I wouldnt buy any of the films i download. So no one lost out becuase i downloaded. If i happen 2 like a film i do buy a DVD tho. Then again the quality of films and music are deteriorating.

JURAA, Jalalabad, Hindoneshia

"The music and film industry seems to want to go after their biggest fans. Why don't we just boycott their products- Lets declare Jan 1 a no film and no music cd/dvd purchase day and see how the industry reacts then"
chottu , Singapore, singapore

YES!! i totally agree with chottu. we should boycott those idiots with their unreasonable prices and stupid accusations ("piracy is a crime").

mari, vilnius, lithuania

We must not let this happen.
We all know the US political system, which sucks up huge funding from industry lobbying groups, has been in the pocket of big companies for a long time. Why should European governments follow suit?
As a musician, here are my reasons for wanting the demise of the record industry (at least in its current form) :

-The entire market is stiched-up by at most 4 or 5 major labels.

-Record companies' modus operandi has been to force-feed the "market" with a limited number of often completely talentless artists (They have been shown to have paid radio stations large amounts of money to achieve this). They have also played a major part in the dumbing down of society (although,admittedly, our education systems have not helped).

-As a listener of serious music, I cannot even GET half the music I would wish either on CD or on "legal" mp3 download sites. Why?

-Ridiculous price of CDs to fund huge profits, mkg campaigns.

etc.etc.....the list is endless

Rob, Paris, France

damn it, why don’t governments spend them time more usefully by encouraging REAL competition instead of participating in the strangling of the music industry by 4 or 5 major labels?????????

Rob, Paris, France

My ISP most obviously will no longer require the £45 a month I pay. Most of my neighbours think the same.

Ian, Manchester,

Sharing is loving.
Industry Call it stealing.....I call it sharing.

Bill Gates, San Juan, PR

regardless of all the other rights and wrongs in this debate, lets get one thing straight - piracy is NOT theft. it is piracy. or copyright infringement. it is not theft and anyone who would have you believe so, is either misinformed or a pr agent for one of the big publishers.

matt ernshaw, needham market, uk

I think everyone is eagerly being led astray by a red herring. The main reason for this initiative isn't to combat piracy, but to help justify ISPs in demolishing the concept of "net neutrality." Once they're granted the right to inspect and censor every packet that goes in and out of your modem, ISPs can easily introduce the tiered pricing of their dreams.

Just as Microsoft is trying to turn the PC into a black-box VCR, ISPs would love to charge you for specific, tightly-limited services. The whole idea of an open Internet is something they'd love to kill. By doing it this way, they can count on a bunch of "Piracy is Theft!" sheep to support them, until it's way too late to stop the process.

Beware: even if you've legitimately paid for every byte of entertainment you own, you DO NOT want this to happen.

fung0, Toronto, Canada

You mean out of the £35 a month I pay my ISP, none of it goes to help out the poor artists and filmakers... I'm shocked!

Tom, Leicester,

If the government know that certain websites allow people to download movies, music etc, then why don't they stop these websites. Wouldn't that be easier than infringing people's privacy? Wih the amount that dvds etc cost to buy, it is not suprising that people download them.

Maleeyah, UK,

If it is really to catch criminals, why do they use illegal ways to corner them. They have been caught redhanded using illegal means, pirated code in their software and rootkits. Who hold them accountable when they spend the money they collect from copyrights to play golf and party depriving artists from much needed revenus? Do as I say, not as I do...

Michel_Tr, Montreal, Canada

If the industry would make stuff WORTH paying for, then maybe more people would pay for it, instead of downloading it illegally. The movies coming out of Hollywood right now are not worth paying for, in fact there are several that I can think where they should have paid me to watch it.

Cory Perry, Greenville, SC, USA

The media companies in the past before the internet made vast sums of profits and spent them foolishly. Instead of investing a lower cost method of production and reducing the consumer costs of legal purchases, instead they kept increasing prices on their products. Retail pricing is absurd considering the cost of production and the fact movies are made for box office returns traditionally, not the post theater market on DVD.

People will only pirate when it's beneficial to due so. A $30, 2 hour, DVD hour movie, is even more expensive than going to a theater.

Perhaps the industry should stop paying these actors and singers millions of dollars for something that is just entertainment, a fleeting amusement.

MVK, St Petersburg, Russia

I agree with some others.

