Eircom betrays its subscribers
IRISH ISP Eircom settled a court case Wednesday by agreeing with four major recording labels to shut off any user's Internet connection after it gets a third accusation of copyright infringement.
Eircom cut the deal with EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner on the eighth day of a civil trial in High Court. The music companies had wanted Eircom to install surveillance technology that would detect and trace copyrighted music files in traffic transmitted over its network.
According to the agreement, known as "three strikes and you're out", Eircom will issue two warnings to customers that the music companies allege downloaded copyrighted music files using peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing protocols. Upon receiving the third complaint, Eircom will shut off the user's Internet connection - without a court order or any right to appeal.
The recording companies won't have to provide any proof to substantiate their accusations against alleged file-sharers. The ISP's subscribers won't have any right to contest the media firms' accusations either with Eircom or in a court of law. They will be convicted by default, with no presumption of innocence, no evidence needed, no due process of law, none of that.
It's an invitation to abuse, obviously unfair, wholly disproportionate and absolutely outrageous.
Between the big media companies' documented history in the US and elsewhere of leveling false accusations of copyright infringement, shifting IP addresses due to widespread use of dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) digitial subscriber line (DSL) connections, and the prevalence of unsecured wireless networks, and so on, there can be little confidence in the validity of any illegal file-sharing allegations, whether they're made in good faith or not.
The Big Media companies have every incentive to terrorise the public with such allegations, as they have attempted to do in the US by suing thousands of users for monetary damages, in at least some instances by pursuing accusations that have been proven undeniably false.
It is precisely the sort of accusation that should have to be proven in a court of law to stick.
That Eircom settled with the record companies in such a one-sided manner that is so highly prejudicial to its customers' interests and commercial rights is both amazing and shameful.
The UK has considered such a 'three-strikes' policy and recently decided against it. The music companies' attempts to impose 'three-strikes' regimes on ISPs in the US and EU have also been rejected.
Internet access is so essential now for so many people - for work, commerce, education and professional development, legitimate entertainment, communications with businesses, contacts, co-workers, family and friends - that for Eircom to just agree to shut it off upon being presented with three unsubstantiated accusations from the music companies is the height of irresponsibility.
Cory Doctorow nailed it pretty well, I think, writing:
"The Internet's a single wire that delivers freedom of speech, of assembly and of the press - it's a conduit for civic engagement, health care, employment, education, distant family, love and life. Disconnecting people from the Internet on the basis of an unsubstantiated accusation, without a court order, without a chance to defend yourself against your accusers, without a chance to see and challenge the evidence - it's positively medieval. Shame on Ireland – so much for their high-tech economic miracle."
We can only hope Eircom gets massively sued by customers whom its policy of craven subservience to the music companies harms and that it loses big, in a very expensive class-action lawsuit. µ
L'Inqs
Irish Times
Boingboing
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So eircom cut's your broadband, but not your line. You simply switch provider to BT, Imagine, Magnet or UPC (cable tv). Bagging some kind of offer along the way. And you're file sharing again.
If the others aren't all signed up to this policy and more importantly co-operating, then there's going to be a lot of churn in the fixed broadband sector.
P2P and other ways of downloading large files like full albums or videos is only practicably possible because of broadband - if you can call it that in Ireland. Dublin might have a couple of 10mbps domestic lines if you're lucky but normal people in Ireland will get 2mbps if they're very lucky. 256-512k is still common in huge swathes of the country.
So instead of cutting people off, why not simply cap their line to dialup speeds or even 128kbps? The user can then appeal or sue them and still get online while they're at it.
bloody hell, now ive seen it all, what sort of numpties are running this irish outfit ??? ive just checked it out and theres any amount of providers in ireland, this eircom crew are charging silly prices for not much better than dial up speeds, just vote with ya wallets my irish friends and move to another ISP, furk um, they must be on a suicide mission lol................. :O)
This was a smart move by Eircom. The company is being slowly forced out of the broadband market because frankly, it sucks and charges too much money. Being forced to ban a large portion of its user base as a result of court-ordered monitoring tools would strike a major blow against them. What they have essentially done is shaken hands on a deal which they have no intention of honouring. When they get information from music industry's scouts about illegal downloading they may send a warning and disconnect a few users but because of dynamic IPs there will be no way to monitor if they are following through with all the information they received. Privacy laws in the EU prevent customer data being freely distributable so they will claim their hands are tied, they will give out random figures about how many users are being banned, how well this campaign is doing etc. Eircom is a company notorious for being slippery about things like this and if I thought of it in 10 minutes I'm sure they have too.
