70% of P2P Users Would Stop if Warned by ISP

Umpire writes "As the UK considers a three strikes policy to fight copyright infringement, a new survey reports that 70% of UK broadband users would stop using P2P if they received a warning from their ISP. 'Wiggin commissioned the 2008 Digital Entertainment Survey, which found that 70 percent of all people polled said they would stop illegally sharing files if their ISP notified them in some way that it had detected the practice. When broken down by age group, an unexpected trend emerges: teenagers are generally more likely to change their behavior than older Internet users.'"

But

[slapout]

P2P != illegal file sharing

Re:But

[nevali]

Notably posted the day that Trent Reznor releases a good chunk of an album on ThePirateBay (amusing in itself simply because of TPB's notoriety).

Re:Suggestive question

[dbolger]

I used to work for the abuse department of a major Irish ISP. We received hundreds of emails a day about our users allegedly breaching copyrights. Some were from studios, most were from outfits like Web Sherriff [websheriff.com]. Under the law at the time (now sure how it goes these days), we were under no obligation to follow up on these and had no inclination to either. The vast majority of the mail was from automated systems and we bulk deleted them without even reading them. The very occasional would be written by a human (or at least, would be a boilerplate mail with a human contact's name attached). These got a boilerplate reply in turn, telling them that we were not required by law to enforce their copyrights, and referring them to the police if they wanted to make a complaint. We would of course have handed over our logs had we been requested to by the police, but in the two years I worked there, we never were.

Re:Encryption

[shmlco]

Other than https/port 443? Torrent traffic, with large amounts of data coming in (and going out) to a widely distributed network of IP addresses is a relatively distinct pattern. Personally, I'd just charge on a per megabyte basis for upstream traffic, turning the majority of torrent users into leaches.

"What do you when calls and complains that their IT staff can't use SSH to connect to the web server from home...."

Like I said, torrent traffic is a different pattern. An SSH connection is a steady link to a particular IP address, which is also known from an RDNS standpoint. Pretty easy to tell corporate accounts from IP blocks designated as belonging to home service providers.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Unlikely?

[nomadic]

Just because something is stated in a ToS doesn't mean it's legally stated in a ToS.

"If you use our service to break the law, we'll disconnect you" is likely a valid, legally binding contract clause.

Re:Unlikely?

[SETIGuy]

Just because something is stated in a ToS doesn't mean it's legally stated in a ToS.

"If you use our service to break the law, we'll disconnect you" is likely a valid, legally binding contract clause.

That may be what the clause says, but in the terms they actually use in practice are "If we suspect you have used our service to break the law or are told by an untrustworthy party that you have used our service to break the law, we'll disconnect you even if you have not used our service to break the law."

It's unlikely that that is a valid, legally binding contract clause.

Re:Unlikely?

[macdaddy357]

If they want high speed internet, most people have two ISPs to choose from: Their local phone company or local cable TV company. Get kicked off of both for violating TOS, and no high speed internet for you. A Duopoly can make you play by its rules or quit the game just like a monopoly.

Re:Honesty

[Anonymous Coward]

if you're a software developer, but you don't charge anyone to use your software, how do you earn an income?

He clearly stated:

"I should not expect to receive money-per-copy. That is not how I monetize my work. Even with freely available software there is plenty of need for custom coding and maintenance work (all billable time). "

So, he charges by the time he spends creating and maintaining software, not per copy of software.