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Print 29 comment(s) - last by B3an.. on Mar 21 at 11:43 PM
UK ISP O2 has condemned the act of sending letters to accused file sharers

As thousands of accused file sharers in the United Kingdom receive letters accusing them of copyright infringement, ISP O2 has sided on working towards a solution instead of lawsuits.

The entire issue surrounds anti-piracy firm DigiProtect recruiting law firm ACS:Law to send thousands of letters to file sharers.  In the letter, file sharers are given the option of settling the legal matter out of court £500 per infringement.  

"Neither we nor our clients threaten or bully anyone," said Andrew Crossley, ACS:Law representative, in an interview with the BBC.  "We send out letters of claim to account holders of internet connections where those internet connections have been identified as being utilized for illegal file-sharing of our clients' copyrighted works."

At least 60,000 different UK internet users have been identified -- legal notices are now being distributed.

O2 would rather see the music industry, anti-piracy firms, and file sharers find an equal solution that is fair to everyone involved.  If the ISP receives a legal notice forcing them to turn over the identity of a subscriber, O2 said it will comply with the request.  

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has done similar things in the past, but will now rely on pressuring ISPs into policing their own subscribers.  Copyright groups in Europe have done similar things in the past, but this £500 per infringement letter in the UK isn't surprising.

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Whatever
By carniver on 3/18/2010 5:42:55 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
O2 would rather see the music industry, anti-piracy firms, and file sharers find an equal solution that is fair to everyone involved. If the ISP receives a legal notice forcing them to turn over the identity of a subscriber, O2 said it will comply with the request.

By turning in subscriber's identities for a mere "legal notice" you're helping to create the current situation with the letters. Just don't give away their identities unless under a court order, make ACS do their homework and collect some solid evidence first instead of letting them go trigger happy and suing everyone in sight.




RE: Whatever
By swhibble on 3/18/2010 7:48:40 PM , Rating: 5
Agreed, they (the ACS) should be providing the names and addresses of these "file sharers" to O2, not the other way around.

I recently left England and moved to America, and reading this makes me so ashamed. My country is currently run by a bunch of socialist retards who bend over backwards to violate their citizens privacy, and all while being buttfucked themselves by corporations.


RE: Whatever
By mindless1 on 3/18/10, Rating: -1
RE: Whatever
By semiconshawn on 3/18/2010 9:56:55 PM , Rating: 4
Or "we" as you say will think and speak for ourselves. If YOU want to disregard what he says fine but I will decide for myself. I personally find your assumption that you speak for everyone more offensive than ewww bad words...


RE: Whatever
By mindless1 on 3/19/10, Rating: -1
RE: Whatever
By Obujuwami on 3/19/2010 7:33:27 AM , Rating: 4
Mindless1 is right, we can't take any comment, including his responses, seriously because they include THAT word.

Now, Mindless1, go back to your corner and sit on your stool facing the wall; adults are talking here.


RE: Whatever
By mindless1 on 3/19/10, Rating: -1
RE: Whatever
By SSDMaster on 3/19/2010 9:36:53 AM , Rating: 4
I down rated you because your narrow minded and have limitations on your accepted vocabulary. I'm not that other guy.


RE: Whatever
By The Raven on 3/19/2010 9:49:26 AM , Rating: 3
I disagree with mindless on the fact that he thinks the initial comment was useless, but we all really should try to control ourselves and practice common courtesy regardless of our anonymity.


RE: Whatever
By B3an on 3/21/2010 11:43:56 PM , Rating: 2
I disagree with mindless (perfect name) but i think the comment is still useless and retarded.

This sort of thing has been happening in the U.S for many years, where a net user will get a letter from some law firm asking for money or they will go to court. Theres been some pretty big news coverage on some of these people and the wrongly accused (some have even been dead for years).

...Yet this person is ashamed of the U.K and has actually moved to the U.S? the place that started this first... what an idiot.


RE: Whatever
By mindless1 on 3/19/10, Rating: -1
RE: Whatever
By ekv on 3/20/2010 3:37:26 PM , Rating: 2
mindless1 == reader1 == pirks ???


RE: Whatever
By mindless1 on 3/20/10, Rating: -1
RE: Whatever
By MadMan007 on 3/19/2010 12:06:18 AM , Rating: 2
What you wrote their is more fascist than socialist.


