Virgin Media launches stream + download music service

Jake Widman
Tuesday, 16 June 2009 01:39

Business IT - Technology

According to the announcement, Virgin and Universal "will be working together to... drive a material reduction in the unauthorized distribution of [Universal's] repertoire across Virgin Media's network."

The effort will start with educating potential file sharers about online piracy and about legal ways to get the music they want.

However, since Virgin controls the pipeline, it can also take the next step -- "a last resort for persistent offenders," says the announcement -- of temporarily suspending a customer's Internet access.

At the same time, "no customers will be permanently disconnected and the process will not depend on network monitoring or interception of customer traffic by Virgin Media."

The obvious alternative is that file sharing will be monitored by Universal, which raises the question of whether tracks distributed through the service will be tagged somehow so their origin can be traced.

Music rights organizations hailed the service: the chairman of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, John Kennedy, was quoted as saying that he expected such partnerships between music companies and ISPs to influence the future direction of the music business.

It's easy to see how the record business would find it attractive to work with ISPs, who can control customers' access to the Internet and so directly punish copyright violators.

"Traditional" music stores such as iTunes and Amazon, by contrast, don't provide the record companies with any leverage over the behavior of their customers.