People who persist in swapping copyrighted films and music will have their internet connections cut off under tough new laws to be proposed by the government today.
The measures also include taking the power to target illegal downloaders away from regulator Ofcom and giving it to ministers to speed up the process.
The decision to cut off peer-to-peer filesharers is unexpected since it was ruled out by the government’s own Digital Britain report in June as going too far.[…]
A similar law in France under which filesharers could be cut off for up to a year was recently kicked out by the country’s highest court as unconstitutional. In the UK, privacy groups are likely to challenge any similar legislation as contrary to human rights law.[…]
The music and film industries had campaigned hard to have measures introduced earlier than 2012 and the fact that persistent pirates can be cut off is likely to be welcomed. The UK’s internet service providers, however, will be less pleased by the plans. Several have made it quite plain they have no desire to police the web on behalf of another industry.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/aug/25/file-sharing-internet