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A RULING AGAINST Eircom’s ‘three strikes’ anti-online piracy system has been described as “a massive blow” to the music industry.
IT law expert TJ McIntyre told TheJournal.ie that the reported ruling by the Data Protection Commissioner was highly significant, as the entertainment industry fights to prevent people downloading music and films for free.
Under the system agreed with several large record companies in 2009, Eircom broadband customers who were found to have illegally downloaded copyrighted material three times would have their internet access cut off.
But Mark Tighe reports in the Sunday Times that the Data Protection Commissioner has ordered Eircom to halt the practice. It’s understood the ruling is based on privacy concerns over the use of web surfers’ IP addresses to identify them.
McIntyre said the decision was especially significant as it follows a recent European Court of Justice ruling, which held that monitoring web users at the behest of copyright holders was an infringement on their right to privacy.
“Now both the courts and the offical DPC are begining to realise the fundamental right of people to access the internet, and not to be monitored while they do so,” he said.
However McIntyre, who also chairs advocacy group Digital Rights Ireland, rejected concerns that the ruling effectively offered carte blanche for pirates. He said those who upload copyright material can still be pursued.
“The music industry can still do what it has always done, which is look for people who are uploading music and take action against them, rather than looking for ISPs to do their work for them,” he said.
He added the music industry may now attempt to challenge the ruling in court, or look for legislative change to protect its copyrights.
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great news.the sooner the music industry come to terms with new patterns of consumption the better. and if this pushes them to this recognition then it can only be a good thing
and, it goes without saying that what is killing music isnt free downlaoding its the prevailing blandness (U2, Snow Patrol…god what has it all been for lol) created and intensified by thrid rate music, conveyor belt summer festivals, ridiculous talnet shows adn so on
Here here
I agree with your first point Alan.
But there’s nothing “killing music” as you say. In fact there is an abundance of quality music available to the discerning listener, and more so than ever due to modern marketing methods, such as the internet.
Look around the smaller music venues of any city in the world and you’ll find all sorts of cutting edge acts.
If consumers are prepared to stick to the corporation driven blandness you refer to, then it’s the consumer who is “killing music”. The artists of integrity will always be more than happy to make a half-decent living from their art, it’s just up to us to give them a bit more support.
How did Bono get to press thumbs down so many times on the comments?
Now eircom stop blocking pirate bay!
ever hear of using proxies? :P
Screw the music industry. They had no problem charging 24 euro for albums a couple of years who when they thought they could get away with it.
Just make music free to download. Most of the money is in live gigs now anyway.
great news. And they should only be going after those who upload it, not the people who download it.
Don’t start celebrating just yet. When you torrent music, you are uploading it at the same time. That’s how torrenting works.
i usually stop seeding after downloading, i know im a bad person ha ha, but i thought maybe they would go after the people who submit it to sites like the pirate bay
Just use a usenet server. No uploading.
Or just put all of your downloading through a VPN
@John Stevenson – yep, most people do with the crap broadband in Ireland. But it’s worth bearing in mind that you are technically distributing the music while it is being downloaded, so you could potentially get done for it.
I don’t know anyone who pays for or would pay for music anymore. There now exists a generation who have been brought up in a world of ‘free’ music and they will never entertain the idea of having to pay for an album. Albums are little more than adverts for the live tour and if the music is any good the ticket sales should follow.
I know PLENTY of people who would pay – but they want to pay a reasonable amount for a digital version of an album.
“Albums are little more than adverts for the live tour and if the music is any good the ticket sales should follow.”
In fairness, that doesn’t make any sense at all – although it’s a nice way to justify your argument.
Prince gave his last album out free with The Sunday Mail and anyone who bought a ticket for his tour was also given a free copy. He’s not the only artist who has done this.
My main point was that there are people out there who will never pay for music and critically they are the majority.
It’s easy for Multi-million selling artists to give albums away, it’s new talent we need to worry about.
and in your world the artists who produce the music end up not making enough money to live and give it up to take ‘day’ jobs.
Artists deserve to be paid for their work – if they can’t make a living they stop doing it and we the listeners lose out. Its as simple as that.
yep, you’re right.
@Paul. It’s easy for Multi-million selling artists to give albums away, it’s new talent we need to worry about.
If the new talent are good, then play gigs. Supposedly there is better money for an artist/ band in live gigs as opposed to cd sales. I read an article few years ago where a contestant on Pop Stars brought out a single and said he got about 1-2% of sales income. I don’t have the article, nor can I find it but maybe someone else might have some figures.
