According to sources within Telecom, the ISP arm of the telco giant might send out letters to selected broadband customers this month, notifying them to ease back on pirating and file sharing.
Since the launch of Xtra's go-large plan a few months back, some customers undoubtedly took the opportunity to increase downloading of pirated material through torrents and other P2P services. With the ability to monitor web control, users might now get the first taste of Telecom’s ‘fair use’ strategy, where the company reserves the right to throttle broadband speed as it sees fit.
New Zealand ISP WorldxChange has canceled and then reopened some customers accounts due to the detection of those users using P2P services to download movies etc. Reportedly, WorldxChange's Xnet service told a customer they had been contacted by Paramount pictures who had detected someone downloading their material from New Zealand.
Meanwhile, back at the farm, a leaked letter from the RIAA (Recording industry association of America) has been sent to US ISP's, asking them to cooperate with efforts to identify and sue those accused of sharing music over P2P networks. ISP's can be forced to turn over the name and address of account owners addresses by matching activity logs with IP addresses. The idea behind the letter seems to be that the RIAA will send the letter through cooperation with the ISP, looking for settlement without resorting to the legal system.
It is unknown whether the RIAA are able to influence Telecom/Xtra here in New Zealand, although the RIAA has previously put pressure on Russian MP3 sites through the US government, convincing Visa and MasterCard to decline payments to the site.
Go here for the full story and a sample of the US letter.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070213-8832.html
Surely, Telecom is looking to save face and reassure its position in case of an international law suit involving New Zealanders. So if you get an angry letter in the mail telling you to stop downloading those old Star Trek episodes, let us know.
