The ripples in broadband industry over the proposed government’s Digital Economy Bill just got more pronounced with the recent finding that the penal provisions under the bill might not be able to cover the infringements committed by mobile broadband users on account of their unascertainable IP addresses.
According to minister of Digital Britain Stephen Timms, whenever a content owner finds that a user is infringing his copyright, he can inform the internet service provider, who can then take measures to ensure that the infringing is stopped. The measures will be implemented by first sending a notice, and if that fails to deter the offender, other measures like temporary disconnection of the broadband service will be adopted.
Even though the bill aims at repeated infringers, it has met with stiff resistance and a number of petitions have been put forward against it on the grounds that it proposes too harsh a penalty on offenders. A recent petition has been submitted to
Now it seems that the bill may receive another major setback. Technology business news website ZDNet UK has suggested that though it might be easy to locate infringements from home broadband connections, mobile broadband users might get off the hook with no penalties, as multiple mobile broadband users may use the web from the same address, which will make it very difficult to identify an offender.
This is not the only shortcoming of the bill, but it is definitely one of the most important concerns of the industry in wake of the increasing usage of mobile broadband devices.
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