Is it the End of Illegal Downloads ?
Are the times of free pirate downloads coming to an end ?
It certainly looks like something is going to happen
There has been much talk about the problems of ‘illegally’ downloading music and films etc, it’s popular with those that do it but not so with the music business, film companies and software developers.
But what can they do to stop it ?
Well I doubt they can stamp it out but it’s looking like they’re going to make a big move.
The UK government is preparing legislation which will compel ISPs to take action
The same is happening in the USA and France with a ‘3 strikes and you’re out rule’
2 Warnings about about downloading from you’re ISP then you’re cut off !
The 4 major UK ISPs are pushing for a voluntary agreement with the industry so it looks like all the players are now heading in the same direction.
Internet Service Providers are no longer simply saying, what can we do about it - it’s not our fault etc.
They don’t want the official legal responsibility and I suspect they would appreciate the massive savings in bandwidth.
There are bound to be issues raised by this but they really do look set to go ahead, perhaps they have to as statistics are showing that 95% of night time internet activity is file sharing !
The things that spring to my mind first are:
1: Exactly how are they going to auto-differentiate between legal & illegal downloads
2: What about young children who download songs without their parents knowledge
3: The ISPs may share a banned list, so this could permanently remove net access for some
4: Will prosecutions result
How it all pans out remains to be seen and I cannot see how they can effectively stamp it out but I can see them having a big impact on the normal everyday downloader
