p2pnet news view | P2P | Politics:- “Don’t worry Ben Bradshaw (right) replaced him earlier today,” says a p2pnet Reader’s Write to our story which kicks off:

“British culture secretary Andy ‘Android’ Burnham says the UK won’t follow France where, if president Nicolas Sakrozy has his way, Net access will be cut off for people said by the entertainment cartels to be ‘illegal’ file sharers.

“Instead,  ‘technical restrictions’ such as bandwidth throttling, popular with  major Canadian ISPs,  could be imposed.”

It’s all part of the entertainment cartel master plan to use readily corruptible governments around the world to bypass any form of competition to gain total and exclusive control of the Net as the 21st century sales, marketing, PR and distribution vehicle.

So far, although politicians are falling over themselves to co-operate, the cartels haven’t yet managed to have their legislation actually put in place.

The idea is: ISPs act as Hollywood and Big 4 record label enforcement units, identifying customers who aren’t toeing the corporate line so they can be warned, suspended and, finally, thrown off the Net for a year.

Terror by Lawsuit — ie, convincing people they’re in mortal danger of being sued if they don’t do as they’re told, although the actual chances of any individual winding up in court are virtually zero — is the favoured cartel weapon. So they want to reapply it in a different context whereby ISPs are perceived by users as constantly monitoring customer accounts and reporting ’suspicious’ clients — ie, file sharers — to the likes of the RIAA, BPI, etc,  for further action.

The corporate ‘trade’ associations would then use people thus identified in an ongoing print and electronic mainstream media PR blitz in much the same way the RIAA sue ‘em all campaign has the gullible press corpse reporting  thousands of people have been successfully prosecuted for the non-existent crime of illegal file sharing when in reality, not one US citizen has actually been successfully ‘prosecuted’ for anything.

The US is vitally important, but as a recent p2pnet story says, the RIAA  scheme to have ISP as copyright cops, introduced as virtually a done deal in the Wall Street Journal, and followed up with much hullabaloo by other lamescream media elements, is an epic failure.

Technical measures

In Britain, the plan met a similar fate, even though the UK government had warmly endorsed it.

But now it’s back in a mildly modified form with ISPs acting as Corporate Stranglers rather than Copyright Cops.

Burnham said Britain is, “preparing legislation to force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to apply technical measures on the most persistent file sharers,” said Music Ally, continuing the full announcement would be made in the Digital Britain report, slated to be published later this month.

The news came when he addressed music industry representatives at a conference called Making Online Music Pay, revealing there’d be a, “”new requirement placed upon ISPs to oblige them to notify identified file sharers,” says the story,” continuing »»»

But, more significantly, he also confirmed that the Government is now in the process of drafting legislation to back up this obligation by giving reserve powers to the regulatory body Ofcom. These reserve powers would enable Ofcom to ensure that ISPs then applied technical measures against the most persistent file sharers. Burnham characterised the policy as a ‘graduated response’.

Asked by Geoff Taylor, who runs the Big 4’s  BPI (British Phonographic Industry), as to, “whether the trigger for this intervention might be a failure to reach the Government’s previously stated commitment to reduce file sharing in the UK by 70-80% within 2-3 years (one year of which has already passed),” Burnham retorted, “We do not and have not retreated in any way from that aim or timescale,” said Music Ally, adding:

“It seems highly unlikely that the Government could achieve a reduction in file sharing of such a significant magnitude so the focus of attention is now squarely on just what technical measures the ISPs might be forced to apply. Burnham refused to speculate on exactly what kind of technical measures these would likely to be.

“Some form of bandwidth throttling has been one of the most widely discussed solutions but other solutions are also being considered. These range from much lighter interventions such as imposing some kind of enforced browser redirect away from an offending site such as Pirate Bay, to cutting net users off altogether. But Burnham confirmed the Government believed the latter to be too ‘draconian’.”

The question now is: will Bradshaw who, according to The Guardian is expected to “hit the ground running,” follow the line already laid out by Burnham, or does he have plans of his own?

Musical chairs

With the final Digital Britain report looming, in a cabinet reshuffle, UK health minister Ben Bradshawan ex-BBC journalist, is replacing Andy Burnham as culture secretary, and Burnham is replacing Alan Johnson as health secretary.

Johnson, in turn, becomes the new home secretary, which is potentially interesting given his, “extensive dealings with the music industry during his stint as secretary of state for education and skills in 2006, and his ministerial post at the department of trade and industry in 1999,” as Billboard summed it up.

Says The Guardian »»»

The ministerial changes come at a very sensitive time for the DCMS, with the Digital Britain process coming to its conclusion.

While the report team is led by the communications minister, Lord Carter, the DCMS is one of the two sponsoring departments.

Carter, who describes himself as a “temporary minister”, has said his team has already drafted a “small” piece of legislation which could be introduced following the publication of the Digital Britain report.

Stay tuned.

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cut off – King Nicolas Sarkozy of France, May 23, 2009
not doing so well – Anti-P2P plans shot down in Europe, May 7, 2009
epic failure – RIAA ISP copyright cops: epic fail, June 4, 2009|
similar fate – ‘We won’t be copyright cops,’ say UK ISPs, May 14, 2009
persistent file sharers – UK government to go after file sharers, June 5, 2009
Music Ally – UK could force ISPs to apply technical measures on file sharers, June 4, 2009
The Guardian – Ben Bradshaw to replace Andy Burnham as culture secretary, June 5, 2009
Billboard – Govt Minister Backs ‘Regulation’ To Tackle Piracy, June 3, 2009