Download music = banned from Broadband

So driving home tonight I heard this on the radio. Apparently the music/tv/and movie industries want the police to tighten up on illegal downloaders. In order to do this, they want to have all the Broadband companies start blocking and banning Broadband to anyone they suspect of downloading music/tv shows/and movies illegally. This to me, indicates a huge level of Big Brother peering in at what you are doing. How do they know what you are downloading or doing, unless they are keeping track? Maybe I'm naive, but I've always been under the assumption that what you do online is your own business, unless of course you are found criminally negligable in some way offline and that forces them to come and search your PC for cookies and tracking info, etc.

Maybe I'm interpreting this the wrong way, but in my mind it basically is giving permission for your Broadband company to spy on you whether you are doing any illegal activity or not, and then if they catch you doing something illegal they are forced to report it to the authorities or face penalties themselves.

And for that matter, they'd be forced to pass on your details as a customer of theirs even if you hadn't done anything wrong; but if they "suspected" you of doing something. So that means that if you have a high bandwidth (say someone who is a photographer and uploads/downloads a high volume of pictures on a daily basis) and they notice the spike in your usage, you would have the plug pulled on you and some cop showing up at your door to check your computer to see if you have anything illegal on it.

It's completely and utterly ludicrous.

Not to mention the whole concept of 'illegal downloading' is a shady topic anyway. For music the record companies say they are trying to protect the artists; but there are many artists who flat out say they encourage their fans to download their music and pass it around as they know they get pennies per album anyway. Artists do not make their money based on record sales. That money typically goes directly into the fat cat's pockets that own the record companies.

Honestly, this sort of talk from the BPI and their encouraging of ISPs to SPY on their customers just makes me want to boycott the whole lot. So, they are losing money does that really make it worthwhile to make privacy a thing of the past, and expect ISP's to closely monitor what their customers are doing.


READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE!

 

comment by a guy on there
"Isn't it strange that when corporations start losing money the Government acts quickly to stamp it out"
hmmm..

 

I find it sickening; but not strange. But that's me as someone coming from America where it is status quo to take big businesses hand before helping out the citizens of the country.

Maybe if the movie/music industry didn't keep turning out so many shite films and bands they wouldn't be losing so much money.

Hypothetically speaking (of course) if someone were to download a film and watch it. I'm sure if they thought the film actually deserved some hard earned cash being thrown at it, they'd then go and buy the film to add to their ever growing DVD collection. Same with CDs.

Funny, but one of my favourite artists Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) has said thousands of times that he encourages all his fans to download his music be it illegal or not. In fact, he gives out some of his albums for free on his website. But quite honestly I've never downloaded anything of his ever. I go out and buy his CDs, knowing that he's not such a greedy bastard that he jumped on the "illegal downloads are making me poor" bandwagon.

 

Oh it is far from being utterly ludicrous, it is infact highly dangerous to freedom of speech and privacy, as well as delegating the job of the security services to big companies - but you know what !
It wont happen and here is why !
For a start it is a civil offence not a criminal one to download pirated material, they cannot criminalise a civil offence. You cannot go to prison for downloading material, therefore to be kicked off by your isp will amount to a penalty that is handed out by the threat of law action to the isp not to the user. This is an impossible situation under the law and is unworkable,

These companies must have a get-out clause and that clause is
IF they find illegal activity
well they dont find it because heres how it works
Their employees are told its a sackable offence to check for it, on the basis that if the company know about it they not only lose money and time during the investigation but themselves may be suspect
also hardware may be appropriated as evidence. In other words they cannot be made to deall with it if they dont know its happening and if they are forced to monitor then they will want compensation

Thats how it works now, thats how it will work in the future - all of what got said a couple of days ago is posturing by the government to assure entertainment corporations in the USA they are on their side

read the comments to this article
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article3353387.ece
- theres a lot of truth to the people who are pissed off - this will never happen in the way you think it will - its just a flaccid cock of a law designed to keep a few hotheads in hollywood happy
maybe every year you will get one or two examples being made of people
but what would be outrageous is if data had to be handed to F.A.S.T or the equivalent body for copyright protection

 

This has been a problem for years. People downloading free music from the internet. Nil profit to the artists, nil profit to the music company. You may aswell walk into HMV and nick a copy of the Kaiser Chiefs. I support any measure to stop virtual shop lifting. THe industry and the artists themselves lose potentially millions each year.

The ones who groan about being banned from broadband for downloading music for free, are usually the ones who want everything for free. Cds don't grow on trees.If they did, they would be growing in my back garden... apparently

 

i download free music when i can

[on dialup that cuts off around 90mb so am limited]

my budget for purchasing music is $0.00 a day/week/month/year

[if i had any money i'd get broadband]

how much of my money is the music industry losing?

