UK First to Restrict Internet Access for Illegal Downloaders

From today onwards the 6.5 million Britons that download music illegally each year will need to be on their best behaviour. As, in a step designed to stamp out internet piracy once and for all, ISPs will be keeping a much closer eye on their movements.

From here forward, individuals that continue to flout download rules and persistently copy music, movies or any other form of media over the internet without paying will be blacklisted and subject to strict traffic management controls; reducing the amount of information they can download significantly.

Announced today these measures are the first of their kind anywhere in the world and have been pegged as a more reasonable alternative to the ‘three strikes and you’re out’ approach the government had intended to put into play.

After talks with industry regulator Ofcom, the ‘big 6’ UK internet service providers have all agreed to do their bit and BT, Virgin Media, BSkyB, Carphone Warehouse, Orange and Tiscali customers will soon all have their online activity monitored for illegal downloads. 

The first step in the introduction of this legislation will involve ISPs writing letters to homes where illegal download activity has been detected. This is in the hope that the ‘offender’ will learn their lesson and start paying. However, if after this they continue to download without paying, more stringent traffic filtering and traffic management techniques will then be put into play.

This legislation has largely been driven by campaigners from the music industry who have incurred heavy losses as an ever increasing number of individuals chose the alternative to paying. A further £1billion in potential revenue was predicted to be lost over the next 5 years had the government not stepped in.

While both the music and film industries are perceived to be wealthy ones, companies in this sector have started to make job cuts as a result of this lost revenue.