Verizon Cuts Service to Alleged Pirates

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
It looks like Verizon has started cutting off service to alleged pirates. No word on how many people have been cut off so far or what the criteria is to be labeled a “pirate.”

"We've cut some people off," Verizon Online spokeswoman Bobbi Henson told CNET. "We do reserve the right to discontinue service. But we don't throttle bandwidth like Comcast was doing." What this means is that Verizon, one of the country's biggest broadband providers, appears to have adopted an approach to illegal file sharing that sounds very similar to one promoted and pushed heavily by the music industry.
Click to expand...
 
is it just me or has verizon (internet) started to be real asshats recently?
 
I would love to have FIOS, but I do NOT want some random guy trying to find out what I download, then sending a letter to them telling them I am using P2P and have them cut my service, all without a shred of proof. Man I hate the anti-piracy craze and the way the RIAA/MPAA feels they can do whatever they want.

WTB fully encrypted downloads.
 
Unforunately it will be at least a decade or more before this whole Anti-Piracy thing dies down a bit.
 
corrupted223 said:
I would love to have FIOS, but I do NOT want some random guy trying to find out what I download, then sending a letter to them telling them I am using P2P and have them cut my service, all without a shred of proof. Man I hate the anti-piracy craze and the way the RIAA/MPAA feels they can do whatever they want.

WTB fully encrypted downloads.
Click to expand...

Verizon or any service provider for that matter can drop you for any number of reasons at anytime. We're not talking about a court of law, they don't need any proof.
 
I just want to know when they will own up to the fact that yes, piracy does cut back on profits, but the REAL reason they have a decline in sales is because people don't want to fork over the cash for the crap you are producing.
 
would be funny if they canceled you and still charged the early termination fee
 
Json23 said:
I just want to know when they will own up to the fact that yes, piracy does cut back on profits, but the REAL reason they have a decline in sales is because people don't want to fork over the cash for the crap you are producing.
Click to expand...

so people download them and listen to them anyways despite it being crap.

I love this logic.
 
My wish is that Verizon would put as much effort into spam uploaders as they are bending over backwards for the RIAA/MPAA. Can't they use DPI for spam. Maybe even do some throttling of spam. Cut them off, use the same excuses that spam are bandwidth hogs, etc. Shit when some companies get on the bandwagon they have no problems coming up with the resources to fight a cause, The only thing that comes to mind that might make Verizon capitulate is the almighty greenback being funneled through the back door some how.
 
The thing is, for them to know that you do or don't download stuff illegaly, they must first know what is it that you download.

So, we sacrifice our privacy for the higher purpose of protecting multibillion-making companies ?

What if I do NOT want them to know what I download ? Some may say, big deal, so they know, who cares. But what if I care ? Is there anything I can do, or wanting to keep things as private as possible is illegal too ?
 
Azhar said:
so people download them and listen to them anyways despite it being crap.

I love this logic.
Click to expand...

I don't download them, and i don't listen to them. And yes, they are crap

*I play the radio just for background noise in the car*
 
What about the ETF? Can verizon cut you off and then force you to pay those fees? Remember, they just raised the fees on the 17th, so now it is $360! I wonder if they timed it to wait for the increase.
 
k1pp3r said:
I don't download them, and i don't listen to them. And yes, they are crap

*I play the radio just for background noise in the car*
Click to expand...

Yes, but he was talking about piracy, not listening to the radio. Some justifications might sound reasonable, but this one is just silly.

"we don't pay for it because it's crap"
"yeah but you downloaded it and you listen to it."
"yeah so?"
"then you like it. It's not crap"

They do sell single songs these days. You don't HAVE to buy entire albums anymore.
 
If I could replace all the songs in my collection (which are mostly singles, I don't collect albums like many, only the songs I enjoy) easily, in high-quality 5.1-encoded files that were DRM free and truly "mine", I absolutely would.

The problem is that the MP3s are 320k (at best) and 128k (at worst), some have DRM, some do not--and no single provider can replace my entire collection, which means seperating maintaining collections to try and cover everything, mixing legit and non-legit music, etc.

What a PITA.

If I'm going to struggle with all of that, I might as well struggle with varying bitrates and screwed up MetaData from piracy, too. At least I can fix the MetaData, and keep my collection whole.

The ideal solution is to have a central hub (RIAA?) that maintains copies of all music, in varying bitrates, and when you purchase a "song", you have a license for that song for life. You can download it in whatever form, play it wherever you'd like, etc.

I would absolutely shell out for that.
 
