Humberside internet service provider (ISP) Karoo has started cutting off customers suspected of illegal file-sharing, as part of a 'three strikes' policy aimed at cutting piracy. Skip related content
According to reports, customers disconnected by the provider have been sent a formal notification, and must sign a document admitting guilt and promising not to do it again in order to be reconnected.

Users continuing to illegally share and download content could face permanent disconnection after a third violation.

The move has been slammed by the Open Rights Group (ORG), an organisation set up to preserve and promote 'digital rights'. The group pointed out that there is no legal procedure or right of appeal taking place, and that there are no other telecoms companies in Hull, limiting the option of moving to another provider.

"People are being found guilty by a Kang-Karoo court," said Jim Killock, executive director of the ORG.

"Internet access is crucial for freedom of expression in the digital age. It's also how people do business and gain an education. A monopoly like Karoo cannot be allowed to arbitrarily decide when to limit our fundamental rights. Only courts can do that."

This was reported on Yahoo News. What are your views on it?

Well as Kingston Communications has a monopoly on telephone lines in the Hull area I suppose they can do as they wish and impose such restrictions on usage as they wish or deem appropriate.

Imagine the chaos if all other ISPs follow in their foot steps.

The people of Hull should get a petition started to withdraw from using & paying for the service & put the provider out of business.

Power to the people!

Who is paying them to take such action? ISP's aren't likly to to rid themselves of customers and damage thier bottom line.

Copyright laws need to be changed,I've wrote my opinion in some other thread,who knows?

I agree with all of you, but I figure the p2prs of the world will, as always, figure out a way to share still.

N'Ged

The only problem with your suggestion is that then they will have no telephone facility at all (except mobile/cell).
In you live in the Hull area (01482 exchange code) you cannot opt for an alternate supplier for calls or the line.

RAFF

US file-sharer hit with £400k fine

Got this from MSN News

A US federal jury has ordered a Boston University graduate student who admitted illegally downloading and sharing music online to pay 675,000 dollars (£407,000) to four record labels.
Joel Tenenbaum, of Providence, Rhode Island, admitted in court that he downloaded and distributed 30 songs.
The only issue for the jury to decide was how much in damages to award the record labels.
Under federal law, the recording companies were entitled to 750 dollars (£450) to 30,000 dollars (£18,000) per infringement. But the law allows as much as 150,000 dollars (£90,500) per track if the jury finds the infringements were wilful. The maximum jurors could have awarded in Tenenbaum's case was 4.5 million dollars (£2.7 million).
Jurors ordered Tenenbaum to pay 22,500 dollars (£13,500) for each incident of copyright infringement, effectively finding that his actions were wilful. The lawyer for the 25-year-old student had earlier asked the jury to "send a message" to the music industry by awarding only minimal damages.
Tenenbaum said he was thankful that the case wasn't in the millions and contrasted the significance of his fine with the maximum.
Tenenbaum's lawyer, Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson, said the jury's verdict was not fair. He said he plans to appeal the decision because he was not allowed to argue a case based on fair use.
The Recording Industry Association of America issued a statement thanking the jury for recognising the impact illegal downloading has on the music community.
"We appreciate that Mr Tenenbaum finally acknowledged that artists and music companies deserve to be paid for their work," the statement said. "From the beginning, that's what this case has been all about. We only wish he had done so sooner rather than lie about his illegal behaviour."

How on earth will a student be able to pay such a fine?

Student loan lol

Never, just go bankrupt and start again.

Bankruptcy, you think the court would go for it?

most , don`t pay groups help them out (many )

I don't think you can skip out on paying a fine by declaring bankrupcy.lol:) The fines are excessive concidering that most songs can be downloaded online for 99 cents,not like the kid was profiting by sharing.
I suggest a boycott of the record labels that are going to profit from this young mans misfurtune.(The thought keeps going on in my head,"why did he admit to it?") Lets hope his appeal goes better.

I have a possible serious solution following Nog question.

Use a wireless router.

Then if any 'illegal' downloads could say (after consulting a computer expert for show) Someone must have been 'piggybacking' my bandwidth cos it sure wasn't me all my stuff is copies of my CD/DVD I made in case the CD/DVD got ruined.

