This last aspect of the process is typically very expensive and consequently limits legal action to only the most prevalent abuses, which is a source of great frustration for the creative/music industry.

The Proposal

The government has given UK ISP’s until April 2009 to agree a process of self regulation with the music industry or face legislation that could potentially enforce something far worse. Though precise details are hard to come by and some of the ISPs we spoke with seemed none the wiser, a rough outline for the initial “three-strikes” proposal is as follows:

1. Information sent to ISP highlighting several illegal downloads from IPs’ on their network.
2. Strike 1 – Customer told that piracy has been identified on their account and a warning to stop is issued.
3. Strike 2 – Customers that fail to adhere to the warning may face temporary account suspension and or severe service restrictions.
4. Strike 3 – Customer banned from their ISP if illegal activity resumed.

This proposal, which is subject to change and at first glance appears deceptively simple, is currently being shopped around ISPs as part of a self-regulatory “solution” to the problem.

The Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) argues that ISPs cannot prevent illegal downloading because they “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.”

One of the countries largest ISPs, which has chosen to remain anonymous, told us that they “cannot detect illegal traffic, unless we know exactly what traffic is illegal - it's a catch 22. Additionally with encryption and also many legitimate uses for P2P, the onus has to be on the rights holders to tell us who is sharing data illegally - if they then want the customer's details, we'll provide them under court order. This is the established position and will remain until legislation changes.”