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Canadian ISPs won't block content: expert

MATT HARTLEY

Globe and Mail Update

Latest comment posted at 10:33 AM EDT 27/01/08

International body calls on service providers to block flow of copyright content but ISPs in this country won't become gatekeepers, says analyst ...Read the full article

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  1. Eric Hunter from Canada writes: Heard it all before, they "lost" billions... because every one of those people would have bought every one of those songs they downloaded. The RIAA is an antique. Time to let them die.
  2. kinda interested from Toronto, Canada writes: Not to mention they always cry about those "estimated" losses and fail to mention the huge increases in on-line sales.

    The industry is shifting: They want all of the new medium without losing any of the old one. It's stupid because basically it's the same consumer base.

    It's just unreasonable greed and I wish them all the failure they can bring on themselves if they keep attacking their own customers.
  3. Normand LaBine from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada writes: So what limits radio copying? Public transmissions, some just run CD servers to broadcast like CBS's GrooveFM system. Or the CoolFM network. Start with music, then every other PDF file on the Web and Free Textbook download project - Project Gutenburg would need to be policed? The industry (Recording and Distribution) should get their act together. Why should Bell and Roger's have to shape service speeds to appease them. I'd like to charge the Call Center advertisers who bug me at home. It's my phone, and they use it to flog some Cable, DSL or Cell or Card or whatever, and don't pay me a dime for using my equipment!

    How far do we go with this?
  4. J S from Canada writes: It's like asking the Post Office to censor your mail. The ISP's are right!
  5. Kan Tankerous from Tronna, Canada writes: We are very lucky to have people like Michael Geist in this country.
  6. Mark Shore from Ottawa, Canada writes: Nobody at the policy-shaping levels of government gives a damn about the RIAA's inflated claims, outside of a few US politicians scrounging lobby cash.

    But it's very easy to picture a confluence of interests between governments badly wanting to control and limit their citizens' access to information, and vertically-integrated ISP content providers wanting to lock down their customers. All justified of course on the sacred concept of private intellectual "property", the proceeds of which in the case of many record and media companies flows overwhelmingly to the corporations and hardly at all to the artists.
  7. brian bishop from Brantford, Canada writes: I've one upped Bell Sympatico & their traffic shaping.

    Whenever I'm using BT I first find a Linux distro or two to download via HTTP, something from a far away server like Australia. I begin my Linux download & once it's going at a good clip 150Kbs to 300Kbs I then start a download via BT.

    My BT download still gets limited to 30Kbs but I'm now using closer to my full download speeds with the HTTP Linux download going at the same time, just as promised by Sympatico. When the Linux download is complete I just delete the file & download another until I'm finished using BT.

    If more people adopt the same practice you'd see traffic shaping end in a big hurry!

    After all no proof has ever been presented to show BT users are causing any ISP bandwidth issues, it's a made up story by ISP's to justify limiting people from utilizing their Internet connection to it's full potential. They want to convert over to being content providers & to do so they need their customers to be good little web surfers, which doesn't involve consuming much bandwidth. By doing so they don't have to upgrade their own networks to handle both BT traffic & their own content.
  8. Luke P from Vancouver, Canada writes: If ISP's do go ahead and block uses the "suspect" of illegal downloading, it seems inevitable they'll block someone who was not doing anything illegal. It isn't impossible that they then open themselves to some sort of constitutional challenge (should the government legislate) or civil suit, at which point the courts will have to come down on this issue.

    Basically, this will go down just like virtually every other issue remotely related to constitutional rights.
  9. R. Wallace Hale from Canada writes: I may have just shed a tear for the music industry....... nope, it was candle smoke in my eye.
  10. George BrownIII from Christmas Island writes: Canadians will also pay a fair amount for royalties etc. However when they feel they are being ripped ..............................off ................ ......................... .................... ...................................
  11. Richard Daystrom from Toronto, Canada writes: brian, any links as where I can find out more about how you do your downloads? First my high speed contract at Bell expires at $34.95/month and they don't tell me of course and since they don't offer that package anymore, unlimited download HS costs an obscene $47.95/month which means I'm now looking at other ISPs in the GTA.
  12. John Breslin from Nanaimo, Canada writes: Revenue is down, but what about profits?

    When I purchase a CD there are costs to make the CD, make the case, make the case liner. There are costs to ship that and to stock the shelves. There are then costs associated with any returns. More that 10% of the price is eaten up by this - and price certainly converts to revenue.

