broadband news

Where do you stand on downloading music?

Some 800 people have received a letter from broadband provider Virgin Media and the British Phonographic Institute warning them that file sharing on broadband is an offence. It’s all part of a theoretically ‘soft’ approach to try and educate broadband users who use their broadband to enhance their music collection. Unfortunately the soft approach went slightly awry with a threat on the letter.

"If you don’t read this, your broadband could be disconnected."

Broadband provider Virgin Media claim that was a mistake.

Broadband provider Virgin Media and BPI want broadband users to stop using file sharing sites like Limewire and BitTorrent to share copyright songs. BPI has been saying for a long time they’ll clamp down hard on persistent offenders. But it‘s an ongoing battle.
The arguments from the ‘downloading is good’ corner are persuasive. They say music is expensive. Which it is. How much do you reckon filling your iPod with 10,000 songs is going to cost you? An unrealistic £7900 quid.

There is also an argument that using your broadband to download songs for free gives the user a taste that might make them go out and buy the album. They claim it encourages purchase of more music overall.

Negative feelings towards the music industry overall add to the argument. Everyone thinks it makes too much money anyway. That the way the music business is structured is flawed and that copyright laws need revising.

Indeed, the music business has hardly embraced the digital revolution. Broadband is for the people. Broadband represents a community and a philosophy of liberated access. People consume via broadband as much as they do on the high street. The music business’ reticence to take this on board and deny the impact broadband has had does make them appear greedy as well as out modish.

But all this doesn’t alter the fact that downloading music via your broadband is illegal. It’s stealing. Your broadband connection might be disconnected. It looks like the download police are closing in.

17/07/2008
Author: CompareBroadbandUK staff writer

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