It’s estimated that approximately one fifth of the UK’s population partake in illegal music downloading and the music industry obviously wants to take some form of action. Their latest proposal is to take ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to court if they refuse to take reasonable action.
While these plans are still in the pipeline, Virgin Media has signed up to try and help clamp down on file sharing by educating their customers. The first approach to this has started with the sending of 800 letters to customers whose Internet connections have been logged as being used for illegal download purposes.
This move is said to be a bid to prevent children from downloading music unaware that it was illegal. The letters would obviously be read by parents and, theoretically, the kids “educated” in the ways of spending their parent’s cash on genuine music.
Despite claims in the 800 letters that court action would proceed if the downloading did not stop, Virgin Media has said that this was an error in wording and that this is really just the first step in an educational policy, not a bid to locate and cut off offenders.
