France recently adopted a similar system to that which has been proposed for the UK, although their solution involved the establishment of a new law enforcement body to deal with such requests. It seems like common sense, yet the proposed self-regulatory solution over this side of the channel does not appear to include it.

ISPs are also concerned about what happens when a customer feels they have been wrongfully accused, in which case the provider could face legal action from their own users, especially if a business has been damaged. Situations like this could arise because a computer has been hijack by hackers or the IP they use may form part of much larger shared network, such as in a public Internet café or pay-as-you-go Wi-Fi Hotspot network; both of which are difficult to police.

To operate efficiently ISPs would thus need to log more customer information and train up specialised staff to deal with and investigate piracy notices, introducing a huge cost burden; one pilot by Tiscali recently collapsed following a related disagreement over costs (news article). Few industries are as competitive as the ISP sector and such a move could put smaller providers out of business and or cause prices to rise.

It’s even possible that some providers may deem it easier to block P2P altogether, which would be a serious error in judgement because the service is used for countless legitimate purposes too, such as in multiplayer games like World of Warcraft (WoW) and the BBC’s iPlayer Internet TV service.

Will it make a difference?

The BPI claims that ISPs have effectively “built a business on other people’s music” and paid nothing to the creators. However this statement shows a distinct lack of technical understanding and highlights the creative industries inability to comprehend the inner workings of an Internet provider. Simon Davies responds, “To accuse ISP's of benefiting from P2P music file sharing is naive at best but certainly rather narrow in vision. By their argument they should have similar issues with the manufacturers of CD burning equipment.”

In reality many UK ISPs are concerned by P2P’s often disruptive influence upon their networks, causing once casual users to download vast quantities of data and challenge the very survival of their tight economic models. This is especially true at the larger end of the scale, where aggressive P2P use on budget priced services has caused congestion and speed problems, resulting in customer churn and poor service quality. The budget model relies on most surfers NOT being active downloader’s and using very little data, not the other way around.