Six of the UK’s biggest net providers are believed to be backing a government plan to tackle music piracy online.
The plan commits the firms to working towards a “significant reduction” in the illegal sharing of music.
The first stage of the campaign will involve hundreds of thousands of letters being sent to net users suspected of illegally sharing music.
The BBC has been told that the memorandum commits the net firms to develop legal music services.
Official confirmation of the deal is expected later.
The six firms, which will be named early on Thursday, are understood to have signed a Memorandum of Understanding drawn up by the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR).
The BBC has been told that the firms have agreed to ensure their customers know it is illegal to share copyrighted music.
It is believed that the memorandum also requires net firms to go further in their attempts to tackle illegal file-sharing.
At the same time the government is also expected to start a consultation exercise that could result in laws that force net firms to tackle music piracy.
In the past few weeks net firms Virgin and BT have sent letters to some customers identified by the BPI, which represents the UK record industry, as persistent music pirates.
Before now the BPI has called for a “three-strikes” system which would see net connections of persistent pirates terminated if three warnings went ignored.
Many net firms have resisted the call from the BPI and have said it was not their job to act as policemen.
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Addendum: three thumbs up, the excellent Charles Dunstone!
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