News 

The letters were despatched in envelopes warning that "If you don't read this, your broadband could be disconnected", but Virgin reiterated that the campaign is educational and that no one will be disconnected. It said that the envelope message was a mistake.

"It is important to let our customers know that their accounts have been used in a certain way but we are happy to accept it may not be the account holder that's involved," said a Virgin spokesman.

ADVERTISEMENT

"It could be someone else in the family or someone living in a shared house. It could even be someone stealing Wi-Fi. We are not making any form of accusation."

He added that Virgin has no intention of passing any names to the BPI, which may take a less tolerant view.

Some of the recipients of the letters told BBC Radio 1's Newsbeat that they were innocent of the charges, which will only reinforce suspicions that it is not possible to reliably track file sharing activity.

Virgin was the first ISP to confirm that it would begin policing p2p traffic. Tiscali even went so far as to cancel the accounts of some users, until it fell out with the BPI over money. BT has also begun sending letters to alleged sharers threatening disconnection.