Thursday 8th April 2010, 12:41pm
F*ck the Digital Economy Bill
Doug Richard, Founder of School for Startups
by Doug Richard, Founder of School for Startups
Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t shy away from swearing, so they’ll be surprised that I didn’t write “Fuck the Digital Economy Bill” above since that is so clearly what I mean to say. Search engines and news aggregators don’t like swear words so I’m tempering my title to be heard. Who says I’m not a reasonable man?
That said . . .
Anyone who has been following the evolution of the Orwellian “Digital Economy Bill” understands that this bill is a complete travesty of rational legislation and the method by which it was passed into law after just a few hours of debate was cartoonish. In the great “wash up” before the election, both political parties conspired to let this law be passed without any due scrutiny. What was so important that Mr. Cameron was preserving that he horse-traded away our freedom of expression? I would really like to know
Why do I hate this bill so much? There are so many reasons.
Perhaps key among them is that it contains a provision which allows “Copyright Holders” to identify any IP as being responsible for the distribution of their content illegally. Once this happens, the business or individual associated with that IP address can be penalized without the tiresome necessity of turning up in a court to present evidence.
As described in the Guardian “Earlier the government removed its proposed clause 18, which could have given it sweeping powers to block sites, but replaced it with an amendment to clause 8 of the bill. The new clause allows the secretary of state for business to order the blocking of “a location on the Internet which the court is satisfied has been, is being or is likely to be used for or in connection with an activity that infringes copyright.”
You know . . . that’s crazy . . .
Sometimes there are good reasons for copyrights to be violated. In the US for example, the website Wikileaks.com this week exposed what appears to be the “Collateral Murder” of many innocent civilians in Iraq by US Army Soldiers in an Apache Helicopter. Distributing that content, and other whistle-blower content “owned” by governments and private enterprises engaged in criminal activity, is almost always a violation of their copyright.
But who cares?
I don’t want sites like Wikileaks to get shut down without due process of law. Wikileaks remains in business now in the US because in order to shut them down, the criminals responsible for the documents they distribute would have to turn up in a court to levy the charge . . . which would result in their arrest.
The Telegraph describes this new law as a “Nightmare of Unintended Consequences“.
They write “Likewise, the Digital Economy Bill, in trying to support artists’ copyright and tackle illegal file-sharing, is about to produce a new culture – in which ISPs and bewildered householders are deluged with threatening legal letters from the entertainment industry . . . These innocents will have no idea their teenage children, neighbours, or even someone parked outside their house, has been slurping their WiFi and downloading the latest Hollywood movies and Top 40 albums. In the past the lawyers had to go after the infringers, with actual proof. Remember being innocent until proven guilty? That’s out now. Now, the holder of the internet account (Mum, Dad, Granny and the small business that can’t afford the legal fees) will be held to account for what happens over their connection.”
Here in the UK we’ve invested several hundred years in creating effective courts and ensuring the protection of civil liberties. Copyright violations by a small fraction of billions on the Internet are no reason to compromise those important protections.
Most people in the UK don’t steal content, and they don’t because if they value the content they value the people that make and distribute it. There are people who do steal, perhaps because they aretheives who won’t buy anything if they can steal it, more often because they want something they can’t afford.
In either case, I see no reason why we law abiding people need to give up our civil rights because other folks behave badly.
Its patently clear that the provisions of this poorly thought out law won’t work no matter how well intended they may be.
This “drag net” will sweep up all manner of innocent people leaving the guilty behind. It will catch the single mom who’s thirteen year old wants to download a copy of the song “Its a Hard Days Night” on her cell phone. It will get the neighbor of the guy who’s roommate steals a pirated copy of Avatar. Real criminals on the Internet will never be touched by it. They are beyond its provisions. They encrypt their content so no one knows whether it is copyrighted or not as it is transferred. This bill does nothing about that problem.
