Virgin Denies Reports That It Will Kick File Sharers Offline

from the no-sirree dept

Earlier in the week there were reports that even without a government mandate, Virgin Media had come to an agreement with the entertainment industry to start kicking off users accused of file sharing, using a "three strike" rule. However, Virgin has now claimed that no such plan is in place while also noting that it found the concept "draconian." Reading between the lines, it certainly sounds like BPI (the British equivalent of the RIAA) presented Virgin with a plan to do this, and Virgin basically told BPI that it would consider the plan, at which point BPI leaked a report to the press that it was a done deal.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: ban, file sharing, isps, uk
Companies: virgin


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2008 @ 10:43pm

    Go go business-speak

    Or poliic-speak for that matter.

    Virgin says "we'll think about it" which as everyone really knows means "um, no".

    BPI then being the twisted greedy bastards they are take those words and use them to exagerate the response.

    Exageration and ambiguity in action.

    Just wish greed-oriented (as in power/money wanting) entities would realise the danger to ambiguity and stop that part of it at least . . .

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Paul Layton, 3 Apr 2008 @ 10:51pm

    Out of curiousity...

    ...Virgin start an airline in the USA that I will never fly on?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    mike allen, 4 Apr 2008 @ 12:39am

    should have known

    BPI are same as IRAA namely LIERS (sorry mike)of course it could be that Virgin did agree then a number of their customers asked for their MAC key and virgin backtracked just MHO.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Jake, 4 Apr 2008 @ 2:42am

    Funnily enough, just under three-quarters of an hour ago a BBC radio news bulletin informed me that the CEO of TalkTalk has publicly told the BPI where to shove it.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Martin, 4 Apr 2008 @ 3:31am

    Yes, but...

    Let's not forget that these were the same people which said that companies that advertise "unlimited" internet when in fact there is a Fair Use policy which users aren't aware of is false advertising and that there services were unlimited (in the sense of download limits). It was then pointed out that Virgin actively limit people's internet connections if they download too much data and hide the fact in a policy that can only be found by searching their website.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    mike allen, 4 Apr 2008 @ 3:43am

    talk talk

    yes they have said shove it. however the government have said if nothing agreed by april (this month) then they will act.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    fuse5k, 4 Apr 2008 @ 5:26am

    comment 5

    Martin,

    Virgin don't have limits on their broadband at all. If you download 30+ gig a day on peak time, they will throttle your connection so that you don't spoil connection speeds for others, but they will never cut you off, and once the peak hours are over you get back to your advertised speed.

    I know this through experience.. I certainly dont think its unfair for them to do this, as they obviously have limited bandwidth to share among all of their paying customers

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Wyatt Ditzler, 4 Apr 2008 @ 12:52pm

    How...

    So how would they know if the data you were transmitting was 'illegal' are they sniffing everyone's packets? Would they notify you, like with a search warrant? I know it is the UK, but there are surely some data privacy laws that they would have to jump over to implement such a plan. Otherwise any company could just accuse everyone of sharing files illegally right?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Apr 2008 @ 5:11pm

    No, the UK business and Govenment just ignores data privacy laws anyway.

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.