Warning For UK Music File Sharers
July 03, 2008 | by Christopher Nickson
The BPI is sending letters that warn of the consequences to hundreds of Virgin Media customers in the UK who illegally share music files, in the hope of stopping them.
It’s a softer tactic than the one employed in the US, where those accused of illegally sharing music files are taken to court. But then again, it’s a different country. In the UK, music industry group BPI is mailing out letters to around 800 customers of the Virgin Media service who’ve been identified as illegal file shares, warning them of the consequences of their actions after the ISP agreed to pass the letters to its customers.
And what are those consequences? The BPI wants Internet providers to cut off customers who ignore the warnings, according to the BBC. It’s already suggested that ISPs take a greater role in educating their customers about file sharing, and wants the government to enact legislation to ensure ISPs co-operate.
However, to date few have shown the inclination to help the BPI, and one, Carphone Warehouse, has outright refused to co-operate.
Post Your Comment...Comments
Comment on this article
Please keep your comments relevant to this article. Email addresses are not displayed, they are only required to verify you are human.
When you submit your comment, an email will be sent to your email address with a confirmation link. Once you have clicked on that confirmation link your comment will be posted.
HTML is not allowed.
RSS Feed
Kevin on Jul 3rd, 2008 at 11:55 AM:
The music and movie industries are as ridiculous as Microsoft... sorry, I just recently read the M$ & Yahoo thing...
Anyway, let's think about music and movie files for a second... What did people used to do when they bought a new movie or even rented one? They shared it/lent it out/had people over to watch them/etc. right? I ask you... what the hell is the difference?
I own probably 100 DVD movies; maybe less, maybe more... Would the MPAA have a problem with me lending these out to all of my friends, if it meant that my friends would no longer have to purchase the movies? More often than not, they were either going to buy the movies or not... and in the case that they weren't, it has absolutely no affect on the industry... however, if they were and they found they disliked it, then good for me for saving them from buying a movie they hated.
Of course, there are the millions and millions of people who buy movies after they d/l or rent them, or see them in the theaters anyway.
These companies/associations need to get the hell over it. File sharing is not going away... and if it were, then we're just setting ourselves back about 20+ years in technological improvements.