John Linton Doubtless, if you're interested in internet and its ramifications you would have come across this article in the SMH on the 24th July:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/british-isps-clamp-down-on-illegal-downloaders/2008/07/25/1216492692380.html
It made the main BBC1 news for the last two days in the UK and both the UK newspapers I read.
It's a little 'so British' in what it seems to be doing but the key points, to me, were that major ISPs had agreed to do anything at all and the UK government is involved in 'brokering' the arrangements. Ofcom appears to be far more useful, and therefore effective, than its equivalent ACEMA in Australia and the actual deal now being put in place seems to have some interesting understanding of the current situation.
I doubt whether any 'hardened thief' is going to be worried about a letter tch tching at their alleged illegal downloading and uploading but I would think any parent who gets such a letter would take a lot of notice. So, I think the idea will reduce copyright infringement by those people whose parents pay for the family internet - I wouldn't know how to quantify what percentage of illegal downloaders that is but it's probably quite substantial.
While the 'hardened thieves' won't be concerned by such letters they may start getting concerned by the fact that all of the major ISPs in a pretty much democratic country are now tacitly agreeing to co-operate with governments and media owners to begin to prevent property theft via a ISP's network rather than attempting to target an end infringer. The dumber thieves may well think "good idea - it means I'm even safer" - and that may well be the case - except you wouldn't have got these major ISPs to agree to such a scenario if in fact that was the likely end result.
I, of course, have zip, zero, zilch actual/real knowledge of what has been agreed between the ISPs, the UK government and the UK music copyright organization. However the FACT that six major ISPs have agreed to act together in this scenario raises the obvious next question.
What is going to happen next? Are the ISPs going to agree to cut off persistent infringers on some mutually agreed basis? It seems an almost inevitable next step - or next step but one.
Again, the 'hardened thieves' may well think - "who cares? I'll just sign up with another ISP and take the minor inconvenience and any churn fee which will also be minor." That might well turn out to be the case. Then again it might not because of what this new scenario could mean.
One of the things it could mean is that the six UK ISPs agree that they will, in conjunction with the copyright organisation and the UK government keep a data base of customers cut off for copyright infringement. This could be used by the 'participating ISPs' to refuse a churn/new broadband application from a copyright infringer.
Unlikely? I don't think so - based on what I read into the same articles/information that is available to you. I think that it must have crossed the minds of the people in the UK who have put together, and got government agreement, to this step which is almost certainly only a first step of several that the best way of stopping copyright infringement is to cut off the means of infringing. Removing internet access, from any provider, to a copyright infringer will do that more certainly and more cheaply than anything else.
While the EU may not approve of what the UK is doing the French have already enacted much harsher laws to prevent copyright infringement via the internet. The UK has always been very 'property right protective' (remember they used to hang you for stealing a loaf of bread - or worse - send you to Australia).
Looking at this:
http://www.misaustralia.com/viewer.aspx?EDP://1216960666914
and realizing that the UK already has such a process in place, sanctioned by the UK government, it wouldn't be a real 'stretch' to see ESS trying to recover his shredded credibility by trying to extend government 'control' on what an Australian may or may not download from the internet from child pornography to copyright infringement - let's face it; his NBN 'tender' proves he really is that stupid.
Never a dull moment in ISP land.
PS: In today's Guardian (26/7/08 - Page 13) there is an update to the main government press release that quotes a 'leaked' letter from the UK Minister For Business in which she states that the UK Government has set a target of an 80% reduction in illegal file sharing over the next three years. If a government of a major democracy is involved to the point of setting such targets then you may be sure this is not just some Crazy Kevin sound bite 'stunt' masquerading as policy.