These snippets came from the Guardian Newspaper 12th Feb 08
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/feb/12/piracy.politics1An industry (record, television and film executives) that has at every turn bungled and botched its attempts to stem the flood of illegal downloads unleashed since the rise to prominence of Napster at the turn of the century believes it may finally have found a solution.
Four of the biggest ISPs - BT, Tiscali, Orange and Virgin Media - have been in negotiations for around six months to come to a voluntary agreement. But not only do they still remain wary of establishing a precedent in taking responsibility for the actions of their subscribers, but there are sticking points over how disconnections will be enforced and who will arbitrate if a downloader is found to have been piggybacking on a neighbour's wi-fi connection.
Around 95% of traffic at night is believed to be over peer to peer filesharing networks - much of it transferring pirated content. With the huge upsurge in data traffic generated by the popularity of video sites like Joost and the BBC's iPlayer, it is in the ISPs interests to look for ways of freeing up their networks.
And technology has also moved on. Virgin Media acting chief executive Neil Berkett earlier this month spoke of rather disturbingly named "packet sniffing" technology can accurately determine exactly what their customers are downloading.
Aside from the privacy questions of examining just what people are watching and listening to, there is the dilemma of what constitutes an illegally pirated file. Music tracks and recently released Hollywood films may seem pretty straightforward, but what about a BBC programme from the iPlayer that has had its copy protection removed?
Having accepted there is little point in demonising their potential customers by pursuing them through the courts, will pursuing them in this way make them any more amenable to the media giants who have in many cases not yet come up with attractive legal alternatives? And despite improved detection technology, experts say it remains impossible to say with complete certainty that someone is downloading an illegal file, particularly as some traffic over P2P networks remains perfectly legitimate.
..........
I'm sure the debate will go on...... and on..... and on.....
