UK government considering file sharing laws

[1020]

The UK government could legislate to crack down on illegal file-sharers, a senior politician has told the BBC's iPM programme.

Lord Triesman, the parliamentary Under Secretary for Innovation, Universities and Skills, said intellectual property theft would not be tolerated.

There are ongoing talks between internet service providers and the music industry and these are, said Lord Triesman, "progressing more promisingly than people might have thought six months ago".

While he said that the government had no interest in "hounding 14-year-olds who shared music", it was intent on tracking down those who made multiple copies for profit.

"We have some simple choices to make. If creative artists can't earn a living as a result of the work they produce, then we will kill off creative artists and that would be a tragedy."

Link to article

Blame OiNK? Edit: The article does say they're specifically going after those who profit from file-sharing, though.

 

[Queso]

Typical current UK government reaction. They have enough laws on the statute books already to deal with this problem, but rather than enforce those and deal with the issue they'll create a bunch of headline-grabbing new laws and ignore them too.

 

[weckart]

It is hard to see what the ISPs could do without compromising data protection laws. More likely, we'll see bandwidth shaping if certain P2P applications are detected.

I always thought the ISPs deliberately turned a blind eye towards all the pirating going on because that was one of the biggest drivers towards getting people to sign up to broadband. Perhaps they have developed cold feet from the sheer amount of traffic and performance expectations created. VirginMedia Broadband aka NTL aka Telewest aka CableLondon has never turned in a profit.

 

[Queso]

It is hard to see what the ISPs could do without compromising data protection laws. More likely, we'll see bandwidth shaping if certain P2P applications are detected.

That's what I worry about personally. My main use of BitTorrent is for downloading open-source stuff. If it becomes unusable because the idiots in the Labour Party force ISPs into limiting the bandwidth for P2P it will push up the bandwidth costs of the open source projects because we'll all have to download directly.

Which will of course have a nice hidden benefit to the UK government's favourite company Microsoft

 

[edesignuk]

here's hoping it's just another fad that they will quickly forget about and move on to other equally stupid pressing matters

 

[weckart]

That's what I worry about personally. My main use of BitTorrent is for downloading open-source stuff. If it becomes unusable because the idiots in the Labour Party force ISPs into limiting the bandwidth for P2P it will push up the bandwidth costs of the open source projects because we'll all have to download directly.

Which will of course have a nice hidden benefit to the UK government's favourite company Microsoft

The government would not even have to get involved. The ISPs are talking directly with the media providers its seems. Probably need to get on their good side if they are to have any hope of becoming a media portal.

There are precedents for the scenario above - certain University campuses and, of course, Comcast in the US.