United Kingdom Preparing to Get Tough on Piracy

These days have been extremely important for the videogame industry, especially in the United Kingdom, with the Government deciding that the PEGI ratings system would be used to label games but also with the release of a new report related to the way the digital society would be implemented in the country.

The Digital Britain report, which was put together by Lord Stephen Carter, is also talking about offering universal access to broadband until 2012, which means that digital distribution of big videogame releases could soon be a possibility in one of the biggest markets for games. Probably some videogame retailers are a bit nervous reading the report, given the threat that digital distribution poses to their business model.

The United Kingdom Government is also planning to get tough on piracy, with the Carter document revealing that “The Government believes piracy of intellectual property for profit is theft and will be pursued as such through the criminal law. Ofcom is to get powers that will make ISPs inform persistent pirates of the illegality of their actions. It will also allow these people to be identified and pursued if that action does not stop them. ISPs will also be encouraged to use bandwidth reduction and protocol blocking to stymie persistent offenders.”

Recently, a law in France that would have allowed those proved to be illegally downloading to be cut off from the Internet has been struck down as being unconstitutional.

Even if the above paragraph suggests that the United Kingdom government might be moving towards the same approach to tackling piracy, initial reactions are showing that the music and film industries are not at all satisfied with the measures detailed in the report. At the moment, there's no clear reaction coming form the videogame industry related to the measures suggested in the Digital Britain report.