Eircom WILL ban some, but these will most likely be high-bandwidth users, whether they are guilty or not because it suits them to do that.
My suggestion is that you downgrade to 1MB and download to your hearts content because you will NEVER be removed.
Eircom, the company are scum, created by a government run scam that robbed money from thousands of citizens, stalled broadband uptake for as long as possible and in doing so cost Ireland billions in lost business opportunities and continue to harm Ireland reputation as an IT hub... assuming it has any reputation left.
I hope people leave in droves and they go bust, their broadband is next to useless, advertising 7.6Mb but in reality you'll never get 4Mb
VP is right. Eircom is the ISP equivalent of the unmarried mother living on social welfare that the music monopoly love to drag though the courts. At one time Eircom was a semi-state company with resposibility for building telecoms infastructure and were probabaly one of the crown jewels of the semi-state sector. Now that are owned by the venture capitalists Babcock & Brown who are in a bit of financial difficulty themselves.
However since the great thatcherite sell off, Eircom has been seriously underfunded, with the money that should have been used to build a decent broadband network has used to pay dividends and boost share price.
If Eircom can kill demand before they have to supply the broadband infrastructure then Babcock & Brown will be in a better position to offload Eircom in a couple of years i.e. make a bigger profit.
I don't think that Eircom have thought this through fully given the way broadband is marketed as a package with land line and mobile phone. I talked to 2 friends who download on Eircom, first cease and desist letter and they are going to change ISPs AND land line. So well done Eircom, you've shoot yourselves in the foot again.
The other big problem here is that the music co's are now judge, jury, and (nearly) executioner and that they don't have that minor inconvenience of having to actually prove that somebody is in the wrong. When are these dickheads going to realise that the genie is out of the bottle. It they had embraced the technology when it emerged they could be making money now instead of spending it in useless court case.
Eircom are going to regret this decision - spy on their customers - and control their action - smacks of "Big Borther". I for one was considering returning to Eircom for my phone and broadband. But hell not now. Eircom's action can only be matched for stupidity by Sony's invasive DRM software/virus/spywear that it placed on it's audio CDs a couple of years ago. That foolishness cost Sony big time and the company came to seriously regret its actions.
In a well-publiciced cock-up, eircom shipped thousands of DSL routers with a security key that could be derived from the SSID or network name that comes up when you scan for networks. (Try Googling "eircom wep cracker"). Therefore anybody can drive into a neighbourhood and join almost any eircom line with ease. Or if you live in a built-up area, you should be able to join any number of eircom lines from the comfort of your couch.
This makes the idea that tying P2P activity to an IP address is the same as tying it to a natural person under law, ludicrous - especially in the case of eircom after their wi-fi cock up.
See that stand up in court!
This is ridiculous. Everybody knows that eircom is the worst provider in Ireland, but other providers are bound to do the same. Changing your provider will therefore not be a long term solution. What about people that share a connection with housemates? What about colleges that share internet access with student housing?
How can a democratic government allow a profit-driven organisation to try and control the internet in such a way?
Referring to a company employing in excess of 7,000 people and by far the biggest telecommunications provider in the state as "scum" is bad enough. But "robbed money from thousands of citizens". How exactly? Are these the same citizens who could have pocketed a 30% profit on shares but hung on for more ? Or the taxpayer citizen who received nearly €5billion when it was sold at the height of the dotcom bubble, money which was put into the pension reserve fund and now required to bail out the Irish banking system ?
Hoping that eircom goes bust shows how poor some people's understanding is of Ireland's telecommunications infrastructure despite their protestations. If the company that operates the vast bulk of the core and access network as well being the third largest mobile provider went bust then the banking crisis will look like a blip. Wouldn't envy the IDA trying to attract FDI into Ireland against that backdrop.