So, how exactly is the government going to meet those previously reported and rather ambitious targets for cutting online piracy? I know, change the targets.
As previously reported, this time last year the government said it wanted to cut the amount of unlicensed content shared on the internet by 70% in 2-3 years. It set that target as record companies and internet service providers reached that memorandum of understanding which led to the six biggest ISPs sending letters to customers who were believed to be sharing unlicensed content alerting them to the fact their activity was illegal.
But with the warning letter programme not achieving a great deal - because, record companies argue, without the threat of suspension or disconnection of net access file-sharers will just ignore the warnings - very little has been achieved one year on in terms of cutting P2P-based piracy.
With that in mind the Liberal Democrats culture spokesman Don Foster wrote to the government's new culture chief Ben Bradshaw for an update on the 70% cut pledge. Bradshaw's letter, published this weekend by the Times, attempts to push back the initial target deadline, saying that 2-3 year timeline was based on the assumption the record companies and ISPs would agree on more productive measures to combat piracy last summer.
Of course no such measures have been introduced. And, given that the government's 'Digital Britain' report was so lacklustre on the issue, suggesting, in the short term, the record companies return to the widespread sue-the-fans system that achieved precisely zero in the US, no measures are currently on the agenda. With the one exception of the previously reported agreement between Universal Music and Virgin Media, in which the ISP will introduce some stricter measures against piracy as part of its agreement with the major to launch an all you can eat download service for its customers.
As Bradshaw seems to want to start counting the 2-3 years once such measures are live, presumably the clock will only start ticking once the Virgin/Universal agreement goes live. Or, perhaps, when the government's own measures to put more pressure on the ISPs to act on piracy come into play - which will be next year at the earliest, or possibly never. Of course if the aim is to cut online piracy by 70% 2-3 years after never - well, that probably is achievable.
Responding to Bradshaw's letter on the piracy issue, Lib Dem Foster said: "This is another example of the Labour government's total inability to meet its own targets. Having wasted years, they now want to move the goalposts and hope we don't notice".