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Deutsch: GB-Regierung entscheidet über Internetsperren und Webblockaden
Discussions continue in the House of Lords over the controversial Digital Economy Bill especially over Internet disconnections (or account suspension, as the UK Government is calling it now) and web blocking.
The draft law would give the power to the secretary of state at the Government Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (DBIS) and not to the Parliament to decide upon the maximum period of account suspension for people found guilty of illegal file sharing.
Following the strong opposition against the disconnection of alleged illegal file sharers, the Government stated that it would apply only a "temporary suspension" of the Internet accounts. "We will not terminate the accounts of infringers ... (but) ... We added account suspension to the list of possible technical measures which might be considered." DBIS argues that "temporary suspension can't effectively mean termination of an internet connection".
However, there is no clear definition in the bill to what "temporary" means.
As a response to an e-petition posted on Number 10 website and closed on 23 February 2010 asking for the abandonment of the plans to " ban individuals from the internet based on their use of peer to peer file sharing", the government says: "We will not terminate the accounts of infringers - it is very hard to see how this could be deemed proportionate except in the most extreme - and therefore probably criminal - cases."
"It is still the case that on the say-so of record labels and film studios people will have their internet connections suspended (i.e. disconnected). All that the Government seems to be saying is that permanent disconnection will be reserved for the very worst offenders. But they have been saying that since day one. There is no change," commented ISP TalkTalk.
A worrying situation occurred following the submission by the Liberal Democrats and Tories of an amendment against Clause 17 pushed by the Labourists as a means to "future proof" copyright against infringement. In spite of the warnings of the EDRi-member Open Rights Group, Consumer Focus and others, the amendment introduced by Liberal Democrats and Tories, which is even worse and more threatening, was passed by the House of Lords on 4 March on second reading.
Answering to the appeal made by the Open Rights Group, Lord Tim Clement-Jones, one of the peers having introduced the amendment, argued that the amendment (called amendment 120A) would enable the High Court to grant an injunction requiring ISPs to block access to websites accused of hosting a "substantial" amount of copyright infringing material. He stated that the intention was to apply the injunction only to sites "where there is a substantial proportion of infringing material that is either hosted by that particular site or is accessed through the particular site in question."
The amendment faced opposition even from within the Liberal Democrat Party.
ISPA, the association of UK ISPs, considers the amendment "misjudged and disproportionate" and Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group believes that "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."
The Bill is still to go through a third reading in the House of Lords and then two readings, a committee stage, a report stage and a final reading in the House of Commons.
Mandelson could decide length of internet suspensions for filesharers
(23.02.2010)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/23/mandelson-decide-inte...
Plans to cut off internet connections of illegal filesharers dumped
(22.02.2010)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/22/plans-cut-off-connect...
Confirmed: Lib Dems and Conservatives force web blocking into the Digital
Economy Bill (3.03.2010)
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2010/confirmed-web-blocking-in-dig...
Lord Clement-Jones on the Digital Economy Bill: web blocking amendment
(3.03.2010)
http://www.libdemvoice.org/digital-economy-bill-web-blocking-lib-dems-...
New amendment gives copyright owners a blank cheque for web censorship
(4.03.2010)
http://www.francisdavey.co.uk/2010/03/new-amendment-gives-copyright-ow...
ISPA Outraged by Amendment on Network Level Blocking to Digital Economy Bill
(3.03.2010)
http://www.ispa.org.uk/press_office/page_767_a39a1f17a5a4b823db3ba7b94...
Lords copyright change 'could block YouTube' (4.03.2010)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/04/lords-digital-economy...
EDRi-gram: Three strikes plans in UK (4.11.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number7.21/three-strikes-uk