Four More ISPs Join Music Piracy Letter Scheme, Extended To Film
The UK’s six largest ISPs will today announce a plan to tackle illegal music and movie downloading by sending warning letters to thousands of customers.
Threatened with legislation by April if they fail to implement their own solution, two ISPs, Virgin Media and BT, already began sending letters last month to those suspected of downloading music; users of services like LimeWire identified by the British Phonographic Industry. Now Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) and even Carphone Warehouse are set to sign up to an extended scheme that also covers movies via the Motion Pictures Association of America, morning papers reported. The BBC says it’s a memorandum of understanding between the ISPs and the government‘s Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR).
FT.com: “The service providers have agreed in principle to a code of practice for dealing with persistent offenders, setting out agreed sanctions. The voluntary code would be overseen by Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator.” Rather arbitrarily, the story says ISPs will write to 1,000 offenders per week; it’s a three-month trial. BPI says “hundreds of thousands” of letters will be sent in the first year.
Sixty-three percent of people download music from P2P networks – an average of 53 illegal tracks per month, according to June University of Hertfordshire research for British Music Rights. But one warning from an ISP would be enough to stop 70 percent of illegal file sharers in their tracks, according to Entertainment Media Research in March.
The threat of legislation will stay on the table – BERR’s proposal for such action will be published later following a consultation, possibly leading to either a levy on copying hardware (something in place in the majority of Europe), a compulsion on ISPs to filter traffic or a French-style “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” warning system that ends in transgressors being kicked off the network.
With unlimited-download subscription models now becoming a reality (Denmark’s TDC has one, BSkyB announced one on Tuesday), the ISPs here will get to use both carrot and stick, tapping a rich new revenue seam by threatening subscribers away from illegal options and tempting them to pay-for services. Carphone Warehouse’s inclusion amongst the six is most surprising, since it had been most vehemently opposed to such action. Expect consumer legal challenges to the letter idea.
Save the date for our EconMusic event on September 23 at London
This news comes only a couple days after the UK Film Council published figures on the size of the UK’s Video on Demand market (see their 2008 Yearbook). Figures from Ofcom reveal that over 13 million UK households (53% of the total) had a broadband connection in 2007. ‘However’, the Yearbook notes, ‘the online VoD market remained small with estimated revenues of around £700,000.’
Industry research estimates there were 127 million digitally-pirated titles in 2007, which cannibalised the official market to a value of £53 million. ‘As the official download market was only £0.7 million in 2007’, the report concludes, ‘it seems that virtually 100% of the potential internet-based VoD market was lost to piracy or to film theft in 2007.’ Clearly it is about time some decisive action was taken.
http://www.biggerpictureresearch.com
I think it will probably take about two months before all those who wish to pirate move over to tunneling or other secure methods that the ISP's cannot monitor.
I do think the main reason for pirating is the entertainment industry itself. When I can buy music from the musician without the 'tax' of the industries needless (to me and the musician) profit then I will be happy to pay. I dont personally buy (or download) music or films illegally, I just refuse to pay for a needless bunch idiots trying to tell me what I should listen to.
No-one has a right to make a living – the music industry is no longer needed.