Azhar said:
Yes, but he was talking about piracy, not listening to the radio. Some justifications might sound reasonable, but this one is just silly.

"we don't pay for it because it's crap"
"yeah but you downloaded it and you listen to it."
"yeah so?"
"then you like it. It's not crap"

They do sell single songs these days. You don't HAVE to buy entire albums anymore.
Click to expand...

You referred to not having to buy Albums anymore and to buy singles, could you please direct me to 45's section.:D
 
It's their network and they have every right to sniff whatever goes through it. If they see you are downloading a movie torrent then they can cut your service. It's their TOS, you violate it, you get your service cut.

I don't see what yall are bitching about. Want to have your own pipe to the webs, get a T1 or better and stop bitching.
 
Tower said:
If I could replace all the songs in my collection (which are mostly singles, I don't collect albums like many, only the songs I enjoy) easily, in high-quality 5.1-encoded files that were DRM free and truly "mine", I absolutely would.

The problem is that the MP3s are 320k (at best) and 128k (at worst), some have DRM, some do not--and no single provider can replace my entire collection, which means seperating maintaining collections to try and cover everything, mixing legit and non-legit music, etc.

What a PITA.

If I'm going to struggle with all of that, I might as well struggle with varying bitrates and screwed up MetaData from piracy, too. At least I can fix the MetaData, and keep my collection whole.

The ideal solution is to have a central hub (RIAA?) that maintains copies of all music, in varying bitrates, and when you purchase a "song", you have a license for that song for life. You can download it in whatever form, play it wherever you'd like, etc.

I would absolutely shell out for that.
Click to expand...

What a fantastic idea, a central hub. Ahhh its too simple to work it will never happen, some lawyers might be out of a job.:D
 
HydroBudz said:
It's their network and they have every right to sniff whatever goes through it. If they see you are downloading a movie torrent then they can cut your service. It's their TOS, you violate it, you get your service cut.

I don't see what yall are bitching about. Want to have your own pipe to the webs, get a T1 or better and stop bitching.
Click to expand...

How is a T1 going to provide anything other than Verizon. Any ISP can sniff your packets, regardless if its dial up or OC-128.

What people have a problem with is privacy, which does not exist even in your own home anymore
 
is comcast doing this as well? I have verizon and I'm about to move and was thinking getting comcast service, but if they are in the same boat as verizon sending letters and terminating your service I'll better stay with verizon .
 
Doesn't this open Verizon up to having their Safe Harbor provisions revoked as an ISP? I thought that as long as the ISP doesn't KNOW what's traveling on their network, they can't be held liable for it. If they know enough to cut you off for it, are they not now liable for EVERYONE on their network and what their doing, and can now be sued directly by the content owners?
 
Interesting about cutting off service. I have home service w/ VOIP. Now they cut off my internet, they have actually disabled my ability to call 911 from the house should something happen (injury/rape/intruder/etc). I wonder what the liability is then to the RIAA and to Verizon for causing serious injury/harm to someone b/c of an IP mixup? (this has happened before when the grandma who did not have a computer was charged with copyright infringements).
I hope the RIAA/Verizon has deep pockets to defend a lawsuit like that..
 
this will probably just keep getting worse and worse before it gets better. I think the networks that encrypt everything will continue to grow, i thought there was a pretty big project that was working on that and the torrent programs were starting to incorporate it.... tor or something.
 
Two points:

Verizon is not monitoring your connection - RTFA. Verizon is responding to warnings from imaginary property owners. The short version is that the imaginary property owners connect to BT trackers or filesharing apps, scrape a list of connected addresses, and send out warning emails to the ISPs who pass them along to the users.

This is not news - I know for a fact that Brighthouse/Roadrunner has been doing this for years; a friend of mine got a nastygram from Brighthouse about three years ago.

Honestly, I like this better than when they were suing grandma, small children, and people who didn't even own PCs.
 
chrispix said:
Interesting about cutting off service. I have home service w/ VOIP. Now they cut off my internet, they have actually disabled my ability to call 911 from the house should something happen (injury/rape/intruder/etc). I wonder what the liability is then to the RIAA and to Verizon for causing serious injury/harm to someone b/c of an IP mixup? (this has happened before when the grandma who did not have a computer was charged with copyright infringements).
I hope the RIAA/Verizon has deep pockets to defend a lawsuit like that..
Click to expand...

VOIP isn't actually a protected telephone system as a natural landline is. The telephones lines for VOIP apply from the providers office to where they interface with the traditional phone system. VOIP legally is considered data as any other, and there are no laws about maintaining data service. Unlike landlands, internet service is not considered a utility and isn't governed by the same rules. Verizon, can at anytime, for any reason, choose to cancel an internet account.
 
