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Broadband boosts buoyant digital music industry

Digital piracy may be rife, but it hasn’t put the breaks on the broadband music industry.

Statistics released from a new report, conducted by the international record industry body, reveal the digital music industry grew by 25% in 2008. This impressive growth comes despite 95% of all broadband music downloads being illegal.

Despite rising profits in the digital music industry, there is pressure from the government to tackle the escalating issue of peer-to-peer file sharing over broadband. The government is pressing for a change in the law, which would mean broadband internet service providers (ISPs) have a responsibility to monitor illegal broadband downloads. Users who persistently abuse broadband to download illegal music would face disconnection.

The British Music Industry (BMI) is also in support of a permanent solution to illegal broadband music downloads. It lost £180m to piracy in 2008, and claims it needs legal protection.

In its own bid to tackle the issue, the BMI came to an agreement with several broadband ISPs in July 2008 which resulted in over 1000 letters per week, over a three month period, being sent to broadband users reprimanding them for illegal file sharing.

ISPs however, are stopping short of having to disconnect broadband users for such practises. BT wrote in its submission: “Unauthorised P2P filesharing of copyright material is fundamentally a market issue which needs to be addressed through a range of commercial means.”

Furthermore, ISPs are implying that rights holders should be the ones to launch legal action against illegal music downloads.

23/01/2009
Author: CompareBroadbandUK staff writer

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