Virgin-Universal Deal Offers Unlimited Music, Goes After File Sharers 254
suraj.sun writes "The UK's Virgin Media could start suspending persistent file sharers on a temporary basis, using information provided to it by Universal Music. The ISP announced on Monday that it would, before Christmas, launch an all-you-can-eat music download service for its users, based on a monthly subscription fee. The tracks will all be DRM-free. 'In parallel, the two companies will be working together to protect Universal Music's intellectual property and drive a material reduction in the unauthorized distribution of its repertoire across Virgin Media's network,' a statement read. 'This will involve implementing a range of different strategies to educate file sharers about online piracy and to raise awareness of legal alternatives. They include, as a last resort for persistent offenders, a temporary suspension of internet access.' DTecNet has already been working with UK content companies for some time to do much the same thing, and is also working with RIAA in the United States."
Why help Universal screw artists harder? (Score:5, Informative)
If Universal had a deal where the artist gets half of the take, you'd have far less reason to suspect an all-you-can-hear deal because you'd know you're helping artists and encouraging them to publish more music. As it is, there's nothing in this deal which even suggests a better arrangement for artists (the people corporate copyright holders love to trot out whenever illicit copying and distribution comes up).
The catalogs aren't the same, and neither is the history of pay-for-play, but compare the deal Universal is touting to the deal Magnatune [magnatune.com] has offered for years. Both are all-you-can-hear, but Magnatune lets you set the price (above a specified minimum), you get more choice in what types of files you want (I like FLAC, it's unencumbered, lossless, and I can transcode to something lossy if I choose), the half-goes-to-the-artist deal still stands, and artists license Magnatune which allows artists to retain their copyrights. Magnatune has no history of pay-for-play but all of the biggest music publishers do; I see no reason to reward that history with my sale. I didn't have to worry about risk: anyone can listen to Magnatune's entire catalog online at no charge. I don't have to worry about risking my Internet connection if I share Magnatune tracks [magnatune.com] either; even if Magnatune had the power to suspend my Internet connection I've got license to share. I put my money where my mouth is and I've bought an unlimited subscription from Magnatune. I'll not do the same with Universal until their deal gets a lot better for me and the artists whose interests they claim to care about.
Alternative (Score:4, Informative)
An alternative for UK surfers:
http://www.ukfsn.org/ [ukfsn.org]
I have no affiliation with them, but...
"all profits from UKFSN go to fund UK Free Software projects"
"Our policy is that the electronic communications of our customers are private. We do not intercept, censor, scan or otherwise interfer with our customers' internet service."
"UKFSN does not and will not have any dealings with Phorm, the company behind the Webwise system being deployed by some other ISPs to intercept customer internet traffic. We are firmly of the opinion that the Phorm Webwise system is illegal under UK and EU laws. We also believe it to be fundamentally unethical to intercept customer traffic in this manner. It will never happen here."
"There is some suggestion that the UK government would like to mandate some form of interception and possibly censorship. We would encourage all interested persons to make it clear to MPs and the government generally that this is not acceptable."
Re:Fairness in the EU (Score:3, Informative)
Dude. AAC is a standard format. Just like MP3.
And if anything, they should be taken to task for charging so much for music (in NZ, the prices go as high as $2.40 a track - fuck that), rather than the lack of DRM free music (I should note that the entire iTunes catalog is already DRM free, negating 33% of your comment).
Re:Fairness in the EU (Score:5, Informative)
Apple uses the AAC format which is an open royalty free format designed to replace mp3. Alcatel-Lucent owns the patent on MP3. So, Apple chose the more modern and more open format. Any company can support or use AAC without paying any royalties.
You might want to check on your facts [vialicensing.com] a little more.
Unconstitutional. In ANY country. (Score:4, Informative)
internet is no longer an amenity of modern technology. its a FEATURE of life. which affects many things ranging from, especially, freedom of speech and right to receive information to paying bills online. some european governments are even carrying over all kinds of services that citizens need from a government online. therefore internet is not a luxury anymore, its a BARE necessity of MODERN Life.
just reflected in the french high court decision, striking the dumbfucked 'three strikes and youre out' law as unconstitutional. that is the case in any country of the world.
just wait until virgin and universal gets sued by an angry subscriber who misses to pay his bills online, or cant access his bank site, or cant use new online government services.
no, actually dont wait. its unconstitutional, its YOUR country, YOUR constitution, YOUR rights. stand up for them. give them a piece of your mind.
Re:Net Neutrality implications? (Score:3, Informative)
It's always been that way. US cable companies would get really narky at you if you downloaded tv shows on their services.
Generally speaking ISPs only care as much about piracy as they're forced to because they make money by selling you internet access(it's a little different in the US because the US doesn't have quotas so they get narky if you use too much bandwidth, but not much). However if your ISP produces or distributes the content you're pirating they're all of a sudden really concerned. Virgin distributes music, so they care about music piracy, no big shock.
The world is always like that, Open Source guys pirate close source code but spit the dummy if the opposite happens. Move guys pirate software, software guys pirate movies. I remember flying with a guy who wrote scripts for movies and he was all up in arms against Movie piracy while writing his script on a pirated copy of Office.
You can bet that the RIAA guy pirates software and the BSA guy pirates movies because that's just the way the world works.
The moral of the story is never choose an ISP who is also a content provider.
Re:Fairness in the EU (Score:3, Informative)
Because you didn't buy one of these players [apple.com]. Note the many non-iPod players on that list. If you meant to imply that iTunes was somehow locked to only work with iPods, sorry for bursting your bubble.
That only applies to iTunes on the Mac, not the Windows version, for which none of those will work. And this feature doesn't seem to be offered to vendors or developers anymore, it's a remnant from when Apple was selling iTunes before the iPod came along, and those legacy players were grandfathered in.