ISP in piracy spat with BPI

The Carphone Warehouse and the British Phonographic Industry have fallen out over who should be responsible for policing illegal downloaders in the UK.

Charles Dunstone, chief executive of The Carphone Warehouse, which owns the TalkTalk and AOL brands, and has also been linked with a bid for rival ISP Tiscali, slammed the BPI's proposals to implement a 'three-strike' system, that would see persistent illegal downloaders permanently cut off.

Dunstone said that the BPI was asking his company to control what its customers were doing on the internet.

"I cannot foresee any circumstances in which we would voluntarily disconnect a customer's account on the basis of a third party alleging a wrongdoing. We believe that a fundamental part of our role as an ISP is to protect the rights of our users to use the internet as they choose," Dunstone said.

Shifting the blame

Dunstone placed the blame for piracy firmly on the music industry itself.

"The music industry has consistently failed to adapt to changes in technology and now seeks to foist their problems on someone else. Rather than threatening us, the BPI's time would be better spent facing up to the reality of our times and adapting its business model accordingly," he said.

However, the BPI said that Dunstone had misunderstood what the BPI was asking ISPs to do.

"In claiming that the music industry is asking it to become the 'internet police', 'impinge customers rights' or 'restrict freedom to use of the internet', TalkTalk is either seeking to misrepresent our position, or just doesn’t get it," said the BPI's chief executive Geoff Taylor.

Taylor said that TalkTalk needed to take responsibility for what its customers used its broadband network for.

"We believe that any socially responsible ISP should, as a core part of its business, put in place steps to help their customers avoid engaging in illegal activity, and deter those who knowingly break the law," he said.

Official regulation

Price-comparison site Moneysupermarket.com has said that industry regulator Ofcom should be the organisation that prompts ISPs to take action over piracy on their networks, not the music industry.

Rob Barnes, head of broadband and mobile at Moneysupermarket.com, said: "Whilst I agree something needs to be done to tackle this problem, it's not down to individual ISPs to respond to requests from industry bodies. This issue should be tackled with regulation from Ofcom, not when the BPI starts shouting."

However, Ofcom's recently published annual plan for 2008/2009 skirts around the issue of piracy.

Although most in the industry want to avoid official regulation, which the government has threatened to introduce in April 2009 if no workable system has been implemented, Barnes said that self-regulation by ISPs isn't the best option.

"We also need regulation rather than relying on ISPs to sign up to voluntary codes which rely on self-regulation," he said.

Barnes suggested that the BPI would be better off spending money on shutting down websites that actually provide the copyrighted content to downloaders and on educating the public as to what constitutes piracy.

Virgin Media last week told Web User that it was in talks with the BPI about introducing a voluntary 'three-strike' system that could see persistent pirates cut off for good.

www.bpi.co.uk
www.talktalk.co.uk
www.moneysupermarket.com