Peter Mandelson, the secretary of state for business, innovation and skills, is planning a major crackdown on illegal file-sharing, according to reports over the weekend.
The issue of copyrighted material being shared online is already the subject of an official, post-Digital Britain consultation, which is due to close on 15 September. However, Stephen Timms — the successor to Digital Britain author Lord Carter — told the Financial Times on Friday that the issue was a "live area" and proposals to tackle copyright violations should perhaps be brought forward.
Digital Britain recommended a year-long trial period where ISPs send letters to suspected file-sharers. At the end of that year, if fewer than 70 percent of the recipients stopped sharing copyrighted material, the report suggested the imposition of technical measures to restrict bandwidth or block certain protocols. It is that year-long period that could now be shortened.
"The measures in the Digital Britain report may evolve slightly," a spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) told ZDNet UK on Monday. "What we've heard from people [during the initial stages of the consultation period] was a lot of criticism that those tech measures wouldn't be introduced for a number of years, until 2012."
BIS's spokesperson denied reports that Mandelson had decided to become more involved in the issue after dining with music mogul David Geffen in Corfu last week.
"[Mandelson] has been very close to [Digital Britain] the whole time," the spokesperson said. "Carter was brought in to do the job, but, at the implementation stage, it's only natural that Lord Mandelson will take more of an interest."
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What gets me is mandelson fly's off to the private residence of a bank dynasty family, and over a meal talks to the head media mogul of dreamworks amongst others, and upon returning back to the UK then decides to go on a one man mission to implement the status quo.
I mean how else do you take the word of one who doesn't even reside in the UK over the will of 60+ million people, and countless organizations that all expect massive growth in this field within the next couple of years, through online streaming services.
This whole thing is disturbing at best.