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Ministers have confirmed that the Digital Economy Bill, which has already generated mass protest, will force ISPs to raise the costs of an average broadband subscription by £25 a year, costs associated with warning users, then slowing or stopping the connections of those who subsequently refuse to stop downloading.
TechRadar

So you will be paying extra for the privilege of being cut you off on the whim of any media company. No proof will be required other than their word that they saw an IP number in a list that they themselves compiled.

....predict that the measures will generate £1.7 billion in extra sales for the film and music industries over the next ten years, as well as £350 million for the Government in extra VAT.
TimesOnline

If they are naive enough to assume that everyone who downloaded something before will now go and buy it at the full price then I have some good deals to offer them. I have a bridge or two to sell plus a breeding pair of unicorns they can have quite cheap.

The only upside will be the ministers faces when they say to the supporters of this plan "but you promised that extras sales would bring in £350 Million in VAT!"
Ministers are, as you say, naive beyond belief. If you take away the ability to download content from a verifiable source, then people will simply switch to an unverifiable one. For instance, Canadian and US usenet services are bound by and uphold privacy laws. There will probably be many other methods devised to replace bittorrents.
I was never sure where usenet stood on this. I know they don't pass on information now, but I thought it would be just a matter of time before they were targeted.

Other methods that spring to mind are going through a VPN (the kind you pay for like that Swedish one I can never remember the name of) or perhaps paying for a seedbox in some other country not likely to cooperate with these people.

I quite like the seedbox idea since it would download/upload 24/7 if need be. You'd still have to download the files to your own PC, but at that point they can be encrypted and unidentifiable zip files and you could time it to max out your download speed in off peak times.
Will they have to give everyone their own IP address then?
I think I have a new different one every time I connect so how would I prove it wasn't another horrible person who had my number that day.

Also I agree that people just won't buy 1.7 billion of extra films and music because for one thing people don't actually have a spare 1.7 billion in these troubled  credit crunched times.
The way it works now your IP address changes, but your ISP keeps track of the exact time it was assigned to you. When they get a letter from the copyright holder quoting the IP address and a date/time they reply to say that "Brownfurby had that address on that date at that time."

Sometimes the ISP gets it wrong which is another reason that the 'guilty until proven innocent' thing is so bad.
I was never sure where usenet stood on this. I know they don't pass on information now, but I thought it would be just a matter of time before they were targeted.

Asy will probably correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the right to privacy is part of the U.S. Constitution. All U.S. based premium usenet services therefore guarantee that they won't collect or hold download or upload content information, although they would probably have to log usage simply to enable charges to be made. Canadian services follow suit, either because of similar privacy laws or simply because it would be economic madness to shut off the U.S. market.



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