Britain's got its lawmaking cogs and wheels screeching

Feb 12, 2008 10:05 GMT  ·  By

Britain was one of the first countries to embrace the new IFPI proposition as a possible solution to stopping Internet piracy and infringement of copyrights. The IFPI, suggested by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, thought that the best way to handle the crimes mentioned above would be if the Internet Service Provider policed their own networks and hunted down those who didn't honor the producer's digital rights.

The Times were leaked a government proposal today that had, as a bottom line, a three-strike regime that would be implemented as soon as possible. The government "will move to legislate to require internet service providers to take action on illegal file sharing," as AFP reports. The leaked proposal was in fact a Green Paper, which is the first step in changing a law in the United Kingdom, due to be published next week.

Strike one, the paper wrote, would be when a user is so much as suspected to have anything to do with illegal file sharing or downloading. An email warning would be sent, asking politely for the ceasing of such activities.

Strike two would come after the supposition that somebody is guilty would be confirmed and the respective person would not stop on the email warning detailed above. Some suspension from the Internet service would be the penalty for reaching the second base.

Strike three, and final, would see the termination of the Internet contract if the user still doesn't settle down and continues with the downloading of pirated content.

All in all, it's a way lighter means to handle the whole business than the IFPI is trying to pull through, as has recently been shown in Spain. It is still trying to create civil cases against some proven copyright protected file sharers, but its intentions were shot down by the European Court of Justice, deciding that such acts would fall under criminal actions and not civil.