Mandy gets tough

[somanyholes]

Yes but So, some of these people spend a fortune on machines to run cracked games etc, if you spend a mint on a games rig, just to cram it fill of illegal software you can purchase the software too.

Very true, I see exactly what your saying here. Also running cracked code on your box isn't the best of things to be doing. I think games manufacturers are really going in the right direction with this though tbh. Which is making the games need or use online services, which helps fight piracy.  (when done correctly) It's the music and video industry that has the problem here.

[john]

Banning most from using the internet in any way would work

If you ban people from getting music from the internet then they will also not be able to purchase it legitimately from the legal download sites and CD's etc from places like Amazon, Play.com and others. I suspect they will still not purchase it from a high street shop but will find other methods to copy it or simply do without.

[Gary]

Very true, I see exactly what your saying here. Also running cracked code on your box isn't the best of things to be doing. I think games manufacturers are really going in the right direction with this though tbh. Which is making the games need or use online services, which helps fight piracy.  (when done correctly) It's the music and video industry that has the problem here.

Maybe if they had followed the games industrys lead.....saying that there is now a sharp decline in that sector as well   you just cannot win, So.

[somanyholes]

the only way they can really sort it out is to make games need some form of online functionailty, which isn't ideal. From what i have read producing games is very expensive. Again games are dammed expensive in some cases, i presume the cc hasn't helped.

[somanyholes]

If you ban people from getting music from the internet then they will also not be able to purchase it legitimately from the legal download sites and CD's etc from places like Amazon, Play.com and others. I suspect they will still not purchase it from a high street shop but will find other methods to copy it or simply do without.

back to the carboot sale, or radio/stream. There's always a way.

Now where did that dammed carrier pigeon go.

[Gary]

back to the carboot sale, or radio/stream. There's always a way.

Now where did that dammed carrier pigeon go.

[john]

There's always morse code of course but the download speed is a bit slow 

[talos]

None of this will stop piracy, the kids wil simply do the same we did at school with tapes,  club together put money into a pot and buy an album, then everybody converts it into MP3 copying it at the same time, how exactly could they stop that.

[Gary]

None of this will stop piracy, the kids wil simply do the same we did at school with tapes,  club together put money into a pot and buy an album, then everybody converts it into MP3 copying it at the same time, how exactly could they stop that.

Thats not so bad compared with the people downloading films and music and then burning to disc and flogging it down carboot sales though. I once knew a guy that shall we say had a small second business until he was raided, he had spallets that were full of spindles with blank discs on, and he had machines that could make multiple copies at once, stopping the likes of them is a good thing.

[talos]

Thats not so bad compared with the people downloading films and music and then burning to disc and flogging it down carboot sales though. I once knew a guy that shall we say had a small second business until he was raided, he had spallets that were full of spindles with blank discs on, and he had machines that could make multiple copies at once, stopping the likes of them is a good thing.

         Those are the ones doing the damage, IMHO the book should be thown at them

[dujas]

Most people "infringe on copyright" because of the ease of access combined with little chance of being caught, the aim won't be to stop all piracy but to prevent it from becoming a mainstream habit.

[dujas]

My main concern is we'll see 'bad law' hurried through parliament before the General Election. I'm guessing most MPs aren't particularly IT savvy, so there won't be much scrutiny.

[Rik]

This Govt doesn't have a good record for drafting legislation, does it.

[zappaDPJ]

Setting aside the issue of illegal file sharing for a minute, I view my internet connection in the same way that I view the mail that comes through my letter box. My ISP is a conduit for data just as the Royal Mail is the delivery system for my mail. If the Royal Mail was to open up people's mail to check for illegal activity there would be uproar. The data I send over the Internet is mine and no one has the right to intercept or examine it including my ISP.

[Rik]

Good analogy, Zap. Mail can only be intercepted with a court order. It's yet another example of this Govt sacrificing civil liberties as fast as they can.

[axisofevil]

Have to say I disagree with this bit mate. In the long term it will probably have the opposite effect. p2p users will be forced to use encrytion i.e. usenet or seedbox's in remote locations/country's. This will mean that they will download at much faster speeds, and therefore end up using more bandwidth. The dpi will not be able to inspect the data. This will also mean cables connecting continents will end up having more load.... It also means that things like utorrents local peer discovery will be on no longer be used, (uk wide) and therefore this will end up costing isp's more financially.

When I use bit-torrent I always use encryption - some seeders esp. USA/Canada will only accept encrypted connections - so I get more connections.
Additionally, Plusnet (my ISP) put extensive effort into DPI - but, to some extent, encryption does appear to fool the inspector.
The DPI doesn't have to inspect the data in a packet - provided it can use quantity, source, target ip addresses and port numbers etc to analyse the "style" of the data stream.
It means more big boxes of electronics in data centres throughout this green and pleasant land.

