Government proposals for legislation to tackle illegal downloading are unworkable and should be scrapped in favour of self-regulation claim the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA).

It says that such laws which have been introduced to govern technology have a poor track record, with the last attempt, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, taking three years to implement.

ISPs were not that happy with the plans either "The plan transfers the cost of copyright enforcement to the private sector, which is not our responsibility as a neutral carrier of traffic" said a BT spokesman while Virgin Media said that "There is a lot of legal peer-to-peer traffic, and sorting legal and illegal content would be difficult,".