they may as well switch the net off in britain then, i dont know anyone who hasn't downloaded a game, a film, some music, or anything else copyrighted,
the net would be quite boring and useless to the majority without it,

can you see the headline in a few years time.....

internet goes bust!!

world wide waste-o-time!!

web gets unstuck!

internet implodes!!

mind you might be time for all you investors to buy stocks of dial up ISP's as it only takes a couple of minutes to download your email!

Will companies be cut off too?

If itunes keeps selling music without the owner*****ission will they be firewalled off from the UK?

Why will ISPs be prosecuted for failing to cancel accounts of non-convicted users? Will the prosecution require that the user first be found guilty?

This regime would be easy extremely difficult, if not impossible to enforce. For example, any site that wanted to host illegal content would simply have to host via https - the ISP wouldn't be able to see what was being accessed. And if the ISP decided to check it users access by looking at destination IP address of out going flows, then what about shared hosting? Inspecting the http header of every packet would be a mammoth task..

Surely they wont be able to get this passed? If they do, I hate to think of the consequences.

Piracy has been a major factor in driving down the prices in media, despite what movie studios, publishers and record labels tell us. Back in the early 90's you couldn't bootleg a SNES cartridge and they cost anything up to £70. Now, i***ame came out at that price (not including the ones with included accessories), people just wouldn't buy it.

Also, piracy has brought release dates more inline. Years ago, you would have to wait months for a film or TV series to come out in the UK after it was released in the States - just look at Lost and 24. Without the fear of people getting DVD quality rips of a TV show or film months before release, studios can force us to wait as long as they like.

I'm not condoning piracy, but I feel that people who constantly serve out copyright protected material need to be dealt with, not the casual downloader. But I think that is largely a problem in other countries, not in the UK.

Brown needs to get his priorities right - there are more important issues at hand.

Couldn't users just go through an anonymous proxy?
Wouldn't something like www.youhide.com work?
You can already enter a URL from there, so couldn't one just set-up their proxy settings into browsers and P2P software and disguise certain 'activities' that way?

maybe if the company directors at companys like emi & warner bros payed themselves and their egotistical film stars & recording artists less of a fat salary , people who live in the real world earning normal wages would be able to afford to go to the pictures or purchase a genuine dvd or cd . then nobody would bother with illegal downloads . mr brown should be concentrating on catching real criminals like murderers & child abusers instead of wasting more tax payers money just to line the pockets of the fat cats

Seriously now, everyone who I know has downloaded a song, video or whatever, I don't care, it's illegal before this news its illegal after, what I am worried about are the industry's. Anime is a large thing in Japan and people who live in England/America/Anywhere outside Japan have to listen to (90% of the time) ****ty dubs which make no sense. I tend to download an animefrom a fansub group and then after watching the full season buy it when it is released on DVD as it means you get more acurate subtitles, 5.1 surround sound, bonus features and stuff like that. Now, if you take away the ability for people to find out if they like it or not then how are people gonna know if they want to spend all there money on purchasing the DVDs? I am not saying that Ithink it should be legal for people to downlaod however I doubt that quite a lot of movies/TV series would be as popular as they are today if people were not able to download form the internet.

Violating everyone's privacy.A control.This is what it is.
How is THIS helping/affecting the public?
Look at the campaigns,wasted tax money. Kids/people without income who download most-wouldn't go to cinema or buy the music anyway. Providers might lost (by estimated 6 mil pirates and broadband for let's say £15 MONTHLY=) £ 90mil just to make music,movie industry happy? The same internet who help make online sales/downloads for le****s millions of users,who r able to shop without leaving livingroom and spend for these companies?
And with already restricted downloads 4GB/month - how much can download anyway? :-)
Imagien u r being checked by leaving the shop,every time u shop-cos they had lots of shoplifters and now check everybody,as a prevention :-) Offended,u stop shopping there,simple as that.
IT'S JUST USELESS AND UNREAL.

This is from the bbc...

However, the Internet Service Providers Association said data protection laws would prevent providers from looking at the content of information sent over their networks.

ISPs are no more able to inspect and filter every single packet passing across their network than the Post Office is able to open every envelope," the association said.

"ISPs bear no liability for illegal file sharing as the content is not hosted on their servers," it added.

From me

Look at it this way who would need the net without downloading? No one would and the ISP know this so they will drag there feet. I think the last stat was 80% of ALL internet traffic was Torrent!

Remember anything using 010100110011 can be hacked and worked around. Love the Geek i say...!

Macca doesn't look very happy about the news either - maybe that's how he was intending to fund his divorce settlement ;-)

@1 - Actually, I haven't downloaded anything illegally. Not because I'm taking a moral stance - just because I've never been bothered. I just pay.

@ ZedZee - Yep, of course you can get around these things, but not everyone has the technical nous that you seemingly have.

Right, about 1 in 6 people illegally download music now and then. That one person who illegally downloads an album goes up to the 5 people who don't illegally download, and recommends the album, what do those people do? They buy the album or recommend the album to someone else. So what has that 'criminal' just done? They have advertised the album, resulting in more sales.

I payed for my downloaded music from Virgin Digital. I'd only bought a couple of tracks then my laptop screen broke, anyway, I ended up buying a new lap top and transfered my downloaded tracks onto my new computer. When I burnt them onto a CD so I could listen to them in m car they won't play as apparently I don't have the license. Put it this way I don't waste my money any more. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

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