As part of the UK Government’s massive report on the future of the communications industries, Digital Britain, they’ve outlined proposals to bring in legislation that would force Internet service providers to cut the amount of illegal filesharing over their networks by 70% in the next year.
The new laws would give the communications watchdog, Ofcom, new powers over ISPs to make sure they’re doing enough to stop piracy. Over the next 12 months, ISPs will have to write to those sharing illegal files warning them that their actions are illegal and in the case of repeat offenders, hand their details over to rights owner (who will then be able to sue offenders if they choose to). During this time Ofcom will measure how close the ISPs are getting to the Government’s 70% reduction, and if they dont reach it, the watchdog will be able to step in and enforce such measures as blocking offenders’ access to certain sites, capping their bandwidth or filtering their content.
The report suggested most people stop engaging in illegal fielsharing once official notification had been given and it is hoped that this will be enough to drive down the amount of piracy in the UK.
While many civil liberties groups will see this as a violation of personal liberties, the Government believes cracking down on piracy is not only vital to the movie and music industries, but also to ensuring a fair and equal internet service for all. Currently piracy uses a huge amount of the UK’s bandwidth, with many say that those downloading huge amounts of illegal video and music files are causing a slowdown in everyone else’s service.
A supsrising part of the document was that the government will be levying a six pound a year tax on everyone with a fixed phone line, with that money ring-fenced for rolling out super-fast broadband across the UK, with speeds up to 50Mbps available to 90% of homes by 2017. Most had expected the report to merely talk about getting everyone in Britain a 2Mbps service, but it’s actually gone a lot further and provided a framework that will allow almost instantaneous delivery of full-HD content on-demand to most homes.
While the report is bound to be controversial, and some bits of it are likely to be watered down (it’s amazing how much anti-piracy legislation has been killed or softened as various governments around the world have tried to push it through), at least it finally appears the Government is finally taking the infrastructure of the Internet seriously, especially as Britain is in serious danger of falling way behind other developed nations.