that we believe an education campaign in partnership with the BPI is the best way forward."

Seems Virgin aren't quite being the bad guys the summary makes out.

Plagiarised Hyperbole

[Kifoth (980005)]

Exact same summary (and link) on Boing Boing...

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/06/09/virgin-media-uk-work.html [boingboing.net]

I'm pretty sure Cory Doctorow used it first.

Re:Hyperbole

[blowdart (31458)]

And it, of course, shows a stunning lack of understanding of geography or other countries. The UK has no enshrined right to free speech, the right to assembly has been slowly curtailed since the 1980s, starting with laws to stop raves, and then to stop political demonstrations in certain areas (like outside parliament) and cutting off a personal internet account doesn't stop journalists reporting.

The three strikes "solution" is problematic however; because suddenly a corporation is policing something. And that is more worrying than anything else.

Re:Hyperbole

[evilandi (2800)]

Also for those who are unclear on the definition of "UK", note that it is not the USA. Ergo any comparison with USian freedoms is stark raving bonkers. We don't have freedom of speech or freedom of assembly here, they have never been enshrined as rights (freedom of the press, though, is enforced by the Press Complaints Authority with arms-length backing from Her Majesty's Government).

For example, it is illegal to wear a t-shirt with a politican slogan in the street outside Parliament.

Re:Hyperbole

[l-ascorbic (200822)]

The PCA doesn't enforce freedom of the press. Quite the contrary. It's a method by which the press self-regulates. It doesn't stop the govt placing restrictions on the press. It investigates complaints *against* the press, such as for invasion of privacy.

As for no enshrined rights: the Human Rights Act codifies a large number of them, including freedom of speech. As for the US Constitution: the Bill of Rights was strongly influenced by British common law, including the Magna Carta.

That said, this hasn't stopped the government trampling on a lot of these rights. Much of this is due to the fact that we don't have a Supreme Court (yet) so it's hard to enforce any of them.

Re:Hyperbole

[exp(pi*sqrt(163)) (613870)]

> We don't have freedom of speech

This is a very simplistic view. Just as with the US constitution, the fact that it's not written down doesn't mean that we don't have the right. In Britain the law isn't just determined by those bills that pass through parliament. It is also defined by precedents set by judges in earlier cases. The right of Britons to freedom of speech has been upheld time and again by British courts going back centuries. A judge can't simply overturn that. There is some wiggle room over when those rights can be suspended. In the US, the litmus test for whether or not free speech can be suspended is whether or not there is a "clear and present danger". But that test isn't codified in the Constitution, it arose because of a legal precedent set in a court case. So the situation in the US and UK are pretty similar in this regard.

Re:Hyperbole

[whisper_jeff (680366)]

There is no other way besides the internet to make my views known to more than a few people.

Sorry, but if you believe that, then you are out of touch. Or, to put it more directly - how do you think people exercised those freedoms before the internet? Somehow, hundreds of people throughout history managed to make their views known to more than a few people without the internet. So, I say again, hyperbole.

Re:

[internewt (640704)]

If only some countries had places where one could go to share their opinions with large groups ...

You missed one. [wikipedia.org]

Good for them...

[Bullfish (858648)]

my belief is that this tactic will work out equally as well as it has in the US and elsewhere. Now... the real issue for me is why do so many of these industry people believe that they can implement a stupid idea better than the last guy?

ISPs ARE NOT COMMON CARRIERS!!!

[oyenstikker (536040)]

At least not in their role as ISPs.

Re:

[Rekolitus (899752)]

This is correct. In the US, ISPs are classified as an information service by the FCC.

Broadband access

[mrbah (844007)]

Well, that's one way to increase broadband access. Drive everyone to lease their own T1s instead of putting up with this kind of crap.

markets and competition

[drDugan (219551)]

Good thing there are still some competition on who provides Internet service. I expect that this behavior would have the obvious effect that users will simply use different providers: providers that focus on their customers and not other business' interests.

Here in the San Francisco area, for example, there are locally owned ISP companies that have focused on high quality service and support and have grown and down well while providing DSL at faster speeds and lower cost than the larger providers.

shall we at least consider the alternatives?

[v1 (525388)]

"...they'll come along and cut off the one wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly."

TFA makes it sound like the internet is the only way to exercise these liberties. I suppose blowing up the courthouse is also one way for me to exercise my voice but they seem to have made that one illegal. Shame on them!

freedom

[mark72005 (1233572)]

"Freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly"

Well, we're talking about the UK here, not the US.

That is what comes

[Chrisq (894406)]

From using a record company as your ISP. Anyone could have predicted that they would be tougher on illegal downloads than ISPs that are mainly communications companies.

