Re: BT Total Broadband
- From: "Norman Wells" <no-one@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 18:01:31 +0100
Ste wrote:
On 1 Apr, 09:22, "Norman Wells" <no-...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:Ste wrote:On 31 Mar, 09:07, "Norman Wells" <no-...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:Ste wrote:However, I reiterate that I totally reject that the Tony Martin case
has any application or analogy to the subject of contracts for
broadband internet.
The simple question I asked you was does a person who breaks the law
once, then become an outlaw with no redress for any further breaches
of the law in which he is victim?
Or, indeed, if you accept that a person is not outlawed, then do you
think that they *should* be outlawed?
And I reiterate my answer which is 'sometimes, yes'. The sometimes
are when the respective acts are closely related, when it
essentially comes down to an explicit or implicit personal contract.
You don't burgle my house, I don't shoot you. That sort of thing.
I disagee, see. I suspect you know next to nothing about the law, and
even less about the logic upon which it is built.
And you seem incapable of grasping the difference between what the law says and what it should say.
What I suspect you are doing is generalising from what is acceptable
in personal relationships, and applying that to economic relationships
in a large modern economy.
And why is that a bad thing? Most corporate law has developed from human relationships, and what works and what doesn't in those.
Sometimes it does. If one party breaches a contract, I don't have
much or any sympathy if he then complains that the other party has
retaliated in some way. The guilt lies more in my view with the
first to breach the agreement, whoever that is.
The correct way to retaliate, at law, is to commence proceedings.
No it isn't. What actually happens is that you complain about breaches and try to get them resolved. If the other party appears intransigent, you then apply any sanctions you can in an escalating fashion until he gives way or an agreement is reached. Only as a final resort do you commence proceedings.
In
any event, the ISP is not retaliating - in fact they are quite happy
for you to download copyrighted material
No they're not. My ISP agreement has the following clause:
"8.1 You must NOT use the Service or any part thereof:
....
8.1.4 to send, knowingly receive, encourage the receipt of, upload, download, use or re-use any material which is abusive, indecent, defamatory, obscene or menacing, or in breach of copyright, confidence, privacy or any other rights or which may contain viruses or other similar programs, or which causes overloads to the Company System"
I imagine yours has similar provisions.
, and the throttling is
imposed for a totally separate reason (and is imposed whether or not
you are in fact downloading copyrighted material).
It is, but the two are very closely interconnected. The vast majority of those using so much bandwidth are illicitly downloading copyright material in breach of their contract with their ISP.
As I say, you're applying the logic of personal relationships to
relationships that are not personal.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
If I have a contract with you to supply a dozen tennis balls a month
for £10, and you stop supplying them, do you expect me to continue
paying?
No, I don't, which supports my argument and not yours. The fact that I
was misusing the tennis balls in some way does not excuse your failure
to supply them where that failure is not related at all to my misuse
(and in fact you don't even have any knowledge of the misuse I am
putting the the balls to).
If the terms in the contract say that you will not use the tennis balls I supply for illicit purposes and it comes to light that the majority of people using the quantities you do are using them for such purposes, I'd be perfectly within my rights to throttle the supply. I may even be required to do so by law in order to avoid aiding and abetting.
They throttle in any event. The throttling has *no relationship
whatsoever* to the downloading of copyrighted material.
You've simply invented some relaionship between the two in your own
head - with at least one imaginary notion being that ISPs give a toss
about copyright holders.
Then why mention them in their terms and conditions?
And I
don't think they need absolute proof of that either.
In a court of law, it would not even meet the test of proof on the
balance of probabilities.
That depends on the evidence. If, say, it could be shown statistically that 90%+ of those hitting the buffers are indulging in illicit copyright infringement, that inevitably meets the test of balance of probabilities for anyone doing likewise.
Hitting the buffers is
quite enough indication according to several people here in the vast
majority of cases.
No, what I said is that, I imagine in the majority of cases, there
will have been *some* copyrighted material downloaded unlawfully. That
is not to suggest the whole 40GB is made up of copyrighted material.
All I concede is that the downloading of copyrighted material does
occur, and it seems prevalent with, I believe, a majority of internet
users having done so at one time or another.
It doesn't make it legal. Nor does it make it decent, honest or truthful.
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: BT Total Broadband
- From: Ste
- Re: BT Total Broadband
- References:
- Re: BT Total Broadband
- From: Norman Wells
- Re: BT Total Broadband
- From: Ste
- Re: BT Total Broadband
- Prev by Date: Re: Court reporting silliness in the internet age
- Next by Date: Re: Incapacity Benefit Rules -Going to College
- Previous by thread: Re: BT Total Broadband
- Next by thread: Re: BT Total Broadband
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
