Professional Documents
Culture Documents
In all honesty, it is fair enough that people should pay for what they watch,
listen to and read, and Rupert Murdoch (newspaper magnate) has already launched a
scathing attack on the BBC for providing free news on the internet. Now, in a
recent development, Lord Mandelson has given notice in a speech at the British
government's digital creative industries conference, that digital downloaders, who
are considered persistent offenders, could be shut down and face criminal charges
with fines of up to £50,000.
A report published in June of this year, Digital Britain, covered areas including
illegal filesharing. The report itself did not lay out precisely what legislation
was required but the British government has called for a massive 70% reduction in
online piracy by April 2012. Following that, it proposes a more draconian law
would be introduced, saying the government would be launching a massive crackdown
on illegal internet filesharing.
The Guardian's technology section quoted Mr Mandelson as saying: "It must become
clear that the days of consequence-free widespread online infringement are over.
Technical measures will be a last resort and I have no expectation of mass
suspensions resulting."
The piece then went on to further quote him as saying: "Persistent illegal
filesharers will be monitored for the first 12 months. If illegal filesharing has
not dropped by 70% by April 2011, then cutting off people's internet connections
could be introduced three months later, from the summer of that year."
But, according to thinkbroadband.com: "If fines of £50,000 are ever levied for
illegal filesharing then the likelihood of people going to prison for non-payment
seems high. Who has £50,000 lying around and potentially parents could be served
the fine if their children are underage. Suspension of an internet account would
also seem to go against the whole idea of Digital Britain, which is to get people
online and encourage those who've never used the internet..."
It may not have been Rupert Murdoch's blistering attacks on the BBC after all
then, as it was reported in the Daily Mail, an English anti-Labour government
newspaper, although later denied by a spokesman, that: "Lord Mandelson ordered
officials to draw up the draconian regulations days after dinner with David
Geffen, who founded the Asylum record label which signed Bob Dylan. The pair dined
on 7 August at the Rothschild family villa on Corfu, while Mandelson was
holidaying on the Greek island."
With newspapers going behind paywalls next month, the sword of Damocles now hangs
over free online music and film, as the business secretary cum digital overlord
plans, according to the Daily Mail, to "criminalise an estimated seven million
people in the UK who regularly but illicitly download music and film".
In the same article and in a related development, the Daily Mail reported that the
Pirate Party, which won a Swedish European Parliament seat in June on a platform
of legal filesharing, announced it would be standing in the general election.