According to a statement made by the broadband providers the £500 million bill for fighting Internet piracy plans could increase broadband subscriptions more by £25 per year.
Fighting against illegal music, film and software sharing online is the main aim of the Digital Economy Bill. It has now decided to warn the consumers who will be caught using illegal peer to peer sites. Not only this, it also made a promise to throttle or even disconnect the Internet connection of the repeat offenders. For court action, personal details of suspected offenders will be offered to the right holders.
As suggested by the Impact assessments, under the new bill, Internet connection of up to 40,000 homes could be inhibited whereas the cost of letter writing may increase the individual subscriptions up by £1.40.
Thee Government has made the promise of making the copyright holders pay a fixed fee to ISPs in order to support them to cover their costs but broadband providers are calling them for making more contribution.
Impact assessments were published alongside the Bill indicating that in the next ten years, the move would generate £1.7 billion in extra sales for the music and film industries as well as £350 million for the Government in extra VAT.
Charles Dunstone, CEO of The Carphone Warehouse and TalkTalk , told The Times: “Broadband consumers shouldn’t have to bail out the music industry. If they really think it’s worth spending vast sums of money on these measures then they should be footing the bill; not the consumer.”
John Petter, managing director of BT Retail’s consumer division, added: “Put yourself in the shoes of a small businessman who has a rogue member of staff. Your Internet access could get cut off because of the actions of one individual. It really feels like the UK is out on a limb with these proposals compared to the rest of the world.”
There are many ISPs such as TalkTalk broadband, BT Broadband, Virgin media etc who are totally against the Government’s plans. They believe that the methods adopted for finding out the illegal downloaders are not reliable at all.
Presently, for tracking the illegal peer to peer activity, IP address is issued to your PC when you go online. According to a warning issued by the ISPs and industry experts, the IP addresses can easily be copied, enciphered, hidden and even hijacked which can cause disconnection of innocent people from the net.
Michael Phillips, Broadbandchoices.co.uk product director, said: “The Government has already admitted that these measures will force tens of thousands of low-income households to give up their broadband connection – even as the Government works to increase take up in disadvantaged communities. Consumers are already facing a £6 a year increase on their line rental, and shouldn’t have to pay for the crimes of a minority of people. ”