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Virgin Media looks set to become the first British ISP to crack down on customers who download music and other pirated material, illegally. For some time now, record labels have been lobbying for a “three strikes-and-out” regime that would see persistent offenders kicked off their ISP for downloading pirated music files. BPI, which is a music trade body, is said to be working with Virgin Media on a pilot scheme, which could see customers sent warning letters.
There have been concerns raised about how customers will get tracked and how will Virgin Media be able to tell the difference from a music track that was legally downloaded, from the many sites which allow music downloads for a small fee.
There is also the ugly issue raised yet again about privacy, many thousands of customers are still concerned about the implementation of the targeted ad system by Phorm that Virgin Media has signed a deal with earlier this year.
Phorm has technologies that will be located at the ISP end, this will register a profile based on the internet users surfing habits. We have sinced urged Virgin Media to ditch its deal with Phorm.
So not only will Virgin Media broadband customers have to contend with such issues regarding Phorm, they will now face yet more surveillance. Will ‘innocent’ data get tracked? To check for illegal downloads? Information on how this will be done is still unclear.
It’s estimated around 6 million broadband users are downloading music illegally each year. Record labels are crying out for action as they claim such activity costs them billions in lost revenue.
The government made its stance in February, that it would implement legislation by April 2009, unless ISPs came to a voluntary agreement and to co-operate with the music and film industries.
The BPI is said to have teams of technicians to trace illegal music downloading to individual customer accounts. It will then hand these account numbers over to Virgin Media, which will match them to names and addresses. Virgin Media will then hand out letters warning offenders and threatening them with disconnection.
The trial will apparently be live within a few months as Virgin Media say they are treating the issue of illegal downloading, “seriously”.
News Source:- Telegraph.
I just heard this in the car on the radio. Most people said they would rather hop to other suppliers than stop downloading.
Its getting ridiculous now. Majority of people I know if they REALLY like a particular album/artist, they will still go and buy the CD.
If the profits werent so small for the artist this would not be a problem. People like Mr Cowell are the only rich people in music these days. Kids starting out dont stand a chance, but most geniune ones just want their music heard, not the megga bucks.
As it happens Sharon this simply isn’t true.
My neighbour is (oe was) a Director of a major record company and was responsible for sales (of CDs). He worked for them for some 20+ years then along came the internet and illegal (i.e. free) downloading.
Net result is that their sales crashed, and loads of people were made redundant – including him.
After all why should people pay to buy a CD or pay for a download when they can rip off the artist or record company by getting it (illegally) for free???
@forumhostpb wrote:
As it happens Sharon this simply isn’t true.
My neighbour is (oe was) a Director of a major record company and was responsible for sales (of CDs). He worked for them for some 20+ years then along came the internet and illegal (i.e. free) downloading.
Net result is that their sales crashed, and loads of people were made redundant – including him.
After all why should people pay to buy a CD or pay for a download when they can rip off the artist or record company by getting it (illegally) for free???
could be something to do with the overinflated price of a cd
well done the supermarkets for bringing the price downTrue …. but it’s only the retail margin that has been affected by the supermarkets. The record company still gets a ‘fair’ price from the supermarkets (or chain retailers) geared usually to volume.
People who (illegally) download for free from various sites simply steal without paying.
I think the point I was trying to make was that… as a consumer if I knew more than 7 pence or whatever it is was going to the artist I would definately buy more cd’s.
Music is easy to make these days, but still difficult to make popular. Ive no time for filling the pockets of executives.
When I watch local bands they happily chuck free cd’s at us, and rely on myspace for ticket sales, so other than a venue fee, their music is heard, they get to play live and you get their cd. The only party NOT profiting is some company, and Im happy with that.
The music world has changed and they will just have to accept this and adapt to the change, in the same way that artists who actually want to work and care have had to.
@forumhostpb wrote:
True …. but it’s only the retail margin that has been affected by the supermarkets. The record company still gets a ‘fair’ price from the supermarkets (or chain retailers) geared usually to volume.
People who (illegally) download for free from various sites simply steal without paying.
this isnt new
this stems back to the days when we used to record the top 40 played on a sunday night with our single tape recorders@sharongooner wrote:
People like Mr Cowell are the only rich people in music these days.
Thats not true Sharon. We could all name 100 artists who’ve become rich via music production. There’s hundreds who write music for artists who’re rich that we never hear of.
The bottom line with this is, if a CD single was a fair price of 50p, album £1, limewire wouldn’t exist.
It costs penny’s to make these items, they’d sell more and they’d still earn more than the average abdul and MORE jobs would be created, but that sort of thing isn’t worth implementing to a LABOUR government.
As it happens Emma you CAN download a single track from a CD for around 78pence which I think is a ‘fair’ price. Within this payment is a ‘royalty’ to the singer / songwriter as well as a profit element to the distributer and a cost recovery and profit element to the production company. Win win all round – and at a sensible price.
You can also but an album at around £7.50 or so – all perfectly legal and within the prices you have a licence to use the album or track as you please on your computer and play it as many times as you want.
There are several sites that allow you to do this without having to download and instal their software (spyware???) and pay a fee for using it ….. I use Tesco.com but there are many others.
There is no need to steal from everybody that is involved in the production of the music – just pay a fair and reasonable price.
Of course there are always those who couldn’t care less and just want to rip everybody off by not paying a penny. More shame on them !!!
I use tesco’s and itunes quite a lot, and free sites if I cannot get hold of what I want. I love the idea of being able to just get just the tracks you want, but if its an album I want I will go buy the cd.
Itunes could be more user friendly if they took away their rule on how you can download there music. I can put it on cd, but I cant put it on my 3g phone as its not an ipod. :twisted:
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