Music industry states that not everyone has to pay for illegal filesharing

An officials from the music industry has stated that not everyone necessarily has to pay for the crackdown on illegal file sharing, as had been claimed by Internet service providers.

Many Internet providers in the UK have voiced their concerns over the cost of cracking down on illegal file sharing, and many have stated that the cost of this crackdown will result in households having to pay higher broadband bills. One ISP, Talk Talk, has been particularly vocal about its disapproval over the cost of tackling illegal file sharing, and has claimed that this is something that we will all pay for.

However, the chief executive of the British Phonographic Industry Geoff Taylor has stated that whilst ISPs have claimed that the crackdown will mean that consumers have to pay more for their broadband bills this is not actually the case because the ISPs are under no obligation to pass on the cost of the crackdown on to their customers.

Taylor stated that ISPs could easily absorb the costs involved in cracking down on illegal file sharing in the UK. Alternatively they could pass on the cost only to those that have found to have been illegally file sharing so that innocent broadband users are not penalised for what other broadband users may be doing.

He was expressing his opinions on the BPIs blog, and he went on to state: “They are perfectly at liberty to absorb the costs out of their large profits, or to pass on the costs of notifications to the account holders whose accounts are used illegally. ISPs have been throwing out fanciful figures to try to persuade the world that piracy’s not worth fighting.”

Source – Cable