As predicted here last week, the LibCon governing coalition in the UK has much bigger fish to fry than a 30-month slow-speed process to cut off Internet connections of alleged persistent pirates.
However, though the Coalition Agreement does not contain specific promises, its understood that some of the more draconian powers granted to the Secretary of State (then Mandelson, now presumably Vince Cable) will not be implemented: 'One of the more controversial elements of the Bill, which had the potential to see websites being blocked if they could be used for to copyright infringement, required secondary legislation to be implemented - and there is no indication for now that this will be introduced by the new government. Ofcom, which is currently consulting on how some segments of the Act will be implemented, announced recently that the Act's provisions which force Internet Service Providers to take action against accused file-sharers would initially only apply to fixed-line ISPs with over 400,000 customers - meaning that small ISPs and mobile broadband providers will be exempt for the time being.'
The COMS Secretary announced that: '“We’re not going to repeal it,” Instead, the administration will wait to see how the act’s measures perform and, if alterations or something more is needed, take action later, Hunt said.' Ed Vaizey is the new Minister for Communications - and its a low Tory priority.
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