The government has proposed to implement a law where any users who download files from the internet illegally will result in having their internet connection cut off. Is this the right move by the government where six million in UK share files illegally?
There are proposals from the government that those people who download music or any other files illegally through the internet in the UK could face a ban of the internet, where there connection gets cut off. The ISPs or Internet Service Providers have been asked to take action against any traces of piracy that is detected. This proposal has made the entire country leap with outrage, so I decided to take a further look as to why this proposal has its own flaws even though the thought kept in mind may be valid and that piracy should really be avoided.
The government proposed that the first offence by a user will mean that the user receives a warning e-mail, a second infringement will result in suspension and the third violation will lead to the internet connection being cut off. The government hopes to tackle the illegal downloading and sharing of films and music in a way that will scare the people off using the internet.
The music and film industry are losing billions of pounds to piracy and to prevent this, the government has set itself a target of cutting down piracy by 70% before 2012 or the result could be the government slowing down our internet connections.
If only the government knew how ridiculous the idea of banning users from the internet just because they download illegally is! This idea is just not feasible in any respect. There is a point to them doing this that those artists and members who work in the creative industry are losing out on some quick quid, but the whole point of paying for leisure seems to cross the line a bit. iTunes charges £0.99 per song you download and spending nearly a pound on one song seems a bit futile.
The iPod series by Apple, depending on how many gigabytes and version, the iPods (or iTouch) can hold anywhere between 120 to a whopping 40,000 songs (not including any videos that the iPod versions might be able to hold videos). Now let’s imagine that a person has 40,000 songs in their iPod, would you be willing to pay £40,000 (not counting the price of your iPod) for a bunch of songs that probably only give you a few hours of leisure a week?
Is there a right to leisure where we already pay enough for the cinema and for DVDs and CDs so should there be some sort of leeway for us to enjoy ourselves without having to pay, when there is financial hardship around anyway? This idea won’t function properly for numerous reasons. Firstly, there are 6 million broadband users in the UK who are downloading files illegally and a monstrous 95% who download files illegally around the world!
Will the government really be able to prevent 6 million users of a right that should be theirs? Nearly half of all the traffic on the internet is generated through the illegal sharing of content and taking this chunk out, could disable many internet business or any other business that indulge in this. Preventing people from doing what they want to will probably result in no one wanting to buy albums and singles and films off the shelves from the high street shops so at the end of the day, no one is benefitting, apart from the government’s idea of making Britain look like a nation that is a bit goody two shoes. And none of this will end up helping the economy.
Another flaw in the idea is the function of shared computers. Many families throughout Britain use shared computers so if one person downloads illegally, why does the entire family have to suffer at the cost of one person? Also, ISPs have already leapt in anger at the proposal of this new rule. If these broadband internet companies end up losing 6 million users, surely their businesses will go down under.
The internet industry and computing is probably worth far more than the films and music industry purely because the internet today has become a multi-functional piece of engineering. UK broadband provider Talk Talk has said that the proposal would “breach fundamental rights” which is so true, contributing to the fact that this new law won’t work and for the government to implement it is pure idiocy! Virgin, another broadband provider said, “persuasion not coercion” would help slow down the number of illegal file sharers.
Cutting the internet off a user might seem like a pretty drastic measure and users might see this as a warning, but what’s not to say that there will be more fool-proof ways of downloading files illegally yet to come? A warning might be enough to send some of the countries best software minds to cook up something that will enable our tech savvy nation to download more files illegally.
Personally, the government will aggravate a number of people if they choose to carry on with this because even though piracy is illegal and truly isn’t right to indulge in, threatening the public will alienate them rather than show them the right way to support the government’s cause. Yes, the government’s intention is good. Those members who work in the creative industries do need to eat and earn a decent living but the government’s implementation of their idea to halt piracy isn’t the right one. This idea does seem like it won’t be successful purely because of the amount of resistance that might build up but surely, someone in the government can come up with a less drastic measure to gradually end piracy. We’ll have to wait and see.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Good news but they will find some other way also..
August 26th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
a wonderful article and excellent news! i support the government in this noble cause. the article is beautifully scripted and very enjoyable to read too.
August 26th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Pretty nice! I like the pictures and how you kept the article flowing with so many details!
