I haven't seen this posted here and I thought it might interest some of you guys. It relates to the film industry rather than music but it does seem to be an interesting development and arguably could set a valuable precedent (within the UK at least) for rights holders.

BT ordered to block piracy site - Crime, UK - The Independent

"Hollywood film giants battling against online piracy today won a test case action in the High Court against the UK's biggest internet service provider.

They had urged a judge in London to grant an order which would force BT to cut off or impede customers' access to a website accused of "flagrant" copyright infringement."

Coming soon to the USA.

bout time.

Then they will switch to Virgin, simple. (Don't have BT Here cant have a BT line.)

and then the same will happen to Virgin... eventually, and sooner than later there's no where to run but back underground where the action will have to become increasingly more illegal and risky.

Will be a long time before that kicks in, and there's many other ways to access the privacy content. For example you can connect to ISP's in China/Japan if you know how, and some other tricks that can be used without much difficulty.

So unless they was to stop it worldwide it's unlikely piracy will go away, as in it's success, especially as most of those who use piracy at least know simple PC logic which gives them the ability to dig deeper to get it.

Guess you didn't read the article - actions are coming to all the major British ISPs.

So what? The idea is to make it sufficiently difficult for the average punter so they won't go to the trouble. Your hacker buddys aren't average punters, they're not potential members of the customer pool, and they'll figure out ways to steal anyway because that's what they do - they think it's fun. The average punter thinks it's a great bloody pain in the arse!

heard it all before... can't stop thieves from stealing, but you can keep honest people honest... like I said... the average punter will think twice, and the rest will have to go deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole into illegal activity, and as they do, the consequence will increase... bet on it.

All am saying is it will never stop no matter what actions are taken. Will just be driven more underground.

And I'm saying you're missing the point.

The point isn't to stop it completely - that's neither cost-effective or possible. There will always be a few die-hards who will do anything to pirate, hack, etc.

The POINT is to take it out of the mainstream.

The average person is not interested in jumping through all manner of hacker type hoops to download a few songs. It takes way too much time and effort. If it's going to be difficult they'd rather just pay the money to make it easy.

I can't believe how many times I've stated this EXTREMELY OBVIOUS point to some young snot nosed wannabe hacker who thinks it's sooo "kewl" to rip off music and anything else he doesn't want to pay for.

Yes, kiddo - you have nothing better to do with your time and you think stealing is fun. You're not in the majority. Furthermore, when you actually have to start working to support yourself you'll feel a lot differently about spending lots of time to steal something you could just buy for a buck and be done with it.

I get the point but it's not hard to connect to a ISp in another country, those dudes will find a way, of course the numbers should be hit hard though.

A lot of things are not hard, but a lot of people are lazy.

Posted via the Gearslutz iPhone app

hmm, i'm not sure i like this...

i mean, of course the film industry should protect itself, but this sets a scary precedent. i'm not sure i like the idea that big business can shut off bits of my internet.

I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Big business isn't shutting anything off. Only the government has that capability, and they are doing it because the people being shut down are clearly breaking the law. There's not much scary about that. That's actually how it's supposed to work.

And how obvious do you think it'll be if lots of people start connecting to an ISP in China and sucking down large amounts of data? It's not like that's not going to be a complete red flag to say "Hey, look at me, I'm stealing stuff". And how much are you going to trust a Chinese ISP to protect your privacy if it no longer suits their needs? They'll probably just turn around and sell your information to spammers.

Cable is fronting for the pirates. He won't get far.

If you don't use the internet for criminal means, you wont have it shut off.

I think he means that he doesn't like the idea that the government will block sites engaging in criminal activities so he won't be able to access them (as easily)........

Isn't that what the whole pro-piracy thing can be boiled down to anyway?
At it's core.. it's really that simple.
All the excuses, all the justifications, all the noise making, i think you just summed up the whole "movement".

uuh, no... if you can point out exactly where in my post i said that?

when you can walk into HMV and buy three movies for a tenner i really don't see the need to stream a crap quality version.

it doesn't take a particularly active imagination to see that less than scrupulous businesses could abuse this.

really? got a source? Cable is many things but that sounds like crackpot conspiracy to me.

Conspiracy? No. But he's bought into the propaganda being spread by the pro-pirate faction - scare tactics designed to neutralize any effective attempts at enforcement.

It's not a conspiracy when there's no attempt to hide anything.

Now who's making with the "crackpot conspiracies"?

Sorry to dash your hopes...

Copyright laws shaken up, plan to block websites scrapped | Reuters

The courts will no longer be able to enforce blocking of "illegal content" websites. The court case that prompted this thread is unlikely to be repeated.

"Personal" copying (ripping to iPods etc) will now be permitted.

"Illegal" downloading is still just that. ISPs still have to pay a quarter of the cost of sending infringement notices, but they no longer have to pay for setting up the system.

"Orphaned" works, where the copyright holder cannot be contacted, will have their protection removed - they can be used for commercial and cultural purposes.

No Don, illegal downloading is not a personal use copy if you never purchased a copy to begin with! Expect massive push back on this before it gets past the goal line.

Posted via the Gearslutz iPhone app

Massive push back? Yes, I would expect so.

Especially since they're talking about "bringing their policies in line with the US."

The US has site blocking now and is going to be stepping it up.

The US has a six strikes arrangement that the ISPs adopted voluntarily and which the ISPs are not complaining about paying for.

And that bit about "orphan works" simply doesn't fly.

If they want to be in step with the US - and if they want to protect IP - they'll have to do a lot better.

A case of reading what you expect to see, not what is there?
If you read the original article, you will see that, as I said, "illegal" downloading is still just that: illegal. Not a "personal use copy".

They don't appear to want to be in step with the US.
They do say they want to "be in step" with the EU.

From the article:
Note that France has the most hardline anti-piracy stance of any country in the EU.

The writer is claiming that the UK won't do site blocking but the US not only has been but is increasing implementation.

Both the US and France have "strikes" programs, the french one mandated by law, the US one voluntary on the part of the major ISPs (probably to prevent it becoming mandated by law) which will eventually result in the loss of access by repeat offenders. Neither of these programs places a financial burden on the victims.

If the UK wants to get in line with French and US anti-piracy efforts they have a long way to go.

Push back? Hell, yeah!

You read the article incorrectly. The above quote was from a representative of the BPI, not the Government. MRD. (*)

HADOPI isn't working out too well for them. They made it too easy to register a complaint, it's massively overloaded as a result, they are having to spend much more than they budgeted for. Expect "major pushback" when the budget is reviewed.

(*) MRD = Mandy Rice Davies. The Profumo Affair.
At one stage in the court proceedings, MRD said that she had met one of the politicians. The defence lawyer said that the politician denied ever having met her. She replied, "Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?"

An analysis of the changes:

Digital copyright: Not much action, lots of talking shops ? The Register