ISP warning letters about downloading?

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BDFL - Memuneh
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#61074 17-Feb-2007 10:37

But what's "take action"? Just following the lead from a lobby that for all we know can have bogus information? Just see what happens in the U.S. with all those lawsuits being scratched becuase the RIAA has not correctly identifed people.

So, the question stands: is there a due process? Is the user ever aware an investigation (if any) is happening?

A warning ("Naughty user, stop downloading things") doesn't count because it just points out that WxC had accepted the claims from the lobby group. But was it investigated? Was the user aware of this before receiving the warning?

juha

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#61076 17-Feb-2007 10:48

Yes, there's a problem here because the RIAA has been caught out with entrapment schemes and also for having prosecuted innocent people.

Second, are these "violations" against New Zealand law and are the account terminations fair and just from that perspective? The RIAA is after all a US entity, not a NZ one. How does WxC make sure that a crime against NZ law has been committed? WxC is not only taking the word of the overseas entity on face value and acts as a judge, jury and executioner.

Does WxC terminate accounts where the customer has been found visiting pro-democracy sites, if the Chinese government requests that? Such actions are against Chinese law and following the logic above, WxC should acquiesce and terminate the accounts of the "violators".

Juha

Glazza

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#61077 17-Feb-2007 10:49

Totally agree, my reply was more to Juha comments, but my lack of quoting left a bit to be desired.

In terms of the Privacy Act, does it have any bearing on this? It would appear that you are exchanging information that identifies your customers with various private bodies. Don't you need court orders to do this?

weblordpepe

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#61167 18-Feb-2007 23:41

That China example is a very good one. I can understand the government saying 'we dont want you doing this/that on the internet.' But the government of another country?

New Zealanders surely couldn't come under a US law, regardless of whether say a pirated movie was pulled from a US server. Because if that was the case, visiting a US website would be equal to being in America. I wonder if it equates to 'smuggling' in their eyes. After all, its cross-border.

But if it was a NZ representative of a company which owns the rights to that movie, then it becomes interesting. I really should know more law stuff.

Shrap

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#61181 19-Feb-2007 09:21

That is correct - we do not give out customer details to any third party whatsoever unless a valid search warrant or valid court order has been issued.

That being said, we will protect our company from any external liability as a result of a customer breachning our Ts&Cs / Code of Practice whenever we have to.

I hope that this answers your questions.

Regards,

Paul Clarkin
Director, Operations & Carrier
WorldxChange Communications Limited

TCLTECH

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#61211 19-Feb-2007 13:36

IMO "Dont use World Exchange" This is a very negative image, ISP's provide access to the internet, they don't need to or have the right to police it, unless it affects them. If industy's Music and Movies ect want to stop people sharing then they need to safeguard their stuff. Or create some other way of policing the Net.

freitasm

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#61212 19-Feb-2007 13:45

And can you guarantee TCLTECH that TelstraClear is not doing the same?

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grant_k

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#61214 19-Feb-2007 13:51

TCLTECH: ...ISP's provide access to the internet, they don't need to or have the right to police it, unless it affects them...

What Paul is saying is that this action would be taken in cases where it DOES affect them i.e. there is a risk of WxC being sued by a third party.

On that score, you cannot blame WxC. Wouldn't any right-minded business owner want to protect itself from the possibility of legal action?

Rights and wrongs aside, this is a pragmatic approach on WxC's part, and if it keeps some of the pirates out meaning more bandwidth for the rest of us, why would I complain?

rsn

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#61215 19-Feb-2007 13:54

It would be good to hear from other ISP's, as to what their policies are and how active they are in policing it.

IMO, what the RIAA is doing in the US is basically trying to settle out of court. They are targeting end users through (frighteningly) supportive ISP's.

I know that in a perfect world the ISP will stand up for the users, but by todays standard it looks like they are more worried about being sued themselves. Surely, releasing IP and physical addresses on orders from the court is fine. But taking that law into your own hands? Perhaps not illegal, but it certainly has some moral issues to it.

Bung

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#61217 19-Feb-2007 14:03

TCLTECH: ISP's provide access to the internet, they don't need to or have the right to police it, unless it affects them.

Various ISP's have made noises about getting into content delivery for some time. Maybe they are realising that while nothing is happening on that score, their customer base is quite happy finding other sources. I'm sure I heard one local multimillionaire say on radio that of course he downloaded any music or video because it was convenient and the chances of getting caught were minimal.