Piracy is a criminal act. Simple. Don't hide behind that 'Biggest fans' nonsense. If you like it, watch it or listen to it. Then of course pay for it!

Alex Eman, London,

This comment below is so terribly wrong, inaccurate and very misleading

Actually most people stream films. Streaming films is not illegal, only downloading. What is more sites such as legalsounds are actually illegal and users are breaking no laws in using them as they are based in Russia, and the user is paying for the service. The legal issues are only between the music companies and the websites, not the website users. louise, uk,

You are sooooo wrong. All rights are reserved. By anymeans. If it were not so then I could 'stream. sky sports on my website and make a real mint! Please please check the Louise.

Alex Eman, London,

How much is the "industry" really losing? Instead of fighting the so called "piracy", embrace it. It's been proven that "leaked" tv shows generate more publicity, independent music artists and film directors get more recognition and their products get more exposure than they could ever hope for without it. Radiohead released their last album online for a pay if you want test and made a lot of money. It's the way of the future, it just needs to stop being portrayed in a negative light and everyone needs to jump on board.

Fred, Newark,

Having worked in the CD / DVD manufacturing industry, I understand the distribution, licensing and manufacturing costs involved, and maybe if the industry sold their products at a realistic price and made available back catalogue 'evergreen' music and 'classic' film at a realistic price this issue would be much reduced.

To make a point in case, the DVD cases (known as digi-packs in 1997 when I was in the industry) were chosen for their racking size and the fact that the purchaser felt the cover price was justified by the larger packaging.

It's all a con and studio's / record labels should price their products more realistically, and offer back catalogue material at a nominal price and this issue will reduce greatly.

We don't want bolt on extra's, we want a sensible price without excessive packaging.

nesersert, Kent, Kent

The music and film industry seems to want to go after their biggest fans. Why don't we just boycott their products- Lets declare Jan 1 a no film and no music cd/dvd purchase day and see how the industry reacts then

chottu , Singapore, singapore

Piracy is theft. Those that do it are criminals. I agree with the comments that those overseas e.g. Chinese will get away with it until the UK and USA governments exercise retaliation sanctions on China which will never happen. Never-the-less, closer to home in the UK, pirates are stealing money from content owners and the public purse in lost VAT and taxes. It's about time repeated piracy was dealt with as strictly as stealing a car (in Saudi Arabia - not the UK where you'd probably get off with a telling off), depending on whether it was a one off or a repeat offence.

Rahul, London,

The downloaders could easly download in a car using someone elses wireless network, all they need is some hacking software and a laptop! many people dont even password protect their networks!

pete, poole, uk

Any IT professional will tell you that ISP's will not be able to prevent or discover most individuals downloading such files because there are many different ways to transfer files over a network. Then of course there are many ways of encrypting the data. It seems that UK MP's are blowing their hot air with little, if any, understanding of how the internet works. As for the movie and music industry they are truly stuck in the mud. They think they are embracing the digital age by putting their products on a DVD or CD respectively!

Peter Jensen, Bristol,

I also agree with the previous posters that the vast majority of people who download films are of the 'try before you buy' persuasion. If they enjoy the film, they will probably pay for the cinema ticket and buy the DVD. If they are happy with the poor quality, low resolution version that they downloaded, then they would probably never have paid the £7 for the ticket, much less the £15 for the DVD - they would borrow a friends copy..

Furthermore, the current climate in Hollywood of producing utterly mediocre, unchallenging, derivative (sequels!?) movies to appeal to the masses (in order to generate maximum return) has left many film goers vary wary and reluctant to part with the ever increasing amount of cash required at the box office. Even more reason to preview the film first.

On the rare occasions that an intersting film is released, people will recognise this and pay for the ticket/DVD. And how do they find out that the film is worth seeing? The internet....

T, Southampton,

Ah the government....isnt it them who "lost" all of the data from the HMRC, DSA, DVLA...I could go on. But of course as soon as the Media industry comes bleeting about "how much they are loosing to pirates" the keel over at the first hurdle. So they will "ban" the pirate downloaders - not the people who upload it in the first place - kill the demand then there will be no need for a supply - pure logic of course. But what happens when the "downloader" is working at a government dept with an unmetered internet account - are they going to block themselves. It will just drive the pirates further underground. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to work out that it can be done through proxy servers etc etc. I know what - lets ban the internet, oh and camcorders, and CD/DVD blanks, in fact lets drop the country back into the dark ages and let countries like india and china race ahead of us...I look forward to working for my master in a poor house...but what the heck, the MP's will be ok...