August 26th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Great article. I am sure this law would never be aproved by the congress as it would ruin economy.
August 26th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Banning the internet? Sounds like Communist China or something. Here in the U.S. they just charge you thousands of dollars and put you in jail if you can’t pay. You’d still get to use the internet in jail probably
August 26th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
The government of Uk decision is good because illegal things what ever and who ever do must be bad but now days people’s mind is very fast then government mind so government can band but it will not banded. people will search other way.i m not agree with” colette234″ because where ever in china or America or in nepal if you do illegal things must be punished
thanks
August 26th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
It’s stealing when you take someones music without paying for it. Stealing is against the law, and offenders have to pay in the US. Sometimes thousands of dollars but they haven’t started cutting them off the internet yet that I know of.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:46 am
another great piece, well done, very informative, But it is illegel to steal others music, would be like someone stealing our poems.. NOT COOL !!……..
August 27th, 2009 at 7:28 am
:-O
August 27th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
banning the internet is bs
the problem is companies charge too much for music and videos
thats why people download illegally there should be a fair price if I was head of Itunes I would make it like this
You buy a year unlimited download card for like 100 dollars and then you can download unlimitedly.
August 28th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
There should be a one-of payment system, maybe annually for unlimited downloads. That would keep everyone happy!
August 29th, 2009 at 11:25 am
This is bad news indeed. So the government is policing media that the very media industries failed to secure? Did they not realize that the majority of people downloading music or films cannot even afford dvd’s to begin with?
I wish they would hurry up and appoint someone for digital Britain who isn’t extremely naive when it comes to the internet. They say they are going to increase the numbers on the internet and increase UK business on the internet but they are going to ban 6million users? I think you can imagine the sheer amount of advert money the UK .com companies that legally operate their business will be affected by this.
Rather than doing the media companies bidding I recommend forcing them to sell their media on a medium that cannot be so easily ripped off and they haven’t done any hardline steps to secure the media apart from DRM which proved to be useless (but cheap to the media industry)
By selling dvd’s and music at such high prices and also sticking region restrictions to movies they give rise to piracy also, did anyone ever mention that to the the increasingly naive MP’s backing the digital britain movement?
And we are still waiting to hear an MP say the words “network neutrality”… meaning they are just trying to ignore it and pretend that it doesn’t exist and has no supporters.
It’s about time the government went further with regards to listening to all parties involved, the media industry AND internet users, at least then some form a compromise could be met.
And billions of dollars? hmmm I beg to differ you can’t put a price tag on something based on whether or not some will actually buy a cd or dvd or can even afford it to begin with.
This whole thing reeks of naivety, give us a decent website to use on the internet where we can legally download media and we will probably use it, the problem is they have failed to do so even now with itunes as it’s nothing short of useless because it’s quite frankly too expensive for something that is only data and has no physical form.
August 30th, 2009 at 4:58 am
This is article Is an excellent article and beautiful read
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:09 am
see i know a lot of people who download music illegally, and i have to say i don’t blame them! at itunes, 79p for 1 song doesn’t sound a lot, but for £10 you only get about 10 songs. that doesn’t seem right to me.
also, if they ban some people’s internet and blacklist them, those people who pay for the whole package (broadband, phones, tv etc..) will stop paying. AOL, Virgin Media, BT will lose A LOT of custom and will most likely end up in debt. i think cutting access of the internet is too hasty, not just because of these reasons, but because there might be one child downloading illegally without parents realising, and they will be punished!!! and what about needing the internet for research for school and work and all sorts?! this is a silly ban, they should not be banning the people who download the music, they should charge the people who make the websites or whatever it is they give out the music on, and make them pay because people only download the music because it is there, handed on a plate for them.
October 5th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
i totally agree with the article..If we have to pay for every song.Then why ipods are providing that much amount of space in their device.People can rarely buy those many songs and songs might cost of minimum a dollar .Not everyone can afford a music.so is it that he cant listen to anymore.some music which is quite old can be put on free by the permission of the owner.i think the idea of banning people who download illegally is totally disgusting.If there is free food in the market and if people go and eat that then we cant arrest that guy for having that meal.it is said that it is free.