Broadband ISP’s Warning Letters To Pirates Ineffective

A recent survey conducted by the Media law group, Wiggin, has found that illegal file sharers (pirates) are not deterred by warning letters from their broadband internet service provider (ISP).

Out of the 1,500 broadband customers surveyed, no more than 33% would stop pirating content if they received a warning letter.

The results come just before the Digital Britain report is officially published. Within the report it is expected that Lord Carter will make it a requirement for ISP’s to send warning letters to persistent illegal file sharers in the hope that it will deter them.

As of yet there are no real plans as to what can be done if a user ignores the warning. It is thought that there will be some kind of service restriction placed upon them, but how exactly this will work is not yet certain.

The CEO of TalkTalk, Charles Dunstone, has stated recently, “If you try speed humps or disconnections for peer to peer, people will simply either disguise their traffic or share the content another way. It is a game of Tom and Jerry and you will never catch the mouse. The mouse always wins in this battle and we need to be careful that politicians do not get talked into putting legislation in place that, in the end, ends up looking stupid.”

One thing is for sure, the results of the Wiggin survey show that warning letters from broadband providers will mainly be ineffective. It seems that some kind of restriction on broadband supply could be the only way to deter users in the short term.