Re:That is what comes

[dkf (304284)]

From using a record company as your ISP.

They're almost completely unrelated companies; the only thing in common (apart from some shared shareholders) is the fact that they both license the "Virgin" trademark from the same third company.

It bears repeating time and again

[MikeRT (947531)]

Until intellectual property law is forced to conform to the same expectations that private property has, it will never have universal legitimacy in the culture the way that physical property has (except with thieves and Socialists; I repeat myself...)

A modest proposal:

1) Outlaw implied contracts. When I buy a movie, CD, program, etc., unless I sign something in writing, prior to the purchase, any "contract" should be null and void, and any effort to enforce it should be criminal activity.

2) Copyright infringement by sharing copyrighted data is treated as theft, with goods valued for the purpose of assessment under existing property laws at current market value. Copyright infringement by accident, like posting a single picture you weren't supposed to on your site is not a crime at all or at the worst gets you a slap on the wrist.

3) Copyright holders cannot restrict how any one copy of their work is used by buyers, except to make them respect the artificial scarcity of copyright law. Meaning, if I want to resell iPhones with jail-broken OSs and tons of apps, Apple cannot legally interfere with my customers' enjoyment of their iPhone and its OS anymore than Honda could interfere with my customers if I were selling modified racing civics (except to cut off their warranty).

Re:It bears repeating time and again

[Actually, I do RTFA (1058596)]

3) Copyright holders cannot restrict how any one copy of their work is used by buyers, except to make them respect the artificial scarcity of copyright law.

I'm not sure I believe in this. The ability to create derivative works is not just to protect the value of the intellectual property. It is also to protect the integrity. Think about how horrible it would be if you could take classic films (like Star Wars), and add tons of CG effects, and resell them.

Totally Cheddar

[lymond01 (314120)]

In other words, you download a few songs and they'll come along and cut off the one wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly.

I don't mean to be critical, but isn't this just a touch over the top? I don't like the idea of people tracking downloads and cutting of Internet connections any more than you, but for the moment, downloading is still illegal. If someone managed to catch you and charge you $10,000 per song (or whatever the going rate is...I think it's rationed on the same scale as gas prices) or throw you in prison for repeat offenses, would that be any better than losing your ISP?

We need to convince the world that the recording industry is trying to bill us for not buying horseshoes even though we're driving cars. They've said it themselves: they made a mistake by not having download services sooner, and now they've lost a generation of kids who think music grows on the web for free. Let them charge the band for the original recording of the song, the videos, take a share of concert revenue for the advertising work, etc. But taking a percentage of money every time the song is played or recorded elsewhere, in the age of perfect digital copies, is archaic at best.

But don't make me want to go buy duct tape and plastic sheeting because I'm breaking the current copyright laws.

it'll be a step too far for most ISPs as well

[thermian (1267986)]

Cut off over 6 million paying customers?

No way that's ever going to happen. No industry in its right mind would destroy itself to satisfy the needs of another.

Re:it'll be a step too far for most ISPs as well

[Sockatume (732728)]

Actually booting off pirates would be in Virgin's best interests. They're the only people who actually try to use the bandwidth they've paid for. By removing those, they can continue to sell 2MBit connections to email users. Given how much they've whinged about video on demand showing up their shitty infrastructure, I suspect all ISPs to move this way.

I am a Virgin Media subscriber

[tezza (539307)]

I think Mike the submitter is really overdoing it with his rhetoric.

"the one wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly"
--- Mike, take an antacid and calm down. You'll save yourself a stroke.

*Why could you not legally download the songs?
* If they wanted to disconnect you, could they not just find some other trumped up reason to do so?
* There is plenty of alternate choice for broadband in places where Virgin Media is commonly available

Let's wait to see just how often this gets used before it becomes an issue.

I get throttled all the time after a few DivX downloads, and the solution is to download in non-peak times.

I'm sure slashdot will be informed once the letters actually start being posted.

So, will this be a P2P dragnet?

[oldspewey (1303305)]

From TFA:

If you use peer-to-peer applications to copy or distribute copyrighted material such as music, films and software, and do so without paying royalties, you are almost certainly infringing the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

I think the real question here is how Virgin intends to "catch" subscribers. Will any form of P2P traffic result in a letter? TFA, while full of feel-good rhetoric about damages to our vibrant economy, is scant on details in this regard.

Phew!

[Tx (96709)]

At first, I read "British Pornographic Industry", and I was seriously worried! But its only the music, so I think I'm safe.

Because no one will sneakernet songs

[Maxo-Texas (864189)]

This is literally the "Whackamole" of modern business.

