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Philip HuntMandy confirms he'll cut off filesharers
28th October 2009 18:25 | by Philip Hunt
Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, has confirmed that the UK government is planning to cut off filesharers from the internet:
The UK government will take steps that will exclude persistent downloaders of content from connecting to the internet, it confirmed today.
The UK business secretary, Lord Peter Mandelson said that the UK would pass legislation to cut off people as a last resort. Before cut off, individuals would receive warnings that their activities had been detected and warned to cease and desist.
The government plan that the legislation will come into effect in spring 2011. Of course, there has to be a general election by June 2010, which Labour is very unlikely to win, so if the legislation is brought in, it won't be them doing it.
Labour's plan is that the music industry will monitor what people are downloading, and on their say-so (not in any court of law), internet subscribers will receive two warning letters and then have their internet access cut off. The music industry will not have to prove that the subscribers have being doing anything wrong; instead Mandelson's plan is that they will act as judge, jury and executioner. And it's not just the subscriber who will be cut off, their whole household will be too; this collective punishment, if done in wartime, would be a war crime under the Geneva Convention.
However we must thank Lord Mandelson and the Labour Party for making it abundantly clear that they have zero respect for the human rights of the British people, and are instead doing what multinational corporations tell them to.
(This story is also covered by: the Guardian, the BBC, the Times, PC World, and the Telegraph)
7 comments
An idea that will create a boom in the VPN industry, punish innocents and still not make old business models work.
Absolute madness, but are we not currently in "war time" ? we ARE at war.
Access to the internet should be a legal right to all people of this country.
OK, so the UK Gov is getting it's botty spanked over Phorm http://digg.com/d318Xx0
<quote by telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding> "Ensuring digital privacy is a key for building trust in the internet. I therefore call on the UK authorities to change their national laws to ensure that British citizens fully benefit from the safeguards set out in EU law concerning confidentiality of electronic communications." </quote>
So how can they possibly think that letting the Music Industry monitor my downloads be OK!?
I wonder how many spurious allegations will be received about the content industry, and how they'll function with cut-off connections.
This won't work. People could just use software such as the onion router and avoid detection completely.
Completely flies in the face of the rule of law and of the basic tenants of our legal system. Admittedly, the current government has had little concern with such things. But then, as you point out, it may not be the current government passing such an atrocious law. I wouldn't bet on a tory victory next year being the end of it though- the pro copyright lobby is too strong. It's not the last we shall hear of such plans.