Illegal downloaders to be 'banned' from Internet

Posted at: 2:58am 12th February 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

New UK legislation will force ISPs to strike off anyone caught downloading files illegally

In an attempt to put a stop to illegal downloads once and for all, the UK government is planning to introduce a 'three strikes and you're out' scheme, which will effectively ban the offenders from the Internet.

The plans were leaked to The Times in a draft of a forthcoming Green Paper. The paper claims that 'users suspected of wrongly downloading films or music will receive a warning e-mail for the first offence, a suspension for the second infringement and the termination of their internet contract if caught a third time.'

The act will need to be enforced by ISPs, and any who fail to comply will be prosecuted, with the suspected customer's details made available to the courts. The government has apparently been in talks with Orange, Virgin, BT and Tiscali about the measures, but other ISPs are very worried about the implications.

Neil Armstrong, products and marketing director of Custom PC readers' favourite ISP, PlusNet, told Custom PC that 'we don't believe it is the place of an ISP to police what people download. We expect our customers to take responsibility for their actions. In addition to this, we have an obligation to our customers to protect their personal data, and we take this very seriously indeed.'

Armstrong also expressed concerns of the cost of enforcing such measures, saying that the 'technical and commercial implications of ISPs proactively tracking all downloads and blocking copyright material would be too much for any ISP to bear and would have an adverse effect of the industry as a whole.'

This will be difficult legislation to enforce, particularly in situations where a wireless network has been hijacked by another user. How practical is this legislation? Are anti-piracy measures now going too far, or are they needed to make sure that games developers, musicians and film makers get their money? Let us know your thoughts.