Filmmakers demand downloading crackdown

LONDON, Dec. 17 (UPI) -- More than 100 members of the British film and television industry have banded together to urge their government to crack down on illegal downloading.

The group said in an open letter in The Times of London that the government should take legal action regarding the unlawful sharing of copyright films and TV shows via the Internet if placing pressure on Internet service providers to confront the problem doesn't work.

Among those to sign the letter were actor-writer-director Kenneth Branagh, writer-director Richard Curtis and screenwriter Lynda La Plante.

"We are a group of U.K. film and TV producers, directors and writers who have made some of the U.K.'s most innovative and distinctive moving pictures and television programming," the group said in its letter. "Our output entertains millions of people, employs tens of thousands in the U.K.'s creative sector, attracts foreign direct investment, wins awards and creates billions in revenue. We are very concerned that the successes of the creative industries in the U.K. are being undermined by the illegal online file-sharing of film and TV content. At a time when so many jobs are being lost in the wider economy, it is especially important that this issue be taken seriously by the government and that it devotes the resources necessary to enforce the law."

The Daily Telegraph said an estimated 98 million illegal downloads and streams of films

were committed in the United Kingdom last year.