Irish ISPs rally against record label anti-piracy threat

A coalition of Irish ISPs has rebuffed the music industry's attempts to force a "three strikes" disconnection policy on all of Ireland's major internet providers. The ISP group sent an open letter to the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) on Friday, calling recent legal threats against them "spurious," stating they won't …

[Youvegottobe Joking]

Finally, what the bloody hell were they doing for the last few weeks

We all know that IRMA does not have the law behind them, they just hit Eircom and Eircom being wimps caved in, IRMA thought they could bluff the rest of the ISP's and now they have revolted.

HAH.

Lets see them drag all the ISP's to court. teehee

[not sure]

title

Viva the revolution!

[Bunglebear]

Nice work

Good job Irish ISPs! Stick it to 'em.

[milan]

You hear that sound?

It's the sound of IRMA getting bitch slapped. Bravo to companies with backbone.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fat Chance IRMA

"You cannot conquer Ireland - you cannot extinguish the Irish passion for freedom" - Padraig Pearse.

Well done ISPs. Ireland says No :)

[Michael]

@Finally, what the bloody hell were they doing for the last few weeks

Counterreactions take time..... they were talking to their solicitors.

These people know which side their bread is buttered on... music industry can fuck off!

Also, if all Irish isp's fail, the burden is back on rte

http://www.rte.ie/business/2009/0122/broadband.html

Business?.....pah.... what business..........internet is for porn...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNARJPNz2CA&feature=related

[some]

Smack down

Fucking ace. Seriously.

[Anonymous Coward]

Aunt Irma

Ha!

[Heff]

wow

God bless Irish ISPs for having a sense of fucking integrity.

<3

[Alan W. Rateliff, II]

Good for them

Cheers.

Paris, three strokes and you're out.

[Grant]

@Finally, what the bloody hell were they doing for the last few weeks

Polishing PR value of the statement. Notice the part about jobs, completely irrelevent but great press. It will help put pressure on MPs to tell IRMA where to stick it.

[Shane McCarrick]

Took their time......

They bloody took their time- but at least its a credible response from the ISPs.

IRMA and the international recording industry have to accept that times have changed.

They received a lifeline with the advent of the CD- where consumers at large were happy to duplicate their tape and vinyl collections, on yet another format at hyped prices. They had their chance to do the same with MP3s and fluffed it. How many times do they expect consumers to pay for the same collections again and again? I thought the argument was that the delivery method was immaterial- that you were paying for a personal license to enjoy the tracks. Hell- I've got at least 4 personal licenses for one of U2s early albums by that measure.

How about free MP3s of any albums you can prove you already have on tape, vinyl or CD- it would have made an interesting business model- and would not have painted the record industry into the corner they are now in.........

I have very little sympathy for IRMA and its international partners. Their current hurt is largely self inflicted.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's what they should do

All the ISPs should agree to stop all Music companies from accessing the Internet.

Either throttle their speeds down to 2400baud or stop serving the scum.

But it is about time they did something...

[Anonymous Coward]

Good

Eircom are idiots - they should have told IRMA where to stick it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll drink to that

So they waited till Paddy's Day before growing a pair of balls!! Quite appropriate actually as the great man himself is renowned for running all the snakes off the island back in the day.

[Jonathan]

I dont believe it

A sensible business? One that puts its customers first? I'm moving to Ireland, screw Phorm!

[JimC]

Or to put it another way...

We ISPs (and the search sites) just love making money out of the extra internet pipes and advertising we can flog out as a result of piracy and we're certainly not going to do anything to stop it if we can possibly avoid it.

[Kieron McCann]

Lovely!

Now if only the rest of the world would stick it to the recording industry.!

[General A. Annoying]

Excellent News.

It's high time the dinosaurs that are the record labels realised that their time is almost over.

Unless they embrace the changing media world, rather than attempt to strangle the life out of it, that is.

[Will Godfrey]

About time

Someone actually stood up to the bullies. Good.

Why can't I have two icons? I want the thumbs up AND the smiley face

[Anonymous Coward]

ARGH !!!

Common sence and ISP combined.. the world must be comming to an end....

*The one with the Vault 101 Survival guide in the pocket*

[Anonymous Coward]

/me is moving to ireland

.... if their ISP's aren't mere puppets to the music industry's whims. It almost sounds too good to be true. Next they'll be saying that ISPs in ireland dont ftp all their logs to teh government uberdatabase, and that they don't then sell those logs to google for behavioural ad targeting. and that they don't use transcoders either....

wheres the catch? unless the top speed is 5 KBP/s I'm packing my bags.

[Chris Griffiths]

*claps*

Hopefully, it'll only be a short time before the UK subsidiaries of those companies stand up and say the same thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweet

As a UPC Ireland customer I'm very glad to hear that they're not going to blindly roll over like Eircom did.

[g e]

Last few weeks

I'd imagine they were having their lawyers go over it with a fine toothcomb so they could tell the MAFIAA to sod off knowing there was no legal precedent/obligation to comply.

Nice that they added that last patronising paragraph in closing, too, a polite way of saying 'stop whining and get into the 3rd millennium you fuckwits'.

[Anonymous Coward]

Making a stand

Good to see Irish ISP's are not allowing themselves to be bullied by greedy record companies and their appointed henchmen. Let's hope UK ISP's take note and do likewise.

[simon maasz]

So basically......

FO

Ha Ha

[yonorri]

Well done ISPAI

"ISPAI is disappointed that the great potential of the internet, to provide opportunities to connect with users in new ways and develop new business models, is being missed by the music recording industry."

You tell 'em dudes :-)

[Dr Patrick J R Harkin]

@Youvegototbe Joking

"Lets see them drag all the ISP's to court. teehee" They may well do it: if they get the backing of U2, they can afford to outlawyer any ISP in Eire.

[Anonymous Coward]

@kindaian

We are talking contract law here, as long as the French ISPs agree to the requests of the music industry and the users agree* to the terms of their internet provision then the only laws that would affect this are unfair contract and provision of services type laws. IANAL but I cannot see how a clause that states "if you misuse the service we will warn you twice and then terminate your contract" I believe my existing internet subscription contract has such a clause already but without the 2 warnings.

However, should the ISPs refuse to agree to the music industry request, as appears the case in Eire, then any enforcement of these requests would have to be through the legal channels. This is where the claim that EU and Irish law would not allow this. I assume that French Law would also not allow this, but the Frenchies voluntarily puckered up and bent over.

*If you don't like the terms go with a different ISP. If they all have the same terms then you still have a choice, you can do without any interweb connection. Or piggyback off an unsecured neighbour's wireless.

[John Smith]

Shock news.

Majority of Irish ISP's grow a pair.

And in related news.

Eirecom customer base evaporates over night.

[Chris Lovell]

God bless the Irish

God bless 'em indeed. That's put a smile on my face.

[MnM]

pure genius!

Eircom excepted.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hooray

Fantastic news. I would have liked them to say a bit more, along the lines of

" ... Handing arbitrary and unaccountable pseudo-judicial powers to an unelected group of private individuals for the purposes of furthering their own personal financial interests is an abhorrence to everything we understand by the constitution of this country and an insult to democracy and we are disgusted by your repugnant attempt to twist justice to your own ends at the expense of the rights of the people and will resist any such attempt to undermine and replace our system of government with what would amount to a neo-feudalism ... "

[Anonymous Coward]

revolting users, IRMA, IMRO not Eircom's only problems

http://www.kerryman.ie/news/your-computer-is-at-the-mercy-of-hackers-1660476.html

For added irony, search for "Eircom" on The Pirate Bay.