The Digital Economy Bill Acts Up

Apologies in advance - this post is meant to act as a repository for some of the more interesting responses to the Digital Economy Bill being passed into law, now the Digital Economy Act.  I'm planning on dumping a few links on here and following up with more of them as I find them.  This is not meant to be a comprehensive post in its current guise.

During the second and third hearings in the House of Commons, there was a great deal of interest in the proceedings of the House by people watching BBC Parliament, iPlayer, the Parliament webpage, and via Twitter.  Needless to say, the 'wash-up' was more of a stitch-up than anything else, lacking detailed and sustained debate.  The back-bench rebels were unable to defeat the party whips.  Many MPs voted despite not being present in the House of commons discussions - namely they were asked to vote in a specific direction by their party without even knowing what they were voting on.  For evidence of this, see this letter from MP Stephen Timms in which he confuses Interent Protocol for Intellectual Property! - He was instrumental in rebutting criticisms of the Bill throughout the third hearing. Democracy?

Quite a few interesting tools, posts and sites emerged around the political discussion:

Letters and responses:

• ISPs like TalkTalk, BE and O2 were critical or muted with regards to the outcome via their company blogs.
• Member of the Music Union, Steve Lawson, fired off this angry letter to said union.
• Twitter was full of users announcing that they did not recognise the Bill - powered en masse by this site: http://whatdebill.org
• Several online petitions and open letters against the bill emerged.  Here's one via GoPetition.  
• Here's a signed letter via Tumbled Logic which amassed more than 650 signatures in a very short period of time.
• The Open Rights Group decided to fight back by organising local forums for protest and direct action

Data mash-ups

• Web entrepreneur, Stef Lewandovski, created a nice website showing how turned up, how many people watched, etc in a nice visual form at  debillitated.heroku.com
• A Guardian supported/powered site asked the question http://www.didmympshowupornot.com/ (thanks to Jemima Kiss for the link to that one)
• The site theyworkforyou was the inspiration for this parody: http://www.theyworkforthebpi.com/ 
• Politics Posters - this site allows you to enter your postcode and check whether or not your MP voted:

South Shields Digital Economy Bill No Show Miliband

More to follow...

If you find any interesting links be sure to comment or reach me via Twitter

White 'wash-up' - democracy and the Digital Economy Bill? Part 2

The following is the response I received from Harriet Harman, after I contacted my MP, David Miliband:

Dear Robert,

Thank you for contacting me about the Digital Economy Bill and its progress through Parliament before the election. You will not be surprised to learn that I have received many emails on this topic in recent days and I understand why you are concerned by reports that the Bill could be passed into law without being properly debated in the Commons.

As far as the Digital Economy Bill is concerned there will be a full Second Reading debate this, so it will have a normal Second Reading debate. It has had considerable scrutiny already in the House of Lords: it had seven days in Committee, which is more than any other Bill in the programme, and three days on Report, whereas every other Bill in the programme had only one day. However, I know that people want it to be scrutinised in the House of Commons too, and there will be a further chance for scrutiny at the time of making the regulations to give powers to the courts to block access to internet sites in relation to copyright infringement. As that element of the Bill has generated much debate, those regulations will be subject to a super-affirmative procedure, which will operate in the following way.

There will be a public consultation on the draft regulations prior to their being laid in Parliament and they will be laid in draft in the House of Commons with an explanation of why they satisfy the necessary thresholds required to make the regulations. Those thresholds are set out in the Bill. At the same time, the public consultation response will be published. Draft regulations will sit in the House for 60 days and, at the same time, Committees of both Houses will consider them. That is the critical part of the super-affirmative procedure. It allows Committees, including Members of this House, to consider the provisions even though there will not be Committee stage in the normal way. Final regulations that take into account the recommendations of the Committees will be laid in Parliament and will be subject to the normal affirmative procedure. Of course, the Bill will make progress in the wash-up only on the basis of consensus.

