Nein, nein, nein: Germany says no to three strikes

Unlike their French neighbours, the German Ministry of Justice has rejected calls for a three strikes rule to throw filesharers off the internet:

Dr. Heinz Stroh, managing director of the German Federal Association of Music Publishers (DMV) in Bonn says that he was unable to understand the concerns voiced by the ministry of justice, seeing as it was sufficient for users to be in default of payment for their Internet connections to be cancelled.

Stefan Michalk, managing director of the German Federal Music Association (BMI) in Berlin, adds that the combination of warnings and sanctions provided a very good means of combating Internet piracy.

Although it's not really been tried anywhere, and so nobody really knows if it'll work, or if it'll be expensive; or, indeed, if you can really get away with cutting off people from their communications network in the 21st century. But in the music industry's heads it's a good means of combating internet piracy.