By: MarkJ - 22 February, 2008 (9:27 AM)
The government is today expected to set a deadline of April 2009 for UK ISPs to either adopt firm measures to prevent online piracy on their networks or face legal sanctions.
It follows last weeks leak of a green paper (
here) that appeared to support the introduction of a "
three-strikes" system for warning and ultimately banning illegal downloader’s from their ISP.
Andy Burnham, culture secretary, told the
Financial Times on Thursday that the deadline was a “
clear signal” of the government’s determination to tackle rampant piracy, which the music and film industries blame for the slump in CD and DVD sales.
“
Let me make it absolutely clear: this is a change of tone from the government,” Mr Burnham said. “
It’s definitely serious legislative intent.”
Meanwhile ISPs continue to raise concerns about the technical difficulties, legal (online privacy) and cost implications of introducing such a system. It can be very difficult to 100% identify illegal downloading, especially when a customers data traffic has been encrypted or the connection is part of a larger shared business environment.
Sadly the government’s strategy paper is unlikely to address these concerns directly, effectively leaving it as a problem for ISPs to solve before the deadline. Like it or not ISPs will now be forced to find a solution to the problem or adopt the "
three-strikes" system, we suspect this pressure is designed to encourage the latter.
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