News Virgin Media to launch unlimited download service

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2009/06/17/virgin-media-to-launch-unlimited-downloads/1

Virgin Media is to launch an unlimited music download service later this year and, as a result, will be clamping down on online piracy on its network.

 

cool, make this free for 50mbit customers and you might persuade them to upgrade.

 

cant see many signing up to this,

 

im not too sure i like "Virgin said that it will not be monitoring its networks or intercepting its customers' traffic >>> itself <<<

meaning someone else is to make sure your not a dirty pirate.

so everything you download and view is intercepted and checked brilliant nice privacy there

also how do they decide hows a pirate ? i can use p2p for legal stuff or just be a heavy downloader of free stuff ?

 

Nar, with only Universal offering this, file sharing won't stop. ISP's will never stop file sharers and they will lose 80% of there customers, many are on expensive high download limit packages.

I think music companies should see that file sharing will never stop unless they make cheap, high quality music and music videos available on every ISP. I see subscription services for music been the future, paying per song or album makes it more expensive.

 

I think all these Companies such as Universal seem to think that if there was no piracy in the mornin, that the file sharers would actually buy the music. Same goes for movies, most people would pay to see a brilliant movie, but there are very few of those these days, so people watch the half rubbish movies of illegal streaming websites, and the same applies to games!

 

Agreed, my bill (for phone, TV & 20Mb comes in at £60-70 each month) which is high enough as it is. I'm debating on whether to upgrade to 50Mb because although I don't use filesharing, I do like to download at a descent speed. If they bundled unlimited music downloads then it could sway my decision.

 

+1

 

u get phone TV and broadband for like £24-29 from virgin(10mb line)

 

+1

 

In Denmark we have had the same service for almost a year. Only difference is that ours is free .
But its really populair though, hovever i doubt that it works when it costs money.
And i dont think that one record label is enough.... we have all as far as i know

 

Whoever signs up will of clearly never heard of Spotify.

 

Except Spotify is rammed with ads (unless you pay for the premium) and doesn't let you download your choice of music for keeps and to transfer freely to your MP3 player etc.

 

All that will happen is universal will monitor peoples traffic for THEIR copyrighted material and nothing else, but I'll definately be switching provides as soon as possible.

Won't stop me pirating one bit ^_^

 

Like everyone isn't ripping the tracks? The ads, close spotify, start it again

 

Also every time you **** they will look up your ass to see if it is clean.

 

Yeah, I'm wondering exactly what the 'flags' they're gonna look for are. Also... the people who are examining you need to be trustworthy and not follow the tactics that they have in the past. Good luck with that.

But I don't really know why I'm surprised - the penalty for digital piracy in the UK is more ridiculously over the top than anywhere else I can think of. I mean, unlimited fines and quite a number of years in prison? You can get less for killing someone. FFS - what is the world coming to when a human life is worth less than a frickin' DVD?

 

I've seen this story a couple of times, and while people have commented, as above, on the fact that they think they should get it free if they pay top whack for their broadband already, I haven't seen anyone comment on the price. The story quotes the service will cost "the price of a couple of albums per month." - now that's between £20 and £25, which in my opinion is far too much and I'd be surprised to see anyone sign up for more than a tenner a month.

 

When did you buy an album? They;ve dropped to £5-£8

 

That's the price you often get them for when they are new out or from Amazon/Play etc. yes, but what's the RRP? It's between £10 and £13 and that's the price the 'executives' are probably thinking about - they probably don't buy CDs either, but they know how much they are meant to cost.