UK to cut broadband connections for illegal downloads of copyrighted material

The UK government intends to cut the broadband connections of internet users who repeatedly download copyrighted music, films and other material under a new law set to be proposed by the government.

This new law comes as the creative industry in Britain claims that six million people regularly download copyright material without paying, leading to a loss of approximately £1.4 billion a year for the movie industry alone.

It is reported that songs have been downloaded illegally at least a billion times while the number for movies is said to be 98 million, leading to a collosal loss of revenues for the entertainment industry. A large part of the web traffic in the UK is said to be used for illegal filesharing.

But this new tough measure is seen as a complete reversal of the government's own Digital Britain report, published in June, which proposed a policy of writing to repeat copyright offenders and making the information available to copyright holders on the number of such warnings issued.

UK Business Secretary Lord Mandelson wants to empower Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator to force internet service providers (ISPs) to act against repeat offenders by blocking their access to download sites, reducing their broadband speeds, or by suspending their internet accounts for a year.

The Digital Britain report had also proposed a consultation period until 2012 to find out whether to actively pursue pirates as well as time was needed to put in place new technical measures to curb illegal filesharing, which would not be ready until 2012.