Virgin Media to declare war on P2P users

[The News Bot]

Will Virgin Media be the first major UK ISP to implement an anti-P2P policy on its subscribers? According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, the broadband supplier has had talks with the BPI about a three-strikes-and-you’re-suspended voluntary system for illegal downloaders. Virgin is planning trials of an ultra fast fibre optic service this summer, but [...]
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[heyess]

April fools! This is even better than the flying penguins in the newspaper this morning!

[Adam Shaw]

Sadly, its true

[heyess]

Hmm, it still think in all probabilty this is a wind up or propaganda.
Firstly how do they identify pirate P2P from legitimate P2P on a massive scale. They would need software tools that could identify the content and its original source of the traffic. If they achieved any success with this then new methods of P2P would emerge to circumvent it.
Secondly what motivation does Virgin have to do this? It may cut bandwidth demand, but it will also cut customers. Much better to implement(like they have) bandwidth management polices.

[RottenFox]

Old News:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,142410/article.html

Those who illegally download movies and music in the UK could have their Internet service cut off under a forthcoming recommendation that could be used to craft legislation.

The Times of London reported on Tuesday that file sharers would get "three strikes" before their ISPs (Internet service providers) would be legally required to shut off access, under the proposal. The recommendation was contained in a draft copy of a strategy document from the Department for Culture Media and Sport, which is studying the UK's creative industry. Under terms of the proposal expected to be finalized and then released later this month, a violator would receive an e-mail warning for the first offense, be suspended the second time and then be booted from the Internet.

A DCMS spokeswoman said the newspaper obtained a draft of the proposal that is several months old and was circulated to stakeholders for comment. The "three-strikes" provision is no longer accurate, she said, but she declined to answer more questions about the document.

The idea would essentially require ISPs to monitor people's activity on the Internet and then intervene on behalf of the copyright holders. The entertainment industry supports the idea, but opponents say it amounts to an enormous intrusion on privacy and would not stop piracy.

The Internet Service Providers' Association UK is not liable for illegal content that passes on its network, the group said in a statement Tuesday. That defense is codified in the European Union's E-commerce regulations of 2002, ISPA UK said. Current data protection laws also prevent ISPs from examining transmitted content, the group said.

ISPA UK also claimed technical restrictions: "ISPs are no more able to inspect and filter every single packet passing across their network than the post office is able to open every envelope."



both "The Telegraph",and "R.Thomson",need to play catch up.
this story is 6 or 7 weeks old.

[daemonoid]

Originally Posted by heyess

Firstly how do they identify pirate P2P from legitimate P2P on a massive scale. They would need software tools that could identify the content and its original source of the traffic.
Secondly what motivation does Virgin have to do this?

1. The rights holders identify their works, and collate ip addresses that are downloading. Pass this info on to VM, easy. 2 employees searching the p2p networks could easily send out enough warnings to make their presence felt.

2. To appease the rights holders (who are linked with their business after all). They don't want to **** off their content providers!

[ineedsky]

all i say is HAHAHA!

Any buffooon internet company what does that is going out of business.