Connections of Online Pirates Could Hit Speed Breaker
Technical solutions, rather than the proposal of banning repeat offenders, could now be recommended in the Digital Britain report due for release on 16 June.
The idea was endorsed by culture secretary, Andy Burnham at Music Week’s Make Online Music Pay conference. Although his comment may have taken some people by surprise, many observers had pointed out that banning of offenders was not a practical approach.
While it is expected that the recommendation to internet service providers to dispatch letters to users who infringe copyright still holds, ISPs will now also have to curb file sharing activity by stifling the connections of users who are downloading copyrighted files illegally. To keep up-to-date with the latest broadband news, refer to Broadband Genie, they also have a really good section for broadband reviews for an individual insight to various ISP’s.
Burnham’s statements have met with approval in many quarters. The vice president of Forrester Research, Mark Mulligan told the BBC that the implementation of the scheme should not pose any hurdles as ISPs already use systems that manage internet traffic at peak hours. These same systems can be put to use to limit the connection speed of copyright offenders.
The only problem that may possibly arise would be in convincing the ISPs and music labels about this compromise. Both may feel that the solution is unjustified. However, experts in this field says that such a solution is probably the best option that the two parties have if they want to tackle the menace of piracy.
