Three strikes and we'll give your broadband pipe a good squeeze may not sound like punishment to some, but the approach implied is actually a dangerously sensible idea. The entente between the music and film business and the internet service providers represents a rare example of common sense all round, because it passes the crucial test of treating consumers as grown ups, rather than children who are never far from punishment.

Think what was on the agenda: the draconian nonsense, proposed by our friends in France, where a person's internet connection is at risk of being cut off if they are caught illegally downloading music, films or television three times. That is an idea fated to result in rows between subscribers and their internet providers, could well see many disputes go to court, or choke up Ofcom's pointy heads with complaints at a time when they should be doing something useful, such as monitoring for racist incidents on Big Brother. Nor is it really attractive for internet providers to have to dangle such a heavy threat over many thousands of consumers (after all 6.5 million of us, on estimate, ripped some music last year). Constricting somebody's broadband traffic is a sufficiently annoying threat without resorting to cutting off communications.

Bear in mind, too, that the worst downloaders will work hard to avoid the disconnection threat. That might sound like an argument that nothing should be done about it at all - the traditional net libertarian nonsense that feels good if you want to live in a world in which there are only pub bands with pages on Bebo or some other social networking site. But the point is that illegal filesharing has become so mainstream - 800 tracks per teenagers iPod on one study - that what will really tip the balance back towards the creative industries is to dissuade the generally honest person who downloads some music (as an alternative to nicking CDs from the shop) rather than the serial freebie downloader.

What also annoys consumers, rightly, is the notion that internet providers are somehow monitoring internet traffic to examine whether people are downloading illegally or not - a casual interception of communications that can never be justified for what is a civil offence. But this is not what is proposed, which is crucial to the policy having any chance of being accepted by consumers as legitimate. What the music industry has worked out is that it can get enough information on people uploading or downloading songs, by simply posing as an honest illegal downloader on LimeWire or BitTorrent - and then pass on the internet identities it harvests to the relevant internet provider to take action. Once people understand that their IP address follows them around, it will also deter the more naturally honest citizens who don't like the notion that they are being watched.

All told, the new music-internet industry agreement will not stop anything like all online music copying (and nor indeed will it stop the “old fashioned” borrow my CD and burn it on your computer type of copying). But what it might do is change culture just enough to give a bit more breathing space to the music business, which in turn can get on with the useful task of creating superstars. To paraphrase somebody else, life without celebrities would not be worth living, at least this century. And given that Britain is quite good at music, although not film, it would be nice to keep some of that going.

— Channel 4’s rebuke from Ofcom over its controversial The Great Global Warming Swindle generated far too much excitement this week. George Monbiot’s judgment, as written on the front page of The Guardian, that “no UK organisation has done more to damage environmental protection than Channel 4” was unquestionably harsh (although you can bet BP won’t mind).

So too, as it happens was Ofcom’s ruling, even though the regulator was trying to balance freedom of speech with the dreary requirements of the broadcasting code. In the end Ofcom concluded that the programme did breach the rules in the sense that it was not appropriately impartial in a matter of political or industrial policy, which applied towards the end of the show when the impact of environmentalism on public policy was examined.

That was hailed as a major defeat for Channel 4, but it is in reality a tedious objection. News coverage on the major channels, and certainly on a state-owned broadcaster such as the Big Brother concern, must be as accurate as it is impartial. But the criteria for documentaries should be a little more lax. Instead individual programmes should be allowed to take sides in a political debate as long as it is not extreme, clearly signposted, and there is balancing output in the schedule that will achieve a similar audience within a few days. Ofcom should judge impartiality over a seven-day period because the “on the one hand” – on the other” school of journalism is a recipe for dullness.

dan.sabbagh@thetimes.co.uk

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