This is one of those Bills that the government are trying to usher through without actually understanding the technology or the real reasons behind it. They've been put under pressure by the EU (and I think them by large institutes/organisations) to put an end to the illegal file sharing that goes on using peer to peer technologies.
Now what this bill proposes is that if a copyright owner has reason to believe that you may be illegally sharing their content they can contact your ISP who will then investigate. If they are reported 3 times then their residence gets it's internet connection cut off (haven't found out how long this ban is in place for, and whether it moves if you move).
This is like the old days of law before the reforms, where you would be assumed guilty and any chance to prove your innocence was beyond contestation. Many people have taken it as an infringement on their rights and are up in arms over it. People like the notable comedian Stephen Fry (whose comedic partner from Jeeves & Wooster, etc. you know as "House"), the ISP TalkTalk, and even the MI5. Such open opposition to the bill screams out that there is something wrong with the bill, and I agree.
The problem I find is how they're going to go about proving the guilt of alleged filesharers and the ramifications of what these methods may mean. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that if they are going to keep within privacy laws that they will not monitor the specifics of your internet traffic, but rather the amount and frequency of it such that if you download and upload large amounts of data over an obscure port number it looks like you're using peer to peer technologies such as BitTorrent. This in itself is not good enough as there are many legitimate uses for BitTorrent technologies such as the distribution of large Open Source projects which aren't feasible or cost effective to be shared over traditional HTTP / FTP file servers. Not only is this a problem, but even your average computer user could be using peer to peer technology without even realising it - the BBC iPlayer uses a technology very similar to BitTorrent to distribute it's TV programs to your desktop when using their AIR application.
I don't often watch television when it's on, I usually catch up at a more opportune time using iPlayer, so TV programs will be downloaded to my machine using peer to peer technology - what would the 3 strikes rule make of this? It's a perfectly legitimate use for the technology and something I use every week. Now I can't imagine the DEB applying to such usage, but that then raises further questions. As I said previously, each strike comes from an accusation from a copyright holder that you might be illegally sharing work that they own the copyright to - how will they get to know this without requesting specific details from ISPs or using BitTorrent themselves to retrieve IP addresses.
So do you make all P2P file sharing illegal, or just that which has been reported by the big organisations? Where do you stop, and where do you draw the line?
Without properly answering these questions they should not blindly agree to such a controversial bill that is there primarily for the large organisations such as our equivalent of the RIAA and the MPAA. Would such a bill pass in the United States? I don't think it would, the public would be so enraged by it that they wouldn't dare pass such an abysmal law. It will kill of the use of this popular distribution method in the UK and will harm small organisations and Open Source communities that use this for distribution.
This Bill is there for the large companies and organisations, of which many have failed in court cases against P2P users lately which has blackened the name of many music labels and studios. The fact that they are not infallible and could make mistakes will make acting on this Bill a contrived process which is unlikely to actually make any difference.
The Bill doesn't just refer to P2P sharing, but also covers the improvements of the countries infrastructure for accessing the Internet, moving all radio stations to digital, and numerous other improvements. It is this one agenda item which is a sticking point for most. So the point really is that this proposal needs amending rather than being scrapped altogether.
