UK Set To Have "Three-Strikes" Anti-Piracy Law By 2011

[admin]

The business secretary, Lord Mandelson, today promised that the three-strikes banning system would be in place by 2011 to clamp down on online piracy.

The trial is set to begin with warning messages being sent throughout 2010, and if piracy does not decrease by 70% by April 2011, then banning orders would be sent.

Citing stats which show that only 1 in 20 music downloads in the UK were lawful, Lord Mandelson is keen to use account suspensions as a deterrent.

Looking at the target, of 70% decrease, it will almost certainly mean that suspensions will have to occur, because the target is simply unrealistic. Those that want to protest this action might themselves and encourage others to download even more illegal music, to raise the piracy rate by April 2011 as a sign of protest.

The UK ISP association and major ISPs, the government's own Digital Britain report, the police and Britain's intelligence agency MI5, musician and composer groups have all come out against the proposal. A recent poll suggested that 70% of all citizens were also against the proposal.

More:

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/comp...nection-repeat

[DrinkOrDie]

Pttttt!!!!

That's pretty much all I have to say about that kooky proposal. Sounds pretty much like the idea to make heroin use legal. That went over like a pirated Led Zepplin album. Of course the ISP's are against it. I'd say a substantial portion of their high-tier subscribers would drop it like a hot potato if they couldn't download whatever they want.

I have Comcast and they are able to (and do) block torrent traffic due to a few torrent users in an area eating up everyone elses bandwidth. That I can understand. But besides that, how the hello do they get the figure 1 in 20? (It's likely much higher)

I can download music, paid for or not, and nobody but myself has a clue what was downloaded. It's just data. Blocking torrents is easy, blocking downloading of data (completely) through your web browser is impossible.