(Update: The BPI says it does not have a deal with Virgin Media to monitor ISP traffic in order to curb illegal file sharing.)

Thank you, United Kingdom, for beating the U.S. to the three-strikes-and-you're-out ISP policing that music trade bodies have demanded for years. You test it out, go through the public firestorm, work out the kinks, and then we'll decide if it's going to be part of the America's scheme to monetize/police music downloading.

How will it work? From The Telegraph:

The trial by the UK's largest residential broadband supplier will go live within months and disconnecting customers who ignore warnings, a sanction favoured by the record BPI, remains an option. The trial will also be open to film and television studios. ...

The BPI has teams of technicians to trace illegal music downloading to individual accounts. It will hand these account numbers over to Virgin Media, which will match them to names and addresses.

One can go back to October 2007 to a commentary by the BPI's Geoff Taylor to see the trade group's approach.

We are confident that the prevalent culture of online copyright theft will be curbed through a combination of consumer education, stricter enforcement by industry and government, new business models and more robust action by ISPs against online copyright theft. Simply put, we have too much to lose as a society, economy and culture if we do not ensure that creators’ efforts are rewarded, and we believe that the internet will become an environment in which creativity can be effectively monetised.

I'm surprised by the momentum this ISP policing scheme has attained in Europe. The difference may be those countries' tendency to treat music as a cultural issue rather than just one of business. (Entertainment companies are probably very good at playing the culture card to protect their interests.) Governments are more likely to step in when the nation's culture is perceived to be at risk. Just a few months ago, in January, most everybody thought U2 manager Paul McGuinness had gone off the deep end when he blamed ISPs for facilitating and profiting from illegal downloading and called for traffic filtering. But the British government warned it would pass legislation unless the ISPs voluntarily reached an agreement with content owners. And here we are.