In order to combat piracy the UK Internet provider Virgin Media has has teamed up with Universal to offer their customers unlimited DRM-free music at a fixed monthly rate. However, as with every innovative music service, some major labels fear that Virgin’s all you can eat plan will cannibalize their existing digital sales.
Virgin Media, plagued by a recent flurry of bad publicity thanks to its policy of working with the music industry to warn file-sharers, has announced today that there is “absolutely no possibility” that it will disconnect its users from the Internet or hand over their details to the music industry.
The British Phonographic Industry and UK ISP Virgin Media have done a deal which will see thousands of file-sharers getting warnings. The BPI will use its resources to track file sharers and will then hand the information to Virgin who will send out their own warnings to the customer along with a letter from the BPI.
Virgin Media, the ISP accused of doing a deal with the British Phonographic Industry to disconnect persistent file-sharers from the internet, has denied the reports. Calling such measures “draconian”, Virgin went on to say they raise both privacy and legal issues.
Virgin Media in the UK has announced that it is working with the music industry to chase down its file-sharing customers and disconnect them from the internet. At the same time, it will offer an enhanced service which will see its customers get free Usenet binaries access, untraceable by the music industry.
Following the raid at OiNK, many of the 180,000 members are very concerned about what’s happening with their details. The rumor: The OiNK database was encrypted and self-destructed. The truth: It wasn’t and it didn’t but ex-users still might be safe. In the meantime, OiNK got fired from his job.
