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TalkTalk has issued a statement strongly criticising the government’s recent change of heart regarding the treatment of file sharing.
Labour peer Peter Mandelson recently announced that the government would be giving ISPs the power to disconnect the internet connection of users suspected of file sharing.
It has been noted that the change in policy was announced shortly after the MP returned from a Mediterranean holiday with media guru David Geffen, a well known opponent of digital file sharing.
TalkTalk was highly critical of the move, saying that Mandelson had “caved in under pressure from powerful lobbyists in the content industry” and that such measures “sidestep proper scrutiny, likely breach fundamental human rights and result in innocent people being disconnected or, worse, prosecuted. What’s more, they will not work.”
“We are worried that this intrusive approach will prevent cooperative new business models from evolving as ISPs and content providers will be effectively set against each other, and there will be less incentive for rights holders to adapt,” said a TalkTalk spokesman. “This will mean that the underlying problem will perpetuate for much longer and the development of internet services in the UK will be detrimentally affected.”
TalkTalk has vowed to resist any laws that would obligate ISPs to act as a policing force and says that the best measures to combat file sharing are the original strategies proposed by the Digital Britain report.