Fraktul

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#61257 19-Feb-2007 18:18

From my own personal experiences working in the telco and ISP sector, these letters normally end up in /dev/null.

Bittorrent is a reasonably effective distrubution method, it's a pity it is not more widely used for legal movie distribution.

warbaboon

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#63134 8-Mar-2007 07:16

well today i got this

Notice of Action under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act Abuse Incident Number: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Report Date/Time: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 22:07:49 -0800 my home address Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Subscriber: Comcast has received a notification by a copyright owner, or its authorized agent, reporting an alleged infringement of one or more copyrighted works made on or over Comcast's High-Speed Internet service (the 'Service'). The copyright owner has identified the Internet Protocol ('IP') address associated with your Service account at the time as the source of the infringing works. The works identified by the copyright owner in its notification are listed below. Comcast reminds you that use of the Service (or any part of the Service) in any manner that constitutes an infringement of any copyrighted work is a violation of Comcast's Acceptable Use Policy and may result in the suspension or termination of your Service account. If you have any questions regarding this notice, you may direct them to Comcast in writing by sending a letter or e-mail to: Comcast Legal Response Center Comcast Cable Communications, LLC 650 Centerton Road Moorestown, NJ 08057 U.S.A. Phone: (856) 317-7272 Fax: (856) 317-7319 E-mail: dmca@comcast.net For more information regarding Comcast's copyright infringement policy, procedures, and contact information, please read our Acceptable Use Policy by clicking on the Terms of Service link at http://www.comcast.net. Sincerely, Comcast Legal Response Center Copyright work(s) identified in the notification of claimed infringement: Title: House S03E13 - One Day, One Room Infringement Source: BitTorrent Initial Infringement Timestamp: 24 Feb 2007 02:12:45 GMT Recent Infringment Timestamp: 24 Feb 2007 02:12:45 GMT Infringer Username: Infringing Filename: House.S03E13.HDTV.XviD-LOL.avi Infringing Filesize: 368576512 Infringers IP Address: xxxxxxxxx
Infringers DNS Name: xxxxxxxxxcomcast.net Infringing URL: http://eztv.sladinki007.eu:60500/announce

[Moderator edit (tonyhughes): Fixed formatting cause page to be about 25,000 pixels wide]

timestyles

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#63144 8-Mar-2007 10:45

A couple of points

Regarding WxC, if you read their terms and conditions you will see some rather interesting conditions:
http://www.xnet.co.nz/pdfs/terms_xnet_acceptable_use_policy.pdf

"...Prohibited Uses...

b) Post, store, send, transmit or disseminate any information or material which could be deemed to be objectional, offensive, indecent, pornographic, harassing, threatening, embarrassing, distressing, vulgar, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, or otherwise inappropriate, regardless of whether this material is or its dissemination is unlawful..."

What I see this is: if someone posts pretty much anything that someone complains about, someone grabs the IP address of the person who did it and finds out that it comes from a WxC user, then they have reason to close your account.

Regarding pirated movies in New Zealand, the group who deals with this is The NZ Federation Against Copyright Theft. They did a press release in August last year, about being able to see who does searches for pirated films. Links you might want to read at your leasure are:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=55&objectid=10398070

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=00023198-F6AB-14EE-A0D983027AF10106

One of the articles is badly written (it makes reference to Google - as far as I can tell Google has nothing to do with the story) but it looks like they find out the IP addresses of people who regularly either upload or download illegal films using P2P.

nunz

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#63716 14-Mar-2007 16:35

Something to be aware of (- slightly off topic but kinda on topic too ...) Microsoft have hired a firm here in NZ who will be going through businesses checking their compliance with MS licensing.

According to the letter I got (on behalf of a customer) this firm will be working with customers to ensure their licenses are up to date.

The back lash of all this will be a solid list of what licenses are copied or pirated. Checks for duplicate licenses and on-site inspections of software and licensing.

If MS can do it then believe me others will too. It ain't a rumour folks .. I got the letter today. It is happening in NZ right now.

Is it a legit letter? Yep .. the letter came with a list of all registered licenses that this company has ever purchased. It doesn't include OEM and other MS software bought elsewhere (e.g. Dick Smiths ..) but they want that list of licenses updated. We have 15-22 days to comply before inspection. It aint a numbers game any more ... they are becoming systematic and betting the cost of compliance will be less than the sales of extra licenses so we are compliant.

The future has arrived in NZ.

Glazza

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#63730 14-Mar-2007 18:49

Accord?

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