In an open letter published in The Times on September 3rd, representatives of BT, Orange UK, talktalk, Which?, Consumer Focus, and the Open Rights Group argued against the idea of disconnecting P2P users from the Internet.

"Consumers must be presumed to be innocent unless proven guilty," the letter states. "We must avoid an extrajudicial 'kangaroo court' process where evidence is not tested properly and accused broadband users are denied the right to defend themselves against false accusations. Without these protections innocent customers will suffer."

"The letter acknowledged the industry's legitimate concerns about illegal sharing of copyrighted material, but still said the government's proposals for dealing with the issue are 'misconceived, and threaten broadband consumers' rights and the development of new, attractive services,'" notes AfterDawn's James Delahunty.

"The signatories to the letter argued that the department's estimate for the damage done to the content industries by file-sharing, placed at about $328 million per year, was based upon the premise that a P2P-downloaded track equals a lost sale," writes BLORGE's Michael W. Jones. "Therefore, the dissenters say that the estimate is no more than 'lobbyists' speak' (as) it has little support from logic, and no economist would seek to weave such a number into a metric aimed at quantifying a 'value gap' for the industries challenged by P2P."

More here from ZDNet.