As you may have seen in the news a new “Clause 18” has been proposed for the Digital Economy Bill. This clause would force ISPs to block websites containing copyright infringing material.
This is what we’ve got to say about it:
The new Clause 18 remains a dangerous piece of legislation. It is too vague since it allows blocking of sites ‘used in connection with an activity’ that infringes copyright or when infringement is ‘likely’ or against a site that is used to facilitate access to infringing material. Hence it could be used to close down sites such as YouTube or indeed search engines.
There is no mechanism to prevent excessive or vexatious use of these powers by copyright owners and there is no protection for ISPs against the legitimate claims of affected site owners who have been wrongly blocked.
The Government has built in more Parliamentary scrutiny down the line but this should not obscure the fact they are introducing this major clause without the Lords or MPs debating it, nor the fact that the Digital Economy Bill is a misguided, futile piece of legislation that threatens the rights of broadband customers, will do nothing to curb copyright infringement and will most likely result in innocent broadband customers being disconnected from the internet.
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Gerard MacCarthy
In this “something for nothing” society, too many people are trying to illegally download a creative and unique product that has great value to mankind–ie music. You buy music as you buy art. But music has much more value than the actual price charged, and is part of people’s lives.
Therefore any good legislation that prevents stealing or cheating the artist of their intellectual property must be upheld. A labourer is worthy of his hire. Any artist must be recompensed–this is work done for a fee.