Britain is looking to reduce illegal file sharing by up to 80 per cent over the next few years, according to a media report. (Associated Press)

British internet service providers are moving decisively against illegal file sharing with a traffic-policing program that will see copyright violators receive warning letters and potentially have their connections cut off.

Under the agreement announced Thursday between the British film and music industries, telecommunications regulator Ofcom and the country's six biggest ISPs — BT, Virgin Media, BSkyB, Carphone Warehouse, Orange and Tiscali — people who illegally share copyrighted files over the internet will receive weekly letters warning them that they are being monitored.

The program will be tested for three months while the parties discuss how to best take action against the estimated six million Britons who illegally share files.

The options include a three-strikes-you're-out rule, under which violators would have their internet service terminated after three warnings, or filtering technology to prevent the file sharing.

The third option under discussion is the slowing down, or throttling, violators' speeds — as a number of ISPs in Canada and the United States already do.

Canada's two largest ISPs, Bell Canada Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc., have for some time been slowing the speeds of peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent, which is popular among users who share files.

Canada has also moved away from requiring ISPs to act as traffic cops. In the government's proposed copyright reform legislation, introduced in June, ISPs would be absolved of the responsibility of punishing violators. The proposed legislation, however, would enable copyright holders to launch substantive lawsuits against file sharers.

Downloading and uploading copyrighted works are a grey area in Canada.

Downloading sound recordings is arguably legal, said University of Ottawa internet law professor Michael Geist, because of a government-mandated private copying levy on devices such as iPods.

Movie and software downloading is illegal, as is the uploading of materials, he said.

Britain's goal is to reduce illegal file sharing by up to 80 per cent over the next two to three years, according to The Guardian.