Nog would this work?

@quark

What if they ask to see the original files on the cd/dvd and you haven't got them?

there are ways arouynd anything.

@thor

My grandchildren were playing and decided it would be fun to add more tracks to my CD's/DVD's with a fork and to secure them with treacle and jam, why they thought this I have no idea. I therefore had to throw out all my cds and dvds, perhaps you might be able to find them on the local tip if they have not been recycled of course?

You can imagine how I patted myself on the back for taking back-up copies which I assumed it would be ok to download as I was in possession (at the time) of a puchased copy and I did not want to backup all the tracks just one of each. Did you know that many 'albums' have the same track(s) as appear on others?
*******************************************************************
I suggest this cannot be disproven and has enough reasonable doubt when said ingenuously.

reasonable doubt ,that`s one
but if you DL say 10TB`s well then ....

@Odo You have to combine with my answer re piggybacking.

@Quark,
That has been the best defence to date,but if they grab your computer and hard drives and your collection of burned disks and of course if you are a good sharer you keep all your torrents...

Doesn't really matter as Kingston or whatever they are calling themselves these days are handing over there network to BT soon anyway, then the unbundling crowd can come in and hull will be free from tyranny once more.

Is there any way of telling if a file was genuinely backed up or if it were downloaded in torrent form. In other words, could an expert differentiate between the two.

no.

well ,and no if you dl a dvd rip it`s good but if you have you know ,
a dvd rip you compress it some times,
as to hiding shredder 7x times can hide most anything.
@nogds check into a good shredder, if you know they are coming hit a key and it starts and works .

@ucg

Unfortunately BT has the reputation of being an ISP that will
readily "throttle" you regardless of your contract with them.

BT as an ISP have sweet FA to do with the handover of the network.

Sounds like you all have your balls in a noose.My ISP is having such finacial problems and lawsuits from fines levied on them,they don't care what your doing as long as you are not d/ling over 200GB a month.I still use proxies when I'm active.

not me, got nothing to hide. isp cutting off people is bad
but there are hundreds out there if one goes down two more open up, yes?

Here is an article some may find interesting


Illegal downloads: What happens if caught?

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/technology-gadgets/illegal-down
loads-what-happens-if-caught-14392866.html

I received a letter from the Canadian version what ever it is called telling me cease my illegal downloading I told the to piss off there is no Law in Canada regarding downloading and seeding one of the few good things the crtc has done (not done) these organizations are toothless here, now for my personal opinion if the shows lowered there prices, there would be no reason to download movies. As far as tv shows are concerned most of what I download are shows not available in Can. UK shows Showtime and the syfy network so I have no worries at all downloading those shows, so the americans can Piss off and the brits dont seem to give a shit they have to major torrent sites UKnova and the box that have had not had any problems as far as I can see. It is only countries that the Yanks have influence that seem to give ppl a hard time

Internet cut-off threat for illegal downloaders

Richard Wray, communications editor The Guardian, Tuesday 25 August 2009

People who persist in swapping copyrighted films and music will have their internet connections cut off under tough new laws to be proposed by the government today.

The measures also include taking the power to target illegal downloaders away from regulator Ofcom and giving it to ministers to speed up the process.

The decision to cut off peer-to-peer filesharers is unexpected since it was ruled out by the government's own Digital Britain report in June as going too far.

In the report, the then communications minister Lord Carter said illegal filesharers should receive letters warning them their activities could leave them open to prosecution. If that failed to reduce piracy by at least 70Ofcom would have the power to call on internet companies such as BT to introduce so-called "technical measures" to combat piracy. The most draconian of these measures was to slow down a persistent filesharer's broadband connection, but it would not appear until 2012.

But today the government will take the unusual step of proposing much stricter rules midway through the Digital Britain consultation process. Illegal filesharers will still get warning letters but if they continue to swap copyrighted material they could have their internet connection temporarily severed, although it may be possible to retain basic access to online public services.