    When I buy an mp3 from iTunes or Amazon none of those costs exist.

    They could easily have revenue drop and profit increase due to circumstances like this.
  13. Alyssa Watson from Canada writes: Then how about taking off the tax we pay for blank cd's?
  14. Erol Asim from London, United Kingdom writes: This is obscene. When it comes to money - they want ISP's to block swapping music, but I must ask, if the authorities in the US consider this, then why haven't they blocked child pornography? Shouldn't this be at the top of the list of things to block??? instead of music??? what's more important??? making sure the music industry executive back pocket stays filled? or the welfare of innocent children? Maybe this has been discussed, but as far as I know, child pornography is not blocked, but there's only discussions of blocking swapping music.
  15. Robert Boyd from Windsor, Canada writes: The Industry can rent the Politicians long enough to pass any law they fancy - but laws passed against human nature are as transient as the gas passed from my ar$e.
  16. Sam Snead from Canada writes: Content filtering is pretty serious stuff. Unfortunately, most people are unaware of the ramifications, simply because they didn't bother to look into it further. The industries pushing this charge are relying on these people to achieve their own goals. If nothing else, remember that the efforts to put in content filtering would only serve benefit to a very small portion of the economy at everyone else's determinant AND it won't solve revenue problems for these industries, in the end, anyway.

    France is floating a proposal to ban people from the net if caught pirating. This is absurd ... the net plays a pretty important role in society now and it will only increase ... denying rights to use the net would never stand in a reasonable court for these type of actions.

    Music/movies industry has built very large effective distribution channels with great coverage, which also adds costs to the end user. The internet is a better, faster, cheaper distribution channel which pretty much negates the value of existing channels ... it's tough but that's the way it is.

    Next time you hear these industries complaining ...think about how much energy and carbon output is required to maintain their distribution channels. Now consider how easy it would be to convert their distributions channels to completely digital. These industries are the most able to convert and there are several levels of implementations that would work.

    Lastly, it is just movies and music. I'm pretty sure we can all survive without movies and I'm pretty sure human kind would not abandon music simply because these industries no longer exist.
  17. Sitting in da Auberge from Canada writes: the mpaa / riaa are the inventors of their own crisis. i was a regular downloader of music until itunes finally offered an accessible choice. since then, i've been waiting for movie and television rentals in a format that fits my needs. alas, even with apple's urging they can't get their act together and let me pay money to get what i want when i want it. so tv shows and movies continue to occupy my bit torrent downloads. i have the money to spend..you think they'd find a way to capitalize on it..but no.
  18. Mark _ from Canada writes: All they do is lie about downloading and their revenues:

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080122/apenot/collegestudentsdownloading1;ylt=Ao2lKk724.nwSGIwMIpD8rIE1vAI

    They're just trying to show shareholders that they're doing something. The industry is stagnant, they don't know how to cope with new technologies and they're still trying to do business like it was the 1980's. Since they lack the ability to increase their own revenue they're shifting the blame to a scape goat. Thats way executives always do - take credit for success and blame others for failure.
  19. John Przybytek from Ottawa, writes: ISP 's acting as cop? You had better be worried!
    Fair use is under attack by the leaches that don't give a damn about the consumer OR the creator! Too bad the government is losing its perspective on why society created copyright in the first place. The leaches need to reinvent themselves to play a useful role in society -- they should not be surprised that their already inflated role has diminished.
  20. pants 7 from Japan writes: Somebody in Canada is "shaping" my Skype calls!
    Get with it Canada. If I can have a $35/ month fiber line so can you.
    As long as phone companies and cable companies have monopolies consumers will get crap service. You should be out marching in the streets demanding the monopolies either provide real broadband or are broken up. What you consider a high speed internet connection in Canada is a joke!
    The kids in Japan don't download music, they use the analogue hole to record it from streaming sites.
  21. Gordon Murray from Canada writes: Selective blocking would go against net neutrality, download speeds, paying extra (~royalties) for blank CDs and DVDs and suggest that Canadians are no more responsible than Americans.
  22. me from somewhere from today in Atlanta, Canada writes: Pathetic cry babies. They created this whole mess by not buying in to online sales right from the beginning. They fought and fought to keep their cd sales going and thus an underground trading network was born. If they would have started selling single songs 10 years ago this would be a very minor issue to them. It's too late for you guys, and I have zero sympathy because of your EXTREME greed. Download away!
  23. Hans S from Toronto, Canada writes: Message to the majors: you are irrelevant and will spiral down into further irrelevancy.
  24. Kirok, James T. from Canada writes: Richard Daystrom,

    Try www.teksavvy.com/ . 5M/800k DSL, 200G monthly bandwith limit, no traffic shaping, $29.95/mo, no long-term service contract.
  25. Jeff Pritchard from Canada writes: pants7 makes a good point - we should be demanding faster and more affordable service from our ISPs. As it stands many of them have de facto monopolies in certain areas of the country.

