ISPs vs. the Digital Economy Act: TalkTalk Doesn’t Back Down

January 12, 2011 by Yonah
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Legal P2P News & Issues

TalkTalk, an outspoken critic of the Digital Economy Act (in numerous posts we presented the company’s view and the development of its campaign against anti-piracy measures that included disconnecting illegal file-sharers), is engaged as ever in proving the legislation unfit to the times we live in.

BT has joined TalkTalk in its determination to pursue a legal battle on 22 March when the hearing on the Digital Economy Act will start (scheduled to run for three days).

As executive director Andrew Heaney, has outlined countless times that the bill will not be efficient in combating online piracy but most definitely will have a negative impact on innocent internet users.

“Users who want to engage in file sharing activities will always find a way to do so, while implementing the Act will recoup estimates of 20 per cent of lost revenues, set against millions having to be spent enforcing the Act,” he said at a House of Commons meeting organized by the Federation Against Software Theft.

“It’s also highly disproportionate to threaten the owner of an internet account with legal action or termination when you can’t even prove it was them that carried out the activities.”

The number of those hoping to see the legislation ditched is increasing as it becomes more and more clearly a different strategy based on a educational and informational system sensitive to people’s needs and the rapid technological changes that take place is called for.

Another phenomenon the legislation could help proliferate according to Frank Jennings, a partner at law firm DMH Stallard, would be ‘cyber locker’ – a different form of file-sharing sites that stay online only for a short period of time behind a firewall then vanish.

“There could even be streaming type models run via the cloud which could also have an impact on this issue,” added Jennings.

Tags: anti-piracy, file-sharing, ISPs, legal, UK