TalkTalk blasts BPI's £200 million "business advice"

 

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By Hani Megerisi

Posted on 8 Mar 2010 at 16:06

TalkTalk has hit back at the BPI’s claim that ISPs could make £200 million from music download services, claiming the figure sugar-coats copyright proposals that "threaten human rights".

“TalkTalk thanks the BPI for its strategic business advice," a TalkTalk spokesperson responded in a withering statement.

"Though some may question the value of such insight from an industry which has failed to acknowledge the impact of new technology on its own business models and is pressing the Government to criminalise its biggest customers," the spokesperson said.

TalkTalk thanks the BPI for its strategic business advice. Though some may question the value of such insight from an industry which has failed to acknowledge the impact of new technology on its own business models

“As it happens TalkTalk does offer a legal download service (emusic), as do other ISPs. Perhaps there is a goldmine for ISPs in legal downloads but that will not alter the fact that the copyright protection proposals being proposed threaten human rights. They will penalise innocent broadband customers. They are expensive, unwieldy and utterly futile.”

The comments came after a BPI report claimed ISPs could earn £203 million by 2013 by bundling music download services with internet packages.

This is based on an assumption that between 6,000 and 24,000 customers a month would take up the service – representing an influx of nearly 300,000 new users each year. To put that figure in perspective, Spotify has a total of 250,000 premium users across Europe.

TalkTalk did not have any figures for its emusic service, although the company added that it was only launched three months ago.

The BPI claimed the numbers were based on figures gathered from similar services being run by ISPs across the UK and Western Europe, but added that “due to the sensitive nature of the information, we cannot divulge who the ISPs are”.