BT is threatening to kick users of P2P applications off its broadband service, citing copyright abuse.
This is a new development at the monster telco which has already shown its commercial antipathy to file-sharing sites (Last year it introduced a policy of restricting bandwidth to P2P sites from its ADSL service.)
As one BTBroadband user found out, Robert Brown (from my homeland of Northern Ireland, Woo Hoo!) was sent a letter, ordering him to stop distributing such material within 24 hours or face having his account terminated, for breaching the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) for the no-frills ADSL service.
When Robert checked his AUP, he could find any mention of not being allowed to use P2P, though in the Usenet section there is an injunction to observe copyright issues and not to "post material that you did not create, unless you have the permission of the owner of the relevant rights in that material".
He contacted BTBroadband's abuse team and was told that the letter was sent out after BT's systems detected he was using file-sharing applications. It was implied during the conversation that downloading files is acceptable, but once they land in a shared folder and become available to the world a user becomes in breach of contract.
"From what they are saying, it would seem that it is impossible to use P2P on BTBroadband any more, since as soon as something is shared (whether you own the copyright or not) it triggers their automated systems to send out nasty letters, effectively accusing you of being a pirate."
News source: The Register