Get a van, travel to various pubs n clubs and jam live like you’re supposed to. (might even be free beers and easy women)
@Joe …good comment. Download and stream music properly i say; you don’t have to give your money to major artists, it’s easy… don’t click on the lady gaga / x factor / glee etc… song. Instead give your money to the artists you genuinely want to support because you actually like the song… it could even be a friend, or someone you know… and i’d bet you would see a change in their attitude; and i’d bet you’ld hear much better songs being produced, because there is an incentive again. For your money, your asking for an official, full quality (not mP3) download or high quality stream (320kbps) from a trusted source which can be tracked, so the artist can find out how well the song is doing, and make a few quid too (which could help pay their rent).
HA HA HA HA HA HA Eircom
UP yours…….
Bring back the open source sharing..
Ill happily pay apples 25 euro per annum for music as its fair and pay per song if i need it…
I enjoy all file sharing because i have paid for my files and if i wish to give them away its my choice….
The industry needs to take a less combative approach to sharing. The market is moving towards a quality model where whether you get paid or not depends on the quality of the product. In the old days it didn’t matter if your consumer didn’t like the product or not, once there was a vinyl/CD in his/her hands the record company had their money. Now, the consumer listens before deciding to pay the artist by buying legitimately.
I thunk it’s fairer that bad music is free and good music gets paid for.
Thunk? I meant think! Why does autocorrect miss that but capitalise Market and send us all to he’ll!
I am not in favour of piracy but the music industry throughout its 20th century history pirated and copyrighted huge chunks of ordinary folk culture. Cant honestly find much sympathy.Their representatives are among to most tenacious at pursuing small business for having piped music or playing a few CDs to brighten the atmosphere for staff and customers. The principle that the ISP would hand over details to private corporations is frightening. it is a bit like having your phone conversations handed over. Excessive and Orwellian.
Ha ha. In your face Irma.
What were Eircom thinking anyway? Idiots doing record company’s work for them. Anyone with half a brain would just switch provider. It was good to see that UPC wouldn’t play ball and told them get stuffed. What next? Submit texts and voicemails to the grammer police?
Eircom were only ever concerned about their own music service and the secret deal they made with IRMA.
This wasn’t something they felt they were legally forced to do; because they weren’t!!!!
It’s always about making money. People want convenience and value for money and the music industry is refusing to provide it.
If I like something, I buy it. If I don’t like it, you’re not getting a cent from me and you can be damn sure i’m not paying you a cent to find out whether I do or not.
You should be hearing from the Grammar* Police very soon ;)
Valve’s Gabe Newell on piracy brings a good point to the table:
“We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem,” he said. “If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable.”
The proof is in the proverbial pudding. “Prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become [Steam's] largest market in Europe,” Newell said.
The purpose of Steam is to provide as much value not only to the customer but also to other game publishers. “Our success comes from making sure that both customers and partners (e.g. Activision, Take 2, Ubisoft…) feel like they get a lot of value from those services, and that they can trust us not to take advantage of the relationship that we have with them.”
Source: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114391-Valves-Gabe-Newell-Says-Piracy-Is-a-Service-Problem
Maybe all those piracy firms can come over here now and create jobs. Ha ha.
This is not a “massive blow”. This is a massive win for the freedoms of people to browse and share content without fear of being unjustly sanctioned. This is great news, especially in light of the seemingly inevitable Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) being introduced by the US government without any thoughts for the privacy and rights of the people.
and what about the rights of artists to receive payment for their work? I’m not talking about the U2s of this world… there are many many musicians (a lot outside the record company system) who cannot scrape a living from their music. File sharing contributes to their situation.
Joe, the solution is not spying on Internet users and breaching their privacy. The current system of album sales and pay-per-song downloads is archaic and broken. Look at services like Spotify (of which I’m a customer) and Grooveshark, which provide monetization of music for artists whilst providing realistic and sane pricing structures for consumers.
Also, if a small-time artist decides to go the traditional route and produces a CD, who, in all honesty, will buy it? Nobody walks into a music shop and takes a €10 gamble on a random artist. People pirate music much of the time to see whether or not they like the artist. If they do, they then share it with their friends and the artist’s popularity increases, as does his album sales and audience numbers at his gigs. This has always happened. Piracy wasn’t invented in the last ten years.
I was commenting on your comment “This is a massive win for the freedoms of people to browse and share content without fear of being unjustly sanctioned”.
If an artist produces music and decides to ask to be paid for that music they have a right to be paid. A very small minority of people who download tracks go on to then purchase the music.
I agree fully with your first paragraph because the artist has the choice to go down the route of using Spotify etc and receive payment. If the artist decides to go a more traditional route that too is their decision and it doesn’t give use the ‘freedom’ to pirate their work. If we do decide to pirate it and are sanctioned afterwards according to the law it cannot be an unjust sanction.
