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Virgin Media cautiously welcome Mandelson’s three-strike plans
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 30 October 2009
While the internet service provider community have generally been critical of Peter Mandelson’s announcement earlier this week that he will plough ahead with plans to get three-strikes on the statute book, Virgin Media have cautiously welcomed the new anti-piracy measures.
The responses of both Virgin Media and BSkyB – in their guises as internet service providers – to any new anti-piracy legislation are particularly interesting. As major media providers and content owners themselves, they have more to lose if file-sharing is allowed to continue uncurtailed, especially once it is TV shows and movies that are being primarily shared. Both, therefore, are more likely to be early converts to anti-piracy programmes, and are often the main focus of the record companies’ and film studios’ efforts in persuading the net sector to play ball.
Virgin boss Neil Berkett, who was announcing his company’s better than expected financial performance yesterday, told reporters he was “broadly supportive” of Mandelson’s previously reported proposals to introduce a so called graduated response system to fight piracy, which could lead to file-sharers having their net connections suspended in 2011. He told reporters: “We are broadly supportive. We are the most progressive internet service provider in terms of protecting intellectual property”.
Though he added: “I firmly believe you can’t just do it [reduce illegal file sharing] with a stick. We now have guidelines in place so we can concentrate on the carrot, hence our deal with Universal Music”.
Virgin, of course, were the first ISP to voluntarily send warning letters to suspected file-sharers. They have also agreed to eventually voluntarily suspend those file-sharers who fail to heed warnings, as part of that there mentioned deal with Universal Music. The carrot is the launch of an all-you-can-eat MP3 download service, which would be pretty ground breaking if and when it goes live.
While Universal are partners in that venture, the other majors have so far been cautious of signing up to a system that, in theory, gives punters access to unlimited MP3 downloads for a set monthly subscription. That cautiousness seems to have delayed Virgin’s launch plans. If said majors ultimately refuse to play ball, it will be interesting to see if Virgin remain the most supportive voice for content owners in the ISP sector.
In other Virgin Media news, Berkett has also revealed that the number of people using Virgin Media’s video-on-demand platform has risen to an all time high. The Virgin media chief says 55% of his company’s 3.71 million TV customers used the firm’s on-demand platform at some point in the third quarter of 2009, while the average number of on-demand views per month was up to 66 million, the highest figure yet. Berkett also noted: “Our customers who use use it more than they watch Channel 4 or Channel Five”.
