By: MarkJ - 28 September, 2009 (1:55 PM) - Score: 1554 - Fixed Line Broadband, Piracy

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has called BT "shameful" after revealing that the operator had done nothing to stop thousands of illegal music file sharers on its service. The BPI claims to have collected the IP addresses of 100,000 BT Broadband ISP customers that are suspected of involvement with the activity.


The BPI's claim, which was reported by The Mirror, comes only days after BT blasted the excessive cost of tackling illegal users. The operator warned that the high costs involved with tackling piracy could result in customers having to pay an extra £2 per month (£24 per year) on their broadband bills (original news).


Law firms currently track suspected illegal P2P activity by monitoring IP addresses, which is known to be highly unreliable. These addresses are assigned to every computer when you go online, yet IP's can easily be spoofed, redirected, shared (internet cafe, businesses etc.) or even hijacked (open Wi-Fi networks). The download itself could also be encrypted, making it nearly impossible for the ISP to verify.

BT has since moved to defend itself, with a spokesman informing the paper that: "To investigate the exact nature of each case would involve an intrusive level of inspection of people's traffic and customers would rightly complain." He added that peer to peer file sharing (P2P) itself was not illegal.

Indeed BT is correct, there are many legal uses for P2P, such as deploying software updates, Microsoft's XBox360 LIVE multiplayer gaming service, World of Warcraft, the BBC iPlayer and the list goes on. The very principal of P2P is what underpins many of the methods for exchanging information over the Internet.

It’s also difficult to see how even a big ISP like BT could find enough manpower to effectively investigate each of the 100,000 reported cases. On the other hand, BT did signup to the original ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ (MoU) between the UK’s six largest ISPs and the music industry last year (here).

This MoU agreed to the principal of sending warning letters to those “suspected” of involvement with illegal downloads. However the BPI claims that BT has not acted upon its information, which suggests that the operator has not even issued any warnings.

UPDATE - 7:06pm

Statement from BT:


This appears to reinforce the already well know fallibility of relying on IP address data to accurately target known abusers.