Best wishes,

Harriet

I'm afraid that the claim that this Bill has had enough scrutiny is simply unacceptable given its diversity and the implications it contains.  To also compare the length of time the Bill has been considered against the other Bills that are up for debate is duplicitous and a false argument.  It is irrelevant to compare this Bill to any of the others in the 'wash-up' process as they are simply not as contentious and potentially damaging to civic freedoms as this one.  To claim enough has been done is to construct a straw man argument.

There have been a number of people trying to foster and harness a groundswell of support for action.  Write to your MP (or even call them with this tool!) now and ask them to get behind the Early Day Motion EDM1223, proposed by one of the few MPs in Parliament last night, Austin Mitchell (Labour).  Not a single Liberal Democrat MP has signed it at the time of writing.  Also, you can ask to have your name added to this Open Letter

If you want to know if your MP showed up for the debate last night, the click this link (a nice Guardian powered tool), enter your postcode and find out.  If they didn't, call them and ask them why not.

White 'wash-up' - democracy and the Digital Economy Bill?

Last evening, the Digital Economy Bill was given a cursory Second Hearing in the House of Commons by a handful of MPs.  Normally, a Bill this size would normally be expected to have as many as eight hearings given that it touches on a wide range of issues including the function of media regulator Ofcom, the state of copyright, the role of Channel 4, the protection of children online, amongst others. Now that a general election has been called, this period is often referred to as the 'wash-up', during which any remaining bills are pushed through the House with little time for proper consideration.  The Labour party whips were in evidence in that the front-bench politicians (notably Ben Bradshaw and Stephen Timms) refused to engage in much meaningful debate.  It was left to committed back benchers and the occasional Tory to stand up for the electorate's wishes, who were given little time to make their valid points heard, hence I prefer to think of this as a white-wash-up.

There has been widespread criticisms of the Bill from many quarters.  Software pioneer, Richard Stallman, noted that there was a distinct irony that Gordon Brown was promising to bring broadband to everyone whilst also threatening to punish those consumers for actually using it.  The Open Rights Group and 38Degrees also took out full page adverts in yesterday's Times and Guardian hoping to voice the concerns of the public.  This was the result of a call for donations in which over £20,000 was raised in under 2 days.  They were hopeful that such prominent adverts would be noticed by MPs.



All we ask for is that the Bill is delayed unitl a time when it can be given proper cosidneration rather tahn pushed through during the 'wash-up'. Jeremy Hunt (Conservatives) stated in Parliament yesterday that if this party got in, they would spend a good deal of time after the election editing the Bill so that it would be fit for purpose.  If they know it is flawed, then surely it is better to fix it before passing it?



The hashtag #debill was a trending topic on Twitter at the time as more of the electorate spent their afternoon and evening dedicated to criticisms of the Bill.  If only our MPs seemed to care as much as the public.  Several Twitterers captured screen grabs of the House showing how few MPs bothered to turn up, notably York University student, Greg Ebdon, aka Vanderdecken. You can see his images below (which he posted to Twitpic).  The URL for these tweets are here and here:

There has been a site created by Stef Lewanowski which highlights exactly how few MPs bothered to turn up and their stance with regards to the Bill, here.  The statistics speak for themselves:

• 1 Bill
• 20000+ letters written
• 646 MPs
• 40 MPs turned up
• 10 stayed throughout
• 5251 Twitterers
• 16180 tweets

Today, a Third Hearing is scheduled.  This might just be one of the last times we have the opportunity to voice our concerns before the two leading parties aquiesce to the wishes of the major music labels.  I've written to my MP, David Miliband, yet again - he was conspicuous by his absence yesterday.  The email is below:

Dear David Miliband,

I was severely disappointed with the poor turnout for the Second Hearing of the Digital Economy Bill yesterday.  At no point did the number of elected representatives exceed 40 members, and in some cases fell below 15, several of whom were Scottish MPs who have noted that aspects of the Bill may actually be illegal in Scotland.  Irrespective of this, the Bill is far-ranging and ill-considered in it's current form and proposes a number of changes which deserve more than a handful of readings in the House of Commons.

