Page 1 of Anyone received a letter from Virgin yet?

I read on the BBC website that Virgin have already dished out 800 letters to file sharers as part of a joint initiative with the BPI - just wondering if anyone received one and what I says? As someone who has downloaded the odd album I am thinking of switching my downloads to that cheap Russian site, am I over-reacting?

Also I assume a bit of bittorent downloading of the odd TV show or movie falls outside the remit of the BPI / Virgin letter - is this right? :/

Presuming you are a Virgin Media customer to start with, you should only get a letter if you`re consistently maxing out your broadband connection downloading albums. They`ve only sent out 800 letters out of a couple of million subscribers or something like that. Switching downloads to a Russian site doesn`t change the IP service you`re using and merely gives the Russian mafia more opportunities to hack your machine and get your banking details.

J Mark Oates

Mark thanks for the swipt reply. So you reckon if I download 1 or 2 albums a week from bittorrent I fly under the Virgin radar? Also the Russian service accepts Paypal so no worries about bank account hacking.

The letters aren`t about over-using the connection, it`s people the BPI caught sharing copyrighted material: so some of those 800-odd could`ve just shared one song (however unlikely it would be get caught the first and only thing they downloaded).



www.soundalikes.com ~*~ glitterkat.stumbleupon.com

From what I`ve read they tend to go for uploaders before downloaders, but that`s no guarantee of immunity.

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My viewpoint was that Virgin will use your traffic load as an indicator of what kind of stuff you`re downloading and then look closer at what you`re downloading. They`ll go after people downloading a couple of hundred albums a week or five or six movies a week rather than somebody picking up a song or two a month. They`ll also have torrents and places like the Russian site flagged as suspicious.

I`d wait to get a letter from Virgin, then change to another provider telling them what you download is no damn business of theirs.

J Mark Oates

Quote:
Switching downloads to a Russian site doesn`t change the IP service you`re using and merely gives the Russian mafia more opportunities to hack your machine and get your banking details.
Use Paypal and it`s fine

VM didn`t instigate this though, this is just high-profile compliance with complaints from the BPI. Other ISP`s do the same thing, one of my friends got a warning in his email becuase of getting Deadwood when he was on Pipex. The BPI finds the infringement and sends the "proof" to VM and VM then sends out a letter from them and from the BPI detailing what things have been shared and when. VM don`t give the user`s details to the BPI though (they say), and they aren`t simply shopping heavy users to them.



www.soundalikes.com ~*~ glitterkat.stumbleupon.com

So would you hold fire downloading bittorent stuff at the moment or not?

I wouldn`t download from BitTorrent at all, personally, unless it`s a private tracker. But the odds of you getting caught are minuscule.




www.soundalikes.com ~*~ glitterkat.stumbleupon.com