They just do not get it.

People do not have $10,000 to load up an IPOD with content.

People will spend to the level they can/feel is ethical and then take the rest.

If they can't get it off the internet, they'll do it face to face in sneaker nets.
Or they'll encrypt/mangle the packets.
Or things we havn't even imagined yet.

Virgin this...

[hyades1 (1149581)]

The wonderful thing about huge, sprawling conglomerates like Virgin is that there's no shortage of ways to hit back at them when they pull this kind of bullshit.

Do you have a Virgin cell phone? Pound it to slag and mail it back to the bastards, along with a letter explaining why you won't be needing their services anymore. Tell your travel agent that you won't accept a flight on any Virgin plane, and drop them a line telling them about it. Show up at good old Sir Richard's next publicity stunt with appropriately humorous and offensive signs.

The beauty of it is that if enough people act, the pressure doesn't have to be kept up for long to have a real effect on the bottom line. How long would it take before losses in other areas overtake any possible gain from Virgin's Nazi-esque assault on free speech?

OT - YRO section

[ubrgeek (679399)]

These stories are getting more and more depressing. I suggest changing the section name to, "Your (Lack of) Rights Online."

Before everyone says "Aren't Virgin Bastards?"

[jimicus (737525)]

The UK government has already said to ISPs "Stop your users downloading illegally or we'll pass legislation forcing you to":

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,1000000085,39290371,00.htm [zdnet.co.uk]

http://www.techwatch.co.uk/2008/02/25/uk-isp%E2%80%99s-must-stop-illegal-downloads/ [techwatch.co.uk]

(You've got to admire that approach to democracy out of sheer morbid fascination, really, haven't you. It amounts to "You're not doing anything illegal, but if you don't stop doing it we'll make it illegal!")

Virgin Media haven't really got any choice here, and I think we'll see similar announcements regarding other ISPs within the next 6-12 months.

Time for torrents to wise up

[mlwmohawk (801821)]

First, all torrents should be encrypted.

All user's torrent servers should present an NDA and disclaimer to the effect:

"Before connecting with this machine you attest to the fact that you are not downloading anything that you may find that you do not have the legal right to access.

You further more state under oath that any and all activity on this connection is legal as well as private and confidential.

Any and all legal issues arising from your activity are solely your responsibility

Lastly, you indemnify the operator of this torrent server against any and all legal actions for your activity."

yes or no.

They just don't get it ...

[TallMatthew (919136)]

At what point will the powers that be in the record industry realize that they will never get back to making billions off of CDs? What a bunch of whiny little bitches.

The world changed. But rather than adjust to a new business model (heaven forbid!), they're bullying ISPs into policing the Internet and litigating individuals. All in an attempt to return to a market which will never again exist.

Worse yet, the MPAA is doing the same thing. They could move first-run movies to pay per view today and make billions, but instead they're sticking to their guns, staggering release dates to try and maximize DVD sales. In the meantime, people are becoming increasingly comfortable downloading rips and screeners off of the various torrent portals.

This all could have been avoided (and in the movie industry's case, would be avoided), if the corporations would adjust to new technologies instead of trying to squish them. If the Itunes Music Store had opened before Napster, it would be a totally different world.

Re:Kinky

[alexborges (313924)]

I thought 007 WAS what the british took for pr0n!

Re:What's wrong with this?

[Mprx (82435)]

Stealing: I take the CD, the owner no longer has the CD.
Copying: I copy the data, now we both have the data.

Copying != theft. Copyright as originally intended "to promote the progress of science and useful arts" is arguably beneficial to society, but copyright as currently implemented mostly benefits the rich elite. With lower barriers to entry for both authorship and distribution the optimal copyright term is now shorter than the original term, but it has instead been increased to be effectively endless. It is no surprise people do not respect such an obviously broken law.

Re:What's wrong with this?

[zotz (3951)]

"I don't get the difference between downloading with P2P and seeing a sidewalk sale and walking off with CDs"

Do you see the difference between singing a song on a street corner with a hat on the ground and seeing a sidewalk sale and walking off with CDs?

And to be honest, here at least, I think the penalties for being in posession of a knock off CD or DVD are way more harsh than for stealing the same from a store.

all the best,

drew

Re:Sheesh

[nogginthenog (582552)]

AFAIK the Virgin companies are not linked, they just paid Richard Branson for the use of the name. Virgin Media is still NTL:Telewest under the hood...

Re:over-reaching FUD

[Floritard (1058660)]

Really, how does the internet deliver freedom of assembly?

The irony being, you've posted this question on a public forum.