Thawing of relationship between ISPs and music industry
The ice cold relationship between the music industry and the ISPs it expects to police the internet is showing signs of thawing, but only a little and only after the threat of government legislation.
The six leading ISPs have agreed to send out educational letters to subscribers the BPI believes have been downloading music illegally. BT, Virgin Media, Tiscali, Sky, Orange and Carphone Warehouse have signed a memorandum of understand (MOU) which also commits them to cutting illegal downloads and, it is believed (the agreement has not been published) will pave the way for ISPs to set up legal download services.
Where there is still no agreement on the record labels’ call through the British Phonographic Institute’s (BPI) for a ” three strikes and out” policy whereby households shown to be illegally downloading music would be warned, suspended and then cut out if they continued to download copyrighted material.
Nevertheless former pop star, Feargal Sharkey, who is now Chief Executive of British Music Rights (BMR), which represents the interests of musicians, welcome the plan as “a first step, and a very big step, in what we all acknowledge is going to be quite a long process”.
It is not yet clear how the ISPs will discourage their subscribers from downloading protected material but it is likely Virgin Media’s policy of sending out educational letters, to those the BPI suspects of illegal copying, will be undertaken by the other five companies who have signed the memorandum.
The BPI identifies ISP addresses that have downloaded material it puts up on file sharing sites as bait and then an ISP can work out the subscriber concerned and send out a letter alerting them to the potential transgression which may have been caused by the bill payer, someone else in the family or even a passer-by if their wireless connection is unprotected.
The ISPs are now going to work together with the government and the music industry on the finer details of how the memorandum will be put in to action and the extent of action taken against those who continue to download copyrighted material without permission.
With no mention of the controversial “three strikes and you’re out” approach favoured by the BPI in the discussion so far, a spokesman for Virgin Media told SamKnows that the company believes there is now room for a “sensible” discussion on unauthorised music downloading.
“We share the government’s desire to address the issue of on-line copyright infringement without infringing our customers’ rights,” he said. “We believe the steps set out in the Memorandum of Understanding represent a sensible process for finding a balanced approach.”
Likewise BT is welcoming these first steps in an on-going process but, like Virgin Media, is refusing to be drawn on whether action would escalate beyond educational letters.
“BT is pleased to have helped agree an MOU on the issue of dealing with infringements of copyright online,” a spokesman told SamKnows.
“We look forward to further constructive discussions under the MOU in which all parties will play their part in dealing with these issues. We will be studying and responding to the consultation document in due course.”
With the BPI insisting that firm action against illegal downloaders is necessary because legal downloading makes little difference on the prevalence of illegal downloading, it is hard to see, if the ISPs involved launch legal download services, how this would solve a problem the BPI claims will cost the music industry £1bn over the next five years. It is unclear if legal download sites launched by the ISPs would mitigate the BPI’s constant calls for persistent unauthorised music file sharers to be disconnected from the net.
Tags: BMR, BPI, BT, Carphone Warehouse, Orange, Sky, Tiscali, Virgin Media
