After a lot of pressure from Britain's music and movie industries and the government, they have managed to persuade six of the country's biggest Internet service providers to start sending warning letters to those suspect of illegal file-sharing, according to this Reuters report. It is estimated that around 6 million people in Britain are involved in illegal file-sharing each year, so the purpose of this is to try and make a significant reduction in this figure.
Under a 3-month trial, these service providers will send letters to the most active downloader’s involved in copyright infringement, warning the users that they are being monitored. After this period, the service providers will then work with rights holders to decide which further options to take based on the outcome of this trial. A few possible options include a "Three Strikes and you're out" system like in France and traffic shaping/filtering to either try slowing down or blocking the transfers of copyright infringing content.
Up until recently, the ISPs refused to cooperate, arguing that they were not responsible for the content being transferred in much the same way that the post office does not examine the contents of its customer's letters and parcels. However, they decided to agree after the government threatened to impose legislation if they did not tackle illegal file sharing. Some analysts reckon that this plan would be most effective at scaring off the younger users who download without their parent's knowledge. However, according to Jupiter analyst Mark Mulligan, while this will likely be the most successful move by the entertainment industry against file sharing, even this will not be enough in the long run.
This move will not replace the existing lawsuit campaign, as the content industries plan keeping its previous method of suing file sharers who share copyrighted content. They also plan developing a range of legal services to help tackle piracy.
It would have been interesting to see how this approach would have worked in the US instead of the RIAA’s notorious lawsuit campaign, particularly as tens of thousands of people have been hit with a lawsuit without any formal letter of warning.