Neil E Dunne, Nottingham, There'll always be an England

The software designers will always be one step ahead of our out of touch MP's, who are in pay of big business and don't care about freedom of information. Clamping down on the net will be bad for British business but they are too short sighted to see this.

J Yelnun, Cheshire,

Oh, yes.. ban the downloader, ban the pirates... then Ohh... then. all the kiddies and non geeks will sod off back to what ever they were doing before they pick up a computer. Then, Service providers will rationlise their service,... the loss of revenue... then less computers sold, hi tech out of the window back to horses .. PC world and it's goons, all gone... Oh the magic and then.... when this all settles ... we can go back to URLs with numbers, not silly names, Binary and digital will be acceptable again .. The internet will be reclaimed by the true ... but, won't a lot of people lose their jobs, sources of income, will you still be able to send copyright material to fellow artists, will demo tapes be transmitted, will record companies really sell tracks on line with out credit card fraud... but no... thats Ok, the banks will make the loss, maybe not for long but the record companies will ......... but won't the lending of disks and tapes come back in, ......

Descartes, London, Surrey

We know what action the MP's will decide on, because not one of them has a science or IT degree. Instead we have 650-ish useless spives with arts, law, English, Latin, history, and politics degrees voting on what to do with what is effectively a science problem.

This is why the UK is SO messed up, and these 650 are ruining the UK's economy because of their illiteracy in I.T or engineering.

Better leave China and India alone, you won't get money out of them for copyright infringement (protectionism), go for the money in wealthy countries instead, makes all those corporate lawyers rich at the same time.

Michael, Dover, UK

I work for an ISP and this is the first we have heard of it....

Fielder, London,

The phenomenal growth of the Internet has shown what free enterprise can do when it isn't crippled by government control. Now control freak politicians are getting into their stride and will wreck the greatest invention since the wheel. Copyright legistlation enabled big business to rip off the public, and artists as well, for decades. For a few years file sharing helped the public evade outdated laws that enable the music industry to blatantly overcharge for cd's. So instead of going after companies manufacturing fakes, goverments are colluding with the music industry to criminalise and victimise file sharers. They will end up by wrecking the Internet itself, just as they have wrecked and hobbled every other industry they can lay their hands on. Researchers have shown that file sharing itself has never in fact damaged music sales, just extortionate pricing.
Just remember how big business tried and failed to kill off VHS video copying and how VHS then spawned a whole new industry.

Martin, Welwyn Garden City, England

The Internet provides the only source of international freedom of expression. It must be allowed to continue free of government and censor interference.

Simon Marshland, Bath, Somerset

I'm with Ajer. Maintaining the unfettered access to the internet will be vital to human freedom in the next century. Anyone who says different has some reason they want to control you.

H, New York, NY

The massively financially successful media industry has money to spare and can pay its own way in the world and so it should instead develop better security itself rather than relying on internet providers and governments to protect them. Surely that is what these companies pay their solicitors to do?!

C, Gateshead,

I think that is impossible to take a top-down, governmental approach when dealing with free-loaders. There are just too many of them worldwide, and the pirated material is just too easy to obtain.

Change has to be brought about by changing user habits. When governments start getting real and accepting that internet piracy is a different type of crime than stealing from a shop then then more people will take notice and listen.

Khaled Shivji, London,

People tend to download because..
1) Its more convenient than going to the shop and stealing/buying the media
2) People tend not to think its good value to spend £13.99-£18.99 on something they will watch once
3)People want to watch more than they can afford to pay for at the prices set by the retailers/distributers
4)People tend not to want to wait for the distributers to "let them" have the material (hello DVD region codes?)
5) People tend to think the media industry is doing very well financially and can't see any truth in claims that the industry is being hard done by downloaders.
6) People who download for free aren't necessarily interested in buying what is actually crap.
Further
I would much rather resources were applied to tracking down, stopping and prosecuting spammers and virus makers (any chance of that?) and tracking down real criminals and sorting out the real problems of the world. Pull the plank out of your eye BEFORE making a disproportionate fuss about the splinter

Chesty, London, UK

People download free copies due to the extremely low risk of getting caught, not due to the price.

If they honestly believed they were entitled to steal copies due to the price, they'd be willing to walk into their local shop - pick up a copy of the physical CD, say "the price entitles me to steal this", and walk out without paying.

