Virgin offers to take three strikes for BPI - perhaps

Last summer, Tiscali attempted to be handmaiden to the BPI by introducing a "voluntary" agreement whereby it disconnected customers when told to by the music industry. It dropped the scheme quite quickly when it transpired that although the BPI is happy to pay lawyers it wasn't prepared to put its hand in its pockets to cover Tiscali's costs.

Now, Virgin is offering to try another pilot for the BPI:

In a statement today, Virgin Media said: "We have been in discussions with rights holders organisations about how a voluntary scheme could work. We are taking this problem seriously and would favour a sensible voluntary solution."

A spokesman promised that customers will be told when any trial begins, but couldn't say when that will be.

Although, to be fair, that sounds a little like 'ISP makes willing-sounding noises in a bid to keep the pretence of voluntary system alive' rather than a desperate desire to rush ahead.

And why would they want to rush ahead? B2fxxx reports that the recent European Court of Justice ruling in the Promusicae case suggests that throwing people off the web to protect copyright holders is almost certainly a breach of European Law.