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Three ISPs responsible for 65 per cent of illegal downloads

Three ISPs responsible for 65 per cent of illegal downloads

Monday, 04 August 2008

By Garnet Roach garnet@consumerchoices.co.uk

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Just three of the UK’s biggest broadband providers are responsible for 65 per cent of illegal peer-to-peer downloads, according to new research.

Internet analysts Envisional tracked 28,000 unique IP addresses that were making illegal downloads during June and found that 22.6 per cent belonged to Carphone Warehouse, owner of AOL (www.AOL.co.uk) and TalkTalk (www.TalkTalk.co.uk), 21.6 per cent to Virgin Media (www.VirginMedia.com) and 21.2 per cent were from BT (www.BT.com).

"These three ISPs hold more than 11 million broadband subscribers so it makes sense that they would also have a higher proportion of illegal downloaders"

July showed similar figures with 22.8 per cent from Virgin Media, 21.5 from BT and Carphone Warehouse on 21.4 per cent.

However, Michael Phillips, BroadbandChoices.co.uk product director, was not surprised by the claims. “These three ISPs hold more than 11 million of the UK’s 16 million broadband subscribers - BT has 4.5 million customers of its own,” he said. “So it makes sense that they would also have a higher proportion of illegal downloaders.”

All three providers have recently signed a deal with the BPI, which represents the music industry, to begin sending out warning letters to customers identified by the BPI as illegally sharing files on the internet - letters which have already been received by both BT and Virgin Media customers.

As part of the deal, customers who continue to breach copyright laws by using illegal peer-to-peer networks could have their download speeds cut, though the BPI initially wanted repeat offenders to be cut from the internet entirely.

“It will be interesting to see how much of an effect this deal, and the ‘educational’ and ‘warning’ letters that will be sent out, will have on these figures,” concluded Phillips.

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