Yesterday, the Labour party front-benchers, notably Harriet Harman, may have suggested that this Bill has had considerable consideration in the House of Lords, yet their sheer volume of amendments suggested by that debate warrants a similar, if not greater, level of scrutiny by MPs.  There were a number of MPs from the back-benches (particularly Tom Watson and Austin Mitchell) and the Conservative party (in this instance John Redwood) who suggested that a delay of several months might be beneficial in that it would allow for the Bill to be given due consideration.

It would makes sense to fix the Bill, after detailed consideration, before forcing it through in the current guise. The volume of traffic on popular websites like Twitter last evening, all focussed on the outrage of the voting public.  Make no mistake, the Digital Economy Bill will determine the voting patterns of many people invested in the technology and the creative sectors.  Poorly planned policies that go against the wishes of the electorate are hardly vote-winners. I trust that at the Third Hearing you will call for a sense with this issue

Yours sincerely,

Robert Jewitt

If Miliband's previous form is anything to go by, the best I can hope for is an out of office response.  However, the Open Rights Group are determined to fight this issue even if the Bill is passed.  They and I urge you to write to your MP now.

Stop the Digital Economy Bill

Right now 38degrees and and the Open Rights Group are trying to raise enough money to take out a series of adverts in the national press to raise public awareness and show MPs how strongly the British public feel about the Digital Economy Bill




There are only a matter of days left (next Tuesday!) until the government attempts to push one of the most important and ill-planned Bills through the House of Commons.  There are nearly 25,000 words of legal changes being rushed through the House with less than 2 hours consultation, much of which will curtail basic Internet freedoms and harm many British businesses and services - at the bequest of lobbyists from the music industry.

For some background, read Cory Doctorow's timely article in the yesterday's Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/29/digital-economy-bill-bpi-doctorow

If you can spare just £5 you can help pay for adverts to appear in the national news alerting the public to this failing in our democracy.  Our goal of £10,000 is complete - that pays for a full page advert in The Times.  If we can double that total we will be able to have our voices heard in at least three different newspapers and on five websites.

If you can spare some change, then donate here (Paypal also accepted!)

Don't rush through extreme Internet laws

Another post in a long series of complaints about the Digital Economy Bill...  It's getting closer and closer and the kind of action or pressure that the public can exert is getting shorter and shorter.  So, if you are concerned (as you should be) about the proposals and the implications of the Bill, then you should send a quick email to your MP to tell them what you think.  Over on the campaign site 38degrees you will find a pre-written template which requires little more than your name and address.

Here's my letter to David Milband (very little has been changed):

Dear David Milband

I’m sure you’ve been contacted many times about the Digital Economy Bill, in fact I myself have written to you about this already. I am writing now that Harriet Harman MP has announced that the Bill is definitely going to receive a second reading on Tuesday April 6, widely expected to be the day an election is called.

On Thursday, Harriet Harman gave no assurance that controversial parts of the Bill would not be rushed through in 90 minutes, despite concerns being raised by members from both sides of the House.

Please do not underestimate the strength of feeling on this issue. Over 17,000 letters have been sent to MPs in the last week - yet the Government still seems intent on forcing the bill through Parliament without allowing a real debate about the issues.

People like me, who are concerned about this issue, will be looking to see who has done everything they can to make sure this Bill is not crashed through on the last day before an election.

I would very much appreciate it if you could do everything you can to raise this issue with ministers and party managers to make sure that these provisions receive proper debate and scrutiny in a new Parliament.

I wonder if Mr Miliband is going to respond to this email. It would make a pleasant change if I ever got more than an out-of-office reply.

Time is pressing. Get involved.

A timely piece of propaganda from the music industry

Yesterday morning, feeling sickened by the current developments surrounding the Digital Economy Bill, I picked up my laptop to read the news and was confronted by yet another report which sought to offer some definitive conclusions about the impact of copyright infringement. The report in question, "Building A Digital Economy: The Importance of Saving Jobs in the EU's Creative Industries", seemed perfectly timed to both support the ideological machinations behind the curent Digital Economy Bill and undermine the mounting public resistance to the Bill. The fact that the phrase 'Digital Economy' features in the title is surely a coincidence, no?

