British Phonographic Industry Criticises Piracy Threat Letters

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has spoken out about against solicitors from firm ACS: Law for sending out threat letters to people whom are ?suspected? of file sharing, without any real evidence. The letters are sent out with heavy language and threaten consumers to pay settlement fee for their download ? despite providing absolutely no information ? or face legal action. The charges range from between ?300 to ?500.

It?s not just the industry itself that are on ACS: Law?s back though; several consumer groups, politicians and the ISPA have also spoke out against the tactics used by the firm due to the unreliable data. The threat letters are largely being seen as the company trying to make a quick profit by targeting consumers who are often completely innocent.

Of course, the music industry are also happy to send out threat letters, although hopefully those sent out as a result of the digital economy bill will be based on someone more solid evidence than ACS: Law, although considering the bill also wants to use IP addresses as complete evidence of the guilt of one person, we?re not certain.

The BPI said in a statement:

?We don’t favour the approach taken by ACS:Law to tackling illegal filesharing, which is at odds with the proportionate and graduated response advocated by BPI and proposed in the Digital Economy Bill.

We uphold the highest standards of evidence, and our view is that legal action is best reserved for the most persistent or serious offenders – rather than widely used as a first response.”

The BPI have also joined musician Bono this week in telling the world that internet providers have more than enough cash floating around to pay for the costs of policing file sharing on their networks. Anyone familiar with the broadband industry will know that this simply isn?t true and that most providers operating on increasingly small profit margins in an incredibly competitive market.

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