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BT say three-strikes very expensive, and it just won’t work
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 29 September 2009
There’s been a bit of disagreement between mega-tel-co BT and record label trade body the BPI over the costs of implementing the previously discussed three-strikes programme.
The internet service providers are against any proposals that they play a more proactive role in policing online piracy, and especially those proposals that they limit or suspend the net connections of persistent file-sharers – ie the proposals currently being considered by the UK government. They often cite privacy concerns as a reason for refusing to more closely monitoring their customers’ net activity as well as questioning why they should foot the bill for tackling online piracy when it’s the content owners who will benefit.
One BT exec, John Petter, recently spoke out against the latest three-strikes proposals, telling reporters they wouldn’t work, and that they could cost the ISP industry up to £1 million a day to implement, which seems like a bit of an exaggeration, but there you go.
A spokesman for the phone firm later added: “Many peer to peer applications are perfectly legal, such as World Of Warcraft and BBC iPlayer. To investigate the exact nature of each case [of P2P traffic] would involve an intrusive level of inspection of people’s traffic and customers would rightly complain”.
But the BPI isn’t impressed with BT’s claims. They claim that the phone firm is exaggerating the implications of the government’s proposals, while arguing that any company whose services can be used for illegal activities has to accept that investing in measures to stop that activity is just a cost they have to bear. BPI boss Geoff Taylor told The Mirror: “It’s shameful for a company like BT to know that a high percentage of the traffic it carries is illegal material but do nothing. If you operate a commercial service and know it is being used to break the law, taking steps to ensure it is used legally is a cost of doing business”.
