Friends In High Places

As consumer rights groups prepare to challenge the U.K. government’s proposals to suspend the Internet connections of illegal file-sharers, business secretary Lord Mandelson has been accused of pandering to rich friends with his sudden urge to stop online piracy.

Mandelson’s plans, unveiled midway through a consultation about how to tackle illegal file-sharing, have also met with fierce opposition among Internet service providers and bloggers.

Already facing questions about doing favours for wealthy friends after it was revealed he ordered the crackdown after dining with Hollywood mogul David Geffen, Mandelson’s opponents are now suggesting Universal Music Group International chairman and chief exec Lucian Grainge may have also influenced what looks to be a government U-turn.

Grainge, who handles Universal’s multibillion-dollar business outside North America, is a fierce opponent of illegal downloading.

The idea of disconnecting illegal file-sharers had already been ruled out in the Labour government’s Digital Britain report published in June, which went no further than recommending serial offenders have their Internet speed restricted to make it more difficult to download files.

“’Yet again he is laying himself open to the suggestion that he is looking after his powerful friends,” said Tory MP Douglas Carswell, who wants Mandelson to reveal who he met from the creative industries and what was discussed.

Liberal Democrat spokesman Don Foster said the new proposals seem to have been initiated “following posh meals at posh places with posh people.”

“Lord Mandelson has come back with new proposals which trample all over those already on the table,” he said.

The controversial proposals, which have received a warm welcome from the British Phonographic Industry, have raised fears that parents whose children were file-sharing without permission could lose their Web access. Their opponents have claimed they’re “unworkable and potentially illegal.”

The department for business, innovation and skills says Mandelson would have met representatives of all industries and denied the changes are the result of any single conversation.

“The thinking behind this is clear and has nothing to do with dinners in Corfu,” Mandelson wrote in an article published by The Times.

He said the government decided to reopen the issue of suspending Internet connections as a sanction of last resort against the most egregious offenders because “taking something for nothing, without permission, and with no compensation for the person who created and owns it, is wrong.”

He also said the U.K.’s creative businesses drive much of its economy, providing not only tax revenues and jobs but also ensure that Britain “punches above its weight on the global cultural stage.”

The Open Rights Group, a grassroots technology organisation aimed at protecting civil liberties in the area of digital technology, says any Internet suspension would “restrict people’s fundamental right to freedom of expression.”

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s last annual report showed that legitimate music sales aren’t coming close to offsetting the billions of dollars being lost to music piracy. An estimated 95 percent of music downloads are unauthorized.