Time to halt digital legislation (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Time to halt digital legislation

7:58am Wednesday 25th November 2009 in Columnists By David Smeathers

Lord Mandelson’s latest scheme to introduce a three-strikes policy to prevent illegal file-sharing just reeks of being devised by an out-of-touch technophobe.

The plan, to be officially set out in the Government’s Digital Economy Bill, proposes that file-sharers could be stripped of their internet access if they persistently offend.

What he seems to fail to understand is that sharing happens every day in forms more palpable than digital content. People have shared purchased goods for years but only recently has it been dubbed stealing.

If you buy a CD in a shop and loan it to a friend, they’re not expected to pay the record company the same price. If you buy yourself a book or newspaper and let someone else read it, they’re not expected to pay the publisher for the right.

It can’t be classed as stealing as the original sharer pays for the content. They gain ownership. Record companies seem to want music sales to become hirings, and any sharing becomes an illegal activity. I wonder what that would mean to pubs and clubs? Would everyone in a club have to pay for music the DJ chooses to play?

Despite their intentions to police internet usage, detecting illegal file-sharers also poses its own problems. With the growth of encryption software and IP changers, tracking down the offenders would prove a difficult and costly endeavour, most likely to the cost of the taxpayer.

If someone downloads a file from a wi-fi cafe or at their friend’s house, does that mean those places and people will have their internet cut off? If someone is freebooting from a wireless connection without the owner’s knowledge, do they lose access? It is ridiculous.

If people are willing to share their music they have purchased, they will find ways to do it. The Government will always be one step behind the programmers making software to share it.

It’s time this piece of legislation is stopped before it runs up massive costs without achieving anything.