Ofcom could get powers to act against file-sharers

It appears that Ofcom will have a central role to play in the fight against people illegally downloading copyrighted material from the internet.

Yesterday, culture secretary Andy Burnham (now health secretary) told delegates at Music Week’s Making Online Music Pay conference that the Government intends "to give Ofcom powers to apply technical measures" to combat the problem.

Although some major internet service providers (ISPs) are sending out cease-and-desist letters to people identified as persistent offenders, Mr Burnham did not rule out legal intervention entirely, saying notification may not be enough.

"Both sides [ISPs and the entertainment industry] must find a point of balance. Don't wait for the heavy hand of Government, do it now. If you wait for Government, then that might be worse," he is reported as saying.

A representative for the Music Publishers' Association told Computeractive that ISPs were represented at the conference by trade body ISPA and that the mood was amicable.

"In the past we may have seemed poles apart but the gap is rapidly decreasing. ISPs have an interest in stopping illegal file-sharing because it eats up their bandwidth and the entertainment industry is also looking at what we can do to help ISPs," he said.

But quite what these technical measures would be was not made clear. A three-strikes rule against persistent offenders appears, at the moment, to be unlikely. The Government has repeatedly shied away from the idea when questioned about it.

Also amendment 138/46 of the Telecoms package currently being debated in the EU would outlaw this as a measure. Neither are ISPs nor the entertainment industry keen on the idea of a digital rights agency.

The Digital Britain report, which is expected to be published on 16 June, should however outline future Government proposals.