The music industry and the six largest ISPs in the UK have reached an agreement on how to deal with broadband customers using their accounts to illegally share or download music.

The ISPs - BT, Virgin Media, The Carphone Warehouse, Tiscali, Orange and Sky - have agreed to send warning letters to anyone whose account is being used for piracy, informing them that it is illegal.

The scheme has already been implemented by Virgin Media, which is working with the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), a body that looks after the interests of copyright holders in the UK.

The work of actually identifying the accounts being used for illegal purposes will be carried out by the BPI, though the letters will be sent by the ISPs.

Furthermore, the Memorandum of Understanding, which has also been signed by the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA), commits all signatories to undertaking further investigations into the problem of piracy.

The BPI has been calling for more co-operation from ISPs in the attempt to stamp out piracy in recent years, and was pleased to reach an agreement.

BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor said: "This represents a significant step forward, in that all ISPs now recognise their responsibility to help deal with illegal filesharing."

Making progress

The Carphone Warehouse, which owns the TalkTalk and AOL brands, had previously been critical of the BPI's approach to file-sharing and resisted calls to monitor more closely what its customers were downloading.

"It is not our job to tell customers what they should or shouldn't be doing but we believe it is in their interests to warn them that they are being accused of wrongdoing," Charles Dunstone, The Carphone Warehouse's chief executive, said of the agreement.

However, Dunstone did make positive noises about further developing rules on the matter until all interested parties were satisfied.

"We will not divulge a customer's details or disconnect them on the say so of the content industry, but we will work with rights holders to develop a sensible and legal approach founded on protecting consumer rights and privacy," Dunstone said.

The BPI was also positive about the future and hailed the role of the government in brokering the deal.

"The government has played an important role in bringing all parties together to arrive at this point, but the work really begins now. We look forward to creating the procedures necessary to effectively tackle repeated unlawful file-sharing with the other signatories and Ofcom."

The government had previously threatened to introduce legislation in April 2009 if ISPs and the music industry couldn't reach an agreement on how to deal with illegal file-sharing.

The BPI had pushed for a 'three-strike' policy, where persistent downloaders would have their internet connection disabled after a third piracy offence, but many ISPs found the idea unpalattable.

What do you think of the new plans to combat piracy? Have your say in the Web User forums.

www.bpi.co.uk
www.talktalk.co.uk
www.tiscali.co.uk
www.bt.com
www.sky.com
www.orange.co.uk
www.virginmedia.com

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