[5] Institutions such as the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) sought help from the government to force Internet service providers (ISPs) to identify those users suspected of file sharing and to take action against them.
With the backing of the government this was made part of the Digital Economy Act and passed into law after parliamentary debate in April 2010.
[9] As a result of this pressure, the five main ISPs (BT, Virgin Media, Sky, TalkTalk, EE) became responsible for the notification of users identified by the BPI.
Further steps can also be taken by ISP's, if the identified users continue to breach copyright, such as the restriction of the bandwidth available to them or even total disconnection and possible bans or suspensions from the Internet.
[10] However, amendments proposed in 2010 to the Digital Economy Bill by the industry regulator Ofcom, made ISPs with fewer than 400,000 subscribers exempt.
[11] The legality of the software used by ISPs to monitor the Internet activity of suspected illegal file-sharers has itself been called into question because of concerns over the privacy issues that its use raises.
Notices were sent to around 2,000 users via London lawyers Gallant Macmillan demanding a compensation payment of around £350 in order to avoid legal action.
UK ISP TalkTalk has openly stated that they will refuse to send warning letters to their customers or hand over any of their personal information, even if it became a legal requirement for them to do so.
[23] Opposition has also come from English comedian, actor, writer, and director, Stephen Fry, who has defended non-commercial "piracy", supported TalkTalk's Don't Disconnect Us campaign[24] and admitted to using BitTorrent to download episodes of House and 24.