ISPs Blamed for Piracy All Over the World

The French President's initiative, to consider blaming the Internet Service Providers (ISP) for whatever copyright infringement happens in their networks, has caught on big time all over the world. The final step that was expected for all to start pointing fingers was last week's International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's opinion, and they said that ISPs "allowed copyright theft to run rampant on their networks, causing a massive devaluation of copyrighted music."

No sooner said than done, when the British Phonographic Industry caught wind of that happening, it instantly turned the stand-by phase it was in into full scaled offensive. The BPI's Chief Executive, Geoff Taylor, told Webuser that "The time has come for ISPs to stop dragging their feet and start showing some responsibility, by taking reasonable steps to counter illegal music freeloading. Their failure to do so until now is extraordinary - and it can't be allowed to go on."

I'm not sure why the providers are to police their networks, it is clearly the easier road to take, but the effectiveness of this could have serious consequences on the overall Internet life. First and foremost, the music industry must understand that it's not the tracks that should bring in the most cash, but concerts and other merchandise. It looks like the future of music is free, online and ad supported. Second, if the penalties are applied to those sharing files, it would bring an uprising, in my humble opinion. The culprits to be found are too many and we're not in the Middle Ages, to punish an entire community and leave three or four standing.

"We have been negotiating with ISPs to implement reasonable procedures under which they would advise customers if their account is being used to distribute music illegally, and then, if the advice is ignored, enforce their own terms and conditions. But UK ISPs refuse to do even that on any meaningful scale," Taylor told the cited source.