Government abandons piracy legislation

Posted at: 12:08pm 28th January 2009 by Ben Hardwidge

File sharers and ISPs breathe a sigh of relief as government says that banning pirates from the Internet isn’t practical

Following last year’s reports of a scheme to ‘ban’ pirates from the Internet via ISPs, it looks as though the government has now decided to back down on the plan, saying that it hopes it won’t have to apply ‘the heavy hand of legislation’.

In an interview with The Times, the Intellectual Property Minister, David Lammy, said that ‘I'm not sure it's actually going to be possible,’ as a result of the complexities of enforcing such legislation. This will not only come as a relief to illegal file sharers, but also to ISPs who would be expected to do the policing.

Speaking to Custom PC, PlusNet’s products and marketing director, NeilArmstrong, explained 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.'

Lammy also revealed that he had a different opinion on file sharers than many people in the music industry. He pointed out that there’s a big difference between organised counterfeiting gangs and ‘younger people not quite buying into the system’. He added that ‘we can't have a system where we're talking about arresting teenagers in their bedrooms. People can rent a room in an hotel and leave with a bar of soap - there's a big difference between leaving with a bar of soap and leaving with the television.’

However, one anonymous representative of the music industry responded to his comments in The Times, saying that ‘the relative cost of stealing a bar of soap from an hotel might be small, but if it came to seven million people nicking the soap each year, which is what we have in the music industry, I'm sure that hotel chain would do something about it.’

Is this a victory for the Internet community, or do we need more laws to combat Internet piracy? How would you solve the problem of widespread Internet piracy? Let us know your thoughts.