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Virgin Media gets serious

By Johanna Gibson, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon.

The IPKat noticed this story today on the Register about Virgin Media and the British Phonographic Institute (BPI) getting together to warn Virgin's broadband customers about their accounts being used for P2P file-sharing. Some customers will be receiving letters from the BPI and Virgin about this, providing them with a kindly-worded warning (a steel fist in a velvet glove, if you like) to the effect that, if they don't stop, their service could be cut off or they could face legal action. The letters, in template form, are available here and here.

While some might complain about this on the grounds, for example, that there are also legitimate uses of P2P file-sharing, or that this is unwarranted intrusion into an internet user's private life, the IPKat tends to agree with the BPI and Virgin on this one. P2P systems such as BitTorrent are, as far as he has been able to work out, almost entirely devoted (if not actively designed) to distributing other people's material (mostly music and video) without making any payment to the rightful copyright owners. There cannot really therefore be any realistic argument that what Virgin is doing is in any way unfair, particularly as the copyright owners have the ability (under s97A of the CDPA) to take out an injunction against ISPs for letting this kind of thing go on. The IPKat would, however, be interested to read of any contrary views.

Full post as published by IPKat on June 06, 2008 (boomark / email).