    Content filtering is - essentially - thought-control. It's great news for freedom of information that this fact is being recognized here. Canada is leading the way, and if the trends continues, will become a mecca of free information exchange in comparison to the rest of the world, with untold benefits for education and quality of life.
  26. me metoo from Ottawa, Canada writes: I am tired of the government giving into the recording industry. If they can't make a viable business then let them die out, someone will find away to make a business out of entertainment. The government shouldn't be taxing blank media to benefit the recording industry. Next they will want to tax my brain because I remember (store) music, videos or lyrics in there or charge me for singing or humming a song. They want to control it all but they don't realize that they can't do that in a free and democratic country. They are losing revenues because they are making more enemies than customers. The industry believes that their customers owe them something, we don't. They need to change with the times or dissolve in time.
  27. Steve Tatone from Ottawa, Canada writes: Keep the levy. With it comes our right as consumers to a broad interpretation of fair use. As far as letting ISP regulate for copyright materials, that's like making Maxell police the mixed tape community. It would be a large, expensive, intensely damaging and intrusive mockery.
    Stop shaping my daytime P2P. That's like making me use my barbecue for dinner and not lunch because most people like to barbecue at dinner time. Raise the levy and tell those blood sucking companies to help themselves and get the hell off our case.
  28. Brendon E from Canada writes: How about this. We all turn ourselves into the authorities for "past crimes committed". Imagine a nation of people walking into police stations and courthouses with boxes of mixed cassette tapes and old betamax tapes of tv shows demanding to be charged to "the full extent of the law".

    Laughable indeed. Out with the old model, in with the new.
  29. Brendon E from Canada writes: As a side note, at least someone is trying to initiate a new model for legitimate free movie/tv downloads and distribution. Check the beta site.

    http://www.cinestream.ca
  30. Mike Potter from Hamilton, Canada writes: Canada' ISP are rotten to the core. They overcharge , they under perform, their ads about speed are nothing more than boldfaced lies and all they really care about is separating you from your last penny. To top it off their idea behind customer service is to build a wall between them selves and their customers. The only good news is that technology is very close to making them totally redundant. bye-bye rogers,bell and the rest of the pirates
  31. S Li from Canada writes: If the ISPs agree to block certain types of traffic, then we folks paying $45 per month for HS Internet services obviously should ask for a refund on the portion of bandwidth wasted by the automatic downloading of numerous unwanted ads loaded onto our browsers without our express consent.
  32. John McKean from Toronto, Canada writes: Too right Sam Snead in Canada!

    The Internet has killed the old entertainment business model but they want to coerce/legislate it back to life. On-Demand video and audio are coming soon and will restore their revenue without polluting the planet with all their (incredibly difficult to open) packaging.

    What scares me is that 70% of Globe voters thought it's okay for ISPs to monitor traffic. There is no good reason to ever monitor communications without a legal, criminal warrant.
  33. Robert Lindsay from Canada writes: I cannot see how they can develop software that differentiates an MP3 (or other file type) that contains copyrighted material from one that does not, especially file formats that use a lossy compression algorythm and allow different bit rates. Just because the metadata and file name alludes to material that is copyrighted does not mean the file itself is. It could be a recording of a friends or your own comments regarding that work that has been placed in the public domain or a recording which the copyright holder is encouraging be freely distributed. I don't think that the screening process lends itself to automation without substantial investment in hardware and software engineering on the part of the ISPs.
  34. Richard Daystrom from Toronto, Canada writes: Live long and prosper James T Kirok. May your anti-meteorite deflector beam generator always be in working order. I'm going to check out teksavvy. Thx!
  35. Rob C from Not from that overtaxed place called Toronto, Canada writes: Erol Asim from London, United Kingdom ....

    Excellent point regarding Child pornography. I agree!
    (This does open the question of age limits though- since some countries have a lower age limit regarding such content. What is illegal in NA might not be in some European countries.)

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