TalkTalk vs Bono

The great file sharing debate just went Bono shaped. The U2 singer has waded into the Digital Economy Bill debate with his usual diplomatic panache, pointing the finger of blame at the doors of the ISPs.

In a piece for last Sunday’s New York Times, Bono wrote “We’re the post office, [the ISPs] tell us; who knows what’s in the brown-paper packages? But we know from America’s noble effort to stop child pornography, not to mention China’s ignoble effort to suppress online dissent, that it’s perfectly possible to track content.”

His comments have been branded as ‘outrageous’ by TalkTalk who of all the UK ISPs has been the most vocal in its opposition of the Digital Economy Bill.

“As a society we have accepted that it is appropriate and proportionate to intrude on people’s Internet use by blocking access to sites that host child abuse images. To suggest that sharing a music file is every bit as evil as child abuse beggars belief,” wrote Andrew Heaney on the TalkTalk blog.

Heaney added: “Bono obviously does not understand how simple it is to access copyright protected content without being detected.” Using Bono’s brown paper metaphor, whilst it’s possible to bypass encryption programs it is not, as far as we believe, possible to hack into a piece of condensed wood.

In the past TalkTalk and others, including Be Broadband, have cited a perceived lack of technical awareness in their opponents in the file sharing debate.

TalkTalk’s Don’t Disconnect Us e-petition at number10.gov.uk currently bears 30,965 signatures. The deadline to sign the petition by is the 20th of October.

Presumably an election would have happened by then, but the Digital Economy Bill was one of the few things which the two main parties agreed on. Current polls suggest that a Conservative victory is likely.

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