TalkTalk slams govt file-sharing plans

TalkTalk boss Charles Dunstone has slammed the government's approach to tackling illegal file-sharing as based on the principle of "guilty until proven innocent".

Business secretary Lord Mandelson wants to beef up the anti-piracy measures outlined in the Digital Britain report to place the power to suspend connections of targeted copyright infringes in the hands of the secretary of state rather than regulator Ofcom.

However, Dunstone believes that this approach would not only penalise innocent people, but also fail to make any headway on curbing online piracy.

Speaking to reporters last night as the government's consultation on the issue came to a close, he said that TalkTalk is committed to tackling illegal file-sharing, but cutting off offenders would seriously threaten the judicial process.

"The approach proposed by Lord Mandelson is based on the principle of guilty until proven innocent and substitutes proper judicial process for a kangaroo court," said Dunstone. "What is being proposed is wrong in principle and it won't work in practice."

Muse singer Matt Bellamy recently suggested that internet service providers should be "taxed" by copyright owners for usage of their content.

Around 100 artists have also signed up to a Featured Artists Coalition plan for a 'three strikes' approach to the problem, in which copyright infringers would get two letters of increasing severity before their connection is 'throttled' - reduced to just basic web surfing and email.

However, Dustone responded: "TalkTalk will continue to resist any attempts to make it impose technical measures on its customers [unless forced to do so by a judge].

"In the event we are instructed to impose extrajudicial technical measures we will refuse to do so and challenge the instruction in the courts."

BT and Virgin Media have also previously expressed concern at the new hard-line approach to piracy as they believe that "persuasion not coercion" is the best way to effectively influence consumer behaviour.

A Virgin Media spokeswoman said that a "heavy-handed, punitive regime will simply alienate mainstream consumers".

Meanwhile, TalkTalk this week revealed plans to apply film-style classifications to broadband connections to help parents keep children safe and also combat illegal file-sharing.

Dustone told the Financial Times that this policy would "help the content industry by blacklisting sites that have BitTorrent [file-sharing technology] files on them".