>> I don't mind so much that I won't always get 8 Mbit/sec at home. 
>> Sometimes the network is busy. What I object to is the ISP 
>> deliberately blocking certain types of traffic because they don't want 
>> me to use it.
> 
> Well that's just because they'd rather give the bandwidth to 100 people 
> surfing the bbc site than 1 person downloading illegal stuff from 
> bittorrent. (not saying that what you are doing is illegal, but i 
> suspect the majority of bittorrent traffic is illegal)

That's just it, isn't it? Because a technology *can* be used for 
something illegal, why not punnish *everybody* who uses that technology?

By a similar argument, the CD recorder I bought will only record on 
specially-marked CDs. These CDs cost 10x as much as normal ones "to 
subsidise the music industry against piracy". In other words, if you're 
buying blank CDs and putting them in a music CD recorder, it *must* be 
because you're trying to illegally copy music. Not because, say, you 
happen to be a musician and you want to record your performances. :-P

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>> Well that's just because they'd rather give the bandwidth to 100 people 
>> surfing the bbc site than 1 person downloading illegal stuff from 
>> bittorrent. (not saying that what you are doing is illegal, but i suspect 
>> the majority of bittorrent traffic is illegal)
>
> That's just it, isn't it? Because a technology *can* be used for something 
> illegal, why not punnish *everybody* who uses that technology?

It's not just illegal content, it's anything that threatens to use up "too 
much" bandwidth:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7336940.stm

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scott wrote:

> It's not just illegal content, it's anything that threatens to use up 
> "too much" bandwidth:
> 
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7336940.stm

I think one quote sums it up nicely:

"They have priced themselves as cheaply as possible on the assumption 
that people were just going to use e-mail and do a bit of web surfing. 
ISPs needed to stop using the term 'unlimited' to describe their 
services and make it clear that if people wanted to watch hours of 
downloaded video content they would have to pay a higher tariff."

Basically, they sold way more network capacity than they really have, on 
the assumption that most people would only use a fraction of what they 
paid for. Which used to work. But now people like me are trying to 
actually use *all* of the bandwidth they paid for - which doesn't suit 
the ISPs.

Reading about these new-fangled schemes which are supposed to give you 
"up to" 100 Mbit/sec Internet access (once the cables are laid), I'm 
wondering how that is going to affect the picture... Surely a really 
fast link to the Internet is going to drastically worsen the problem.

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On Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:18:19 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> This could mean one of several things: - A very large coincidence. -
> Large numbers of people disconnect from the swarm exactly on the hour. -

Maybe not disconnect, but for those using Azureus there is a plugin for 
scheduling bandwidth usage and often it's used on the hour to change 
bandwidth allocations.

Jim

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Invisible wrote:
> That's just it, isn't it? Because a technology *can* be used for
> something illegal, why not punnish *everybody* who uses that technology?

	They're not punishing anybody. They couldn't care less who is breaking
the law. They want to keep their costs down, and Bittorrent (legal or
otherwise) will put a strain on their infrastructure. However, it's
convenient for them to frame it in a legal sense, so that people don't
argue.

> By a similar argument, the CD recorder I bought will only record on
> specially-marked CDs. These CDs cost 10x as much as normal ones "to
> subsidise the music industry against piracy". In other words, if you're
> buying blank CDs and putting them in a music CD recorder, it *must* be
> because you're trying to illegally copy music. Not because, say, you
> happen to be a musician and you want to record your performances. :-P

	That's likely a result of a lobby - it's not exactly analogous to the
ISP situation. While it may be possible they restrict bittorrent to
avoid legal problems, I suspect it has more to do with lowering costs.

-- 
"I owe, I owe, so it's off to work I go!" - Bumper Sticker


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Invisible wrote:
> "They have priced themselves as cheaply as possible on the assumption
> that people were just going to use e-mail and do a bit of web surfing.
> ISPs needed to stop using the term 'unlimited' to describe their
> services and make it clear that if people wanted to watch hours of
> downloaded video content they would have to pay a higher tariff."

	All the ISP's I've signed up for had explicitly stated the limitations
of their service.


-- 
"I owe, I owe, so it's off to work I go!" - Bumper Sticker


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> In other words, if you're 
> buying blank CDs and putting them in a music CD recorder, it *must* be 
> because you're trying to illegally copy music. Not because, say, you 
> happen to be a musician and you want to record your performances. :-P

  You just more or less described the situation in Finland.

  Finland doesn't have only one, but *two* versions of "RIAA", independent
of each other, each one extorting money from the same things several times.

  "Fortunately" only one of them is allowed to extort money from recordable
media, including casettes and CD-R's.

  (And these two organizations are not the only ones who will screw you
for even the slightest copyright infringement here. They just are the two
which are allowed by the government to extort money from people. However,
if you ever get sued for copyright infringement, you might end up having
to defend yourself against three or four different organizations. Besides
the original author, of course, assuming the author still has any rights
to his own works, which usually is not the case.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Mueen Nawaz wrote:

> 	They're not punishing anybody. They couldn't care less who is breaking
> the law. They want to keep their costs down, and Bittorrent (legal or
> otherwise) will put a strain on their infrastructure. However, it's
> convenient for them to frame it in a legal sense, so that people don't
> argue.

That would seem the case, yes. Much easier to say "only criminals use 
this" than to admit that they don't like losing their cushy profit margin.

I love how some of the articles I've read make it sound like 
"downloading" is illegal. Um, and the service that ISPs exist to provide 
is...? ...the ability to download stuff. :-P

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You know, this problem actually goes away with metered internet usage.

When you're paying by the GB instead of a monthly flat rate, suddenly 
the ISPs have every incentive in the world to give you as much bandwidth 
as possible (and then to get you to use it!).

-- 
...Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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Chambers wrote:
> You know, this problem actually goes away with metered internet usage.
> 
> When you're paying by the GB instead of a monthly flat rate, suddenly 
> the ISPs have every incentive in the world to give you as much bandwidth 
> as possible (and then to get you to use it!).

Hmm. It has a flavour...

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