Downloading questions

[r94yan]

I have heard that virgin can monitor what ure downloading and can find out if you are downloading using illegal p2p and then they send a letter of warning
saying we will disconnect you
just wanna know if there is any truth in this

[Ignitionnet]

Simple answer no.

[Lord Nikon]

Simple Answer - sort of.

They could monitor traffic on certain ports, or flag certain types of packet as noteworthy, but on the whole it's too much trouble unless the RIAA / BPI etc ask them to for reasons of copyright breach. There have been cases where people have received letters.

[martyh]

I have heard that virgin can monitor what ure downloading and can find out if you are downloading using illegal p2p and then they send a letter of warning
saying we will disconnect you
just wanna know if there is any truth in this


the first thing you need to understand is that using p2p is not illegal ,it's the content of the download that can be illegal if it is copyrighted .As far as virgin monitoring it ,i don't know for sure ,there are rumours that they will be in the future as with other providers ,but again they will have to monitor the content of the download to determine if it is legal or not which is another grey area

[Lord Nikon]

the first thing you need to understand is that using p2p is not illegal ,it's the content of the download that can be illegal if it is copyrighted .As far as virgin monitoring it ,i don't know for sure ,there are rumours that they will be in the future as with other providers ,but again they will have to monitor the content of the download to determine if it is legal or not which is another grey area

And if they monitor the content of the packets then they lose 'common carrier' status.

To explain this, 'common carrier' is the status which prevents the royal mail from being responsible for anything illegal sent through the post. The moment you become aware of the contents you cannot claim to be merely offering a service to transfer something point to point.

[martyh]

And if they monitor the content of the packets then they lose 'common carrier' status.

To explain this, 'common carrier' is the status which prevents the royal mail from being responsible for anything illegal sent through the post. The moment you become aware of the contents you cannot claim to be merely offering a service to transfer something point to point.

interesting point i had not concidered ,i was more concerened with the legality of monitoring packets being downloaded re privacy laws and such

[r94yan]

Thank you for the quick replies

[Mr Angry]

Section 99 of the Postal Services Act 2000 deems Royal Mail to be a "universal carrier" not a "common carrier".

[Lord Nikon]

Incorrect term I used then but the same principle.

[Spectato]

It's the 'uploading' (or 'sharing' - of copyrighted material) that's illegal, not the downloading! ;)
You've got more chance of being hit by a steam train than getting anything through the mail from Virgin Media, that isn't advertising or a bill.
Of course, that may change in the future....?

[Ignitionnet]

Simple Answer - sort of.

They could monitor traffic on certain ports, or flag certain types of packet as noteworthy, but on the whole it's too much trouble unless the RIAA / BPI etc ask them to for reasons of copyright breach. There have been cases where people have received letters.

No, the simple answer is very simply no. If Virgin were to monitor customer traffic and take action on customers based on the contents of that traffic that would be illegal.

Virgin 'flagging' certain types of packet as noteworthy is not related to anything to do with sending letters to people, they would only do this for network management purposes with the exception of CView. Virgin are perfectly allowed to collect statistics on customer usage by protocol, IE they can tell if Lord Nikon downloaded 100GB via newsgroups but are not permitted to check into what Lord Nikon downloaded from the newsgroups.

CView is only a grey area because it removes personally identifiable information and aggregates together statistics, without those actions such monitoring is without doubt illegal both under UK and European law.

The instances where letters have been received is not due to Virgin's monitoring but third parties monitoring traffic by connecting to a Bittorrent swarm and downloading the content from a customer, they are then able to get a court order for that customer's details.

So simple answer:

I have heard that virgin can monitor what ure downloading and can find out if you are downloading using illegal p2p and then they send a letter of warning saying we will disconnect you

No.

Complex answer:

I have heard that virgin can monitor what ure downloading

They can 'probably' monitor what 'people' are downloading, but not what a specific customer is downloading.

and can find out if you are downloading using illegal p2p

Use of P2P is not illegal it's what is downloaded that's illegal. They can not monitor if a particular customer is downloading infringing files without a warrant just that 'customers' downloaded infringing files, they are not permitted to identify an individual customer by the contents of their data streams.

and then they send a letter of warning saying we will disconnect you

These letters come from third parties. There was a brief period when Virgin forwarded letters on behalf of the BPI but again these letters weren't initiated by Virgin Media.

For further information PECR (http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2003/20032426.htm), RIPA (http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/ukpga_20000023_en_1) and the Data Protection Act (http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/data_protection.aspx) deal.

This may change in the future due to the provisions within the Digital Economy Bill (http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2009-10/digitaleconomy.html).

[pip08456]

If I recall correctly VM have sent out warning letters to customers who they deem to be using "excessive amounts" of bandwidth in the STM period.

This is a breach of the "Fair usage Policy" and has nothing to do with what or where you are downloading from.

In the letter they request that you download at times outside of the STM period.

[Ignitionnet]

The Detrimental Usage Policy is nothing to do with what customers are downloading so not relevant to the OP's question about if VM will write to him after he downloads his warez/moviez.