Biggest UK Broadband Supplier To Ban Customers For Downloading Illegal Music

Virgin Media looks set to become the first British internet company to crack down on customers who download music illegally. Record labels are lobbying for a "three strikes" regime that would see those who collect pirated material disconnected from the internet, and the government is expected next month to consult on how such curbs could be legally enforced. The trial by the UK's largest residential broadband supplier will go live within months and disconnecting customers who ignore warnings, a sanction favoured by the record BPI, remains an option. The trial will also be open to film and television studios. This would be the first time a British internet company has publicly moved to share responsibility for curbing piracy. Two years of negotiations between record labels and internet service providers (ISPs) have so far failed to produce an industry-wide agreement. The BPI has teams of technicians to trace illegal music downloading to individual accounts. It will hand these account numbers over to Virgin Media, which will match them to names and addresses.
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