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Digital Top Stories
Virgin to track file-sharing
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 30 November 2009
Virgin Media, one of the few internet service providers to respond in anything nearing a positive way to the music industry and government’s proposals to suspend the net connections of persistent file-sharers, has announced a project to measure the amount of file-sharing that occurs across its network, and what portion of that file-sharing involves unlicensed content.
There have, of course, been numerous bits of research over the years testing the levels of illegal file-sharing that goes on, much of it commissioned by the music and movie industries. How accurate said research has been is anyone’s guess. Virgin Media seem pretty confident that their methods for tracking file-sharing, which uses technology created by UK-based tech firm Detica, will be more reliable than most.
The aim of this tracking programme isn’t to identify the individuals who file-share – the sources of illegally file-shared content will not be recorded – but rather to assess the extent of illegal file-sharing, so to track whether any future endeavours to cut illegal content sharing, whether they be the launch of Virgin’s planned new download service, or the three-strikes style measures being proposed by government, have any real impact.
It’s not clear what kind of file-sharing Detica’s system will measure, ie whether it will focus on P2P-client-based file-sharing networks and bit-torrent streams, or whether it will somehow include the sharing of content via email and the likes. We do know the tracking will not cover the whole of Virgin’s ISP network, but just an undefined portion.
Commenting on the tracking programme, Detica director Andy Frost told reporters: “We hope the launch of Detica CView [the technology Virgin will use] will pave the way for stronger collaboration between ISPs and the media industry, by enabling all parties to more accurately measure the success of shared initiatives, reduce digital piracy and provide an unparalleled level of accuracy”.
Virgin Media’s Jon James added: “Understanding how consumer behaviour is changing will be an important requirement of Virgin Media’s upcoming music offering and, should they become law, the government’s legislative proposals will also require measurement of the level of copyright infringement on ISPs’ networks. [Detica’s CView technology] offers a non-intrusive solution which enhances our understanding of aggregate customer behaviour without identifying or storing individual customers’ data”.
