According to an interview in The Times with David Lammy MP, the United Kingdom government is retreating from an earlier plan to sever the internet connection of those who repeatedly share or access copyright materials on P2P networks. Instead, rumour has it that the government is considering a download levy — perhaps similar to the one recently adopted in the Isle of Mann — to be administered by a new ‘rights agency’. Little is known at this stage, but this sounds like a commonsense result and potentially a positive development for ISPs, artists and consumers:

Speaking ahead of the publication of a report on the future of Britain’s digital industries, Mr Lammy said that there were very complex legal issues wrapped up in enforced disconnection. He added: “I’m not sure it’s actually going to be possible.” …

The ISPs believe that new business models and greater public education will help to solve the problem. They oppose any solution that involves new regulatory burdens being imposed on them. The Government, with the support of the music industry, favours a co-regulatory resolution, under which both parties agree to a code of conduct which is backed up by a regulator, such as Ofcom.

Mr Lammy, who has begun a big consultation entitled Developing a Copyright Agenda for the 21st Century, said that there was a big difference between organised counterfeiting gangs and “younger people not quite buying into the system”. He said: “We can’t have a system where we’re talking about arresting teenagers in their bedrooms. People can rent a room in an hotel and leave with a bar of soap — there’s a big difference between leaving with a bar of soap and leaving with the television.”

He said he hoped the memorandum of understanding would mean that the Government did not have to apply “the heavy hand of legislation”.

This is probably a logical course considering that 37 per cent of file-sharers would ignore a threat of imminent disconnection and continue file-sharing.

The comparison between downloading copyright materials from the internet and pilfering personal toiletries from a hotel is interesting, if somewhat flawed. Presumably, it is meant to emphasise the fact that downloading copyright materials represents a relatively small social harm (if at all) — the kind of minimus with which the law ought not to be concerned — and that those who download (like those who take their soap with them) may not necessarily appropriate property in other contexts. Of course, while I agree with these sentiments, the analogy fails in at least three respects: first, we’re not talking about one bar of soap (depending upon whom you are inclined to believe, between 18 per cent and 80 per cent of all hotel soap is going missing); second, downloads, unlike chattels, don’t have a one-to-one correlation with a real-world event (be it a record sale or the deprivation of another’s property); and third, the arms-length relationship between the hotelier (who buys and replaces the soap presumably at a fixed cost, regardless of whether consumed) and soap manufacturer is markedly different from that between record label, distributor and artist. In any event, let’s hope this signals a more practical approach to online copyright in the United Kingdom.