You say piracy was not invented in the last ten years and you are correct. Most forms of wrongdoing have been around for centuries – but that hasn’t made them right.
I just downloaded a heap of Johnny cash for my dad and put them on an iPod I’m giving him for christmas, he has every imaginable JC albums and rarities but in outdated Vinyl/tape/cd formats which he has payed for,, BUT is expected to pay for again!! in this digital generation?
Another point I’d make is real music fans will pay for an album if it means that much to them, I have often downloaded an album out of curiosity then went out and bought the CD to add to my collection of 300 + albums because I felt it justified the expense,,,, so in my case anyway downloading tracks or albums can actually lead on to a hard copy purchase.
You are a dying breed though. I myself did that but it will get to the stage where nobody goes to a shop/amazon to buy a CD at all, it represents an inconvenience. I think the way is with subscription services. Fixed monthly fee for as little or as much music as you like, but you never actually own any of it. you are just able to listen when and where you like as long as you are paid up. These services are the future.
There is something very sinister about private companies controlling and limiting what people do on the Internet. It is like the ESB saying that they will cut off your electricity for watching TV without a license.
My kids are of the generation of search and download. Paying is never considered. They won’t suddenly start paying when they become adults and the record companies will have to find away to generate income from them.
I got a letter a few months back off eircom regarding downloading music. It went along the lines of ” although they’re not the ones monitoring my internet. IRMA noticed that I downloaded a album of such and such. it May not have been me but someone using my internet in my house and to be aware and so on ” but I was warned that I could be cut off. but has never happened.
Respect! You made hacker news!
If they want people to go back to buying hard copies they need to make them cheaper and of better quality. CDs are very flimsy and easy to damage and the box invariably breaks. At least with vinyl you get a decent product, but also too expensive.
A basic monthly flat fee that covers digital media, with extra credits earned for participation through social media. The “wild west” nature of file sharing is going to pass, enjoy it while it lasts. The biggest stumbling block for online media sales is simply that they’re charging too much. The price points will drop, choice gets wider and delivery gets faster. This is what will reduce illegal file sharing for the most part, not legislation.
Yep, that’s the only realistic way. Did Eircom really think we were that stupid? They are the ones living in the stone age. We’ve all moved to greener pastures. To think we could be “caught out” for downloading some random CD is laughable. Please, we’re not idiots, don’t treat us like we are.
It is just a matter of time before a new type of “clean” Internet is proposed. The powerful special interest groups consisting of the various corporations will use causes such as child protection as a catalyst to launch a policed Internet that prevents file sharing of copyrighted material. They have more than a sufficient monetary incentive to do so. Lets just hope the free spirit of the Internet is not doused by corporate greed..
From a technological standpoint, that can’t happen. The Internet exists as long as any two computers are still networked. The Internet has no central backbone or structure. The only way something like this could ever come about is if ISPs were banned from routing traffic to the “unpoliced” intranet. As is the case in North Korea.
Now all we have to do is get them to stop blatantly advertising Eircom MusicHub on the “The Pirate Bay is blocked” page… well lawyers?
Did Eircom withdraw broadband from anybody on those terms?
Very good question Conor, I’d like to know the answer to that!
iTunes match coming soon anyway…
It’s already here. I upgraded to it a couple of days ago, very convenient if you are within the whole Mac OS / iOS system.
We are making Turkish internet marketing products such us promosyon and toptan flash bellek. Your publications are realy good. I am following your new researches with my group.
We are in a different era now, as someone else said, there’s a whole generation of people who’ve grown up with free music and there’s no going back. People crib about piracy damaging young artists, but nothing could be further from the truth in my opinion. The internet allows artists to share their music with the world, it allows people to find new music easily and share it with their friends easily. It’s easy for a new artist to get buzz now – no need for record labels – and they’ll reap the benefits through gigs and other live performances. Hey, even Beiber was found on Youtube.
It’s also better for the public, people now get to listen to specialist genres much more easily, and can develop individual tastes without having to rely on the mass produced shite from the record labels (even though there’ll always be an audience for that stuff).
No need for the music ‘industry’ to fret anymore, their lobbying has not gone unnoticed by the supine government. Sherlock, minister for Innovation (is that one of those spoof cabinet posts governments make up from time to time?) will apparently sign some order or other in January meeting its demands. What a pitiful situation. Enda breaks the pay cap to grant a pal a giant pay rise, Noonan offers money to bank investors who aren’t covered by the guarantee, Howlin shelters behind Croke Park, Burton says there is no need to reduce the most generous welfare allowances in Europe, The list goes on. But asking that something be done about mortgage distress and personal debt levels, well that doesn’t fall like music on ministers ears it seems.
I know this is off topic, but what do you suggest be done about mortgage distress and personal debt levels?
have your say