2009 in review: File sharing and internet piracy

The debates over the extent of illegal file sharing, and how to stop it, continued to rage in 2009

It seems that 2009 was the year in which the authorities went on the offensive and started to hit back against illegal file-sharing and downloading.

Sweden found itself at the centre of media attention on the issue of illegal file sharing in April as the owners of The Pirate Bay were taken to court and subsequently sentenced to one year in jail and fined £4.2m for facilitating the downloading of copyrighted content.

The extent to which the seriousness of the issue was being taken in the US was highlighted in June when a woman was fined $1.92m (£1.16m) for illegally downloading 24 songs from Kazaa.

Meanwhile, in the UK the government set out its plans to tackle illegal file-sharing with the Digital Economy Bill, which immediately drew a huge amount of criticism from interested parties.

The Bill, spearheaded by Lord Mandelson, was highly controversial owing to its proposal of dealing with persistent illegal file sharers through a three-strikes disconnection policy and asking ISPs to monitor IP addresses.

The government has been keen to take the side of copyrighted content providers, and research it issued in May entitled Copycats? Digital Consumers in the On-Line Age estimated that £12bn worth of copyrighted content could be freely consumed through just one peer-to-peer network over a year on a 50Mbit/s connection.

Studies like this have helped formed the basis of Lord Mandelson's willingness to introduce a policy of disconnection for persistent file-sharers, but this proposal met a potential stumbling block after the EU said that any such action may be illegal.

Additionally, many in the industry have claimed the extent of illegal file-sharing is being overstated by the government and content providers as a justification for introducing some of measures set out in the Digital Economy Bill.

Jim Killock, from the Open Rights Group, said that since the arrival of new service models, such as Spotify, the BBC iPlayer and Sky Songs, which provide online copyrighted content legally, illegal downloading has almost been "cut in half".

However, looking ahead to 2010, more accurate figures on illegal downloading could become available after news in November that Virgin Media is to trial hardware from Detica that provides more accurate measurements on the amount of file sharing taking place on networks.

This could help provide the industry with more accurate metrics and help internet service providers (ISPs) meet some requirements of the Digital Economy Bill, such as monitoring levels of copyright infringement on their networks.

In the main, though, ISPs have shown disappointment with the suggestion in the Bill that they will be required to monitor traffic and report users to the necessary authorities.

TalkTalk helped lead the protests against the Bill with executive director of strategy and regulation Andrew Heaney setting up an online petition on the government's number10.gov.uk web site. To date this has drawn over 20,000 signatures, and Heaney told V3.co.uk that he believes the figure underlines the strength of feeling against the bill.

Several Swedish ISPs also said in April that they will stop logging IP addresses to preserve the privacy and anonymity of users.

Commenting on the Bill, Paddy Gardiner from legal firm Eversheds told V3.co.uk that the Bill had not been properly thought through, and that the Labour government may be trying to rush it in before the general election next year.

But it's not just music and other entertainment that has been the subject of debate around illegal downloading. A report in May from the Business Software Alliance suggested that one in four software installations in the UK is illegal.

In October a business in the north of England was fined a six-figure sum for using unlicensed versions of Microsoft and Adobe software.

Certainly the issues, debates, disagreements and proposed solutions around illegal file sharing are a long way from being resolved, and 2010 could well prove much the same as battle lines become more firmly entrenched.