Peer to Peer File Sharing
Advisory Services
The Situation
The UK Government proposed legislation which required ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to implement various measures to curb illicit Peer to Peer (P2P) file sharing.
NERA's Role
NERA investigated the costs and benefits to ISPs of various measures that ISPs may be required to implement under the proposed legislation. This included an analysis of the cost of various procedures required, that is:
- Identification and verification of IP addresses sharing files illicitly and confirming the legitimacy of content within those files.
- Producing Copyright Infringement Reports (CIRs) which include IP addresses, together with the date and time stamp and allegation of infringement in a standardised format.
- Matching these IP addresses to account holders/subscribers.
- Sending notifications to infringing subscribers and keeping count of both the number of CIRs received in relation to each subscriber and the number of notifications sent to each subscriber.
NERA also developed a model to estimate the number of notices that would need to be sent to infringing subscribers under various scenarios based on different policy objectives and assumptions regarding the effectiveness of notice sending.
The Result
NERA produced a report on the costs and benefits to ISPs of proposed measures to curb illicit file sharing that was widely circulated among stakeholders and Parliament, and which influenced the debate on curbing illicit file sharing in the UK.
