September 25, 2009 9:28

Radiohead, Blur, Keane push for 'three strikes' downloading rule Radiohead Tickets

Musicians sign motion to push for restricted bandwidth for downloaders

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Radiohead's Ed O'Brien, Blur's Dave Rowntree and Keane's Tim Rice-Oxley are among the musicians who have signed up to a motion by the Featured Artists Coalition to support the idea of a 'three strikes' rule for illegal downloaders.

Under the proposed rule, users who persistently illegally download would receive up to three letters with increasing severity, then a sanction on the speed of their internet connection if they continued to do so.

The idea is at odds with the UK government's proposal for new legislation. Yesterday (September 24) Business Secretary Lord Peter Mandelson again outlined his proposal to cut off the connections of persistent file-sharers, saying it would be a "last resort" as an action against copyright infringers.

A message on FAC website, featuredartistscoalition.com following a meeting yesterday (September 24) read: "Our meeting voted overwhelmingly to support a three-strike sanction on those who persistently download illegal files, sanctions to consist of a warning letter, a stronger warning letter and a final sanction of the restriction of the infringer’s bandwidth to a level which would render file-sharing of media files impractical while leaving basic email and web access functional."

The members also voted to support Lily Allen, who was recently campaigning against illegal downloading. The singer stepped away from the debate yesterday.

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