What do you think this perfectly-timed report suggested? You guessed it - it painted a picture of unmitigated disaster for the creative industries. It suggests that within 5 years the total number of lost jobs in Europe could reach 1.2 million and that the lost revenue for the industry may exceed €240 billion in the same period. As you might expect, this report was welcomed by anti-piracy outfits including the BPI and IFPI who will surely use it in their political lobbying efforts, as it matches their projected fears.

As Herman and Chomsky might put it, this was a perfect example of 'flak' - an attempt to diffuse any of the pressure being directed towards the Digital Economy Bill by groups like OurKingdom, TalkTalk, the ORG and 38degrees. Thank goodness that someone has took the time to read the report and point out the flaws and suppositions inherent within the report. Ernesto over at TorrentFreak has highlighted a few of the major problems with the report:

- The report suggests that there’s a direct correlation between Internet traffic growth and lost jobs. That is, the more traffic that is generated on the Internet, the more money will be lost. This correlation is 1 according to the report, which assumes that all growth in Internet traffic will increase piracy at the same rate.

- The report makes another bogus assumption by stating that more traffic will mean more piracy and thus more lost revenue. It does not account for the fact that people might consume higher quality files which are greater in file-size. All projections are based on bandwidth and not the number of pirated goods.

- The report cites some academic literature which suggests that piracy leads to a decrease in sales. Studies that reported the opposite or a null-effect were carefully left out. This bias defines the entire outcome of the report. If they used studies that found a positive effect they would have found that piracy would create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the years to come.

- The report uses fixed substitution rates. They assume that 10 downloaded albums results in one lost sale and this figure is not adjusted for the projected increase in piracy. One would think that the public’s budget for entertainment is limited and that the substitution rate would go down as piracy goes up

These are a few of the extracts - for more info read the original article here. You can also read the UK Pirate Party's response here, which includes some interesting material from the Terra Firma group who now own EMI.

Perhaps it's not surprising that such a report, originating from the aptly-titled BASCAP (Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy), would be timed to coincide with the call for the general public to write to their MPs, asking them to prevent the passing of extreme Internet laws that can result in web censorship if it protects the interests of corporate power.

Let's not forget that the corporate pressure has already resulted in the BPI (the UK recording industry's lobbying arm) having their way with the Liberal Democrats peer, Lord Razzall, with regards to amendment 120A. This amendment was copied almost word-for-word from a lobbying paper prepared by the BPI, and has been widely criticised as giving copyright holders too much power to close down sites on limited evidence. In a column for guardian.co.uk, activist and author Cory Doctorow has tried to make some sense of the subsequent Liberal Democrat u-turn over this issue. He also points to the origins of the leaked memo from the BPI (dated 8th of January) which later became Lord Clement-Jones's 3rd of March amendment.

Clearly, there has been an orchestrated attempt by the recording industry to put their case forward at the expense of truth and also at the potential expense of the British public's rights. Using distorted and one-sided economic projections as fact helps maintain the momentum in the favour of the recording industry whilst attempting to write into law some of the most oppressive web censorship that the UK has seen. The real concern is with whether or not many people or news publishers actually took the time to read the original report before paraphrasing it's claims. The issue around the veracity of data is crucial here - if it gets passed unchecked then the damage is already done. Jim Killock, Executive Director of the Open Rights Group, sums up my feelings on the matter:

“I am fed up of hearing corporate propaganda being deployed in order to justify intrusions on our rights to freedom of speech, privacy and to a fair trial”

If this is democracy, I'm out.

Exposing the myths: Panorama and the Net Police (part 1)

On Monday the 15th of March the BBC broadcast an episode of Panorama entitled 'Are The Net Police Coming For You?'. This was supposed to bring the general public up-to-date with the issues being flagged in the Digital Economy Bill. However, the programme was full of flaws, errors and myths which need unpicking. Or, at the very least, setting against the backdrop of data produced by various arms of the music industry.

