UK ISP Piracy Surcharge Could Force 40,000 Households Offline

Over the past couple of years, media companies have been battling piracy in many different ways, but at the end of the day, their measures all but fail, and prove to be nothing more than an inconvenience to those who ran into the temporary roadblock. Despite draconian measures like DRM, sales all-around are up, and it’s for good reason. On the movie side, there have been some stellar titles out there, and for music, the likewise can be said.

But despite that, companies involved in the music and movie industry are infinitely greedy, and no amount of money would ever appease them. And since piracy exists, what better situation to take advantage of than that? Earlier this year, it was announced that a music industry-backed measure would be taken to help recoup money lost by piracy, by inflating the bills of all Internet customers.

This of course is ridiculous. The main reason is because all those people who don’t ever pirate anything would have to front the extra money, and as a whole, we all know that the “one download = one lost sale” theory is all but a pipe dream. According to the UK Government Ministers, the end cost to consumers per year could be upwards of £500 million, an average of £25 per year per Internet customer.

An exec from one of the UK’s leading ISPs, BT, stated that if these changes go into effect, then it could render 40,000 users Internet-less. BT offers Internet packages for as low as £15.65 and as high as £24.46, so it’s easy to understand why exactly a £25 surcharge is so ridiculous… it’s essentially like adding another month onto the year, bill-wise. I really hope to see this plan shot down before it’s put into action. If it gets passed, I have little doubt we’ll see the same thing creep up on these shores, and others.

Jeremy Hunt, the Shadow Culture Secretary, said that it is “grossly unfair” for the government to force all broadband customers to foot the bill, and noted that forcing tens of thousands offline will go against government targets of increasing Internet take-up among the most disadvantaged communities. “We are confident that those costs will be a mere fraction of the stratospheric sums suggested by some ISPs,” a BPI spokesman told The Times, adding, “..and negligibly small when set against their vast annual revenues.”