Law Would Allow Blocking of File-Sharing Sites
The Open Rights Group are asking citizens to complain about a proposed amendment to law which would allow courts to block sites which allegedly infringe copyright.
A pair of Lords in the UK have proposed an amendment to the Digital Economy Bill which would force Internet service providers to deny their subscribers’ access to sites accused of infringing copyright.
The amendment would give courts the power to “prevent access to specified online locations for the prevention of online copyright infringement” in cases where a “substantial proportion of the content accessible at or via each specified online location infringes copyright” and where site operators had failed to take “reasonable steps” to stop infringements.
“This would open the door to a massive imbalance of power in favour of large copyright holding companies. Individuals and small businesses would be open to massive ‘copyright attacks’ that could shut them down, just by the threat of action,” writes Jim Killock for the Open Rights Group.
Those wishing to oppose the amendment can find the details here.
Some shameful stuff here. Everyone in the uk should write to their member of parliament and urge them to oppose the digital economy bill. Also you can join the pirate party uk, the only party to oppose the digital economy bill.
First the wifi legislation now this; UK is really coping Italy (or was Italy inspired by London?).
Wouldn’t Google and Yahoo et al qualify for this too? I think a substantial portion of the web probably qualifies as being in violation of somebodies copyright.
I cant see how this proposal would work as its currently drafted as Alex says above would prevent access to a substantial proportion of the web… but if it does – would a VPN based outside the UK, be able to bypass the ISP restrictions?
If so then it might be very lucrative time to set up a VPN service
easy to use, openDNS/google’s DNS or if the ISP blocks it at that level, worse case a VPN to a sain country, which hasn’t given in to stupidity.
Seriously.
Reminds me when that Hadopi logo in France used copyrighted fonts and ended up being a major blunder for a law that was meant to fight copyright infringement. Truth is mos content online infringes copyright to some extent. That`s precisely why copyright laws MUST be reviewed.
They are not protecting creativity at this point. They are killing it. The only ones that actually profit from copywrong laws are the big companies.
Here’s the automated reply i got back from Clement Jones:…….
Forgive the standard reply but I have had a few emails to reply to on
this subject as you can imagine. If you have further queries having read
this, don’t hesitate to contact me again.
Thank you very much for your email concerning an amendment passed in the
House of Lords to the Digital Economy Bill on the issue of site blocking
on the internet. I hope I can explain the background, why some of the
concerns that have been expressed are unfounded but also the steps that
are being taken to resolve any outstanding issues.
The amendment was tabled to replace Clause 17 which gave the Secretary
of State excessive powers to amend copyright law at will in the future
with limited scrutiny from Parliament. The Lords’ efforts ensured that
Clause 17 was successfully deleted from the Bill on Wednesday 3 March.
Conscious, however, that around 35% of all online copyright infringement
takes place on non peer-to-peer sites and services it was felt important
to also sought to address this issue. To some extent there is existing
legislation regarding site blocking; for example, numerous ticket
touting websites were closed by police action in recent months. While
further improvements no doubt can be made, the intention was to improve
such existing legislation.
Amendment 120A enables the High Court to grant an injunction requiring
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block access to websites that
persist in publishing a substantial amount of copyrighted material
despite repeated requests to remove it.
The Liberal Democrats believe passionately in the neutrality of the web;
neutrality as far as free speech is concerned and neutrality as far as
independence from government is concerned. Indeed, dating back to the
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act the Liberal Democrats have been
committed to ensuring the maximum possible freedom on the internet. That
remains our position. And we are instinctively loath to give the
government any increased power in this area. But we can’t be neutral
about illegality. Just as we would all want to prevent shops from
selling stolen or counterfeit goods, so too we should want to prevent it
happening on the internet.
As it stands, the amendment ensures that an injunction would only be
permissible in the following circumstances:
1. Where a site is hosting a substantial amount of copyright material
Sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Google have such an enormous volume
of material it would be impossible for a “substantial proportion” of
their content to infringe copyright at any one time.
AND
2. Where the site operator has been contacted a number of times and
asked to remove the copyright content but has failed to do so
Amendment 120A includes the condition that if reasonable steps have been
taken to prevent access to copyright content an injunction would not be
permissible. YouTube, for example, has a very good record of checking
and removing content that infringes copyright.
AND
3. Where the copyright holder has made a reasonable effort to ensure
that there are legal ways of accessing the content online
The amendment is designed to encourage copyright owners to develop
innovative new ways for their material to be accessed legally online,
such as Spotify. The intention is to discourage legal action from being
the first port of call.
AND
4. Where human rights implications, such as the right to freedom of
expression, have been taken into consideration by the Court
No injunction would be permitted unless all these conditions were met.
In other words, the amendment is designed to pick up sites that
persistently host substantial amounts of copyright content despite being
asked repeatedly to take the material down. The business of many of
these sites is based on the publication of copyright material but, as
they are not based in the UK, existing British law does not apply to
them.
Some concerns which have been raised about the amendment include:
1. YouTube or Google (or similar sites) would be blocked -
This clearly couldn’t happen (see points 1 & 2 above)
2. Site operators won’t be notified of an injunction application -
An injunction is not permissible unless the site operator has already
been contacted and asked to remove illegal material, and refused to do
so (see point 2). So concerns that site operators would not know of the
threat are unjustified.
3. Sites like blogs that host other people’s comments might publish
illegal material inadvertently and therefore be targeted by ISPs -
For a website to be threatened with an injunction, the illegal content
would have to form a “substantial” part of all the material on the
website (see point 1) AND the site operators would need to have refused
repeatedly to remove the content.
4. Cyberlocking sites which are used to publish copyright content could
be blocked -
The same conditions about “substantial” amount of copyright material and
repeated refusals to remove or block copyright content would apply to
cyberlocking sites as to any others (see points 1 & 2 above).
Given the speed with which this amendment was drafted, it is quite
possible that the wording can be improved and I would welcome any
suggestions you have on this point. You can be assured that the Liberal
Democrats will continue to seek to do all we can to ensure that the
rights and freedoms of internet users are protected to the maximum
possible extent. The DCMS team has invited some leading bloggers and the
Open Rights Group as well as representatives from key members of the
industry to a round table to work out how we can best make this happen.
Many thanks again for taking the time to contact me on this important
issue.
Best Wishes
Tim Clement-Jones
http://pulsedmedia.com/clients/aff.php?aff=006
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What about holding artist’s content from it own fans and extort the public making them spend huge amounts on restaurants, popcorn, soda, candy bars, and horrible seating to watch a film you can’t press pause to use the bathroom.
Imprison us much?
And then the film is rubbish to begin with.
very low ROI, I’d rather just stay home and watch it on my huge ass TV.