Further it continues to centralize control in the Hands of Lord Mandelson. It is an erosian of democracy, it is an arrogant assumption that the government, in the form of Mr. Mandelson is the ultimate arbiter of fairness. It is just as deluded as his other recent notion of “credit arbitrators” that he would manage who would become a shadow judiciary determining whether loans were fairly made.
The UK is a smart country, and a tough one. I have no sense whether the House of Lords can do something to delay, stop, or otherwise impact on this bill before it becomes law. But it should, it must and we must all be aware that this will not create a digital Britain.
Tags: commons, government, law, politics, small business, wikileaks
“here, here” – which was a sound not heard with just a couple of dozen politicians “debating” this awful legislation. While many of the more oppressive (and just plain silly) clauses have been ironed out, the bill remains a shocking example of why the UK political class are seen to be a million miles out of touch with digital entrepreneurialism (with one or two very brave and respected exceptions to that, like Tom Watson).
I fear it will pass into law, be ignored, and lead to 5 to 10 years of unintended consequences, all negative ones.
Digital Economy Bill, was anything ever so badly misnamed?
The HoL can propose amendments and delay, but due to the Parliament Act, cannot stop the bill. Don’t hold your breath for much of a revision, either.
Good article Mr Richard.
The problem isn’t sites like wikileaks, they have been designed to be unblockable from the ground up and the technology is a long way ahead of the legislation on this one. The problem is anything that’s driven by user content.
To illustrate my point, if I used a picture of Peter Mandleson in this reply, explaining how his three line whip forced many MPs who saw the flaws in this to vote for it, would YOU know the copyright status of it ? Your website could be under threat of being blocked because you are unable to verify every part of user content. This effectively breaks the whole concept of web 2.0 and the innovations it’s brought over the last few years.
I can’t imagine that the government will go after the likes of Google, YouTube and facebook, who also fall under this, but it just goes to highlight the biggest problem with the bill, it’s not had sufficient discussion. Anyone with the slightest understanding of how the internet works can see the bill’s flaws, but it was still forced through.
The one good thing to come out of this (other than the dropping of clause 43) is that we new have a new generation of twitterers, of facebookers, of bloggers, who over the last couple of days have seen that laws are not not made through common sense, debate and democracy, and they are hungry for change!
It’s great to hear your voice on this Doug, and your outrage is well-founded. Unfortunately, your hopes in the final paragraph are to be shattered…
The bill has already passed through the lords and this was its final reading in the house. They passed through second reading, committee stage and third reading in a matter of hours and the only thing left to make this bill law is Royal Assent. Perhaps we could lobby HRM to withhold her consent, but I doubt it.
rob
Re: Rob Style’s comments
I was under the same understanding. However it seems that as there where changes made to the bill in it’s 3rd commons reading, it now goes back to the Lords again (who in turn can amend it further and send it back to the commons).
It’s not over yet, we just need a miracle from the Lords.
The amendments just got passed in the Lords, so now it only needs royal ascent from the Queen before becoming law.
Thanks Glenn, you were bang on, though what we needed was due-process, scrutiny, honesty and respect for the democratic process – that shouldn’t have needed a miracle.
Thanks for sticking your neck out Doug. We need more prominent fihures to engender debates of this nature. My biggest concern with clause 8 is;
“is likely to be used for or in connection with an activity that infringes copyright”
Surely we are getting into the realms of “Thought Crime” here. This must be an infringements on our human rights. I can’t even lobby my MP because he is 100% in favour of the bill.
James McGinty
http://www.powerofchoice.co.uk
Use your vote to disconnect the government on May 6th.
Now that it’s past, we just have to wait and see how long it will take before our beloved websites (facebook, twitter, youtube, wikileaks…) are taken down. Can they?
The world is becoming more and more digital oriented and the government has noticed this and doesn’t want to loose out. With this law, it can centralise control before it gets out of hand, hence the rush.
Well said Doug. Orwellian’s the word. The government’s inherent detachment from reality or willingness to consult industrial specialists is the root of the problem is it not? The House Of Lords clearly is not serving it’s purpose in negating the sheer ignorance (or lack of industrial understanding) which infests the House Of Commons.
