Thursday 19th November saw the Digital Economy Bill begin the journey through parliament. It was also the beginning of numerous protests. The bill outlines plans to tackle file sharing and online piracy by suspending Internet accounts of regular file abusers. However, many fear this will hamper growth of the UK’s digital economy.

On the very day it was announced a petition was created on the number10.gov.uk website, set up by Andrew Heaney, Talk Talk’s head of Strategy and Development, who has disagreed with the file-sharing plan from the start. The petition calls for the abolition of the proposal to disconnect illegal file sharers. By the 24th November, the petition had more than 16,000 signatures.

In a bid to defuse some of the criticisms, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills created a webpage entitled: "Filesharing: some accusations and some answers". It pointed out that "technical measures" to slow down or suspend net connections would not be imposed without those accused going through a tribunal system that assesses their case.

The Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) also issued a statement saying that it "strongly opposes" the proposed plans to tackle file-sharing, "Rather than focusing blindly on enforcement, the government should be asking rights holders to reform the licensing framework so that legal content can be distributed online to consumers in a way that they are clearly demanding."

Phones4U NEWS