The current act requires the country’s biggest consumer broadband ISPs (BT [PlusNet], Orange UK [EE], O2, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk and Virgin Media) to issue warning letters about the detection of unlawful activity on a related customers account. Repeat offenders could also find their personal details being shipped on to Rights Holders for possible legal action, with the prospect of account “suspension” (disconnection) still looming high for the future.
Despite the acts many problems, such as its inability to identify the actual offender (at best it will only catch the connection owner), FAST believes that the DEA was drafted at a time when mobile and wifi networks “were not deemed sufficiently conducive for effective and wholesale copyright infringement” and wants to see the act updated to reflect the improvements being made by 4G superfast mobile broadband networks and the rapid spread of public wifi services.