RE: Whatever
By MadMan007 on 3/19/2010 12:07:09 AM , Rating: 2
Ugh, I an't believe I wrote 'their'...need to be sure to completely start over when changing a post.


RE: Whatever
By B3an on 3/21/10, Rating: 0
RE: Whatever
By Aloonatic on 3/19/2010 4:53:03 AM , Rating: 2
Fascism and socialism are not mutually exclusive.

That they are usually seen as right or left wing respectively is probably where you are getting confused.

The most well know fascist party that has ever existed was actually called "The National Socialist German Workers' Party", but you probably know it better as "The Nazi party".

Start of a rant about the state of the UK

Sadly, what the OP described is pretty much what we have in the UK. A socialist party who want to "end child poverty*", redistribute wealth and other such "classic" socialist policies, yet still want to be a capitalist society as its been pretty much proven to be the only system that works, and is needed to fund said programs. So what we have actually ended up with is a complete mess, where large corporations are left to run riot (mostly financial/services now in the UK as we have no manufacturing base really, it's no coincidence that financial services have been such a problem under New Labour) as their money is needed to fund socialist programs that don't work, that just create a society of people who expect the state to support them, funded by large companies who know that they have the whip hand so can do what they want.

As long as Labour stay in power, and they really don't give a frak about how it is actually affecting peoples lives, or how the gap between rich and poor has actually grown under their reign.

*I have no problem with the idea of kids not living in "poverty", but like any sane person I recognise that it is an impossible task, as there will always be poverty as its a relative term, and in reality, there are not many kids living in that way in the sense that it is often portrayed "Oliver Twist" style. So until everyone earns exactly the same money, it'll never happen. It does work politically tho, as it's "somebody thinking about the children" and makes the Labour party look like they care, when really it should make them look like they don't know what they are talking about, but it's free money for a lot of people, so what do they care? It's a great example of how/why politics is so messed up in this country.

/rant


RE: Whatever
By MadMan007 on 3/19/2010 7:05:35 AM , Rating: 2
Well I'm not going to pretend I know a lot about the ins and outs of UK politics so I'll just say that a name is just a name and yes I knew what the official Nazi party name was ;) For example, North Korea is officially the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea"...

I suppose that it's a bit of a misrepresentation of fascism to say that pro-corporation policies are fascism, because 'corporate' in fascist ideology is a broad term meant to view a community as a whole body (ripping off from wiki here :p) In that light what he said is really more corporatocracy (rule by Corporations as in economic entities.)

What you wrote kind of defies easy definition because it's corporatocracy as an ends to a means of socialist policies. Perhaps it's this marriage of what would normally be opposed views that causes so much political consternation and it's not terribly dissimilar to what's happened lately in the US.


RE: Whatever
By Aloonatic on 3/19/2010 7:25:33 AM , Rating: 2
No worries dude, I wasn't really trying to say that I live in any sort of state fascist/socialist/whatever state really. I just thought I'd take the chance expand a little (rant/vent) on what the OP said (though I don't mean to talk for them of course) based on what I see here.

Whatever the way this country is being run might be called, be it fascist/socialist/as a corporatocracy...

It isn't working.

But what you should be wary of in the States, is that socialist ideas are very easy to sell and sound very appealing to the masses (though I guess most of you here know that) who don't want to think about such things, and once t of the bottle, they are hard to turn away from. Which is why in spite of the utter mess that this country finds itself in, Labour will still do well in the next election. It just looks (from the outside) like you (America) seem to be slowly edging towards being a little but more like Britain in some ways. Although (perhaps confusingly), I do support the NHS and socialised health care, but that's about where I draw the line, personally.


RE: Whatever
By messyunkempt on 3/19/2010 8:08:22 AM , Rating: 1
I don't think labour are going to do as well as you think. Completely agree with you on the NHS though, it's refreshing to see someone one here who actually agrees with socialised health care.


RE: Whatever
By messyunkempt on 3/19/2010 8:10:28 AM , Rating: 1
*gets the tippex out for the 'e' on 'one'*


RE: Whatever
By The Raven on 3/19/2010 10:28:25 AM , Rating: 2
It is true that a name is sometimes completely useless/meaningless. But, a name is not always just a name.

