UK ISPs To Face Piracy Deadline

superbrose notes that despite lots of legal difficulties regarding Internet privacy, the UK government is going ahead with plans to punish ISPs for allowing their customers to download illegal music and films. The claim is that there is "rampant piracy" in Britain with more than 6 million broadband users downloading files illegally every year. "The government will on Friday tell internet service providers they will be hit with legal sanctions from April next year unless they take concrete steps to curb illegal downloads of music and films. Britain would be one of the first countries in the world to impose such sanctions. Service providers say what the government wants them to do would be like asking the Royal Mail to monitor the contents of every envelope posted."

Comments

Re:More than 6 million I'm sure

[sm62704]

OK, this is just crazy talk

I agree, you're talking crazy.

But have you actually gotten off the couch lately?

You've obviously not read my journals.

Maybe three out of five songs played on mainstream radio stations are by rappers who advocate smoking pot

I don't listen to rap. I thought rappers sang about smoking crack and shooting policemen and how all women are whores?

And in San Francisco, where I live, if you have the right kind of ID card you can walk down to a store and buy seven different kinds of pot, hash, and whatever paraphernalia you want over the counter. None of this was true in the illustrious 1970s

Actually head shops were all over in the 1970s and you could get any kind of paraphernalia you wanted, including the stuff that prompted the Ashcroft bust a couple of years ago where Tommy Chong was jailed. No longer; the single remaining head shop here sells mostly t-shirts now.

Nobody is out to get you.

Nobody but the DEA, the FBI, and the local police. In fact all three of them accosted me at once last summer.

everybody in America smokes pot. Everybody.

San Fransisco isn't America. It's only a very tiny part of America. And it's completely unlike anywhere else in America. If everybody smokes pot then why isn't it legal?