UK changing approach to torrents

PokémonTrainerFour · July 22, 2014

Instead of punishing you they'll send you letters trying to educate you and point you in the direction of legal, compelling alternatives.

As Virgin Media - participating in the scheme - put it: "We believe people will ultimately pay if they can get what they want, how they want, at a price that's fair to them."

Basically, ISPs are going to start mailing out letters to people who pirate, in order to persuade them to buy.

Or as Business Secretary Vince Cable said: "It's about persuading the persuadable, such as parents who do not know what is going on with their net connection. [The voluntary copyright alert programme] is not about denying access to the internet. It's about changing attitudes and raising awareness so people can make the right choice."

Banding together under the banner Creative Content UK are ISPs BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk and Virgin Media, as well as entertainment institutions The Motion Picture Association (MPA) and the British Record Music Industry (BPI).

The first phase of the scheme - a significant multi-media awareness campaign, part-funded by the government - will happen before spring 2015.

After that, ISPs will start sending letters to unlawful downloaders. Apparently you can receive up to four letters a year but nothing will happen if you ignore them.

It looks like they're kind of tired of attempting to deal with pirates completely, so they're just going to back off, but try to sway you in the direction of purchasing.

I really doubt 4 letters a year would break a habit like pirating, but it all depends on the person. Maybe this will work.

Thoughts?

SOURCE: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-07-22-uk-changing-approach-to-illegal-torrents