Ever seen that ? No. The difference is the much higher chance of getting caught, not anything to do with the price.

Also - why do people keep banging on about the extortionate cost of CDs ? Ok, there's a high mark-up. But there are products (perfume ?) with much higher mark-ups. So, why don't people apply their "the cost entitles me to steal one" logic to such products ? Simple - they'd have to go and steal it physically, increasing the chance of getting caught.

Increase the chances of catching the thieves, and the punishment, and all this would be solved

CB, Surrey,

Studies within the software industry have shown that people who copy and use software tend to upgrade and buy the real product , whereas those who copy and preview, out of habit, tend to neither use what they copied, nor buy a replacement.

Essentially, it's a try-before-you-buy system.

Regarding illegal download of movies, the copies on the net are generally poor quality, and only for the hard-core PC geeks - rental prices are ludicrously low. Why bother?

Olden Atwoody, Eidhernett, Germany

This is just the thin end of the wedge, don't be fooled, governments no matter what colour they are or how much they go on about supporting freedom actually hate the masses to have too much access to truth and information, look at the fiasco over Hutton. Any excuse to take control of the web, be it as someone stated earlier 'Pornography, prevention/justification of terrorism, illegal downloads' is just a cover to get those less informed to support state control and censorship.

The Web is probably the greatest invention since the printing press, therefore we should resist any attempts by 'Governments' to interfere or take control as they have in some of the less attractive countries around the world.

Ajer, Reading, UK

"The biggest downloaders are the Chinese, but of course nothing will be done about them.

Paul, Newbury, "

Because this is about the UK? Sinophobia, alive and well.

"If the companies reduced their prices them the temptation to download would reduce to near zero. And a LOT higher that either the US or Europe. (Rip-off Britain)."

A lot of contradiction in you post, Paul... if reduced prices will lower the temptation to pirate... then why are people in China still doing it, when prices there for official DVDs are what, £1 a film? What about Sweden, home of Piratebay? They're download mad over there.

The situation is obvious; people download illegally, free of charge, because they can. To disguise our country's illegal online activities as "fair and just" and then blaming it on that big country that anyone can pick on is the most typical, self righteous attitude imaginable.

Howard, Manchester,

I Am Legend was a quality film, watched it last week. I recommend it

craig, wales,

They WANT us to download without paying. Its paid for by ads inserted into the film/Tv/Music. Am i doing anything illegal if I download shows that are on Channel5, but which I cant receive? I have paid for the bBC content of course.

elmo Gadgert, london, uk

The reasion why people download for free is the high cost of DVD/CD's.The film and music company's must reduce the prices.
It's rip off Britain yet again.
I get most of my films from the US either Amazon.com or Playusa.com.
which is better $15 or £15?

Allan Pointon, Stafford, UK

The studios themselves are somewhat to blame also. With worldwide marketing and the internet, films are being pushed way in advance of being made available outside the US. This fuels demand for the products that are unavailable by any other means than piracy. The studios need worldwide releases with reasonably priced digital rentals. That would cut most piracy imo.

Brian Russell, Swindon, UK

ISPs really are no more responsible for what you do than the Post Office is for what you send in the mail. The French argument is totally nonsensical - and probably unworkable; how does the ISP know whether or not you have paid? And what happens if you pay, in good faith, for what turns out to be a pirate copy?

Tha answer to this problem is to close down the websites providing the illegal downloads and implement severe penalites for those running them.

Roger Tilbury, Worthing,

Bah Humbug!! Share prices of Time Warner are standing at $16.90 right now from their 2002 price of $10.85. It just shows how greedy these multi media conglomerates are getting. They say they are loosing money, but it doesnt show in their forecasts for the next 2 years. If they set their prices a bit lower on the retail end, they would not have any of this issue. HMV is stuggling because they are back down to their 2003 prices after reaping the rewards of early 2005 before downloading became popular. These companies need to look at what the market will bear and adjust themselves accordingly. BTW, dont know if you were in the queues at HMV over Christmas, but they sure didnt look like they were suffering to me.

