He commented that the entertainment industry’s stance was wrong. According to him, the industry was aggressively pursuing the file-sharers on one side, while maintaining a high price for the official content on the other. He berated the proposal by saying that only a wilfully blind person could believe the theory that someone downloading a TV episode was as bad as someone who filches a handbag.

In the process, he also admitted to resorting to BitTorrentfor downloading an episode of the Hugh Laurie starrer TV series,’ House’. However, he also revealed that he had already subscribed to it for viewing. Hugh Laurie was the old comedy partner of the actor-writer.

Irony is that Fry had been present in the UK government’s Digital Britain concept launch that took place in April. He had also watched the delivery of a proposed legislation then, including certain controversial measures such as engaging Ofcom to preside over the persistent file sharers’ forced bandwidth limitation. Strange that he did not notice it then that such a move could contradict the government’s catch word that ‘broadbandis a human right’.

The present outburst from Fry had come at a Roundhouse iTunes Festival in London. Fry was, on the occasion speaking as a warm-up act for the music fans. Fry seemed to be having realised the fact that he might have started something controversial, after leaving the stage. This was apparent from his subsequent tweet, “Hope I am not misunderstood”. He continued tweeting that it was such a pity, if he was misrepresented as an advocate to “be a pirate by helping yourself” concept.

Rory Cellan-Jones, a BBC blogger has reported an incidence at the iTunes Festival that someone in the audience pointed out that an instruction was given earlier to the audience to refrain from using recording devices; one which was ignored by almost everyone of the audience with the moral support of the man on the stage.

Fry’s outburst on the system, however was against weighing the ordinary people, in the same parameters used for industrial scale illegal downloaders. He also treaded ahead by slamming the Digital Britain final report for reflecting too many industrial views, as against the views of the general public. The entertainment industry was also criticised by him for being an overpaid and molly coddled business.

Fry’s comments have evoked mixed reactions amongst the public. Although many voices from the proletariat have lauded the move of the comic icon for supporting the cause of the common music fan, there also exists a few sceptics who believe that the man might be pandering through a lip service. What is interesting to watch in the time ahead, is the way the entertainment industry would take the criticism.

However, a fact of great concern revealed by the survey was the increase in the number of fresh downloaders among the music fans. The total illegal music downloaders’ percentage has rose to 31 percent in January 2009 from 28 percent in December 2007. This must be weighed against another result that the practice of sharing albums regularly by bluetoothing tracks and using burned CDs amongst fans are also on the rise.

The study also revealed that there were more music fans in the country at present who regularly bought single track downloads than sharing the single track files. Nevertheless, the percentage of the regularly album sharing music fans remained higher than the digital album purchasers. The research also shows that many teens were streaming music on a regular basis – thanks to fast broadband -, which in its turn reveals an apparent move to streaming through Spotify, YouTube, etc.

Experts are waiting to see what transpires after the proposals of the Digital Britain report are introduced in 2010. The report has proposed that the ISPs should be acting againat piracy by assuming certain measures such as issuing warning as a primary step and assuming technical measures against those failing the first (reduction of broadband speeds etc).

A research disclosed that about 1.3million people were consuming one file-sharing network on a particular weekday, and over a year they shall consume about 120 billion pound of worth material at free of cost.

The SABIP (Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property) says that it is hard to change the attitudes of the people as the government says that to handle this situation, stress should be laid internationally. The minister for Intellectual Property, Mr. David Lammy said that the whole UK economy should be reporting to the context about the impact of illegal downloads on copyright industries.

He also added that the issue was not confined to the national boundaries. According to him, the other [EU] member states and their copyright industries collectively had to take this report as a development of policy.

A nine prong UK bodies alliance representing the creative industries made an organization with the trade unions and appealed to the government to force the ISPs to cut off stubbornly the illegal file sharers. They opined that half of the net traffic in the UK was illegal.

The internet service providers refused this on the grounds that it was not their job. The latest report from the SABIP says that the new generation of broadband has accessibility to deliver 200MP3 files in five minutes with the advent of fast services of up to 50 Mbps, as a DVD can downloaded in 3 minutes.

About seven million people are believed to excercise accessibility over these illegal files, according to the survey. Not all were found students. Many of them were unaware of the consequences of this issue. The fact is that behind the whole thing is nothing else than the notion that everything was free on the internet. This obviously is an added confusion.

The SABIP Board member Mr. Dame Lynne Brindley commented that the report strives to provide some baseline evidence, from which they were prioritised to workout a clear research strategy that will evolve into a crucial supporting policy in this rapid moving area.

According to the MOU, the ISPs will have to comply with the demands made by music and other rightsholders so that all the signatories will work together to reduce illegal filesharing on the internet. During the first year of implementing the new regulations, the broadband customers who are identified as sharing files illegally will receive informative letters from their ISPs while other while effective mechanisms to deal with repeat offenders will be implemented gradually.

BPI Chief Executive Geoff Taylor has commented:

“BPI has always believed that a partnership approach is the best way forward, as we showed with our education campaign with Virgin Media, launched in May. This has demonstrated that ISPs and the music business can work together positively to raise awareness about illegal filesharing. And, working with government, we have been able to build on that progress and encourage other major ISPs to start taking a responsible approach.

In addition, the music business is constantly innovating to offer new, safe and legal ways to enjoy music online, and to create a future for digital music where creativity and copyright are respected. This MOU will help to create an environment in which such new digital services models can flourish.