We Brits are a bunch of pirates… illegal downloaders, that is

dvd.jpgWith the Government planning to get tough on people who illegally download content from the Internet, a lot of Brits could be in trouble according to a recent survey by MoneySupermarket.com.

Nearly one in five have admitted to downloading illegally from the Internet, while nearly half say they’ve bought illegal discs, and two in ten have offered someone else a pirate disc.

12% of those surveyed were confused as to what exactly constitutes piracy.

Australia remembers British convictism, asks for help dealing with filesharers

Australia has found inspiration in their rich history, where Britain sent convicts over to the Southern land in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and asked the motherland just what to do with those naughty filesharers.

Yes, even people in Australia are downloading music and movies illegally, and they want to take action against these ‘criminals’ and force ISPs to abandon their customers who’re found downloading copyrighted material. Last year 2.8 million Australians downloaded…

The latest wheeze to punish P2P downloaders: bill them!

pirate-dog.jpgUS firm Nexicon says it’s signed up “a motion picture studio” for its GETAMNESTY program, which aims to charge P2P downloaders for the files (films, in this case) that they’ve illegally downloaded.

Nexicon hasn’t named the studio, so it’s unclear whether it’s one of the big guys or not. I’m a bit unclear on how GETAMNESTY works, other than the original press release’s promise that it “enables copyright owners to identify violators with precision, document specific copyright infringements perpetrated by the same infringer, and obtain compensation efficiently and cost effectively”.