How come the delay?

Brian – Huh? Don’t understand your question

Liam – I’m sure you are not alone in thinking that but I’m also sure the labels will now move against other ISPs.

It provokes loads of questions – like, is this just P2Ps? What about Rapidshare, Mega Upload etc? Just how will this be policed? Does this mean loads of work for Web Sherrif? Once I find more details on what the settlement will actually mean in effect, I’ll post them above

party’s over lads – back to hmv with yis

So basically, because Eircom went advertising on torrent sites etc. (where there’s a high proportion of traffic mind you), the record companies had em by the balls. They had little choice but to settle or else they would have been haemmoraging money to the lawyers required to defend the case. Money they cannot afford given the renewed pressure they are coming under from the increased competition in the market that the likes of Smart and UPC are bringing.

In addition, they will come under even more financial pressure in the coming months from Big Brian and the boys because they haven’t got their act together in bringing broadband to rural areas – merely compounding their lack of appetite for a legal fight that they compromised themselves in severely.

The record companies saw an angle on it, and exploited it. Although those companies reckon they’ll get the same deal out of other providers, i’m not so sure. Especially in the case of UPC, owing to their multinational status.

How does this decision fit in with other/similar cases worldwide Jim? Is it a first? Do you think that the record companies will push for this in other countries? Will other ISP’s be so quick to sell out their customers?

On the way Eircom will handle it, if you were to get cut off by them for illegal downloading, would you then be liable for damages off the record company? Criminal charges? Will you be able to just sign up to another ISP? Will there need to be background checks?

This thing is a minefield….

Brian – Huh? Don’t understand your question

Sorry, twas only a poor attempt at sarcasm. Your efficiency is to be applauded, honestly.

I really think, as people have pointed out above, that this story is just beginning. The record labels appear to be just targeting file-sharers because that’s what’s where they think the biggest threat is coming from.

A lot of the questions posed above are unanswerable at present because there’s so little detail out there and we probably won’t know what’s going on until the first actions are taken. I’ve read some horribly misinformed comments online about this, with some eejits thinking that eircom are going to be handing IP addresses over wholesale to the labels. WTF? Talk about getting the wrong end of the stick.

Anyway, some interesting quotes from other ISPs in this morning’s piece by John Collins and Mary Carolan – http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/0129/1232923373331.html

Lots of complexeties will arise through this; cans of worms aplenty…

In public wi-fi areas, what happens? Will these be shutdown? If you download music in your local library or an internet cafe or on a university computer with a shared IP?

From the report:

It is also understood some other providers do not have the technical ability to monitor peer to peer traffic.

I see an easy and successful advertising campaign developing for these ISPs

the record companies will supply Eircom with the IP addresses of all persons who they detect illegally uploading or downloading copyright works.

How do record companies get this info?

And @flynnduism, good point indeed.

A different angle on the whole thing

I was watching Watchdog a couple of weeks ago and there was a piece about collection agencies on behalf of Media companies,sending summonses to people for downloading movies (in this case) .They had the wrong people but what they found was that the people in question had not secured their wireless network and people were piggybacking their service from outside the house/apartment..downloading away happy as larry

The owner of the Account is liable to pay for any illegal download that occurs on their IP.

Moral of the story 1 is,They are taking individuals to court.

2: secure your wireless router or you could end up with a threatning letter

Will the fact that Eircom lease their lines to most or all of the other ISPs (wired at least) affect how widespread this may become?

Also what smaller labels do EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner own? I sure as hell could live without the shite they put out under those names.

Void – very good point. Or is it the case that someone with a leased line with have that service provider’s name on their IP address? Any techies reading this care to help?

John – I think, from my reading of things to date, that they are just after the file-sharers and P2P users

Well that’s good news then.

Jim @ 19

What a ridiculous comment. Who in their right mind would be downloading the White Lies album in the first place?

Kiss goodbye to all that good American television you may or not have been watching for the last few years, often the day after episodes have been broadcast across the water…I’m sure no-one who reads this blog knows anything about this though..ahem..

I for one will be cancelling my subscription to Eircom BB. In fairness was only lethargy keeping me from doing it up to now (been meaning to go cable BB anyway) but will be telling them this issue is a direct catalyst.

In fairness I didn’t download much music to begin with but do download movies and tv shows. My personal attitude to that though is that I go to the cinema more than the average person and still pay for digital tv, so the content providers aren’t losing out. It’s a point rarely acknowledged by the industry- each pirated song/film/show does not equate to same number of lost sales or even that downloading can create demand down the line

NTL and Smart Telecom must be loving all this, I can see an exodus from Eircom. As Tom said above, it’s only been laziness stopping me from doing it before. I’ve been paying €45 a month for 3mb (they were supposed to up it to 6 but mine never was) when NTL is €32 for 10Mb

€32 for 10mb ?! Bye Bye Eircom.

It’s only a matter of time before the same agreement is reached with the other ISPs though. While this agreement isn’t quite a legal precedent, it will probably define the future relationships between Irish ISPs and the music industry.

@35
Been with Smart 4 years now and not a hiccup.

Well no actually, 1 mate did try call my landline once, that time Eircom cut them off, but that was a slight miracle seeing as i probably have 3 friends know the number and the thing’s never used.

There was a case on Watchdog a month or so ago about two people in London who were served with summonses (is that even a word?) from a solicitor’s office (not a crap one, a well-known one in the UK) saying they were due in court for uploading games – the accusation was based on their IP address.

Only thing was, these people had concrete proof (plus their computers were examined, etc) that they did no such thing.

Hope people in Ireland don’t start getting pulled up over illegally uploading things they don’t even own…

Here’s the latest from the BBC website from today on the subject…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7854494.stm

The record companies do the tracking – presumable by putting up albums by their artists onto torrent sites and then they hand those IP addresses that share them over to Eircom. That is the only way I see this can be done. So as long as you stay away from those record labels you should be ok.

The trick there is that if you were just leeching and not sharing with others then the labels are essentially the ones doing the sharing – and entrapping downloaders by waving albums at them on torrent sites.

Someone I know said they got a letter from Eircom this morning warning them.

@35
Jim,
I’ve been with Smart since last September because I was sick of UTV blaming Eircom’s work on “upgrading” the exchange, changing over to interleaving etc. I was paying €26 for 3Mb (although I usually got 4Mb) and Smart were offering 8Mb for €25. I usually get between 6 and just under 8Mb. The service is very good and I haven’t yet had a problem (touch wood).
I wouldn’t say they’ve gone belly up.

I don’t suppose that Smart will hold out against EMI, IRMA et al for very long if they are pushed, but bear this in mind:
UTV, my old ISP, were well known for having a policy of fair use – and squeezed the bandwidth of users who were heavily down/uploading torrents. They had a three strikes rule too, that would result in your account being suspended if you didn’t heed them. I was with them for nearly three years and never got one email from their admin.
Was this really because I didn’t engage in that kind of behaviour?

Let’s see how things pan out. Perhaps Dave @46 is right that this is the only way the likes of EMI can “fingerprint” the torrent files – to upload them themselves – if so, I doubt that many of the right people will get caught, since they’ll be better at avoiding detection…

Dave @ 46. So staying away from the big 4 and just hitting the smaller labels who struggle for customers is safer is it?
To be honest a lot of the big labels act as an umbrella for smaller labels e.g Mute, DFA and Heavenly all come through EMI. Transgressive and Blacksmith are through Warner and the list goes on. It’s the smaller labels that suffer the most from downloading as it is.

I also think if eircom are co-operating with the big 4 all other broadband providers will follow suit, especially since eircom are the biggest in the country and the rest are all small fish in comparison.