Mousetrap weblog: Internet reaction to illegal downloads deal

Parents whose children download music and films illegally will be blacklisted and have their internet access curbed under government reforms to fight online piracy.

Households that ignore warnings will be subjected to online surveillance and their internet speeds will be reduced, making it very difficult for them to download large files.

The measures, the first of their kind in the world, will be announced today by Baroness Vadera, who brokered the deal between internet service providers and Ofcom, the telecoms body.

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• Mousetrap weblog: internet reaction to illegal downloads

About 6.5 million Britons are thought to have downloaded music illegally last year. It has been estimated that illegal downloads will cost the music industry alone £1 billion over the next five years.

Many parents do not realise that their children are using the internet to download files illegally.

Britain’s six biggest service providers - BT, Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse - have signed up to the scheme. In return, the Government has abandoned a controversial proposal to disconnect broadband services for users who had been caught out three times.

Music companies have suffered heavy losses from internet piracy and have been lobbying intensively with their Hollywood counterparts for a more aggressive application of copyright law. Fergal Sharkey, the former Undertones singer who is now chief executive of British Music Rights, the body that represents musicians, said: “This is something of a step into the unknown for the internet providers, music industries and ministers. But we can’t go on without it – no business can survive after losing as much revenue as the music industry has.”

Service providers will send warning letters to thousands of homes across the UK where illegal downloading has been detected, telling them that they are being monitored. It is hoped that this will discourage casual copying. It may be the first parents know that their children are breaking the law.

The second stage focuses on sanctions. Ministers have asked Ofcom to lead negotiations between service providers and the film and music industries on how to deal with persistent and blatant offenders, some of whom make thousands of songs from their collections available to copy online. If there is no agreement, legislation will be introduced.

Internet users could find themselves the subject of “traffic management”, meaning a sudden curtailment of their internet speeds, and “traffic filtering”, a careful monitoring of the media files downloaded to an account to check whether they have paid for them.

Some internet providers, led by Carphone Warehouse, have opposed the “three strikes and you’re out” solution proposed in France, where surfers are disconnected for a year on the third infringement. The plan is expected to come into effect next year, once it passes through the French parliament.

Illegal downloaders can be detected easily by an enforcement team set up by the BPI, the music trade body. Its monitors log on to websites where music is available to copy, such as LimeWire and BitTorrent, and note the IP addresses of those who use these sites. These identify a unique internet connection, but not the subscriber’s name and address.

The BPI passes on the IP addresses to the relevant internet provider, which in turn links that information to the household and sends the warning letter. The BPI and copyright holders are not given culprits’ names, providing some guarantee that relatively small offenders will not immediately face the risk of civil penalties.

Breach of copyright, by copying music or film via the internet, is a civil offence. All the cases in the UK have been settled before they have come to court, with people paying an average of £2,000 to reach agreement.

Downloading, both legal and illegal, is growing exponentially, although accurate data is difficult to obtain. The volume of downloading is being blamed for the slow speed of internet access in some areas, with lines suffering severe congestion.

More than 700,000 viewers download BBC programmes every day through the iPlayer service, which was launched at the beginning of this year. The corporation is concerned that the service could undermine support for the licence fee.

An academic survey of music ownership showed that iPods or digital music players owned by teenagers and students contained 842 illegally copied songs each on average.

The study, by the University of Hertfordshire, showed that half of those aged 14 to 24 were happy to share all the music on their hard drives.

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