Eircom will take efforts to appease the music industry one step further.
It’s been two days now that Irish ISP Eircom formally bowed to the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) and began blocking customer access to Swedish BitTorrent tracker site The Pirate Bay.
The move is a result of a settlement reached between it and the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) who accused the ISP in court of not doing enough to combat copyright infringement by its subscribers.
The agreement calls for a “three-strikes” policy for repeat file-sharers as well as for it to not contest any request by the IRMA to block any site it claims is engaging in copyright infringement of its works.
It now seems that it’s taking this “partnership” one step further with plans to develop a new digital music service that it expects to launch sometime in the “next few months.”
“Eircom has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the four major labels to develop an innovative new music service for all Irish consumers,” it says in a press release. “This new music service is expected to launch in the next few months.”
It certainly has big shoes to fill if it expects to compete with the likes of Apples iTunes, for I don’t think it’ll be as “innovative” as it claims being that the IRMA surely has a heavy hand in its development.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
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Precisely why ISP should not be allowed to also be content providers. They are now in a conflict of interest with all other online music sellers and sources. Consumers can no longer trust the sites they block, and we now have a very scary scenario where ISP’s start to block all their competition.
Exactly.
Whats to stop ISPs from blocking competitors? It is their network after all.
The Internet should be served up free and unfettered with blocking or filtering restricted to only the most egregious of crimes like that of violence or child-pornography.
The internet should either be lawless, or lawful. To decide, as Soul does, his selective law enforcement according to his personal values is as unjust as it is impossible to enforce. The network, inevitably, will reflect the same degree of legal accountability as IRL, and global treaties like the ACTA are only the beginning.
Global is unprecedented. These things will take time. But I agree that an ISP should not be permitted to throttle or block legal content or legal behavior simply based upon competition.
Who said anything about lawlessness or selective enforcement?
The two states only exist because we have yet to update copyright laws to better align with the realities of a digital world.
We need to move forward with the following copyright reforms:
1. All non-commercial copying and use should be legalized. File sharing and p2p networking should be encouraged rather than criminalized (Spanish courts have already ruled noncommercial P2P is legal). Culture and knowledge are good things, that increase in value the more they are shared. The Internet could become the greatest public library ever created.
2. The monopoly for the copyright holder to exploit an aesthetic work commercially should be limited to five years after publication.
3. Complete ban on DRM technologies.
http://www.piratpartiet.se/international/english
Music has become free, and technology will always stay ahead of the law. Always has and always will.
Poor Sam I Am, soon to have no green eggs to go with his ham
@3. I think a complete ban on DRM is a bit harsh. Perhaps a complete ban on DRM when used to “prevent copyright infringement”, but there are legitimate uses for DRM besides preventing piracy.
Sorry, I meant “because”. Man, comments should really be editable here.
“Five years after publication”? 60 months?
LOL Some works TAKE 10 or more years just to create and 30 or more just to return on their investment. You’d dismantle all creation that can’t be recouped in a mere 60 months?!?
Poor Soul, he may be living in his own little world…..but at least they talk to him there.
“LOL Some works TAKE 10 or more years just to create …”
The keyword here is ’some’. The only thing that would practically take 10 years would be a novel written by a slow author; anything else is impractical as a means of creativity or entertainment.
“… and 30 or more just to return on their investment.”
Unless you give a single example, this is just another hyperbole of yours.
“You’d dismantle all creation that can’t be recouped in a mere 60 months?!?”
Well if you can’t sell something in five years to earn something, then you either have made something not worth making or you are just a slow vendor.
“Poor Soul, he may be living in his own little world…..but at least they talk to him there.”
Ad hominem does not work here. Give some substance or don’t bother.
“LOL Some works TAKE 10 or more years just to create and 30 or more just to return on their investment. ”
Uh, last I checked, you don’t make a copyright of a song you haven’t made yet. Usually, sometime after it’s completed, the copyright is made on the song.
“Poor Soul, he may be living in his own little world”
Yeah, Earth is some bizarre place hardly anyone has heard of. Where you live is so much… wait, where did you say you live again?
Those works that take 10 or more years to create generally don’t catch on in the file-sharing community.
The ones that take 30 years to return on investment don’t do so because of piracy.
That being said, I’d say make it 10 years, not five.
For the “slow author novels”, have the copyright extended to the death of the author, but no longer than that. I mean, really, what’s the point, the author’s not going to benefit from copyright if (s)he’s dead.
What on earth are u talking about? What could possibly take that long to create and who the hell would want it afterwards?
30 years to return their investment? Again, Im not sure what you’re talking about, but its certainly not music.
“The internet should either be lawless, or lawful.”
National laws cannot govern the Internet due to their nonalignment with the Internet, so it cannot be either lawless or lawful in this sense.
“To decide, as Soul does, his selective law enforcement according to his personal values is as unjust as it is impossible to enforce.”
soulxtc is regarding the extension of violent criminal activity to the Internet; not his personal values.
“The network, inevitably, will reflect the same degree of legal accountability as IRL, …”
Logically impossible.
“… and global treaties like the ACTA are only the beginning.”
You plainly state that as if everyone would just accept it.
“Global is unprecedented.”
What the hell is that suppose to mean?
“These things will take time.”
Obvious padding.
“But I agree that an ISP should not be permitted to throttle or block legal content or legal behavior simply based upon competition.”
Since this does not belong anywhere in your post, your use of the conjucation just proves that this is just a mere masking statement, although they are usually placed at the beginning of the writing for them to work at all.
That’s like saying a country like the USA should be either lawless or lawful. It’s impractical to enforce.