Piracy Police Chief Calls For State Interference to Stop Internet Anarchy

Since last year City of London Police's Intellectual Property Crime Unit have been working with copyright holders to tackle online piracy. The police have already booked some successes but according to PIPCU head Andy Fyfe, more state interference may be needed to stop Internet anarchy.

Founded little over a year ago, the City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) has quickly grown to become one of the world’s most active anti-piracy operations.

The unit uses a wide range of strategies, from writing to domain registrars and threatening them, to working with advertisers in order to cut off revenues from ‘pirate’ sites.

PIPCU is determined to continue its anti-piracy efforts in the years to come. However, the unit’s head Andy Fyfe also believes that the Government may have to tighten the rules on the Internet, to stop people from breaking the law.

In an interview with PC Pro, Fyfe says he wants to see this topic being debated in the media.

“I’m very interested in having a debate in the media about how much policing of the internet people want. At the moment, there’s almost no regulation and no policing of the internet,” Fyfe says.

PIPCU’s chief believes that the public has to be protected from criminals including pirate site operators who take advantage of their trust. If that doesn’t happen then the Internet may descend into anarchy, he says, suggesting that the Government may have to intervene to prevent this.

“In the end, that might mean that the Internet becomes completely ungovernable, and that no one can dare operate on it at all, no one can dare do their shopping or banking on it. So should there be a certain level of … state inference in the interest of protecting consumers? I’m very keen to raise that as a debate,” Fyfe notes.

The Police chief believes that tighter rules may be needed to prevent people from breaking the law in the future. This could mean that not everyone is allowed to launch a website, but that a license would be required, for example.

“There may well come a time when government decides it’s had enough and it’s not getting enough help from those main companies that control the way we use the internet – they’re not getting enough help from them, so they’re going to start imposing regulations, imposing a code of conduct about the way people may be allowed to operated on the internet,” Fife says.

PIPCU’s head doesn’t detail what the “code of conduct” might look like or how it may be enforced. Perhaps it’s finally time for the Internet passport to be introduced?

We’re keen on having this debate as well, so please feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you think.