Harry , Warrington, UK

If this indeed is to happen then we dont need the mega download speeds we might as well go back to dial up 56k
why pay the high prices for broadband if all you can do is download the latest drivers

jeff, liverpool, England

Like others have said, people illegally download content because the legal price of it is unjustified. Why pay the same amount as a CD to download an album in poorer quality format with no cover art or packaging, restricted to play on only certain music players? If the music companies want to stop piracy, they should find a price that the market can bear. I recommend emusic.com - they allow you to (legally!) download 40 tracks a month for around $10 in MP3 format, hence no player restrictions. At that price, it is a fair alternative to buying a CD. All the while the publishers are greedy, the consumers will steal music. It's quite simple.

Paul, Wassenaar, The Netherlands

£4.99 a DVD i will pay all day long and i think its a reasonable price - so think about it ..sell at £4.99 at 1st release where MOST people will buy the thing OR be greedy and charge nearly £15 and most people knows how to download WILL download! same goes for music! and softeare.....

kc, norfolk,

Here in Spain, we have to pay and extra canon or tax on every CD, DVD, mp3 device, cellular phone, pen drive, etc we buy. This is to compensate authors and copyright owners (even if I put my sons' pictures or my work files on them). In a near future we'll probably have to pay the canon on the ADSL lines too. I think this nonsense and the prices of media on shops are turning people to the net.

Jaume Guasch, Barcelona, Spain

The reason people turn to the internet to acquire music, software, movies and so forth is that they have extortionate retails prices which many people simply cannot afford. Thus if companies curbed their own greed just a touch perhaps in the long run they would in fact benefit.

Jimmy Barclay, Glasgow, Scotland

This is yet another piece of nonsense from Europe's failures of politicians. The problem is with the private sector producers who have managed to delude themsleves into believing that their theoretical lost sales [by illegal file-sharing] are more important than selling their products for a reasonable price and in an easy accessible manner.

In the past, I have made the mistake of purchasing things legally. An electronic book, for instance, which won't let me print the pages and is therefore useless. Or expensive virus protection which so overloaded my dual-core 2GB RAM computer, that I threw it away after a few weeks.The obsession with DRM which pervades big business is set to worsen with Microsoft incorporating it into Vista [of course, Microsoft likes making monopoly profits, so DRM is very attractive].

The market failure lies largely in the greed and incompetence of big business to provide what consumers want. DRM and internet controls will only aid and abet private sector greed.

Martin Baldwin-Edwards, Athens, Greece

Maybe if the film and music companies stopped ripping people off with ridiculous prices people would be prepared to buy them legaly. Of course profits have to be made but the prices charged verge on criminality.

Richard, Manchester, England

I surfed the internet for ages the other night trying to find legal download services where I could get my favourite TV shows. I found a number of services, all of which announced 'Only available in the US' whenever I tried to download anything.

So, the technology behind downloading legal television is clearly available, as it's possible in the US, but for some reason the media industry can't align itself properly, allowing for legal downloads in the UK. Surely the easiest way to ensure that shows captured from TV in the US is not made available for download in the UK is to actually synchronise the broadcast of these cult shows in both countries.

Of course, the world of media is wrapped in all sorts of red tape and legal contracts and what not, completely unnecessarily. So, until they're sorted that out, my sympathy for the media industry is 'Only available in the US'.

Gibbo, London, United Kingdom

Pornography, prevention/justification of terrorism, illegal downloads... what will they think of next? Internet correspondents (aka bloggers) are a thorn in Authority's side. Obviously the Internet can't be shut down or business would suffer exponentially, but that said, government would like to control the mass of negative comment out there.

Andrew Milner, Yokohama, Japan

Actually most people stream films. Streaming films is not illegal, only downloading. What is more sites such as legalsounds are actually illegal and users are breaking no laws in using them as they are based in Russia, and the user is paying for the service. The legal issues are only between the music companies and the websites, not the website users.

louise, uk,

More censorship, by another name. It is yet another excuse to further restrict use of the Internet which is one of the few places where anyone can research and find information that is otherwise restricted.

Just because big business looses a few sales, that it probably would not have made anyway, the governement is bowing to gig business instread of keeping thier noses out of the matter.

If the companies reduced their prices them the temptation to download would reduce to near zero. Presently people perceive the prices as being too high. Despite falling costs prices have remained nearly constant for 10 years. And a LOT higher that either the US or Europe. (Rip-off Britain).

People (in the UK) download, primarily to preview the product and it it is worth the price they will purchase it (as the quality is better for Bigger Screens)

The biggest downloaders are the Chinese, but of course nothing will be done about them.

Paul, Newbury,