Posted: 05th Jun, 2009 By: MarkJ
The UK governments culture secretary, Andy Burnham, has all but confirmed that the final Digital Britain report from Lord Carter, which is due to be published on 16th June, will not require broadband ISPs to disconnect illegal file sharers. Instead methods that involve ways to "
limit or restrict" such activity will be deployed.
A spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, told BBC News Online : "The Digital Britain report coming out soon will build on last year's Memorandum of Understanding between content holders and ISPs to tackle illegal file sharing. It is likely to include an obligation on ISPs to send out letters to people who are infringing copyright.
What Mr Burnham also said was there was the likelihood that the MoU would be backed up by new powers for Ofcom to impose 'technical solutions' for repeat offenders if that process of sending out letters was not effective enough."
There's no official word on precisely what method(s) will be proposed in the final report, although it's probably no coincidence that the UK film industry recently called for ISPs to restrict the broadband service speeds of illegal downloader’s (
original news). Interestingly there was no hint of an
Internet tax, which has been proposed before and would have been very unpopular.
Furthermore there is a serious need for the creative industry to stop living in the dark ages and provide more DRM free and fair priced content distribution methods, such as for recent film releases. We don’t all want to visit the cinema when there’s a far better quality home solution just waiting to be used.