U.K. talking about taxing music downloaders

It's nice that every once in a while download news comes from a pragmatic, rather than disciplinary, realm. In the last few years, the tide of of industry crackdown on media piracy has only risen—the closing of peer-to-peer program Napster, the onset of RIAA lawsuits and the seizure of bit-torrents site OiNK but a few of the symptoms.

The Independent reports that ministers in the U.K. announced they are backing a proposal from John Hutton, the Business Secretary, and Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, to tax Internet users who engage in music downloading and sharing with a £20 to £30 fee. The plan would be implemented after sending letters to over 12,000 active up- and downloaders, warning them that they are in violation of U.K. law.

In hopes to avoid alternatives such as using the criminal justice system (as with the OiNK case) or requiring Internet Service Providers to turn over the identities of those involved, supporters say the proposal is an important step to reviving the country's suffering music industry in the country without violating rights.

Still, Ministers are wary about the issues involved with controlling Internet use on a governmental level and would like ISPs and the music industry to "take responsibility for the issue," as one Whitehall source said, though doing nothing is "not an option." How it will turn out is unclear, but like a similar plan proposed earlier this year in the U.S., it marks a new step in thinking about how to reconcile illegality with such popular behavior. After all, piracy, others in the U.K. would claim, is not as cut and dry as some might believe.

Related links:
Transcript from BPI press conference
The Guardian: "Government wants to cut illegal filesharing by 80% by 2011"
RIAA.com

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