FAST: Illegal file sharers should be struck off net

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 26 Oct 2007 at 16:02

You're not going to be picked up unless you've got quite a large library of stuff you're sharing. The music industry has a threshold, and it's not 10 or 20 - you're talking about serious sharers of music. It's not one or two songs, if we tried to burrow down to that level we'd be totally buried.

The Government has suggested legislation is possible if the industry doesn't come up with a voluntary scheme - do you think we'll see legislation?

I hope not - I'd rather see us work together. But what I'm seeing and feeling from ISPs is "we're mere conduits - we're fireproof." And I don't think that's helpful to anybody.

The Government's seen the light. The creative industry contributes £53bn to the economy of this country, it employs two million people and it's around 8% of our GDP.

You can understand why the Government's serious about it. People have to take responsibility to protect our economy.

So you're not confident of striking a voluntary deal?

Lord Triesman now being the IP Minister, as it were, has now said something has to be done about it. In fact the Gowers [IP] review last December... said the internet was an issue and the ISPs need to self-regulate or get some rules in place that reduces and, hopefully, eliminates IP theft. Or the Government will consider legislation. Because we know legislation takes a long time, we'd like to avoid that. But if the ISPs are intransigent, we won't hesitate to lobby for legislation.