Digital Britain: Government vows to cut illegal file-sharing by 70%

he Government believes it can reduce unlawful file-sharing by 70% to 80% by forcing internet service providers (ISPs) to tell users that their copyright infringement has been noted and making evidence of infringement available to the courts.

It said that its policy "needs" to make that much difference, even as it came under fire from content industry bodies for not mandating the cutting off of file-sharing internet users.

In its just-published Digital Britain report, the Government said that most piracy will be wiped out by its plans. ISPs will be expected to produce a code of practice outlining how and when they will inform users of their services that they think the user has been file-sharing unlawfully and how the ISP will share data with the legal system.

If file-sharing is not reduced by its ambitious target, though, the Government said that it will give telecoms regulator Ofcom powers to force ISPs to interfere with the internet connections of suspected file-sharers.

Article continues after advert

Those include blocking individual internet connections from accessing certain sites or certain types of content, slowing down connections or placing a cap on a connection's bandwidth.

"These powers should be used if, and only if, the combination of measures set out above has been fully implemented but has not succeeded in significantly reducing the level of unlawful file-sharing," said the report.

The report outlined the problem and the Government's predictions for the effectiveness of its actions.

"It is clear that the scale of unlawful activity is a major concern for those contemplating investment in innovative content models that rely upon any form of payment. This is unacceptable," it said. "The Government considers online piracy to be a serious offence. Unlawful downloading or uploading, whether via peer-to-peer sites or  other means, is effectively a civil form of theft. This is not something that we can condone, or to which we can fail to respond. We are therefore setting out in this report a clear path to addressing this problem which we believe needs to result in a reduction of the order of 70-80% in the incidence of unlawful filesharing."