BRITAIN’s broadband providers are like its Victorian water pipes – far too leaky, according to a top entertainment chief, writes James Ashton.

Elio Leoni-Sceti, chief executive of EMI Music, whose artists include Katy Perry, above, is stepping up his push for providers to clamp down on consumers illegally downloading millions of pounds worth of digital music.

“Internet service providers play a significant role because they own the pipe,” he said. “In England we know there is a lot of water and content filtering wastefully through the pipes across the country. The pipe owner has a responsibility to close the holes.”

In a maiden speech to the broadcasting industry this week, Leoni-Sceti will welcome Lord Carter’s Digital Britain proposals, which require internet firms to warn customers when they are illegally downloading, but call for them to go further.

“There are encouraging signs in the contents and I am looking forward to contributing to their refinement by June when I sincerely hope they will be much more clear and prescriptive,” he said. His research suggests that although 20% of Britain’s £1.3 billion music industry comes from digital sources, by volume consumed digital makes up 70% of the market. Of that, 90% is illegal, but the 10% of digital music bought legally is growing at twice the rate of pirated tunes.

Internet bosses think music labels should do more to put their own house in order before they are made to snoop on subscribers. ISPA, the internet companies’ trade body, declined to comment.

Leoni-Sceti, who joined EMI from the cleaning-products group Reckitt Benckiser last October, shrugged off fears that financier Guy Hands’s Terra Firma fund would be forced to inject more cash into the music company next month when the earnings ratios on its debt are tested. It poured in a further £16m in September.

“I think we are confident we will have no problem,” Leoni-Sceti said. “This ratio will be met.” He also insisted that there was no immediate need to restructure EMI’s £2.4 billion of borrowings.

EMI’s most recent figures showed that half-year losses narrowed from £324m to £155m as sales rose 10% to £737m.

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