[maybe i could just eat less food]

 

Would you be prepared to nick a cd from a shop?

 

no

[there is no record store where i live anyways]

but the shopkeeper paid for those little pieces of plastic

[to be fair, mostly what i download is o/p reggae/calypso/highlife]

i was a musician back in the late 70s-early 90s

and was perfectly happy to give it all away

[edited to add that if i were to nick a disc from a shop they would not be able to sell it to a paying customer. downloading music just means that i get to hear some music that i would otherwise NEVER be able to]

 

btw

if you think that downloading is theft as artists and labels don't get their bit

what do you think about used cds

 

I assume you mean lending someone a cd. The point is, the cd was paid for. The artists got their bit, the music company are happy, and there is no law against lending somebody a cd. If this was the case, every library that loans out cds would all be in jail or hauled up in front of a judge who has carefully hidden his baldspot.

 

lending?

i mean selling

like is done en masse every day at gemm, amazon, and countless shops around the world

btw i make my living [such as it is] by selling used books

and denying royalties to every goddamned writer i can

 

all joking aside

if record companies/publishing houses were not stealing so much $

from both artists and consumers

maybe this would all die down

 

I dont have a problem with illegally downloading, they just want more money - they dont care about anything else, I hope they dont go ahead with this. You can get free downloads legally btw too from some websites. qtrax was one. we7 another. [.com of course... ]

I wouldve thought its a breach of privacy anyway...

 

You have already bought the cd and plan to sell it on. Once again the company, the artist have recieved their money. You are just selling it on cheaper to someone who doesn't appear to shop outside his bedroom. Allthough this is a concern for artists. This isn't a great concern though. It is like buying icecream from Tesco, and then selling it on to customers if you run an ice cream business. I think the point is, cds don't come for free and by downloading for nothing, you are breaking the law. If you wouldn't steal a cd from a shop, you then contradict yourself in way of continued justification.

Additional: Pluck a car out of a tree. Pluck a house and a compact disc. I wish the world was free. But you can't really expect that. Just reality scraping its nails into someones spleen perhaps

 

ISPs are resisting pressures to spy on their customers, pointing out that E-Commerce regulations actually prohibit them from monitoring the content of internet traffic unless there is a specific warrant. Apart from anything else it would be a huge pain for them to implement this kind of surveillance with no real benefit, as they're not the ones who are losing out from piracy. In fact it would be impossible for ISPs to carry on their business if they were held responsible for whatever users download, as they could then face prosecution under defamation, obscenity, anti-terrorism laws etc etc.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7246403.stm

 

I survive on less than 300 pounds, yet I can afford to buy atleast one single a month. I don't see the need to download free music. I suppose it goes back to the neanderthal days when young smartly dressed height of fashion 90's teens, went to HMV, purchased a cd and rushed home and dubbed a copy onto a ferric D90 blank cassette. Then return the cd to HMV and claim a refund right there and then. Whatever floats your boat, I don't really mind.

 

I dont believe it harms the bands. Mainly the companies.

 

the used things i buy and sell were always used when i bought them too

usually from a thrift shop, and no one knows where they came from, or what my buyer intends to do with them

i would have a problem stealing from a small owner-operated shop

no problem at all stealing from a wal-mart [though the nearest is around 100 miles away]

property is theft

but i don't want to hurt no man trying to make his meager living

[weep not for metallica for they weep not for you]

btw, i and my wife and our cats live on 300 pounds (600 dollars) a month too...

 

do not be so sure about that [the artist part]

the music industry is no one's friend

even established artists have their problems

download creedence clearwater and you deprive saul zaentz [sic]

download wailers and you deprive rita marley's legal team

download rolling stones and you deprive satan [ha ha]

 

my memory is hazy on this one; but wasn't Prince (or the artist formally known as Prince) the first person to have the right to his own music again.

i don't think many people realize the ins and outs of the music industry. unless you are involved in it, or like me desired to at one point in life. i don't know how it works here in the UK; but i know in the States if you are an artist and you sign to a label the record company controls your work for 25 years. that means if you write a song, even you can't use that song without permission from the record company. there was a day and age where the record companies held onto the copyright of a song forever. that is why Prince was the first person to actually see control of his earliest recordings turned back over to himself.

now he distributes his old tracks on his own label. so he gets all the money, and has informed his fans that they can either buy the record companies album and the record company will see all the profits, or buy his, and he'll actually get to earn money off his own creations.

most people don't understand how corrupt the music industry really is. i remember back in the days of the original Napster when the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) was suing Napster claiming they were protecting the artists, but at the same time they were trying to lock artists into contracts that would make the same artists slaves without entitlement to their own work.

it's all shady.