Any Internet Lawyers Out There?

I know a while back the music industry won in court to have ISPs monitor ALL traffic to recognize the transfer of MP3s. I also know that the major ISPs appealed this decision, because it would slow down all traffic across the net. So my question is, have they instituted this yet?

Iask for 2 reasons. (Istopped DLing music anyway). 1) An article in Time a few months back said that the Movie industry was actually losing more money than the music industry due to sharing. 2)I have a cable modem and the last few months my average DL went from 30 Kbps to 2 kbps. This speed does not change whether I DL 1 or 50 files simultaneously. I always check bandwidth before I DL something, and try to never connect to anyone with less than 600 Bandwidth.

Is everyone with broadband scared? Is it because I upgraded to KLite 2.1 and K++ 2.0.4? Help I would rather DL one file quickly than 50 and wait a week for them.

The Law is different in different Countries; so unless you say which countries Laws your refering to, then there isnt much advice that can be given.

There are lots of threads concerning the legality of filesharing in USA and Europe; I suggest you search the Forum for them.

As a general rule of thumb;

1/ Downloading in Europe is generaly legal, whilst uploading copyrighted material is illegal.

2/ European privacy Laws are better than the USA, so that 'monitoring' your Internet Activity (depending upon which European Country) cannot happen without a Court Order. (This may change in the near future :( )

Did not know how Specific to be.

USA

Also does the type of ISP matter? Lets just say fer instance... uh... COX?

Quote:

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Originally posted by nueromancer@15 May 2003 - 16:28
I know a while back the music industry won in court to have ISPs monitor ALL traffic to recognize the transfer of MP3s.

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Not only is this highly illegal in the US, its also wrong info. It is an invasion of privacy and a violation of your first ammendment rights to monitor your online activity without first providing probable cause, and then getting a "full content" search warrant from the proper authorities.

Not to mention that there isn't an ISP in the country with the resources to monitor every download of every one of their customers, 24/7.

If you are referring to the case against Verizon, that is still pending in the appeal process. Only time will tell. :huh:

Thanks for the input

Don't worry about it brother. I am using Cox broadband and have contacted them about monitoring. I was informed that they don't monitor users and have no plans to. I was told they "respect my privacy" to much. (believe that with a grain of salt)
And, as Jibbler stated, it's illegal to do so without a court order.

Frankly, with the economy they way it is, most ISPs don't have the resources to monitor their users that intensely.

If you must know Cox does not give a shit about much more than you money, though they do have a common lets say 3 strikes policy. If they get notification from the "biz" about you, you will be asked to remove the file from where it can be accessed, your shared folder, if you do not and they recieve a complaint regarding the same file, first off your an idiot, and second you are subject to disconnet. In addition if you get struck by lightning lets say 3 times (would be hard), you may also be subject to disconnect.

Regarding ISP's, it seems I feel sorry for those under Comcast as they seem to be taking sides rapidly sending many letters and shutting some down. As for Verizon they have taken the side of privacy because it makes sense and they know if ISP's give in they will loose many customers and have millions of supenos at their door, since the intention is to define the DCMA as to make it so those with copyright issues will not need a court order causing more stress on ISP's, not to mention the only reason many of us have broadband is for p2p and they know it.

Regarding monitoring by ISP's, I can only tell you what was said to me by someone working at an ISP, "it would cost millions, and were not going to do it".

Make sure you use Peer Gaurdian and any measures you can to avoid lightning as rare as it may be, and I do not belive anyone is coming to your door soon.