UK's Ridiculous Internet Porn Crackdown Can Be Used To Kill Social Media Accounts

from the wait,-what? dept

Last month, the UK moved forward with the latest version of its ridiculous "Digital Economy Bill" which will put in place mandatory porn filtering at the ISP level -- requiring service providers to block access to sites that don't do an age verification check. But it was at least somewhat vague as to which "ISPs" this covered. The bill has moved from the House of Commons over to the House of Lords, and apparently we now have at least something of an answer -- and it's that social media sites like Twitter and Facebook will be covered by this regulation.

In other words, those sites may be required to block accounts and block access to certain porn sites. That's ridiculous. This came out during the reading of the bill in the House of Lords where a question was raised about the responsibility of platforms under the bill:

Finally, I have a question for the Minister. I would like him to comment on what the expectations are for social media sites like Twitter, which can themselves host user-generated pornographic content. The expectations on commercial pornography websites are set out pretty clearly in Clause 15, but will the Minister please clarify how the Bill as drafted will impact on social media sites? Clause 22 starts to cover this with its reference to “ancillary service providers”, but in Clause 22(6) the reference is restricted to business activities so provided. Evidence from the Government to the Communications Select Committee on 29 October was as follows:

“Twitter is a user-generated uploading-content site. If there is pornography on Twitter, it will be considered covered under ancillary services”.

How does that apply to material on Twitter that is not uploaded in the course of business activities? I ask the Minister to clarify this point when he responds.

Later, Baroness Benjamin claims that it's important that they make sure that social media is included in the bill "for the children" (of course):

In seeking to protect children from stumbling upon pornography, it is particularly important that social media is covered by the Bill. That is one of the primary ways in which children are exposed to pornography. There has been some debate about the scope of Clause 15 and the ancillary service providers, but it seems clear to me that social media should be covered by this. I was particularly delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Shields, confirmed to the Lords Communications Committee on 29 November that:

“The Bill covers ancillary services. There was a question about Twitter. Twitter is a user-generated uploading-content site. If there is pornography on Twitter, it will be considered covered under ancillary services”.

Can the Minister confirm that this will be the case and also the case for all other social media, including, Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram?

The debate over regulating Twitter got pretty silly pretty fast. At least one person noted that the UK was at risk of looking like idiots. This is from "The Earl of Erroll" (gotta love the House of Lords), who then admits he doesn't even know what's possible, but he's absolutely positive that age checks on any e-commerce site is no big deal.

It is probably unrealistic to block the whole of Twitter—it would make us look like idiots. On the other hand, there are other things we can do. This brings me to the point that other noble Lords made about ancillary service complaints. If we start to make the payment service providers comply and help, they will make it less easy for those sites to make money. They will not be able to do certain things. I do not know what enforcement is possible. All these sites have to sign up to terms and conditions. Big retail websites such as Amazon sell films that would certainly come under this category. They should put an age check in front of the webpage. It is not difficult to do; they could easily comply.

Finally, Lord Ashton of Hyde, admits that, yes, of course the bill will apply to social media and all those other sites, because why the fuck not?

The right reverend Prelate, the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Benjamin, and the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, asked a valid question about social media and Twitter. The Government believe that services, including Twitter, can be classified by regulators as ancillary service providers where they are enabling or facilitating the making available of pornographic or prohibited material. This means that they could be notified of commercial pornographers to whom they provide a service but this will not apply to material provided on a non-commercial basis.

In that same answer, he pulls an infamous "free speech is important, but..." line that is what you expect from someone about to censor speech:

It is a complicated area. Free speech is vital but we must protect children from harm online as well as offline. We must do more to ensure that children cannot easily access sexual content which will distress them or harm their development, as has been mentioned.

And, thus, you go from a system officially designed to make it hard to reach porn on the internet "for the children" to a bill that allows for the UK government to force social media companies to block or kill certain accounts. That seems like a pretty big deal.

Filed Under: censorship, digital economy bill, house of lords, moral panic, porn, porn filtering, social media, uk
Companies: facebook, instagram, twitter

Confirmation That Record Labels Wanted ISPs To Spy On Users And Report Infringement To RIAA

from the no-surprise dept

This is hardly surprising, given previous statements and actions, but a redaction failure by the UK government in a Freedom of Information document handover resulted in TorrentFreak being able to see how Lucian Grainge (now CEO of Universal Music) explained to Peter Mandelson (whom he was lobbying to create the Digital Economy Act) how they wanted ISPs to report directly to record labels on people who might be file sharing, so the labels could take legal action:

"As ISPs can monitor the amount of power used by specific users and the sites connected to, it is possible for ISPs to pass on any details to owners of particular rights, who could then take legal action."

This, of course, is the dream state for the industry, though they haven't been able to get anyone to really go that far yet. Still, it is interesting to see them directly bringing it up with lawmakers.

Filed Under: copyright cops, digital economy bill, isps, lucian grainge, peter mandelson, uk

UK Comedy Writer Takes The Digital Economy Bill Seriously... As A Threat To His Livelihood

from the hopefully-it's-not-too-late dept

Nathaniel Tapley, an award-winning comedy writer, writes "Yesterday, I wrote a blog post disagreeing with [Bernie Corbett,] the General Secretary of my union, the Writers' Guild of Great Britain, who was defending the Digital Economy Bill. Surprisingly, he emailed me with a full response, which I have now posted at the link above, and I've answered a couple of his points in the comments section. Anyway, I thought it might be of interest to some of your readers, as it's a detailed response from a supporter of the Digital Economy Bill."