A similar law in France under which filesharers could be cut off for up to a year was recently kicked out by the country's highest court as unconstitutional. In the UK, privacy groups are likely to challenge any similar legislation as contrary to human rights law.

The power to introduce technical measures, meanwhile, will rest with the secretary of state, not Ofcom and their introduction will not rely upon an arbitrary 70eduction in piracy but be up to the minister's discretion as he tries to secure the future of the UK's creative industries.

"The previous proposals, whilst robust, would take an unacceptable amount of time to complete in a situation that calls for urgent action," according to a draft of the government's new plan.

The surprise move will intensify speculation that Lord Mandelson reached a secret deal to protect the film and music industries with Hollywood mogul David Geffen earlier this month.

The business secretary met Geffen, founder of Asylum Records and the man who set up DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg, at a private dinner with members of the Rothschild banking dynasty at the family's holiday villa on Corfu.

Following that meeting with Geffen, a long-term and outspoken opponent of online piracy, Mandelson instructed officials at his Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS), charged with tackling online piracy by June's report, to clampdown even harder on the pirates.

Last night, a BIS spokesperson said there was no discussion of online piracy when Mandelson met Geffen and there is no connection between that meeting and the government's new proposals on illegal filesharing.

The music and film industries had campaigned hard to have measures introduced earlier than 2012 and the fact that persistent pirates can be cut off is likely to be welcomed. The UK's internet service providers, however, will be less pleased by the plans. Several have made it quite plain they have no desire to police the web on behalf of another industry.

They will be particularly annoyed that the government reckons the cost of technical measures should be borne by the ISPs and it wants that enshrined in the autumn's Digital Economy bill. The content industry, meanwhile, will continue to pick up the tab for identifying illegal filesharers and preparing enough information for them to be targeted by the ISPs, while the costs of the letter-writing campaign will be split equally.

Cannot believe ISP's will willingly support this proposal except by the throttling method otherwise they will be cutting their own revenues in great big chunks.

Sorry, for those not aware 'throttling' is cutting back your download speed without you knowing but still charging for the higher speed you are paying for or even just preventing downloads for a period of time under the pretext that your level is unreasonable compared to other users on the server(s). Ask what is reasonable and you will be ignored. A real-life friend of mine changed his ISP some months back and found this to be the case with his new ISP.

Name and shame. Virgin.

Currently AOL (in the UK) doesn't seem to mind how much or what is downloaded and as far as I know does not 'throttle'.

I have noticed my broadband slowing latley abd couldn't figure out why. Until know that is. I just logged into the email account associated with by broadband privider (I don't use it very often) and found this email from my provider:

Fair Usage Policy: your speed will be restricted
at peak times

Dear Customer,

We emailed you recently to remind you about our Fair Usage Policy. Our records show that your broadband usage in July is now above 100GB.

In accordance with our Fair Usage Policy, and to protect the online experience for all our customers, we'll now be restricting your broadband speed at peak times only (typically this is between 5pm and 12am, but these times may change depending on the demands on the network) to 1Mbps for a minimum of 30 days. We'll continue to restrict your speed and notify you by email as long as your monthly usage remains above 100GB.

Please note: your service isn't affected in any other way - we restrict only your speed, not your ability to upload and download.

For more information, please see our Fair Usage Policy. Or call 0800 707 6044, 8am-5pm, Monday-Friday.

Best wishes,

BT Total Broadband team







Best wishes?? Yeah right.

@thor, Can you not join cable & ditch BT?

@thor that is what you get for using BT, my ISP has responded to Mandelson's idiotic proposals which are completely unworkable by calling him a moron and not wanting to have any further discussion with someone who has such a tenuous grip on reality.

@UCG, and your ISP is...?

@gedmen

No cable in my area.

@thor get Be/O2 then if you can, failing that Sky/UkOnline.

@quark

Are you aware that AOL are a bad choice for ISP because of their continuing (AFAIK) to cling to their legacy protocols, requiring all AOL internet traffic to have TCP/IP protocol wrappers added and removed at the boundary? This can account for 30f bandwidth!

that was supposed to be "30f bandwidth"
(sticky keyboard) :-)

I give in - percent sign cannot be displayed :-(