February 22, 2008 7:14 AM PST
Britain threatens ISPs with possible piracy legislation
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The British government released a strategy paper to address the problem of illegal file sharing after the ISPs and creative industries failed to come to a voluntary agreement over how best to tackle the issue.
The paper said the government still prefers a voluntary solution but said it will start consulting on possible legislation later this year.
The move follows a decision by the French government to ban access to the Internet for those who repeatedly download material illegally and follows years of lobbying by the music industry, which has been damaged by piracy.
Industry estimates put the number of broadband users in Britain who download files illegally at around 6 million.
"Within the space of only four months, two governments, in France and Britain, have now embraced the simple idea that Internet service providers are uniquely positioned to help in the fight against digital piracy," John Kennedy, head of the international music trade body IFPI, said.
"This is a sea-change in attitude."
The ISPs would prefer a voluntary agreement and argue that as mere conduits, it is not their place to police the Internet.
But the government has been moved to act to give a boost to the country's creative industries. Global music sales were down around 10 percent in 2007 and the industry estimates that tens of billions of illegal tracks were swapped online in the year.
Britain's leading Internet service providers include BT, Virgin Media, Carphone Warehouse, Tiscali, BSkyB, and Orange.
Story Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Also, reading between the lines, what this proposal actually makes possible is for the government to legitimately and secretly silence whomever they choose with respect to publication on the internet. (or at least try to, I'm not sure they'd get very far for very long)
Careful what you say about the British government if this becomes law. You might find yourself "suspected" of illegal filesharing 3 times and have your connection cut.
Daz
Requiring the ISPs to try stopping this traffic will only put more burdens on their systems, and will at best slow the traffic down for short periods of time. The only way to completely stop this traffic is to shut down the internet. How long will it be before the entertainment industry tries that approach?
So they will put pressure on ISPs to reduce music/video piracy? I'm not sure what the politicians and the entertainment industry were thinking.
How can (for example) BT monitor the trillions of bits on their network? And wouldn't that violate privacy laws?
Best thing to do is let them pass the law and show them why it wont work.