Tapley joins the many creatives that oppose the Digital Economy Bill. His original post that spurred Bernie Corbett's response is a worthwhile read, as is his response to Corbett's email. Tapley's main point of contention is that it is stupid to disconnect anyone if they are suspected of violating copyright:

Internet disconnection works directly against writers, musicians and artists being able to get their works in front of audiences, and paying audiences. In the last five years a number of models have emerged for 'monetising content' (ugh!) At present, the residuals and tips and ad revenues make up a small but growing part of many creators' incomes, and more sophisticated models are being developed.

Reducing the number of people who have access to my work is not the same as working on my behalf, Bernie.

It's great to see more people come out of the woodwork who seem to understand how to approach new challenges as opportunities and not threats. That said, while it's great that there is this discussion between people who disagree about the bill, it's very unfortunate that the bill was rushed through Parliament with such haste.

After all, soon, for anyone suspected of copyright infringement, Techdirt will look like this. At that point, continuing such discussions online will be slightly more difficult.

Filed Under: digital economy bill, united kingdom, writer

UK Musician's Open Letter To Musicians Union Over Its Support Of The Digital Economy Bill

from the must-read dept

With the passing of the Digital Economy Bill in the UK, many musicians are quite upset -- even though the law is supposed to be about "protecting" them. Musician Steve Lawson, a member of the Musicians Union (which supported the bill), has written a brilliant open letter to the organization, explaining why he was upset about their position, and considering leaving the group. Here's just a snippet, but the whole thing is worth reading:

The BPI wrote the bill as a protectionist measure of an outdated and unworkable business model. It was a model that was NEVER to the advantage of musicians who cared about the music they played and the culture it existed in, but one that made sense at a time when physical distribution was required to reach anyone, and the costs involved were prohibitively high. At that point, labels lying to musicians about how much they dig the music, while making a fortune for themselves but still never "recouping" on the album was deeply unpalatable but a necessary part of recording and releasing music.

All the costs have dropped. I've written extensively about this -- most notably here -- but nothing has changed in the industry. They still spend money on the behalf of musicians, pay themselves that money, recoup it (AGAIN) and own the product at the end. None of that is remotely to our advantage.

....

So, the premise of the bill -- that the situation is desperate -- was spurious. The figures quoted for industry 'losses' are insane. Utterly nonsensical if mapped against spending trends on 'physical and download entertainment media' -- we are part of a much bigger entertainment industry now that we ever were, and we don't dominate it in the way we did from 1956 to 1998. Games and DVD are a bigger part of it than ever. And entertainment spending continues to rise. So 200 million hasn't been 'lost', it's being spent elsewhere. Meanwhile, the cost of making and distributing records is tiny, and download sales go up and up.

How you can see that as a situation that needs legislating is utterly beyond me. To shut down sites and services on suspicion of illegal activity is a civil liberties travesty. To have my internet traffic monitored 'in case I do anything bad' is like the royal mail reading my post, in case my letters contain naughty words. While threatening to brick up my front door if they find them, or think they might have found them.

It's great to see musicians realizing that just because the bill's backers claim it's in their interest that this is not necessarily the case -- and that it could very much go against their interests.

Filed Under: digital economy bill, musicians, united kingdom

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

UK House Of Commons On Digital Economy Bill: We'll Approve Now, Debate Later?

from the wash-up dept

Despite tens of thousands of people writing their MPs, and multiple MPs asking for approval of the Digital Economy Bill to be delayed, it looks like the Leader of the House of Commons, Harriet Harman, has decided that the bill will be rushed through via a "wash up," no matter what. Glyn Moody points us to an image showing that a lot of MPs simply decided not to even show up for the discussion, which is a bit of a disgrace.

Even worse, though, is that Harman is pretending that the bill is not being rushed through, even though the bill will go through the wash up process. Her argument seems quite disingenuous -- suggesting that even though the bill won't get to go through the normal process of debate, there will still be opportunities to make changes after the bill has been approved -- though it appears that some politicians seem to think that's mere window dressing, and the later debate/amendments will never actually happen. The whole thing seems quite bizarre. Basically, it looks like the plan is to approve the bill and debate it later. There still will be a brief debate and vote tomorrow evening which, in theory, could kill the bill, but most reports appear to believe it's a foregone conclusion that the current bill will be approved -- and then (maybe, possibly, but probably not really) the controversial bits will be debated later.

Filed Under: copyright, digital economy bill, due process, uk, wash up

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

As Expected Digital Economy Bill To Be Rushed Through With No Debate

from the corporatocracy-in-action dept

As was predicted by recording industry lobbyists a few weeks back, once the Digital Economy Bill made it through the House of Lords, the House of Commons would not debate it. Instead, it looks like it will get pushed through via the "wash-up" process. Of course, this has resulted in many people asking a rather simple question. Considering the massive controversy surrounding this bill, why won't Parliament at least debate it? The real answer is pretty obvious, of course. This entire bill was pushed through by corporate entertainment industry lobbyists, and they know full well that with the upcoming election in the UK, a debate on this bill would likely kill it. So, screw democracy when you have a business model to prop up. Screw basic civil, human and privacy rights, if it helps the bottom line of a few companies too stubborn to adapt.

Filed Under: debate, digital economy bill, uk, wash up