Will I Recieve A Warning Letter From My Internet Provider?

Question

A number of UK Internet providers, such as BT and Virgin Media, have begun to send warning letters to their customers.

I am with the Internet provider, One Tel. As far as I know One Tel is not sending out warning letters to their customers.

However… One Tel has recently been taken over by the Internet provider, Carphone Warehouse. Now Carphone Warehouse does send out warning letters to their customers, if they file sharers.

My question is, “Will I receive a warning letter if I file share?”

Please Help!

Answer 1

it depends on the file that you are sharing.. if you are doing something that is a threat to the system such as sharing a virus mail or stuff. .you will definitely receive... dont do illegal stuff.. every thing legal is always happily allowed by everyone..

Answer 2

I'm with orange.. and I do Download loads.. like Wii Games Ect... as soon as I get letter from them I'll be leaving them! ! so they're loss for sending me a letter.. may you could leave them and go with a small name company ! like toucan or something

Answer 3

well, if Carphone Warehouse does send out warning letters to their customers, if they file sharers, and you do, you might get one if they catch you

Answer 4

What are they "warning" you about.

I have no problem with my ISP

Answer 5

These ISP’s who have decided to police illegal downloads (I personally do not think it is their job) will send warning letters, but they will do it for any high bandwidth usage, assuming you must be downloading illegal files such as copyright films.

This opens many questions. First, as an Englishman subject to British law, I am normally considered innocent until proven guilty. The ISP’s will assume guilt.

Second, the ISP’s who offer large bandwidth, 8MB or more I believe are doing this to use it as an excuse to cap or reduce your bandwidth with the full support of the music/film industry.

What is the point of these high bandwidths if using it results in a warning? There are many ways to use high bandwidth with legal downloads and streaming media. So you see the case I am making.

I am with a well known ISP and await one of these letters so I can respond. I will also be contacting my MP and the European Parliament to ask why the ISP’s are allowed to sell a product they make it almost impossible to use, because of a clause in a contract they know few of us read completely.

I make the case that if I buy a hammer and get it home to find the handle breaks with the first blow, I would expect the shop to replace it. Putting a clause on the back of the receipt protecting the shop from responsibility would be overruled by the law that says it should be fit for purpose for a reasonable amount of time.

Giving me 8MB broadband and stopping me from using it by ‘breaking’ my connection is, in effect the same thing as far as I am concerned.

Finally, we already have copyright law to cover illegal downloads, and if the film and music industry can make a case in law against an individual then they should do so.

To summarise, Isp’s offer huge bandwidth (BBC is talking 100MB cable connectivity) but they are restricting our use of it on the basis it may be an illegal download. Another argument for these restrictions is that users of large amounts of bandwidth impacts the other users and they are trying to be fair. Or, to put it another way, we don’t have the infrastructure to supply the bandwidth we have offered, so we will restrict those that try to.

The film and music industry have unsuccessfully tried to go after the vendors of peer-to-peer software as the suppliers of the means for illegal activity. They lost that argument when the vendors said their software was legal, could be used legally and that it was the way it was being used that was illegal. So they changed tack and went after the peer-to-peer users. Because they could not directly see what was being downloaded, they have teemed up with the ISP’s to warn all high bandwidth users, hopefully, I suppose, to frighten off the illegal users. The problem is, ISP’s do not want to directly check your download or its source because that might open a whole can of privacy worms. Besides, most peer-to-peer networks have encryption as an option. Instead, to fit in nicely with their failure to ensure a capable network, they have decided to target all high bandwidth users on the principle that you might be downloading illegal material.

A case was made on BBC’s Click program that “The guys who started this business all cheated somebody to get there and so now they are being cheated perhaps by all these geeky crazy people all over the internet.” I don’t think I need to expand on this comment!

Only if we make complaints to our ISP’s and representatives in parliament to the effect that we do not think it is fair even if it is legal may be the only way we will possibly elicit change in attitudes and the law.

Please note this comment applies only to legal downloads and is not intended as or to be used as a defence for illegal downloads. It is also my opinion as I have developed it from information from various sources and should not be taken as a prima facie argument. The comments are ‘as is’ and I accept no responsibility for inaccuracies in content or conclusions drawn from the content.  

Answer 6

I rang virgin to cancel my subscription because they was protesting about p2p, they begged me not to cancel the account by offering me a 10% discount

Answer 7

wait and see. why are they sending warning letters whats it about

Answer 8

It depends on the files you're downloading, it's not illegal to download every file using a torrent client just the ones that would be in violation of copyright law. Since you are downloading movies from Torrent sites then you probably receive a letter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_issue...

Hope this is helpful.

Answer 9

If you read the news article more thoroughly you will see that they are initially targeting the people who host illegal files, not those that download them - however, its only a matter of time........

Answer 10

If you do just leave for another provider and tell them why. If enough people do this they will rethink their policy.