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Virgin Agrees To Be IFPI’s Copyright Cop
March 31st, 2008 · 1 Comment
Back in February, there were reports that the entertainment industry had somehow convinced the UK gov't that the "file sharing issue" should be the responsibility of ISPs, rather than the record labels whose obsolete business model caused the problem in the first place. The UK gov't then issued a very public threat that ISPs had better start kicking file sharers off the internet, or it would pass a law requiring them to do so. It appears that rather than push back, Virgin Media has jumped right in and will start kicking those accused of unauthorized sharing off their system using a "three strikes" policy. Of course, some might find this a bit ironic, considering that part of Virgin's entire marketing campaign was around how you could get free stuff via its internet connection. In the meantime, it's still not clear why ISPs should be responsible for propping up a different industry's business model.
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Tags: Technology
1 response so far ↓
1 Xepharian // Mar 31, 2008 at 12:37 pm
This discussion has been going on all day at TorrentFreak.
http://torrentfreak.com/isp-to-voluntarily-disconnect-file-sharers-from-the-internet-080331/all-comments/#comments
Personally I think that we pay an ISP to offer us a service, if they can no longer offer the service that they offered us when we signed up then we just go elsewhere. Virgin advertised unlimited movies and music at high speed in their tv advertising campaign for a long time to get customers and now they suddenly change their minds? I suspect that Virgin will lose a lot of customers over this issue. What is the point of offering a high speed internet connection when, as a user, you can’t download anything. May as well go back to dialup and send a few emails on pay as you go.
This has become a big issue but I strongly suspect that the perpetrators (mpaa,riaa,bpi etc) have only their own purse strings in mind and it is certainly not a move to protect the “poor” performers. The likes of mediasentry and many others have sprung up just to make a fast buck for themselves. Big business spells big bucks for itself.
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