UK ISPs To Face Piracy Deadline

superbrose notes that despite lots of legal difficulties regarding Internet privacy, the UK government is going ahead with plans to punish ISPs for allowing their customers to download illegal music and films. The claim is that there is "rampant piracy" in Britain with more than 6 million broadband users downloading files illegally every year. "The government will on Friday tell internet service providers they will be hit with legal sanctions from April next year unless they take concrete steps to curb illegal downloads of music and films. Britain would be one of the first countries in the world to impose such sanctions. Service providers say what the government wants them to do would be like asking the Royal Mail to monitor the contents of every envelope posted."

Petition

[IAmAI]

You can also sign this petition: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/openinternet/ [pm.gov.uk]

Re:6 MILLION!

[EllisDees]

Who's stealing what? Copying isn't stealing no matter how hard you wish.

Re:6 MILLION!

[Computershack]

The stupid moron who posted the figure of 2 million was using an article from May 2003 FFS. BT alone have over 4 million subscribers.

Re:6 MILLION!

[sarabob]

Erm, that link is from 2003. Try again.

The UK came in sixth with just under 14 million broadband users at the end of March [2007] [guardian.co.uk]