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ISPs agree "ground-breaking" piracy deal Hundreds of thousands of letters going out to offenders

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24 July 2008 9:19 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Six of the UK's biggest internet service providers have signed up to a "ground breaking" plan with the music industry to tackle piracy.

The deal, negotiated by the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform branch of the government, will see hundreds of thousands of letters sent to net users suspected of illegally sharing music.

The plan is to make a "significant reduction" in illegal music sharing with BT, Virgin, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse all signed up.

An enforcement team set up by the BPI will monitor websites where music is available to copy, such as LimeWire and BitTorrent, and note the IP addresses of those who use these sites.

This info will be passed onto the ISPs, who in turn will send warning letters to the relevant address - with parents responsible for what their children may be downloading without their knowledge.

Organisations involved include Ofcom, British Music Rights and The British Phonographic Industry who want the ISPs to cut off the service of repeat offenders, something that not all the companies have agreed to.

What has been agreed, however, is "traffic management", meaning that downloaders could see a sudden curtailment of their internet speeds to make downloading more difficult, and "traffic filtering", monitoring of the files downloaded to an account to check whether they have paid for them.

The agreement also means the net firms have to ensure their customers know it's illegal to share copyrighted music, and apparently also commits the firms to develop legal music services, something Sky took a step towards this week with their announcement of an unlimited music service with Universal Music.

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Comments

  • "Organisations involved include Ofcom, British Music Rights and The British Phonographic Industry who want the ISPs to cut off the service of repeat offenders, something that not all the companies have agreed to"

    While I diligently support the right of artists and creators to be compensated for their works, I am an artist myself, as well as understand the economic ramifications of piracy, I hardly think disallowing people access to the internet, thereby denying them access to knowledge, technology, art, culture, education, and global interaction is a fair price to pay in exchange.

    Research has shown http://dmca.cs.washington.edu/uwcse_dmca_tr.pdf the inadequacies of copy right holders discovering actual infringers through network monitoring.
    The music industry should focus on discovering a new business model, perhaps the mandatory $5 monthly subscription fee that has been proposed throughout the industry that incorporates technology as opposed to stifling or threatening it, should be reconsidered.

    Innovation is at the heart of what humans do. We must find our way out of this crisis in a way that compensates creators for their works as well protecting technology and its broad applications.

    We are a global, interactive, technology-driven world on the brink of transforming into a policed world, where the powers of a few supersede the liberties and rights of the majority. We must stop repeating our limited vision of “witch hunting” for infringers and create, innovate, and communicate with one another to bring about a positive change that benefits the entire world, not threaten to detract from it.
     Posted by Dawn Marie, U.S.A.

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