UK ISP Says It Will Not Follow Digital Economy Bill Rules

from the civil-isp-disobedience dept

As anger towards the Digital Economy Bill grows, some are fighting back against the bill in a variety of ways. ISP Talk Talk, who had been vocally against the bill ever since it was first proposed, has apparently now announced that it will not follow the more draconian aspects of the law. In an official blog post by the company, it says that it will fight in court any attempt to force it to do things it feels are unwise, and will continue to fight against the law politically:

After the election we will resume highlighting the substantial dangers inherent in the proposals and that the hoped for benefits in legitimate sales will not materialise as filesharers will simply switch to other undetectable methods to get content for free.

In the meantime we stand by our pledges to our customers:

• Unless we are served with a court order we will never surrender a customer's details to rightsholders. We are the only major ISP to have taken this stance and we will maintain it.
• If we are instructed to disconnect an account due to alleged copyright infringement we will refuse to do so and tell the rightsholders we'll see them in court.

Who knows if it will actually help, but it is nice to see an ISP willing to not just give in at this point.

Filed Under: digital economy bill, isp, united kingdom

Digital Economy Bill: Proposed By The Unelected, Debated By The Ignorant, Voted On By The Absent

from the buffoonery-in-action dept

With the UK's Digital Economy Bill rushed through with little real debate, it's worth looking at the ignorance behind those who supported and pushed through the bill. The more you look, the more you realize they didn't even understand the very basics of what they were talking about. As some have noted it was "a bill proposed by the unelected, debated by the ignorant and voted on by the absent."

And yes, it was proposed by the unelected Lord Mandelson, who has had to resign from the Government twice before due to accusations of corruption or influence peddling. And, of course, as many have noted, he only became interested in the whole Digital Economy Bill thing after vacationing with David Geffen, the former recording industry and movie industry mogul. After that, he suddenly pushed through the bill which went directly against the recommendations of the Gov't's own Digital Britain committee.

Then we get to the ignorant. Perhaps the most stunning is that, via Kevin Marks, we now learn that Digital Britain Minister Stephen Timms, who was in charge of pushing the bill through, didn't even understand what an "IP address" means. In a letter to an MP, he explained "IP" as an "Intellectual Property Address." Now, yes, IP is used for both Intellectual Property and Internet Protocol, but if you actually know what you're talking about, you don't mix up the two. And Carlo points us to a message from Will Tovey noting that the Digital Economy Bill originally called an IP address an "Internet Portal" address. These are the people you want deciding the basic internet setup in your country?

And the folks involved in the debate don't seem to be too keen on understanding details either. During the debate, one MP, Michael Connarty had a bizarre take on the situation:

"People are not talking about co-operating and sharing their own thoughts and content, but are stealing someone else's content and sharing that. There is an Armageddon, which has partially arrived in Sweden, where the Pirate Party, whose leader is in jail, won seats in the European Parliament on the basis that everybody's work--including MP4's--should be free."

Can you count the number of mistakes there? Of course, the big one is the idea that the leader of the Pirate Party in Sweden is in jail. He's not. My guess is that Connarty thinks The Pirate Bay and The Pirate Party are the same (they're not even connected) and that the jail sentences handed down to some of the folks who worked on The Pirate Bay applied to The Pirate Party's head and that someone was actually in jail (they're not). But, you know, who needs details when you're just setting the framework for all internet connectivity and rights across your country?

And, finally, there are the absent. During the little time put forth for debate -- where many were vehemently opposed to the bill, notice that the House of Commons was basically empty: But when it came time to vote? Suddenly over 200 MPs showed up. It makes you wonder why they're allowed to vote if they haven't even heard the debate. Especially when the guy in charge of convincing them to vote on this bill doesn't seem to even understand what's in it or what it will do.

