A government minister has told The Times that he doesn't believe that it would be possible to enforce a law that requires ISPs to disconnect illegal file sharers.
Increasing focus is being put on ISPs and their role in stopping file-sharing of copyrighted material.
However, despite Culture Secretary Andy Burnham hinting at legislation last year, Intellectual Property Minister David Lammy has voiced his concerns that any legal measures would be impractical.
"I'm not sure it's actually going to be possible," he told The Times.
Bar of soap
"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," he added.
It's an interesting opinion in the current climate – where the likes of the BPI (formerly the British Phonographic Industry) are pressuring ISPs to take some form of action.
Some self-regulation has followed and major ISPs have been signing up to a code of conduct that sees those accused of illegal file sharing served with 'educational' letters warning them about the potentially illegal course of action they're taking.
But enforcing the system has always been an issue – especially bearing in mind that networks can often be used by people other than the owners.
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jmace86
January 26th
2. avi: I could not disagree with more with your suggestion that piracy has little to no effect on the music industry.
I know people who have not paid for a song for years and have dozens of gigabytes of music on their computers (not to mention the utterly illegal copies of movies and TV shows that many of them also have) that they have not paid for.
The fact is that pirating music is incredibly simple, somebody with an incredibly modest understanding of how to use the internet could easily download music without paying for it.
What really gets me is when people use the pathetic excuse for their utterly disgusting criminal activity of: "Well it does not matter if one person does not buy an album, the company will still get plenty of money from other people paying for it."
That may be true if it WAS just one person, but the problem is that thousands, even millions of people illegally download music, movies, games and software every day and when all of their stealing is combined it amounts to a huge amount of lost revenue for the respective companies that are being stolen from.
If you are not willing to pay for something, then what right do you have to own it?
I would rather like a nice 60" Pioneer Kuro TV, but I cannot really afford to pay £5000 for a TV, does that mean that I am going to go out and steal one? No! Of course it does not, I will settle for something cheaper.
Why is it that when we talk about digital products, people seem to, conveniently, forget that it is still a product that cost money to produce?
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avi
January 26th
1. This is a subject that gets far more coverage than it deserves. One gets the impression that the BPI spends more money threatening its customers and driving them away that it does wooing them.
It's enough to drive an old man like to piracy just to spite them. However I can't be arsed and I don't suppose many others can either. If music isn't selling it's because it's too expensive, not good enough and because the music business has made itself a figure of hatred by whining on endlessly for the last fifty years about being killed by copying.
The business won't die but it probably won't survive in its present form and I don't suppose anybody gives a monkey's.
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