A little over two years ago, internet service providers (ISPs) began issuing educational copyright infringement notices to users suspected of engaging in digital piracy to push them towards using legal services such as Netflix and Spotify. Now, notices under the Creative Content UK (CCUK) initiative have stopped being sent to copyright infringers.
It’s not clear how much of an impact the programme had directly on people’s behaviour but while the scheme was running, around one million notices were issued and piracy had dropped by 26% during the period. While it’s likely the scheme would have had some impact on behaviour, the wider availability of content from legal sources would have also accounted for a large part of the shift.
Commenting on the decision, a spokesperson for the CCUK Get it Right campaign said:
“Having encouraged increased awareness of the value of genuine content and of its many legally available sources, in turn resulting in reduced infringing behavior, the Get it Right campaign is now moving to its next phase. The educational emails sent by ISPs upon detection of infringing file-sharing activity have served their purpose and are ceasing, with the focus instead increasing the broader engagement with fans based around their passion for music, TV, film and all other kinds of creative content.”
Regarding the new approach mentioned by the CCUK spokesperson, official sources said that it’ll begin soon and will be focused on advertising and social media campaigns. With most people using websites like Facebook, CCUK will be able to target many people and even target their advertising to select groups of people that are more likely to pirate content.
Source: TorrentFreak