Sponsored Links

Do UK ISPs Have Permission to Monitor IPTV Pirates & Share Their Data?

HairyLeg

ULTIMATE Member
Published a couple of days ago


snip ...

"After receiving information suggesting that other ISPs may also be collaborating in similar anti-piracy work...."

snip ...

"These documents – customer agreements and their related privacy policies — reveal that when people sign up as customers to at least two UK ISPs, they do so on the understanding that piracy might lead to their information being shared with third-parties."

snip ..
 
Sponsored Links
Nah, I use surfshark if i'm gonna watch that
 
Although true, it shouldn't serve as justification for overreaching legislation allowing for traffic inspection
Indeed, but I think the article is implying that's exactly what is happening here.

The three companies mentioned are primarily purveyors of PayTV services and the broadband side acts as the gateway to consuming those services and then the opportunity to drive users to purchase higher priced TV bundles, which is where the bulk of their income/profit comes from.

Although the article doesn't state it - it impliess each one of those ISP's *must* beinspecting all traffic for evidence of access to sites or content they deem as piracy and handing over the evidence to the rights holders or their lobby groups in order to pursue prosecution. All completely opaque to the end user of course

I'm not sure there is any specific legislation involved, it's all about commercial access rights and facilitating (lower cost?) access to content in the future for the companies involved.
 
Although true, it shouldn't serve as justification for overreaching legislation allowing for traffic inspection
I presume the information that can be captured is which public IPs you connected to, times, dates, how long for, possibly how much data downloaded? Not what content was accessed.
Then they would need some serious logging tool and storage to capture what everyone's accessing? Or do they start logging for certain IPs only?
 
.... and the TorrentFreak report has finally hit the front page of Ispreview.co.uk


Mods, if you're reading this (you obviously are ;)) please can you pursue this further as there are a number of important questions that the report raises, which you don't cover in the front page report either.
 
Sponsored Links
I'm a human with a family life at the weekend, not a robot, so Monday morning is catch-up for news.

In my coverage, I've focused on the bit that is most original and clearly defined, while much of the other stuff about blocking is already well covered territory. I'm conscious there are some suggestions in the article that more might be happening on the data sharing side, but I'd need to see more evidence before being able to confirm.
 
Do banks monitor customers who appear to perform questionable transactions ?
Yes they sure do and have for decades so as to prevent fraud / money laundering.

ISPs have also monitored customer activities for years too. Remember the warning letters & legal threats about sharing copyright audio / video content via torrents ?
 
Screenshot_20231007_122643.png


Post #9 was in relation to the thread starter topic which was TorrentFreak reporting that the 3 largest ISP's in the UK were apparently working more closely with rights holders to monitor and scan for *illegal* content.

And *BOOM* one month later there is a local (London so far) media blitz paid for by FACT the industry lobby group for the biggest right holders on the planet, and seemily executed by the police.

Because corporations are people right...

[Not a comment on fraud or money laundering or more general ISP monitoring activities, which I guess would be considered by most customers as being reasonable ]

*Home taping is killing music* was also launched by FACT over 35 years ago

plus ca change ...
 
Last edited:
Sponsored Links
Do banks monitor customers who appear to perform questionable transactions ?
Yes they sure do and have for decades so as to prevent fraud / money laundering.

ISPs have also monitored customer activities for years too. Remember the warning letters & legal threats about sharing copyright audio / video content via torrents ?
The threats over torrents weren't ISP monitoring they came from third parties. If ISPs started monitoring to that extent they'd end up being held liable for their customers' actions.
 
IPTV is interesting I do wonder under what legal device a simple viewer of football games on IPTV could be prosecuted

Torrents place material on the downloaders hard drive so at some point the downloader physically possess the material.

If the Football watcher simply watches the stream and does not record it then they never possesses the material.

As I understand it, to be guilty of theft you have to have the intention of permanently depriving the owner, that’s difficult if you never possess the material in the first place!
 
It's more complex with entertainment, I believe, in that the rights are associated with the act of broadcasting/listening/viewing something, not owning a copy of it.

This is why media companies have to pay the rights holder every time they broadcast something. Years ago we used to get a small income from a song that a relative had written and which had been re-recorded by a popular artist. Every time it was played on the radio, TV or whatever we got a very small royalty payment (of the order of a penny or two).

Anyone old enough to remember pirate radio (Radio Caroline etc) will probably remember that the legal action taken against them centred on two legal points. One was breaching the radio spectrum licensing regulations (which they largely got around by being outwith the 3 mile limit) the other was breaching the rights of the music companies and artists, by not paying royalties. The bigger pirate stations ended up paying royalties I believe, but only after they've been subject to legal action.