Filed Under: digital economy bill, stephen timms, united kingdom

Digital Economy Bill Shoved Through With Minor Modifications

from the sorry-UK dept

As mentioned yesterday, the UK House of Commons came up with a bizarre plan to have a brief debate on the Digital Economy Bill in a "wash up" process, and then basically approve it and promise to come back and fix it later. It's a bizarre way of doing things. Charles Arthur did a nice job blogging the debate, which mostly consisted of a bunch of MPs pointing out how ridiculous it was that this bill was being rushed through without any real debate, followed by Digital Britain Minister Stephen Timms (who has been known to not even remotely understand this issue) got up and basically said "well, too bad." As you read through what happened, it's almost all people protesting what's in the bill as well as the lack of discussion on the bill, followed by Timms saying:

"My sense is that there is a pretty broad acceptance across the house... that legislation is appropriate for dealing with it. There is definitely significant harm to the creative industries... estimated at £400m for the music, film and TV industries in the impact assessment of the bill... this is a very serious problem."

That £400 number is totally made up (apparently, at yesterday's event various other numbers were thrown around as well). But the bigger point is that Timms is basically lying. There was not "pretty broad acceptance" in the house that the legislation was appropriate, or even that there is significant harm to the creative industries. The debate was almost entirely against the bill. Still, as with yesterday, the chambers were not particularly full for the debate, but a bunch of MPs who don't really understand or care about this issue showed up at the end and voted, so the final tally came to: 189 votes to shove it through, and only 47 against. The only real "concession" was the dropping of the hugely controversial clause 18, giving the gov't excessive powers to adjust copyright law in the future. Of course, when that first came out, I wondered if the whole point of clause 18 was to draw the fire of consumer groups, let it be dropped, while everything else got shoved through. It looks like that may be what happened. Update: Or not. Further analysis from folks suggests that while Clause 18 may not have made it into the bill, what was in the clause did, in fact, still make it into the bill. So it's even worse than before. Lovely.

Those who wanted a full debate on the bill basically had no chance. Despite criticizing the bill heavily, the gov't basically said the debate was over, and apparently those who had been debated started shouting "Nooo!!!" As Arthur writes in his live blog:

That big shout of "Nooo!!!" could have been a thousand souls crying out as one at the sight of the government shoving through 41 clauses of a bill

And there you go. The entertainment industry gets its ridiculous anti-consumer copyright law with no real attempt at debate or amendment in the House of Commons. Concerns raised about how this bill could force the blocking of Wikileaks or the shutdown of internet access at small business? Ignored.

Of course, as with every other country that passes such backwards legislation, don't expect it to do anything to actually help the entertainment industry as it continues to seek backwards looking legislative solutions, rather than forward looking business model solutions. The legacy entertainment industry will surely celebrate this "victory," but let's check back in a bit and see what it did to their bottom lines.

Filed Under: digital economy bill, united kingdom

Peter Mandelson Accepts Responsibility For Copyright Infringing Political Poster?

from the ain't-that-always-the-way... dept

What is it with politicians who push for "three strikes" and other draconian copyright laws always being caught infringing on copyrights themselves? We've already covered how Nicolas Sarkozy, who claims credit for the original "three strikes" plan, has been caught infringing on copyrights multiple times.

Now it appears the same may happening with Lord Peter Mandelson, the unelected politician in the UK (who had been forced to resign twice in his past), who suddenly started pushing for a similar three strikes law -- after a UK study had outright rejected it -- after dining with entertainment industry bigshots. From that came the Digital Economy Bill.

But it appears that even Mandelson, the great defender of copyright, isn't above getting into a bit of trouble with copyright himself. It appears that there's a bit of a controversy over a recent political ad put together by his Labour party -- and Mandelson is taking responsibility for the ad. That was in response to the fact that the ad backfired and seems to have rallied opponents.

But, as PeteProdge points out, it also appears that the ad very well might infringe on copyrights. That's because it takes an image from an old (popular) TV show in the UK, and replaces one character's head with a politician's head. The link here is a bit full of hyperbole, as it comes from someone who seems to be against orphan works legislation and in favor of even more ridiculous copyright laws. The BBC says that it never would have licensed the use of the program, however there are some questions over who might actually have the right to license the image.