Such a shame our democracy is becoming less and less democratic, politicians increasingly inept. Maybe as the surface continues to crack so we can see through so very much crap we have an inroad towards change? After being passionate about politics as a student, I now only disillusioned. Democracy and it’s illusion keeps me interested in whether we can make a change.
Neither party offers us any hope. The UK needs another Obama, because anyone will half a brain can see that all we are exposed to is constant spin.
How do we move things forward, stand behind you and ensure this post not only gets heard, but responded to by the “powers that be”? I agree with James – this is nothing short of an infringement on our human rights. Finally with all due respect what does the queen know about the “Digital Economy” ?
Do they not see it is openness and freedom that unleashes the virality with which information can flow, and moreover with which information technology can grow? Someone give our blessed Queen a pointer to have destructive and non democratic this motion proves to be? Hopefully there is one person left who can whip the whips into place? Maybe Prince Charles can explain this to Her Majesty?
Ps – Doug: Apologies for the rushed response and consequently poor grammar, misplacement of words, and not changing the way I speak
I look forward to seeing your voice heard. Are there steps which can be taken to repeal this motion? Does a Petition really count for anything? Regards, Pavan.
Very well put Doug. Myself as a photographer, and having recently been a victim of some copyright infringement (someone used my pictures to make flyers etc), I could say this Bill would be a good idea. But it really isn’t. As stated by the Telegraph, it truly is “a nightmare of unintended consequences”.
There is no need to take things this far, and to be honest, it would actually favour the criminals far more than it would favour those whose works have been used without their consent.
I think there are better ways to address the issue of copyright infringement and such and I think this one is just too shallow.
There has to be some element of freedom in any system, too much control over everything is just not the greatest solution.
Where does this leave free WiFi providers? I can see a lot of people removing this service fo fear of being easy tagets of this bill.
Everyone steals content.
Every time you visit a page, the images are copied to your cache. Everyone who has visited youtube is highly likely to have viewed something that someone else has “stolen”
Every sung “Happy Birthday To You” in public?
That’s stealing – the copyright on that song is not due to expire until 2016
–
Please don’t fall into the trap of agreeing that sharing culture or content is stealing… it isn’t. If anything, making a derivative work (and pretty much all work is derivative) then ring-fencing it with “copyright” is stealing… from the culture generally.
IP law is a total farce – Both leading parties in the UK broke the law with their 80s-style poster, on the eve of this repugnant bill.
So no… maybe you’re right. Nobody steals content, because the entire concept of stealing “a copy of something” is a ridiculous idea.
Really interesting article . . . thanks for the insight
Doug,
As we can no longer fight the D E Bill (although thankfully there is still a period of consultation where we may be able to impact how the act is actually enforced) a group of us have started to put together a collection of free, plain English, non-technical information about the act and it’s impact non technical internet users at http://www.digitaleconomybill.info.
It’s still very much at the embryonic stage and we’re looking for more people to contribute information, but it’s improving every day.
Correction http://www.digitaleconomyact.info
Sorry about that (if somebody moderates the blog comments, feel free to correct the above link and remove this comment).
Glenn
I have to wonder…
How long until someone uses an IP address linked with the houses of parliament to talk to a p2p service and get parliament disconnected…
I believe that would be called retributive justice. Or just damn right poetic!
The DEB is just another example of continual misguided interference, by successive governments, in something they don’t understand. After Mandleshon (sacked from 3 jobs but sill with us) had dinner on a yacht with Geffin (the music producer) he started to formulate how it was terrible that the internet is killing the music industry – which of course we all know is complete and utter nonsense. If the BPI took the time to realise how the ‘net has actually increased musicians exposure and embrace the bloody technology instead of bleating on about it ………. I object to Lars (from Metallica) and Feargal Sharkey telling us we are depriving them of money! Music always has been for sharing – that is one of the unwritten laws of life. We were told tapes would kill the industry it didn’t. Did libraries kill off books? Fortunately, most of the UK based ISP’s (including BT) have said they will completely ignore the law. Check out the 38 degrees web site and how to lobby your local MP, they have a great flyer to put in your window saying “Prospective MP please call and discuss the DEB with me” …… it could keep them away!