I believe that streaming video is probably covered by the same sort of performance rights, whereby the rights holder gets paid on the basis of the number of views.
 
The majority of the successful prosecutions have been against the IPTV provider where that provider had Copyrighted material on their servers and are they are streaming it.

Copyright infringement is much easier to prove if the person infringing the copyright has the material in their possession.
 
Both the use and distribution of illicit streaming devices (ISDs as the government calls them) are illegal. The fact they decide to chase the dealers and the sale of devices (like with drugs) does not mean you are not breaking the law. In fact the biggest treat for people using these devices is not law enforcement but hackers:

https://crimestoppers-uk.org/keeping-safe/online-safety/streaming-online-know-the-risks

And it's not just FUD from the copyright holders, it's a real threat: https://arstechnica.com/security/20...s-come-with-unkillable-backdoor-preinstalled/

The above article was posted today, so it's as fresh as it could be.
 
Sponsored Links
The majority of the successful prosecutions have been on the IPTV provider where that provider had Copyrighted material on their servers and are they are streaming it.

Copyright infringement is much easier to prove if the person infringing the copyright has the material in their possession.

It is, but that doesn't make the free distribution and viewing of material subject to performing rights legal. Bootlegging video and audio content has been a thing for decades and streaming video or audio without paying the rights holder is every bit as unlawful as physically stealing a copy.
 
It is, but that doesn't make the free distribution and viewing of material subject to performing rights legal. Bootlegging video and audio content has been a thing for decades and streaming video or audio without paying the rights holder is every bit as unlawful as physically stealing a copy.
I agree it doesn’t make the viewing of material subject copyright legal.

As I wrote in my previous post, being caught in possession of copyright material makes a successful prosecution much easier to prove, simply due to the legal definition of what constitutes the act of theft.
 
I doubt that it's hard to prove digital piracy, even without evidence in the form of an illegally downloaded file, TBH. Not at all difficult to tell where a stream is coming from, especially for anyone not using a VPN, and the only issue is proving which user may be the guilty party. It may be that joint enterprise could apply, and if it does that may possibly make a successful prosecution more likely.

What would be better would be if more people were aware that defrauding rights holders is both a fairly serious offence (up to £5,000 fine and/or up to 5 years imprisonment) and also antisocial, as everyone that doesn't pay effectively increases the costs for the honest folk that do pay.

I've never understood why defrauding rights holders seems to be viewed by many as not being a crime. Someone in the pub the other week was having a moan about Netflix clamping down on illegal account sharing, as if he had the legal right to view stuff for free.
 
I doubt that it's hard to prove digital piracy, even without evidence in the form of an illegally downloaded file, TBH. Not at all difficult to tell where a stream is coming from, especially for anyone not using a VPN, and the only issue is proving which user may be the guilty party. It may be that joint enterprise could apply, and if it does that may possibly make a successful prosecution more likely.

What would be better would be if more people were aware that defrauding rights holders is both a fairly serious offence (up to £5,000 fine and/or up to 5 years imprisonment) and also antisocial, as everyone that doesn't pay effectively increases the costs for the honest folk that do pay.

I've never understood why defrauding rights holders seems to be viewed by many as not being a crime. Someone in the pub the other week was having a moan about Netflix clamping down on illegal account sharing, as if he had the legal right to view stuff for

Below are the elements of theft that need to satisfied in order gain a successful prosecution of theft

The most difficult one to prove is the intention to permanently deprive. If you simply view a copyright file on line and don't possess it, for instance download it, it is extremely difficult to prove the intention to permanently deprive.

Much of the law does cope well with IT issues 😏
  • Appropriation;
  • Of property;
  • Belonging to another;
  • Dishonestly;
  • With intention to permanently deprive.
 
Top
Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Vodafone UK ISP Logo
Vodafone £24.00 - 26.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
NOW UK ISP Logo
NOW £24.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Plusnet UK ISP Logo
Plusnet £25.99
145Mbps
Gift: £50 Reward Card
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £17.00
200Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Hey! Broadband UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Youfibre UK ISP Logo
Youfibre £23.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Sponsored Links
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (6026)
  2. BT (3639)
  3. Politics (2721)
  4. Business (2439)
  5. Openreach (2405)
  6. Building Digital UK (2330)
  7. Mobile Broadband (2146)
  8. FTTC (2083)
  9. Statistics (1901)
  10. 4G (1816)
  11. Virgin Media (1764)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1582)
  13. Fibre Optic (1467)
  14. Wireless Internet (1462)
  15. 5G (1407)
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms  ,  Privacy and Cookie Policy  ,  Links  ,  Website Rules