Just two weeks ago a coalition of several British “creative industries” called on the UK government to implement legislation that would make it possible to disconnect repeated copyright infringers. At the time they were convinced that the French model was the right way to go, but it appears they have already changed their minds.

The UK film industry – backed by some of the same organizations that previously called for the disconnection of pirates – now think this approach is too extreme. Instead, Internet service providers should slow down repeated offenders, in the hopes that this will stop their defiant behavior.

“We see the use of technological measures as similar to creating road humps – they will make potential copyright infringers pause and think twice,” Lavinia Carey, chair of Respect For Film said in a comment.

In addition, the movie industry group vaguely mentions the possibility for ISPs to block access to ‘pirates sites’ or at least warn their customers that they could end up in court if they continue to download copyright infringing content.

By itself, the speed bumps are an interesting approach to the ‘piracy’ problem, but we seriously doubt it will have much effect. A reduction in available bandwidth will surely annoy people previously used to downloading a lot of content, but will it also stop them from return to their old habits when the bumps are gone?

Or phrased in the speed bump analogy; will speed bumps on a road still have an effect on the behavior of drivers when they are removed? It might very well be that the restrictions are only effective when they are in play, which makes them useless as an anti-piracy tool.

Nevertheless, the UK government has committed itself to helping the entertainment industries tackle the piracy problem. In the words of David Lammy, Minister of State for Intellectual Property: “We know that the copyright industries in the UK are suffering huge losses due to illegal downloading.”

The use of the term ‘copyright industries’ by Lammy is telling. Meanwhile, Minister Lord Carter is tasked with making sense of all the industries’ piracy solutions. The legislation he comes up with will be announced on 16 June.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

If the new plans are passed, ISPs will effectively be forced to play copyright cops by spying on the download behavior of their customers. Moreover, copyright lawyers will be busy for the years to come, as thousands of people could potentially end up in court, even some who have never touched a P2P client.

Last year, the Department for Business, Education and Regulatory Reform (BERR) asked copyright holders, ISPs and the public to give suggestions how to handle online piracy. The results of the consultation, published yesterday, were polarized. The ISPs and the public indicated that they were fine with how things are now, but the copyright holders disagreed.

Most copyright holders, including the music and movie industry representatives, have called for regulation that would require ISPs to monitor their networks and filter out copyrighted traffic. According to the details currently available, a filter is not mandatory in the most recent plans, but monitoring is.

The proposal is clearly another step in the wrong direction. There are several privacy concerns that will be raised when the plans go into effect. And as we’ve reported before, tracking down copyright infringers is not an exact science, and the current techniques lead to an unacceptable number of false accusations.

Recently, the BBC consumer show Watchdog revealed how easily innocent people can be accused of piracy, sometimes with disastrous financial consequences. The new regulation seems to be a compromise between the opposing viewpoints of ISPs and copyright holders, with only one major loser – the people.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.