A coalition of business and union leaders are lobbying Lord Carter to introduce tougher legislation to target illegal downloading, before release of his Digital Britain report on June 16. Guardian.co.uk reports that a new group including the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and actors’ union Equity is pleading with Carter to introduce the graduated response, “three strikes” rule whereby ISPs would warn, warn again then disconnect customers who download illegally. Former BBC director general Lord John Birt adds his voice to the campaign: “It is now time for the government to be bold and to offer full and proper protection for the music and other content-producing industries in the UK.” The group intends to use the Future of the Creative Economy conference on Tuesday as a platform to ask for more action from Carter.
The interim Digital Britain report pledged to allow ISPs to send more warnings letters to offenders, but how offenders are then stopped remains a big question: the report said Carter “wanted to make it significantly easier for rights-holders to take targeted legal action” against offenders. But the new coalition will say in a statement today: “Suggestions for rights-owners to take many thousands of legal actions seeking damages against individual file-sharers in court are neither practicable nor proportionate“. Carter has instead proposed a so-far undefined British rights agency controlled by Ofcom which would somehow encourage ISPs and content owners to work together, incentivise legal downloading and set DRM standards. Carter is being lobbied from all directions at the moment — this week six sports, entertainment and ISP leaders also called for action on P2P file-sharing.
Update: Pro-consumer group Consumer Focus opposes three-strikes. Deputy CEO Philip Cullum emailed us: “Disconnecting consumers from the internet is head-in-the-sand protectionism, and reflects the entertainment industries’ failure to adapt to the emerging digital world. The sharing of digital content in violation of copyright should not be condoned, but it will continue en masse until the industry wakes up and provides legal alternatives … The industry must stop wasting time promoting old fashioned protectionist policies and start finding new ways of delivering digital content.” ISP umbrella group ISPA also strongly opposes calls for a three strikes law. It said in a statement today(via bbc.co.uk): “ISPA members have consistently explained that significant technological advances would be required if these measures are to reach a standard where they would be admissible as evidence in court. ISPs and consumer groups consider disconnection of users to be a disproportionate response, a view that was recently supported by the European Parliament.”
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