BT criticises music industry and record companies on internet piracy issue
The government’s proposed illegal filesharing crackdown policy would make broadband customers in UK to pay additional £24 a year, according to John Peter, BT’s consumer division boss.
Lord Mandelson, the business secretary has announced last month that new anti-piracy policy will include tough measures like the suspension of the broadband connection of the ‘hardcore’ illegal downloaders. He also suggested that the ISPs and the copyright owners would share the cost of tracking the alleged file sharers, if the policy becomes a law. However, the proposals were attacked by the UK broadband industry, digital freedom campaigners as well as organizations like Consumer Focus.
However, broadband providers in UK seem to be against the idea that they would police the web although they stressed that they were quite against illegal filesharing over the internet. If the tracking methods implemented, it would cost the ISPs £1million a day, John Peter said in the interview to The Mirror.
The music industry would just lose £200m per year to internet piracy, however, the financial burden on broadband industry would be more, BT claimed. As most UK internet providers already get no more than ‘wafer thin’ profit margins, it is more likely that most of this cost would be passed on to the broadband/phone bills of the customers.
About seven million internet users in UK were found to be sharing copyrighted stuff like movies, music etc., using P2P sites like Pirate Bay, while UK providers say that most of their customers are not illegal filesharers.
BT’s consumer division boss also criticised the music industry and the record companies:
“They’ve lobbied hard and very effectively but that doesn’t make them right. Their claims are melodramatic and assume people would buy all the music that is illegally downloaded, which is nonsense.”
The ‘cut-off’ measure is also likely to punish the innocent users, if their systems and broadband connections are shared by illegal file downloaders. He suggested that the music companies could use the existing legal measures to tackle offenders instead of going for extreme measures:
“Laws already exist to enable music companies and other copyright holders to prosecute offenders but they don’t want to take the hit to their public image.”
The new anti-piracy which depends upon a technology that involves spending millions would eventually fail, he added.
“It would cost millions and probably have very little impact as they (illegal filesharers) would devise new ways to disguise what they’re doing.”
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