The BPI Responds To Our Post about Britain Booting File Sharers from ISPs

The BPI (formerly British Phonographic Institute) sent over a response to a Listening Post item about Britain's possible plan to force ISPs to warn file sharers three times before shutting down their connections.

Here's an email response from Matt Phillips, director of communications for the BPI (posted with permission):

Hi Eliot

Lot of this is based on speculation from a leaked government report that
appeared in The Times - so a bit early to jump to conclusions on exactlywhat they are set to propose. Certainly there's been repeated noises

from the UK government that if the "entertainment conglomerates" and
"British ISPs" (like the use of language, there!) can't reach a deal onhow to tackle infringement of rights then they'll look to introduce

legislation.

ISPA (the ISP association here) have been quick to say "Internet

providers are no more able to inspect and filter every single packet

passing across their network than the Post Office is able to open every

envelope." But this totally misses the point, and isn't what's being

proposed at this stage - not by the UK music business in any case. It

does strike us as rather strange how so many advocates of technology

have been so quick to claim technological measures just won't work, but

we think our approach of "we do the policing, you send the letters"

both reasonable on the music community, and ISPs, and is a fairer and

more effective consumer deterrent than suing their customers.

So the Reuters report is largely correct - we've been asking ISPs for

more than 18 months to introduce a system to warn their customers(twice) before pulling the plug on them. But we haven't had much success

and our faith in negotiations is running thin. What Reuters didn't

highlight is the fact that partnerships with ISPs in new business models

is part of the bigger picture for us (your last sentence suggests that

we hadn't thought of licensing deals) - but we believe a fair

partnership, where the ISPs take reasonable steps to tackle unlicensed

music, is essential to make any licensed model prosper and to provide a

crucial starting point for our members to engage in commercial

negotiations.

Here's how I responded:

Hi Matt,

Thanks for getting in touch. I agree, it's too early to know what the British government will decide on, but the sentence I quoted from the leaked version ("We will move to legislate to require internet service providers to take action on illegal file-sharing.") certainly indicates one possibility.

It's good to hear that licensing new businesses is the ultimateobjective here, but I'm really worried about the slippery slope wecould encounter if ISPs start monitoring traffic with the level ofgranularity such a system would require. The internet is successfulprecisely because it allows end-to-end communication by "dumb" routersthat don't know what sort o traffic they're carrying. If we make anexception for music files, it's only a matter of time, many believe,
until the internet will become yet another centralized, controlledmethod of distributing information. It's worrying enough that ourgovernment has defied the Constitution by monitoring onlinecommunication, without contemplating various commercial interests beingable to do similar things. The internet is currently a tool for freedom, but it could easily become the perfect tool for control.

That said, I am the son of two musicians, and appreciate the value ofcreativity, originality, and everything else that goes into creating arecorded work. I think it makes sense to offer ISPs a blanket licensethat allows their users to pay a bit more per month for the right toshare any files they wish, and that the resulting royalties should bedivided based on downloads and number of listens. Ideally, we can getto that point without sacrificing net neutrality, privacy, and freedom.

I've gone on for a bit longer than I meant to, but anyway... let's keep the lines of communication open.