back to article Dunstone vows to bash Tories on filesharing laws

TalkTalk boss Charles Dunstone has promised to continue his firm's campaign against laws meant to reduce illegal filesharing under a Conservative government, despite being friend of David Cameron. Dunstone today hosted a reception within sight of Parliament as part of TalkTalk's "Don't Disconnect Us" campaign, aiming to …

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  1. Ihre Papiere Bitte!!
    Thumb Up

    I'm with Dunstone

    I don't want my ISP to bombard me with adverts and offers for music & film (which, as soon as they start providing them, you know they will. You won't be able to move for annoying adverts plastered over your bills, promotional e-mails, ISP home pages...).

    And you can guarantee that they will repackage their tariffs on the assumption that everyone MUST want this "content", in the same manner that it's pretty much impossible to get a contract phone without bundled minutes and texts (a number of older people - and parents to give to kids - want a mobile phone for the security aspect, but don't want to be paying £20 a month which includes "content" in the form of calls and texts that they just don't use. PAYG phones have "expiry of credit" which confuses some, and they would prefer a low monthly bill paid by DD to know that it's always available should they need it).

    I want my ISP to just give me a pipe to t'interwebs, not to try and be a "content provider". When I want "content", I'll go get it from the place that gives me the best overall deal based on price, convenience & format.

    I would also like ISPs to be able to get right what they're (supposed to be) doing at the moment before they start trying to "monetize" us all some more.

    Go go Charlie D!

    (as an aside, I don't d/l naughty music & films etc. Once upon a time I would buy 3-4 CDs and a couple of films & games per month. Now I don't spend anything like that. Reason being that there is just not much content out there that I want *and* am willing to pay the asking price for.)

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Dunstone is ma hero

    Tories or Labour, they seem to support the same vile concept -- will the new Gordon Brown really be any better than the current one, I wonder.

    More than even, I'm now inclined to vote for the Pirate Party...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dunstone is about

    Freedom for his company from having to do extra work at the behest of the law, not about the rights (real or imagined) of filesharing.

    And the way to make sure laws are framed in your favour is lobbying the current government - no matter who your mates are.

    1. Rob 5
      Stop

      Yep!

      He sees filesharing as a mechanism for driving customers to his business. Nothing more.

      Remember the early days of the three strikes debate, with BT, shouting the odds about the privacy of their users at the same time as they were carrying out their illegal Phorm trials?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Regardless of that...

      ...the ISPs are the only ones with any lobbying power who are supporting the right thing, despite of their motives. If we shut up the ISPs on this matter, who do we have left? It's not as if the UK government (Labour or Tory, doesn't matter) is ever going to actually care what us little people think!

      I also support the Pirate Party. They might have a silly name, but they appear to be a serious political party with very sound goals and good intentions at heart.

  4. blackworx
    WTF?

    O.R.G.

    "Jim Killock said political focus should in fact be on cooperation between ISPs and record labels"

    How's that supposed to happen when the music biz picked up their ball and went home in a huff ten years ago?

  5. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    Good for Dunstone!

    Good for him! He knows what an ISP is for -- to provide internet service. Not to sell music, not to sell movies. Not to spy on their customers and rat them out to the pigopolists. You would not find anyone saying telephone, heat, or power should be cut off from people no matter what they are doing -- internet service should be treated the same.

  6. Andrew Maddison 1

    I thought...

    that TalkTalk were now the biggest ISP, not the 2nd biggest, what with being TalkTalk *and* AOL *and* Tiscali (and all of the ones those companies had hoovered up before)?

  7. Tony Paulazzo
    Happy

    # 456345211

    >despite being friend of David Cameron.<

    Cool, bill should quietly disappear then if he's a good friend.

    All copyright is theft.

  8. Ancient Oracle funkie

    Crikey!

    Dunstone ... charging it had "treated its customers so badly they have effectively gone on strike",

    Absolutely! Freetards often get a hard time here but when you are expected to buy the same album more than once, just because it's been re-released with 1 bonus track or because it's been remastered (whether you can actually tell the difference is often debateable), it's no surprise that people taped vinyl (which, of course, did kill music just like we were warned) or download mp3s.

    The fact that downloading appears to be a victimless action (not a crime) allows people to soothe their conscience.

    What concerns me more is what would happen if my wife or one of my 3 children (assumng that no-one is smart enough to get onto my wi-fi) downloaded copyright material and got "caught"? Who does the music industry sue for the millions of punds of lost revenue? And is the ISP expected to cut the household off?

    I think I ought to pay more attention to what's going on.

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