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Lobby group tells ISPs to cut off customers
Thursday January 18, 2007
As illegal file-sharing eats into its battered revenues, the music industry is taking its anti-piracy fight to the world's major internet service providers.
Big names such as BT, Tiscali and NTL will be in the sights of global lobby group IFPI as it [highlight]urges them to disconnect customers[/highlight] who share music illegally or else face government rules.
Armed with the recent Gowers Review, an intellectual property report commissioned by the government, IFPI is hoping Britain can lead the way in cutting off music pirates in 2007.
Andrew Gowers recommended ISPs should either come to a voluntary deal with the industry or face government intervention. Noises from the music side suggest record labels are on a collision course with the broadband providers and no easy solution will be found.
IFPI chairman, John Kennedy, claimed initial words of support were not followed by any action. "Some are now prepared to cooperate and some are being stubborn," he said yesterday.
ISPs, meanwhile, stress they will need reasonable proof before taking up time to disconnect paying customers.
Illegal file-sharing has spawned a generation of young music consumers who expect to get most tracks for free. Powered largely by people who see themselves in a fight against an overcharging music industry, the online sources of free music have so far been tackled with litigation from groups such as IFPI. It admits piracy can never be eradicated but that it is being contained. In 2006, 14% of internet users were regularly file-sharing, down from 18% in 2002, according to research group Jupiter.
Now the industry wants a more efficient system in partnership with the ISPs, who would send warning letters to uploaders before cutting them off. Campaigners would not set any targets for results via the ISP route, but said they expected better results than through the courts.
