Losses by the Industry could be far less than the cost of enforcing anti-piracy

Government plans to demand that internet service providers police the internet in an effort to stamp out online piracy will hit the average broadband user with additional broadband costs according to a senior manager at one of the country largest telecommunications providers.

According to the managing director for consumers at BT UK, John Petter, there will be a significantly negative impact on the ordinary consumer in the fight against internet piracy.

Recent reports have shown that ISPs will have to pass the costs onto its customers if the plans the get service providers to police the internet are pushed through by the government according to Petter.

The cost for ISPs to implement these new anti-piracy measures is to cost them an estimated £365 million a year and this could mean that the yearly broadband bill for every user in the country could potentially go up by around £24.

Petter also said “Laws already exist to enable music companies and other copyright holders to prosecute offenders but they don’t want to take the hit to their public image.”

TorrentFreak, the piracy news site recently said “According to Jupiter Research, whose figures the BPI uses when trying to convince others how much money they lose, the British music industry will lose £200m worth of business to online piracy in 2009.”

If these figure are accurate it will actually cost the ISPs more to run the anti-piracy measure than it is costing the music industry in terms of lost revenue.

So not only will ISPs be paying twice as much as the movie and music industry are losing each year if the figures are to be believed, but most users can pay a few pounds extra each month in order to bypass the £365 million measure that the ISPs have put in place according to TorrentFreak.

Source – Gadget Republic