I'm not entirely sure this is a big deal. One could probably make a pretty strong fair use/parody argument for allowing the use of the image here. However, for a politician who is so in favor of stricter copyright law, you would think he wouldn't go around using other people's works.

Filed Under: copyright, peter mandelson, united kingdom

Court Says Simon Singh Can Claim 'Fair Comment' In Calling BCA Claims Bogus

from the that's-not-bogus dept

We've written a few times about the UK libel lawsuit brought by the British Chriropractor's Association (BCA) against writer/scientist Simon Singh, because he called some of the BCA's claims (concerning what chiropractic work can do) "bogus." The courts had originally determined that the word "bogus" meant being deliberately dishonest and found him guilty of libel in a determination of how that word usage would be viewed at trial. In response, a large group of people have been ripping apart claims by the BCA with detailed analyses (stuff many in the press won't touch for fear of being sued as well). The case had become so involved that Singh stopped writing his column to focus on the lawsuit.

Thankfully, there's some good news, as the court has now decided that the original ruling was a mistake and Singh can use a defense of "fair comment" as the basis for his column. As such the trial will continue, but Singh is in a better position. Amazingly, despite all of this the BCA still wants to fight. At some point you wonder why they don't just back down. The more they fight, the more people expose them for making, yes, bogus claims. Singh and others aren't claiming that chiropractors don't do any good -- they're just questioning some of the more extreme, and scientifically unsupported, claims made by the BCA. If the BCA were smart, they'd focus on improving their messaging, not fighting back.

Filed Under: libel, simon singh, united kingdom
Companies: bca

UK Newspaper Drops Paywall After Less Than 10 People Subscribe

from the disasters dept

As Rupert Murdoch moves forward with his plans to put in place a paywall for the online sites of some of his UK newspapers, he may want to look around carefully. Jeff Sonderman points us to the news of a UK newspaper publisher that put in place a paywall of £5 for three months of access to its newspaper websites late last year -- only to find that the paywall has been quietly dropped after less than ten people signed up at one of the papers:

A source at one of the titles involved in the trial said it had been a "disaster" and that the number of people subscribing had been in single figures.

This fits with Newsday's experiment, where only 35 non-Cablevision subscribers were willing to sign up. Newspapers keep over-estimating the willingness of people to pay to read websites.

Filed Under: paywall, united kingdom

Views On The Digital Economy Bill Shifting Rapidly

from the getting-dizzy dept

Well, this is a bit of a surprise. The Liberal Democrats in the UK, who had previously pushed to add some troubling language to the Digital Economy Bill, are now not only skeptical of the bill, but fighting the plan to rush it through the House of Commons. As you may recall, the plan was to zip this through the Commons via a wash up procedure, which doesn't allow for debate. The goal was to get it done before the election is held. However, the LibDems apparently have heard (loudly) from their constituents:

On Tuesday afternoon, the party's chief whip Paul Burstow tweeted that he had told the government the Liberal Democrats will not support the bill as it is drafted because there is "not enough time for MPs to examine it in detail".

That said, it seems like there's a lot of rapidly changing views on the Digital Economy Bill. With more and more opposition growing, the government amended one of the more controversial clauses, so that it's greatly watered down. The clause that previously could have shut down legitimate sites based on some infringing use now requires courts to take into account those legitimate users. It also makes it so ISPs won't have to pay court costs, meaning they're less likely to shut something down just to avoid court.

Meanwhile, reader Phatnobody notes that according to some copyright holders, the Digital Economy Bill doesn't go far enough.

Given all of these shifting and changing views (and shifting and changing provisions in the bill), it seems like it would be a really dangerous move to simply rush the bill through with no debate. These are major issues that impact a very large percentage of the population. Not allowing for an open debate on the issue seems very, very questionable.

Filed Under: digital economy bill, united kingdom