Virgin Media and BPI to educate people on illegal filesharing

Virgin Media and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) have teamed up to educate customers on how to download music legally and avoid the risk of legal action.

The internet service provider (ISP) and the music industry trade association will work together to send out letters to customers whose accounts appear to have been used to download music in breach of copyright.

The BPI will give Virgin Media details of its customers who are believed to have been using file sharing sites, along with dates, times and locations.

The letters will be sent out by Virgin Media to prevent any customer details going back to the BPI and give practical advice on how to stop account misuse; including giving links to legitimate music sites.

“There will be no sharing of personal information,” said the Virgin Media representative.

According to Virgin Media, over six and a half million customers’ broadband accounts are used to access peer-to-peer music services and in many cases customers are not aware that their account is being used in this way.

A representative for the ISP said: “Some people may not realise that their children are using peer-to-peer services to download music and others may not realise that someone else is using their unsecured wireless network to do this.”

He said that there was no maximum number of letters that would be sent out but denied the scheme was the beginning of a three-strikes system. The prospect of introducing such a system was raised earlier this year when the Government said ISPs must take concrete steps to curb illegal downloads or face legal sanctions.

This system could mean people who habitually download copyrighted music from file-sharing sites would receive two warnings from their ISP before having their broadband service disconnected. Earlier this year Virgin Media denied it would be implementing any such scheme.

The education campaign has been welcomed by parliamentary under-secretary of state for business and competitiveness, Shriti Vadera.

"This is a very welcome first step by Virgin and BPI to educate consumers about unlawful file-sharing which damages our vibrant creative economy.

"We continue to urge ISPs and creative industries to find a comprehensive approach to the problem," she said.