Reports have been flying around the Internet this week that Virgin Media has come to some sort of agreement with the UK music industry to begin a scheme that would deter filesharing.
Virgin Media has denied these claims, but admitted that it had discussed the infamous three-strikes scheme with the music industry, so it looks likely that the clampdown on filesharing is about to become a reality in the UK, although it’s unclear what this will entail.
People who use filesharing services like ares to get free music downloads will, under the proposed scheme, be given two warnings before their final strike, which will result in their Internet connection being cut.
Virgin Media has actually come out and said that it isn’t really in favor of such actions against filesharing, citing privacy and legal issues. The three-strikes system proposed by the UK music industry has come under fire from all corners of the Internet.
The guys at The Pirate Bay stuck a finger up at the IFPI as demands were made for damages totally $2.5 million. Chief Pirate Gottfrid Svartholm Warg told a newspaper that he told lawyers from the IFPI to “go screw themselves”.
Four Pirates were indicted in January for allegedly aiding the piracy of 24 albums, nine movies and four videogames.
Svartholm laughed off the indictment, saying that the $2.5 million figure likely came from multiplying the number of items by the number of times they were downloaded. Most downloaders would never have paid the full price for their music, games and movies, he added.
All this comes as Swedish artists came out this week in support of filesharing. Also this month, Trent Reznor uploaded part of his Ghosts I-IV to The Pirate Bay. It seems that all the action with regards to filesharing and music downloads is currently going on in Sweden.
Would you believe there is another free filesharing service available? These filesharing programs seem to pop up like flowers in spring. Most of the new ones we’ve covered recently haven’t been very good because there are now so many filesharing programs to get free music downloads that the market is saturated.
Also, for new filesharing services, there are hardly any users, but the point of some of them is just to upload files for other people. File Dropper offers a service that boats no sign-up and 5GB capacity. It ain’t Limewire, but it has it’s uses. You just pick the file you want to share with the world and upload it there and then.
You don’t even have to fill in any personal details, which is novel for a filesharing program. Uploads are fast enough and before you know it you’re provided with a link to your file to share with your mum or whoever. Files and links stay live for as long as people keep downloading your stuff, which doesn’t mean much really. Check it out if you’re into trying out new things for the sake of it.
The British clampdown on filesharing is a real threat to Internet freedom. The British record industry is intent on coming up with ways of stamping out all filesharing activity. According to Jollyon Benn of the British Recorded Music Industry (BPI), people use filesharing programs like Limewire mistakenly believing they are not breaking the law.
Benn thinks that education is the key to solving Britain’s filesharing problem. That’s BS. People know what they doing. Education will not solve a damn thing. Yes, filesharing and BitTorrent is now easier than ever to use, but people aren’t so stupid that they aren’t made fully aware that downloading copyrighted material is wrong.
Apparently, the BPI is developing bots that can detect illegal filesharing. The BPI wants to take out larger filesharing networks. What happened to educating people? Could the British music industry be even more clueless than the industry in the US?
Sweden’s crackdown on filesharing is becoming more of a reality as days goes by. It was initially thought (hoped) that the Swedish government would not clamp down on filesharing, but then a couple of weeks ago it was announced that courts will soon be able to force ISPs to give up the IPs of people who use filesharing programs like Limewire to obtain copyrighted material.
Previous ideas to block Internet access of filesharing users have been dropped in favor of this new response. This takes a lot of the pressure off of ISPs, who would have had to police their own networks for filesharing highway bandits.
Now, it’s up to the courts to find people who are downloading music illegally. Sweden is the original home of filesharing website the Pirate Bay. This is just the latest in a series of Europe-wide steps to be applied to ridding the Internet of filesharing.
While most people have vaguely innocent intentions when using filesharing programs, there are some who give groups like the RIAA fodders for their war against filesharing.
Shamed vicar Paul Battersby is one such person. Rather than using filesharing programs to download Christian rock music, he used the software to download illegal porn images. It’s frustrating that filesharing can be used to download pictures of children because it gives sickos like Battersby a chance to really mess things up for the rest of us.
Filesharing is already pretty close to being stamped out in the
