Last week saw six of the UK's largest ISPs sign-up to a new Memorandum of Understanding with the government and creative industry (original news). The move was the first step in developing a plan designed to tackle illegal music and movie downloads, which would begin with warning letters being issued to those identified as having committed such an act.

Happily the governments department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) has opened a public consultation on the matter (here), giving everybody from ISPs to consumers the chance to have their say on how such abuse might be addressed:


Naturally there are all sorts of situations where illegal downloading can occur but may be difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to completely prevent. For example, an individual downloading an illegal music track over a shared network (work, home or Internet Cafe etc.) would see the owner of that network taking the blame and not those responsible for the act itself.

Meanwhile, people opening up their broadband connections via BT Fon's shared Wi-Fi initiative have every reason to be concerned. Some more remote regions of the UK, where land-line broadband has yet to reach, often rely upon a shared community network. It’s disturbing to think that connectivity for an entire area could potentially be disrupted by the act of a single individual. Source: Thinkbroadband .