Feb 23
Eircom Block Customers from Accessing Pirate Websites
The Business Post reported on how mobile giant Eircom plan on blocking file sharing/P2P (peer-to-peer)/music pirating websites in an attempt to put a stop to music piracy.
The news was greeted by bloggers and folk alike with generally the same reaction: they were unhappy that their internet usage was being policed in such a fashion.
Music giants are complaining that billions are being lost every year because of pirating music. I don’t doubt that. But the truth is that the world is changing. Remember my Moore post a few months back? He was complaining that the new Bond flicks were edging slowly away from the early formula.
This is true, Casino Royale was miles away from Thunderball, released 30 years previously. What I said about the change is true to music piracy.
Bond needs to adapt to today’s audience
So does music.
Music is now available in ways that weren’t even a twinkle in the postman’s eye 30 years ago. There was no YouTube-ing songs to see if I liked them, there was no leaving something on overnight to finish downloading.
Basically, to own a song, you had to buy it. Whereas now, everyone and their mothers can get Human by The Killers just by opening LimeWire.
Music giants are trying in vain to cling to this old thing of forcing people not to torrent, but it’s as if we have a dam that’s 100 miles across, with a million tiny holes with water seeping through, and one guy (record people) trying to halt the flow. It’s physically impossible.
I remember when the smoking ban in public places came into effect. I asked my dad. “Wait, if they’re willing to ban it in public places, and it’s so bad for you, why not just ban it outright?”
It’s because crime rates would soar. People would smuggle them in and find alternative methods of getting smokes to the people.
It’s the same with music.
OK. Imagine a different dam. This one is smaller, and we have the same one guy. He is now armed with a roll of sticky tape. One leak appears. He tapes it up. 2 more spring out. He manages to tape them up but 4 more appear. Every time he tapes a hole up 2 burst in their place.
Again, same with music. Every time record people block one method, people will find 2 more of bypassing the rule.
I’m not sure where I stand on music piracy, but I do believe that banning it isn’t the way to go about it. I’m not sure whether I support the plugging of holes in dams or sticky-tape-guy just standing back and saying “ah feckit”.
Maybe I would think differently if I was U2 and it was my money being lost. Then again, U2 are billionaires already, right?
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Very true tommy!
We’re going back to the older days, days you might not have seen but believe me you havent LIVED until you hovered over your ghetto blaster priming your fingers over the REC and PLAY button (why was it SO hard to press them both at the same time?). Or your only source of annoyance was that the DJ as he talked over the intro or ending of Mark McCabes Maniac, thus ruining your new mix tape.
It will be interesting to see the fall out from this. Technology certainly has a way of stayin well ahead of the obstacles that are laid by the likes of Eircom et al.
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:44 pm
[...] SBP – Music-swapping sites to be blocked by internet providers Damien Mulley – The business case for freedom of speech Trust Tommy – Eircom Block Customers from Accessing Pirate Websites [...]
February 24th, 2009 at 12:25 am
Thing is though, unless the artist is independent or unsigned, they don’t actually get that much money from record sales. Everyone who worked on the album gets paid then they get a pittance. The artists as a general rule, if they’re gigging, would prefer their music to be pirated because of the larger audience it’ll generate when they go on tour. Where they make the killing:)
August 31st, 2009 at 12:42 pm
i do believe eircom are wasting there time and i think there IT staff know this to, there just saying ye ye ye ye ye ye to the music business IRMA to get them off there back, because all a person needs to do is change the dns servers there computer connects to. for win XP – goto control panel goto network connections and click the connection you use for the internet. right click it and goto properties once there you will see internet protocal-TCP/IP click on it once then below it click properties and change the dns server- – if you have one to connect to if you dont register an account on opendns.com and use there dns servers i think they are – 208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220 you can also use open dns to protect your family from nasty sites. getting back to downloading music there are so many different ways to download music they would need to close the whole internet to stop it – WHY – some ISP have software that will block file transfers if it looks like it is illegal if it is or not thats a different matter however there is another solution to this a person can change the type of file it is to make it look like textor some form of code and transfer it that way then once on the other end it can be reverted to its original format .mpg .avi .rm .rmvb whatever ?(knowledge is required here as its not as simple as reverting to .txt it would have to be done correctly) so to stop this the ISP would have to block the internet as a whole, so irma why dont you see the government and ask them to do what they have done in canada (umm there banks and music business works LMAO)they add a music tax to blank media such as CDs & DVDs give it diecrtly to the artist (hehe). or so the story goes. HOWEVER people downloading files, do you know that different file types can be attached together and made look like the one your after only to be something else and bang goes you computer – think about it ? there is another point IRMA, advertise about security maybe thats the road you should have went down. because like opening a smokers body in an operation would you smoke again or at least want to smoke ? are IRMA in the stone age or the guys running IRMA are completly out of touch with the real world – so people dont worry about eircom blocking websites there is an easy solution :-). signing off – sirwallis
September 9th, 2009 at 12:23 am
seems the above data was incorrect HOWEVER i have another solution click on my website you can view the piratebay from it no problem hehe and download torrent files from the piratebay check it http://webmystore.com and you will see the button for the piratebay