Britain will follow France in adopting graduated response

Ever since British minister of Business Peter Mandelsohn joined the debate of taking steps to prevent and fight file-sharing, the tone had become tougher. The Digital Britain report of last June suggested a large awareness campaign supported by technical measures such as blocking sites or throttling traffic. The measures suggested were to led to a 70% decrease in file-sharing in a three year period.

But that was too long a wait for Mandelsohn’s liking. Since last August, he has been actively promoting a strategy that would allow persistent file sharers to be temporarily cut off from the Internet.

“What we will be putting before parliament is a proportionate measure that will give people ample awareness (of their wrongdoing) and opportunity to stop breaking the rules. It will be clear to them that they have been detected that they are breaking the law and risk prosecution. It will also make clear that we will go further and make technical measures available, including account suspension. In this case, there will be a proper route of appeal. Technical measures will be a last resort - and I have no expectation of mass suspensions.” Said Mandelsohn in a meeting with creative industries.

Come November, the British government will write the Digital Economy Bill, which will include a proposal for a graduated response policy including suspending accounts of repeating offenders. Therefore, the UK is likely to be the second country in Europe, after France, to adopt three strikes regulations. 

Like in France, creative industries are a lively and important part of the UK economy. Employing around two million people, creative industries contribute 4% to the British economy.

Mandelsohn’s interest in intervening in the copyright debate is thus primarily of an economic nature. “I was shocked to learn that only one in every 20 tracks downloaded in the UK is downloaded legally. One just can’t have sustainable creative industries under the pressure of this kind of theft.”

He emphasised that a tougher stance on file-sharing is only part of the plans to pave the way for digital distribution. This could include revising copyright. He is committed to “easier and cheaper access to copyrighted material.” He continued: “We need to be clear what is and is not allowed. At present, the legal framework ... disallows all sorts of perfectly sensible private uses like moving songs from a computer on to an iPod. If the rules are to be enforced, then the rules need to be sensible and up to date.”