Can we have some more CCTV cameras as well please.
Very expensive!!!

[merlin]

is there, or should there be a time limit, on how long copyrights can be on a tune, as an example say frank sinatra, now i am fairly sure HE will not recieve any benifit from the sale of his music (as he has moved on to greener pastures )
so perhaps a limit of say 5 years, and then its free, might be more realistic.

bear in mind the UK has been very badly ripped off by the record companies for years , they,ve had their share already.

[Rik]

It seems they want us to keep paying forever, Bob. Wish I'd had a job like that...

[merlin]

if the isp,s cut off everyone who had EVER made a so called illegal download, would they (isp,s)still have any customers, ??
i think all of us either with or without knowing, has at some stage, made such a download.

i think this will all "blow over again " as it has for many years, its just lord meddlesome, trying to get front page publicity again.  

[somanyholes]

general rambling here, had a couple of ales which is probably obvious.

p2p via usenet in an encrypted form can use https/tls, this isn't really filtered by isps. Only a few connections are created not many as bittorrent does. The only clue a dpi box has is the destination ip address, and the amount of data being transfered. so some filtering may kick in when so much data has been transfered, but then there won't be the constant reset packets sent by the dpi box as there is with bitttorrent, all they can do is reduce the connection speed. p2p users I know, sometimes have their connection speed halved at peak times but thats about it, they still get very fast speeds and have practically no risk of being caught as the media companies can't sniff the connection in anyway or form.

seedbox's do the bittorrent transfer at a remote site. once the file is down on the remote box, once again you use https to bring the file back, so once again, the dpi box knows very little.

Then we have other resources such as rapidshare, megaupload, etc. These sites host all sorts of content legal and not so legal. Whilst dpi box's can look at filenames and unpack files to inspect the content, they fail when filenames are changed and packed files password protected etc. These files are linked to from scene release websites. Not posting links for obvious reasons, Simon will be standing at the forum entrance with some soap and water

Of course there are many other secure resources such as sftp servers etc.

All the resources above cause major issues for dpi and the media companies. They can't inspect the traffic and see if files are legit or not. All the dpi box could do is block  access to certain destinations, or slow it down a bit, of course they could end up slowing down access to legit files in the process. As far as blocking ip's again this can be circumvented with a bit of thought, also are they going to block the likes of google and utube?

Bittorrent on the other hand is easy game for them, as axis said there are certain signs, i.e loads of connections to multiple locations that give it away, at least to the likes of sandvine. Then we come to the obvious but not all torrent traffic is illegal, i presume dpi box's know of legal torrent resources, by some form of ip/known port database.

The other area that p2p torrents users suffer from is privacy. You generally get none on torrents, though at some point this may start to change. The encryption provides no privacy at all, its only there to try to bypass dpi devices. The media companies just connect to a swarm find someone with 100% of the file send them a bit of data and you get a nice letter through the post.

To put it bluntly Mr Moron will fail.

[Supanova]

As one of the rapidshare lot, I feel completely safe. All downloads are sent as several .rar files which you then extract using the password provided on the forum you get it from. Scan, Extract, Isolate and Run. Good luck fuzz.

And no I don't feel guilty. I still go to the cinema and see all the new releases (minus romcoms). The industry gets their fair share from my pocket.

[Simon]

Thats why I buy from the states, Rik. I get what I want at a fraction of the cost even with postage. But we could say that about fuel to name but one more over priced product in the UK, there is a lot to be addressed price wise in this country when compared to other countries

Do you still find them cheaper, Gary?  Certainly for Blu-ray and most DVDs, with the current rates of exchange, I've found that the US market has become prohibitively expensive, and I've been buying most of mine in the UK recently.

[Gary]

Do you still find them cheaper, Gary?  Certainly for Blu-ray and most DVDs, with the current rates of exchange, I've found that the US market has become prohibitively expensive, and I've been buying most of mine in the UK recently.

Depends what it is Simon, if its new material I get it in the UK or on iTunes but still find older material which is deleted in the UK is cheaper from the US than English sellers, I just bought a CD (I like to own some music rather than have just a download) Its Rum & Coke by the Dub Pistols and that was cheaper online in the UK for example.

[Simon]

Yes, it does vary.

[axisofevil]

If I had a lengthy contract with an ISP that I wanted to get out of, but couldn't afford to;
would it possible to download a lot of copyrighted material so that they could cut me off.

If they wanted to charge me for going elsewhere, I could then sue for breach of contract etc?