And actually the Nazi party WAS socialist in many ways. But who's to say if a political organization is socialist if it is just partially socialist. And at what percentage would they change the label. One could say the US is socialist because we have socialist programs that we voted in.

You can be parts democratic and parts socialist at the same time, but it is the underlying law (in the case of the USA: the Constitution) that makes a political organization socialist/facist/democratic.

Same for N. Korea. If they are brainwashed and they all vote similarly, then it is effectively not a democracy, but if the underlying law says it is democratic; it is. (FYI, I don't know anything about N. Korean law)

Similarly, though we have a democracy in the US, we can let the unscrupulous corporations and/or activist union groups subtly brainwash us and we can effectivly become a socialist or facist state.

But I can see that we really need to think for ourselves regardless of political affiliation and do something about it (whether you like the status quo or not) or we can possibly give up that right...to think for ourselves.

Sorry to get off topic, but I don't like when people talk about the Nazis like they just took over everyone's minds in Germany. The majority of Germans gave up their minds to the Nazi party whether it was easy or not. And I would assume it was the latter to be safe.

But to get partially back on topic, I'l say that IMO swhibble is right about privacy because it can be both a facist and socialist move to violate a citzen's privacy.


RE: Whatever
By Spivonious on 3/19/2010 9:30:53 AM , Rating: 2
While they may give the same result, their ideologies are very different.

Fascism: the state owns everything and runs everything. People work for the state.

Socialism: the people own everything and run everything. The state works for the people.

The problem is that we've never seen either of these systems without a crazy dictator leading them.


RE: Whatever
By MadMan007 on 3/19/2010 1:06:13 PM , Rating: 2
Yes it's kind of odd isn't it. One is bottom-up, the other is top-down, and they are supposedly on opposite ends of the spectrum and yet in implementation they end up closely resembling each other.


RE: Whatever
By TheMan876 on 3/18/2010 7:57:04 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
If the ISP receives a legal notice forcing them to turn over the identity of a subscriber, O2 said it will comply with the request.


Couldn't a court order be considered a type of legal notice that would force them to turn over someone's identity? I don't see anything here saying they just hand it out.


60,000
By Lazarus Dark on 3/18/2010 6:39:49 PM , Rating: 5
I say those people organize, march to the law firms front step and have a 60,000 letter bonfire.

Unless these guys are just like in the US and half of those receiving letters are actually infants, 90-year olds with b&w tv's, deceased persons or even pets...




RE: 60,000
By futrtrubl on 3/19/2010 10:03:02 AM , Rating: 2
I would be fascinated if the 60,000 people decided to let it go to court. My god can you imagine the legal fees the music industry would be faced with (even if only temporarily). ;']


By dark matter on 3/19/2010 10:21:35 AM , Rating: 3
Their so called "forensic" evidence was a sheet of A4 paper with an IP address on.

And this is what I challenged them on. I said I would gladly pay but certainly refuse to do so on the basis I have received an A4 sheet of paper that could have been typed by anyone. I challenged them over their use of the word "forensic" stating that given the evidence provided that it could be construed they are seeking to claim money using unsubstantiated threats and that the bar would not take this lightly nor would the courts.

I requested they send me the proper "forensic" evidence they claim to have on me and peer reviewed papers on the reliability and accuracy of their methodology.

For them to take me to court without answering those questions would have been a frivolous act on their part and would have got thrown out of a British Civil court, especially given that I had offered to pay and it was only fair for me to expect to be provided the evidence against me.

Naturally of course I did not receive their so called "forensic" evidence. Which was a shame really as I had a nice collection of counter evidence to fire back at them.

It is worth pointing out that if you do plan to fight them that you do not give them any information as this will work in your favour in court. If you say computer network rather than wireless network you have the advantage in court of suggesting to the judge that if they are unable to work out what kind of network you have (wired or wireless) how can they be sure their "forensic evidence" is reliable.

Good luck.




seedbox
By Shadowmaster625 on 3/19/2010 7:33:44 AM , Rating: 2
Just let them run their crap. Use a gift card to rent a seedbox. Load the seedbox thru a proxy, and when its finished, download your stuff at a public access point. Cant stop the signal.




"Google fired a shot heard 'round the world, and now a second American company has answered the call to defend the rights of the Chinese people." -- Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.)









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