No internet for filesharers, says Mandelson

Photo by The ArtifexD

Downloaders will have their internet connections severed after the UK Government takes a tougher line on file-sharing.

Business Secretary Peter Mandelson has proposed the measures halfway through the Digital Britain consultation, which originally ruled out such stringent action.

Initially, downloaders would have received warnings followed by ISP action to slow down their connection if they persisted in file-sharing.

Read this at the Guardian.

The new measures have met with resistance from ISP’s, who say they “breach fundamental rights”. They pointed out such strict measures would be easily avoided by persistent offenders and would punish those who share connections.

Read this at the BBC.

Lord Mandelson faced accusations that this government turnaround was the result of a meal with music mogul Lucian Grainge, the chairman and chief executive of Universal Music Group International.

Read this at the Daily Mail.

Andrew Robinson, UK leader of the Pirate party, defended filesharing as an “altruistic system” flummoxing copyright laws which are now outdated and need further debate before draconian measures can be introduced.

Read this at the Guardian.

Privacy groups have also responded angrily to the new measures, claiming the government has “crumbled under pressure” from the music and film industry. The Open Rights Group has launched a grassroots campaign to stop the sanctions, saying: “Clumsy enforcement techniques will further damage trust in not only copyright but Government as a whole.”

What the Digital Britain report said

There is evidence that most people who receive a notification stop unlawful file-sharing. This is backed up by survey results which found significant numbers of people say they would stop or significantly reduce their file-sharing activity upon receipt of a notification. Separately surveys indicate there is real interest in new business models that offer a similar experience and content to filesharing. The recent “Copycats” report by the independent SABIP body showed there is still real confusion over what is/is not lawful and demonstrates the need for widespread education as part of an overall approach. But there are also those who believe that notification, education and the ultimate sanction of legal action will not be enough to make the impact on unlawful file-sharing that we need to see. The Government believe that the notification process outlined here should have the effect of significantly
reducing file sharing; but if it does not go far enough then further action will need to be taken.

For that reason the Government will also provide for backstop powers for Ofcom to place additional conditions on ISPs aimed at reducing or preventing online copyright infringement by the application of various technical measures. In order to provide greater certainty for the development of commercial agreements, the Government proposes to specify in the legislation what these further measures might be; namely: Blocking (Site, IP, URL), Protocol blocking, Port blocking, Bandwidth capping (capping the speed
of a subscriber’s Internet connection and/or capping the volume of data traffic which a subscriber can access); Bandwidth shaping (limiting the speed of a subscriber’s access to selected protocols/services and/or capping the volume of data to selected protocols/services); Content identification and filtering– or a combination of these measures.