Comcast pushes P2P 'Bill of Rights'

I wonder how companies that depend on P2P for significant file upgrades will be impacted by a "best practices" limit on P2P file sharing.

Luxology.com uses .torrent files to distribute their software downloads to ease the load on their servers. I imagine that they're not alone.

Why do I distrust this idea, from these people?

hmmm....

"Some proposed rights would involve clarified limits on bandwidth, " Okay.

"and the ability to uninstall P2P software if desired." err,.. WHAT?

"Less popular may be the potential of tracking the legality of shared content, a practice being pioneered by Virgin UK, and carrying with it the threat of being forced offline at the will of music and movie companies. "

yeeeahh... This is probably the primary driving force behind "person to person bill of rights..." bullshit.

Just call it "Patriot Act - End of Fair Use". Only the unpatriotic download copywritten content, (or spend money on hookers).

key sentence:

"they have no present intentions of involving public interest groups, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation."

Comcast doesn't give a damn about our rights. They are a business whose sole interest is maximizing profits for shareholders. They would not be doing this if there were not something in it for them. The fact that EFF was not involved says a lot. Who is standing up for the interests of Comcast's customers and P2P users?

How about this, ComCast: act like a common carrier and stop worrying about what people are doing with their internet connections. Do you, Comcast, really want to get involved in monitoring what people are doing with their internet connections? Because it doesn't stop with P2P; you'll also be responsible for possible use of your service to spread child porn, or make illegal drug deals, or anything else that's illegal. It doesn't, won't, and shouldn't stop with P2P monitoring.

Either be a common carrier, or an all-purpose net nanny. Your choice Comcast. (I don't see the local phone companies worrying about whether people are using their phone lines to telemarket!!!!)

If Comcast wants to get into the business of monitoring P2P for possible illegal trading of copyrighted material, are they going to be monitoring for ANY illegal trading of copyrighted material? Like the photos of thousands of professional photographers like myself?

or would it only be limited to, you know, music from major labels? In other words, would Universal's copyrights be 'more equal' than mine?

I think we all know the answer to that one.

ISPs should be protected. As long as they are not forced by the law to sniff user p2p traffic, to throttle or otherwise interfere with user activities on internet, there always be those who prefers upgrading own network instead of throttling users. Just give people choice of services and see how long Comcast will last with its "best practices"

With or without this "bill of rights", as soon as Comcast attempts to filter P2P use, P2P protocols will evolve to get around it. It really changes nothing whatsoever; Comcast will do what they have to to keep their network operational, and filesharers will find a way to share files. This document has no effect whatsoever.

If you are a Comcast customer I advise you right now to run from their service. I was with them for three years and then they called to say I had exceeded my bandwidth usage. "But I have an unlimited account" "No, WE decide what your limit is". During this heated conversation the Comcast jerk admitted to reading my personal emails and viewing my personal email attachments. "We have every right under Patriot Act..." He gloated over the fact that he had access to all of my secure accounts (bank, mutual funds, private chat sites) and threatened to ban me for a year if I didn't get cease using their service for at least a month. I told him to go F himself and closed my account. Billing supervisor worked for twenty minutes to talk me out of it (they are losing $1500 a year) but I demanded it be closed. They didn't close it but called me the following day to ask again that I reconsider. I called a lawyer who called Comcast. I no longer have that account and I suggest to each and every one reading this - close your Comcast account right now. Move to anything other than Comcast. Don't be a fool.

"The move marks part of an about-face for Comcast, which has come under intense scrutiny for sabotaging BitTorrent transfers in order to avoid spending on extra network infrastructure."

Didn't Comcrap get government money to 'upgrade' their equipment to handle the extra bandwidth, and upgrade their tv content? What happened to that money that is now preventing them from doing said upgrades?

This whole thing smells of 'hey look, we want to help p2p but we really want to find the best way to screw the end user, who happens to be paying for a service we don't want to provide so it will help our bottom line and make the shareholders happy'.

Eff Comcast!

that is truly an astounding story. Welcome to the police state and fuck you very much, all you douchebags who voted for Bush.

looks like we (posters) can't go one story without bringing up Bush...