BT has followed Virgin Media's (original news) lead by teaming up with the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) to help fight online music piracy. Customers found to have been involved in illegal downloading will now be issued with warning letters, threatening them with being cut-off from the net unless their activity ceases.

Reports indicate that at least one of the operators four million customers has already received such a message, which included the warning, details of what had been downloaded (a song 'Biology' by Girls Aloud) and evidence of the download itself (P2P program used, timestamps, a file name and IP number):


The Register has since reproduced BT's letter in full, with related customer details removed - here. It would appear to have a somewhat more aggressive tone than those being used in Virgin Media's "educational" trial of similar warnings. This is in close keeping with the BPI's recently proposed "three-strikes" system, which we outlined in our 'To Ban or Not to Ban (Illegal File Sharers)' article earlier this year.

However, to compensate for this the music industry has been secretly working with larger UK ISPs to introduce some form of licensed music downloading scheme (original news). It's believed that the new system, which could see some broadband providers offering a legal file-sharing service to music fans, may be available by the end of this year:


Details remain sketchy, though it's understood that such a service would track the popularity of music file exchanges between customers and reward rights holders accordingly. However, to be effective the music industry would need to make sure that all UK ISPs have access to its deal, not just the largest players.

There's little doubt that this is a radical proposal and one that has the capacity to completely reshape how broadband users both download, access and listen to music. It would also give ISPs another useful revenue source without having to worry about the legal drama.

Presently the proposals only appear to be targeting music files, though if it were to prove successful then one could imagine it being extended to other media, such as movies and possibly even games. Still, to truly succeed it will need the support of broadband consumers and to do that requires attractive pricing.