As the entertainment industry ramps ups the pressure on Google, MySpace and other Web companies to better police the illegal online trading of movies and music, it’s already looking toward even bigger fish to join in its battle against digital piracy: Internet service providers.
Sources say the Motion Picture Association of America is talking to a number of companies that offer high-speed cable and DSL Internet service – including Comcast and AT&T – about adopting policies and technologies that would discourage users from illegally swapping movies and TV shows over their networks.
Word of the push comes amid growing efforts by ISPs over the last year to manage traffic on their networks.
A study last week by the Associated Press found that Comcast, the Philadelphia-based cable and Internet giant, is interfering with some of its subscribers’ ability to upload large files onto the Web.
The move is reportedly most meaningfully affecting users of popular peer-to-peer technologies like BitTorrent.
Comcast, in a statement, said it neither blocks its users from using any sites, BitTorrent included, nor bars users from uploading files to the Internet.
But in the eyes of the entertainment industry, such moves are driven less by a commitment to respect copyrights and more by the desire to discourage the most egregious bandwidth hogs who clog up Internet traffic with excessive swapping of music, movies and other large files.
Industry executives want to see ISPs more actively monitor their networks for pirated movies.
ISPs are not necessarily opposed to the idea. AT&T in June said that it would work with the entertainment industry to explore ways to combat piracy on its network through a variety of education and technology approaches, though it put forth no specifics.