VIrgin Media Broadband Hunting for Pirates

By budda on Monday, March 31st, 2008 comments

Virgin Media looks set to become the first British internet company to crack down on customers who download music illegally.

The trial by the UK's largest residential broadband supplier will go live within months and disconnecting customers who ignore warnings, a sanction favoured by the record BPI, remains an option. The trial will also be open to film and television studios.

This would be the first time a British internet company has publicly moved to share responsibility for curbing piracy. Two years of negotiations between record labels and internet service providers (ISPs) have so far failed to produce an industry-wide agreement.

A spokesman for Virgin Media said: "We have been in discussions with rights holders organisations about how a voluntary scheme could work. We are taking this problem seriously and would favour a sensible voluntary solution."

Six million broadband users are estimated to download files illegally each year, costing record labels billions of pounds in lost CD sales.

The model being pushed by the BPI is for a letter warning customers they are committing an offence, followed by suspension of internet access for a second infringement, and finally disconnection.

So beware!

Source: Telegraph