The trickle will eventually turn into a river of providers who can no longer play totally dumb and thus start cutting off more users.
 
Hulahoops said:
The trickle will eventually turn into a river of providers who can no longer play totally dumb and thus start cutting off more users.
Click to expand...

so then what would stop a startup ISP to come into the block and essentially advertise as..."been disconnected and burned by your old isp, we won't sell you out" and basially tell the RIAA to DIAF?

By this current systems logic, an isp could stand to rake in a lot of profits by telling the RIAA to pound sand. Since these seem to be agreements with the IP thugs, and as of now the govt. is not involved, i would be interested in seeing if said isp maneuver is possible. If anyone had the balls they could stand to make a good deal of money.
 
Verizon has also removed alt.binaries.* from their newsgroups.

This might be somewhat about bandwith usage, but it's really about wrangling with RIAA/MPAA. Recall a few years ago that Verizon refused to give up their customer's information. Later it was explained that the reason was that the cost of processing all of these [mostly automated] requests was the impediment. Clearly, they have overcome this roadblock, perhaps with some sustained nudging from the above orgs.

Ultimately, if someone WERE to want to consider using P2P, they should be paying for a news feed ($5-10/mo) with encryption and also an encrypted proxy ($5-$20/mo). This is on top of the usual attempts at protection, like ip blocklists and get-in-get-out strategies.
 
Also, nothing is said about what kind of file sharing software and behavior was triggering this. Was it just the usual people sharing tons of files 24x7 and not taking any precautions?
 
perrosky said:
is comcast doing this as well? I have verizon and I'm about to move and was thinking getting comcast service, but if they are in the same boat as verizon sending letters and terminating your service I'll better stay with verizon .
Click to expand...

I haven't been accused of pirating but they have complained about my excessive bandiwht hogging. If i remember correctly i was about 950GB over the limit, and they threatened to cut my service off for 12 months.
 
Astronomica said:
I haven't been accused of pirating but they have complained about my excessive bandiwht hogging. If i remember correctly i was about 950GB over the limit, and they threatened to cut my service off for 12 months.
Click to expand...

I hear they give you 250gb of traffic per month and you went 950GB over the limit :eek:
And I thought I was a heavy downloader with like 100gb a month top.
 
perrosky said:
I hear they give you 250gb of traffic per month and you went 950GB over the limit :eek:
And I thought I was a heavy downloader with like 100gb a month top.
Click to expand...

pfft 100gb is like 1/4th of my steam games. if i ever decided to download everything on my games list at once i would probably break a tb pretty easily, i don't have comcast though, so no satisfaction of watching a bunch of their heads explode
 
Stardusted said:
The thing is, for them to know that you do or don't download stuff illegaly, they must first know what is it that you download.

So, we sacrifice our privacy for the higher purpose of protecting multibillion-making companies ?

What if I do NOT want them to know what I download ? Some may say, big deal, so they know, who cares. But what if I care ? Is there anything I can do, or wanting to keep things as private as possible is illegal too ?
Click to expand...

It may be possible to legally prevent your own ISP from deliberately knowing what you are downloading. For example, the post office may be legally prevented from looking inside the package you're mailing unless it's making ticking noises and sets off a geiger counter; I am not a lawyer and have no idea what rights the post office actually has to look into your mail and packages, but they certainly can't look into things like diplomatic pouches and lawyer-client communications.

But I don't think it's possible to prevent your own ISP from being technically able to know what you are downloading; for example, whether or not the post office can look into your envelopes, you certainly can't make an envelope the post office couldn't open should they choose to do so.

I think it's very unrealistic to believe that you can hide what you're downloading from your own ISP; it's really about whether they are: a) allowed to look; b) allowed to not look because they really don't want to know; or c) forced to look.

Whether ISPs get to have common carrier status is a huge topic.
 
would make sence, they just upped the ETOS fees last week, now start given people the axe and collect the funds.
 
Uncle said:
You referred to not having to buy Albums anymore and to buy singles, could you please direct me to 45's section.:D
Click to expand...

You have to buy whole albums for music before the early 90's. They supposedly didn't suck then ;)
 
xrealm20 said:
is it just me or has verizon (internet) started to be real asshats recently?
Click to expand...

Hey be lucky that they at least don't throttle the shit outta you service wise. It really seems they are just going after major P2P sharers, and probably not tot he extent comcast did or is.

Chillax dude
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top