In its response to the Government’s consultation on Music Piracy BT has stated that the three strikes approach may cost each broadband user £24 a year (up to £1million a day in total). This represents what BT thinks may be the cost of implementing the legislation and which it might find itself having to pass on to its customers. It would likely be the same (if not more) for all ISPs. It makes the proposed 50p tax on phone lines pale into insignificance. There should be no doubt that it is a tax.
Actually I’m not in principle against raising taxes to spend on the roll out of a national fibre network. It’s just that 50 pence is inadequate. We would all better spend this money on the fibre roll out.
There is clearly a lot of politicking going on in what is the run up to the next general election. The Government is looking for quick PR wins. If it is not careful this is one that is going to come back to bite.
I read the BT position in the Daily Mirror. I obviously have a wide range in tastes when it comes to literature 🙂
One reply on “Government P2P plans could cost broadband users £365 million a year”
Trying to run a nanny state is sooooooooo expensive…. !
The music industry can try to prevent illegal downloads in this way, or it can accept that the majority of the next gen of users are getting their music over wireless spectrum eg bluetooth and wifi via their mobiles.
Time to start deep packet inspection of the mobile networks then?
Of course not.
It is time the music industry stopped pretending that there is some sort of false scarcity about their music and overpricing it. They would be making far more if they charged reasonable prices for it than by restricting access to it through their own greed.
Mandelson needs removing from office if this sort of tosh is all he can come up with. Gawd knows how much it is costing private companies to even consider the implications of his ill-informed statements. Money that in times of a recession should be being used on upgrading the infrastructure so we all have fat pipes that *will* allow a continuous flow of music, games, films, data, photos and so on between the USERS.
Head one step in the opposite direction to that and disconnect the users and you have just lost your user base. The public uproar as people report the fact that they have been disconnected by their ISP for listening to music would see ever more attempts to break the olde world model of the industry and shift the paradigm. Does the music industry assume that people won’t use other methods to get online if their ISP disconnects them?!!! Do the government really believe they can silence people in this way? Why not look at why the problem exists in the first place and challenge the business model of the music industry instead?
Yawn. Another utterly pointless problem to moan about. This country is such a mess…….