That is what the government and the BPI (British Phonographic Industry), the British version of the Recording Ass. Of America are now saying. But the ISP’s have hit back saying “ISPs are no more able to inspect and filter every single packet passing across their network than the Post Office is able to open every envelope.” It has been suggested that should this legislation be approved (and could be in place by April 2009) that ISP’s that don’t make efforts to stamp out illegal downloads could be prosecuted. ISP’s would be expected to monitor and terminate any accounts that download and/or upload pirated material. Which is flying the face of what most ISP’s promotional materials are suggesting. Selling the idea that using their broadband connection, the customer can download song and movies much faster. OK this is ambiguous as it could be referring to legal downloads but if your read between the lines it means using P2P networks or else they would simply have blocked such networks on their DNS from the outset. The ISP’s aren’t stupid they realise that they would loose significant business if users (estimated to be six million) were under threat of termination of service or prosecution because their user details were passed onto government agencies. Personally I would look for alternatives outside of the UK that didn’t enforce such regulation. This is yet another attempt to strip the UK population of another right to privacy, which basically flouts the data protection act should ISP’s be forced to hand over logs and customer details. But then again UK government agencies aren’t very good at protecting our data, how many discs have gone missing recently? Not to mention the four CDs containing personal details from court cases going missing. Anyway the record and movie companies are saying that “illegal downloads cost them millions of pounds in lost revenues” – Now here’s an idea, make better movies and music that people actually want to buy. And while you’re at it reduce the price of media (charging £13+ for something that costs pennies to manufacture is scandalous) then we would be more likely to spend out our cash on CD/DVDs. Legal downloads are also scandalously priced as well; 79 pence per track on iTunes, that’s £9.48 (12 tracks) for something that doesn’t exist in physical form and is severely restricted to what media playback formats it can be used on (e.g. only usable on an iPod). Here’s a little tip for you, use iTunes to burn your music to CD, the rip it back as DRM free mp3s to use on whatever computer or portable media device you like! When it comes to movies I like to have the original DVD because DIVX/MPEG4 encoded movies aren’t anywhere near as good quality. Like many people in the UK, I simply don’t earn enough money to buy every track I want on CD when retailers are charging £4 for a CD single which usually only holds 3 – 4 tracks. Piracy will never ever be stamped out.