Lord Mandelson announced last week that he intends to stop people from downloading music, films and television by cutting off their internet connection if they get caught three times.

Thinking of something else I read last week… in a league of ‘happy’ countries, the UK only ranked 12th due to the high number of rules and regulations we’re all expected to obey. Hmmm, I see another rule coming into play thanks to Lord Mandelson.

France has just passed a similar law themselves; in that anyone caught illegally downloading three times will have their internet disconnected and guess what! France is an even more unhappy country that we are, they ranked 17th!

This announcement has come after months of pressure from the big shots in the music industry who basically aren’t making as much money as they used to.

If Lord Mandelson gets his way, a suspension could mean that parents could be at risk of losing their family internet connection if their children repeatedly use it to violate copyright.

Your internet would only be disconnected after a series of offences but at first you’ll only receive a warning letter and then you’ll have your internet connection slowed down so downloading takes a lot longer.

BT and Carphone Warehouse are two big names who have complained mainly because they’ll lose customers who lose their internet connection. If you’ve ever tried to get out of a contract with BT or Carphone Warehouse then you know how much they hate to lose customers, so it looks like Lord Mandelson could have a fight on his hands!

More than likely though, we’ll follow the French and implement another law. Before you know it we’ll probably rank even less than them in ‘happy’ lists. I wonder if there’s anything you can get for free anymore that doesn’t come with the risk of a secret charge or prison sentence.