You’ve definitely won even more respect in my eyes. They curb our civil liberties and it just shows how certain lobbyists make the whole system very undemocratic.
If a particular business model is outdated, why protect it? Businesses should adapt and change accordingly otherwise we resort to medieval protectionist policies.
There are viable business models that many larger entertainment businesses ignore like Spotify. I can never understand their mentality.
From the article:
“… Most people in the UK don’t steal content…”
“… There are people who do steal, perhaps because they are theives who won’t buy anything if they can steal it…”
And from Nick Taylor in the above comments:
“Everyone steals content.
Every time you visit a page … Every sung “Happy Birthday To You” in public?
That’s stealing – the copyright on that song is not due to expire until 2016″
People, please, stop using the wrong word, and use the right word.
Steal, theft, thief are all the wrong words for the subject of this article. The right word, or phrase, is illegal copying, or the breaking the *copy*right law (the law has the key word right in it).
Stealing is the illegal version of taking. Illegal copying is the illegal version of copying. Copying and taking are *fundamentally* different actions.
You wouldn’t use stealing, murder, and speeding interchangeably. You wouldn’t say theft has occurred if I killed someone. You’d day murder has occurred. For goodness sake use the right word. It’s not like I’m being pernickety here, like correcting someone’s spelling. It’s a major mistake, like calling a car a cow.
I’m correcting something which perpetuates complete misunderstanding by people who haven’t fully grasped the fundamental difference between physical objects, and the configuration of information which only exists in or on something physical. You can’t actually steal the configuration unless you steal the physical device it’s in/on. If you’re not stealing anything, which no one is, you copy it.
People who hear arguments involving theft, steal etc. when illegal copying has occurred, end up thinking something really has been stolen, which of course it hasn’t. They, and the people using those words, are getting mixed up between illegal taking and illegal copying.
It doesn’t matter where you stand on the issue, it’s not OK to vaguely, ignorantly use the wrong labels, descriptions.
Well, that was an insightful comment. Thank you for posting it.
I’m not sure I agree . . . in the sense that violating someone’s copyright, and through file sharing services aiding and abetting others to do so, reduces the value of the material so it cannot be sold or distributed for what it would have otherwise earned. For example, the film Hurt Locker has been widely pirated and thus is having a very hard time selling distribution rights. The producers who created that film, and the investors who invested in it, and the SAG talent and production team who worked on it, are going to make far less than they should because distributors want to pay a lower percentage for the rights, want to pay less up front for the rights, and in some locations will not want to distribute it at all.
Now, you may say causing the loss of future earnings isn’t left. However, if you kill someone, you are depriving them not of the life they had, but of the days they would have had. You are depriving the family they owned of the revenue they would have earned, the labor and enjoyment they would have given to others.
When people violate copyright, they deprive the filmmaker, his team, and his investors of revenue, and in some cases the ability to make more films. That seems like theft to me. Stealing your car is stealing your right to drive it. Stealing your computer is stealing your right to use it for business and pleasure. Stealing your song or movie is stealing your right to earn a living from it.
You’ve defined stealing as wrongful possession of a thing . . . but its not just that someone else possesses the thing. Its that YOU don’t have it and you don’t get the use of it.
I think what we will see, in years to come, is artists taking payment directly for their work. And I think this will lead to less theft, because reputable people won’t be able to justify loving someone’s work and yet not being willing to pay them something for it. Having worked with many teens they often hide behind the fact that “record companies” take the money that should go to artists, and “studios” take the money that should go to filmmakers. When those excuses are gone it becomes a clearer computation. You like someone’s work, you pay for it.
That said, I too think the new law is very stupid and impossible to implement without crushing the UK’s digital economy.