The Federation Against Software Theft (FAST IiS), which is a UK not-for-profit organisation that promotes the legitimate use of software, has launched a scathing attack on the governments "political grandstanding" plans to impose a Three Strikes system of ISP account disconnect upon those who are suspected of repeatedly downloading illegal files.


Lovelock also added that a recent commitment of £7.4m in extra funds to aid the Trading Standards in their enforcement of copyright offences could come to nothing if alleged reports of an impending budget cut by the government are to be believed.


The outburst is perhaps somewhat premature given that the Government will publish its full response to the consultation on unlawful peer-to-peer (p2p) file-sharing in parallel with the Digital Economy Bill, in late November. In addition Mandelson has already outlined a rough time-line for the measures to be introduced (here).

It will be interesting to see whether all of these costly measures to combat piracy will actually result in any significantly increased sales. Often those who download illegal material would never have brought so much stuff in the first place, while others are more likely to adopt secure VPN solutions, encrypted FTPs and private P2P torrents to get around the risk.

The government has also repeatedly ignored concerns over the fallibility of using IP addresses as evidence. Law firms currently track suspected illegal P2P activity by monitoring IP addresses. These addresses are assigned to every computer when you go online, yet IP's can easily be spoofed, redirected, shared (internet cafe, businesses etc.) or even hijacked (open Wi-Fi networks). The download itself could also be encrypted, making it nearly impossible for the ISP to verify.

Those who do receive warnings, assuming some or many of them may actually be innocent, will have a hard job defending themselves. If your wireless network security is broken then, as some studies have shown, hijacking of a network is often somewhat of an evidence-less crime.