ISPs will struggle to comply with government demands to
crack down onillegal file sharingamong their
customers.
The UK government this week announced it was considering a
crackdown on illegal file-sharing, and is calling on internet
service providers (ISPs) to play a part in policing it.
If plans go ahead, ISPs will be legally required to take action
against users who access pirated material.
But Michael Phillips, product development director of broadband
product comparision site
BroadbandChoices.co.uk,
says ISPs will struggle.
He said, "Downloading technology has moved on significantly in
the life of the internet. It will be extremely difficult for ISPs
to police this as the difficulty will be isolating the 'legal'
downloads from 'illegal' downloads."
He added, "Even if ISPs could identify copyrighted material
flowing over their network, there is a big question over the cost
required to monitor it. ISPs are not only going to be reluctant to
foot the bill, but they also will not want to 'shop' some of their
biggest paying customers."
Phillips said ISPs can generally identify the types of traffic
travelling through their network, but are normally unable to
pinpoint exactly what is being shared.
File sharing is on the up, with the recent introduction of the
BBC iplayer and Channel 4's 4oD service. Both services use
peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing to distribute material.
Phillips said, "P2P networks are in fact legal, so it is
important that any implemented legislation does not restrict the
legitimate uses of these tools. Identifying how much content on
these networks is illegally shared will be extremely difficult to
track."
Phillips said the music and film industry should pick up the
bill for policing any crackdown.