The backdrop I'm referring to here comes from a report written by the Performing Rights Society (PRS) entitled 'Economic Insight, Issue 15: Adding up the music industry for 2008' (.pdf here), a presentation by the think-tank Demos initiated by the pollsters Ipsos (see below), and a press release from the British Phonographic Industry entitled '2009 music sales show decline but digital retail market starts to deliver'. All of these sources are readily available for anyone inclined to look for them and they all paint a rather different picture of the musical economy than the 'fact' in the Panorama episode



I'm only going to focus on the music-related claims in the episode for now. I may come back to the other claims at a later date (time permitting).

#1: 1 min 50 sec - Jo Whiley: 'millions of us they say are downloading music illegally'; 'record industry losing £200 million a year' and '7 million of us are filesharing music unlawfully'.

-The issue here is that it's very difficult to prove how many millions are downloading music illegally, especially when the figure of 7 million comes from music industry sources passed off as objective facts and rounded up by government as noted in this post. The BBC is aware of this hyperbole - they even investigated it themselves! This is also against the context of more singles and albums being sold in the UK than ever before (BPI).

#2: 2 min 20 secs - Louis Walsh: 'It's harder and harder for a young band to get signed now because there are so many young bands and there's so much music for free. Records shops are closing everywhere'

-This seems like Walsh is claiming that there is a lot more competition for limited recording industry contracts. If that is the case then, of course, it's going to be harder to get signed unless the music industry signs all the talent. This seems like a strawman argument. Record shops may be closing but that has no baring on the recording industry awarding contracts. There are many more supermarkets competing for sales than a decade ago and online stores have also opened. In fact, the IFPI's Digital Music Report 2010 lists a lot of services that appear on the Pro-music website:

• 3
• 7digital
• AmazonMP3
• Bleep.com
• eMusic
• HMV Digital
• iTunes UK
• Jamster
• Last.fm
• MSN Music
• MusicStation
• MySpace Music
• Napster
• Nokia Music UK
• Nokia Comes With Music
• O2
• Orange
• Play.com
• Sky Songs
• Spotify
• Tesco
• T-Mobile
• TuneTribe
• Vodafone
• We7
• YouTube

This doesn't even include specialist services like Juno or Beatport.

#3: 3 min 20 sec - Roy Stride of Scouting For Girls highlights that artists will spend money on the best studios and best facilities in order to give their fans the best experience.

-This suggests that they will be incurring more costs as a result, which get levied against future sales (the industry usually passes some of these costs onto the artists who end up in debt to the major labels). This points to some of the excesses and inefficiencies in the music industry, and might favour artists who embrace a DIY punk ethic. They also claim there is 'less money going into the industry' and this 'stifles creativity', which seems to be a strange claim when the PRS report suggests that the music economy grew in 2008 by 4.7% from the year prior to a figure of £3.6 billion.

#4: 5 min 20 - Whiley quotes stats from industry body, UK Music, 61% of 14-21 year olds download illegally.

-There is a danger that this kind of kind claim infers that each downloaded file equates to a sale lost. There is no compelling evidence to support such a suggestion, especially among young web users who may not have the access to capital that would permit them to spend money on all the music they download in a like-for-like context. I'm not suggesting this is a try-before-you-buy scenario, but perhaps something more akin to Spotify's music on-demand capability. The subsequent section looked at students in Manchester who are 'typical' downloaders - precisely the group of people who can seldom afford to buy music at this stage in their lives with £10k of student fee debt and even more living costs on top of that.

#5: 7 min 30 - London rapper Sway comments on 'losing revenue from people illegally downloading' and how 'that can affect your creative process' as well as the poor quality of illegal music files.

-These arguments seem at odds with what other UK rappers like Wiley have been recorded as having said (in the Guardian Music Weekly podcast 31st December 2009?). Wiley sees piracy acts as a publicity tool which encourages people into spending money on his music in other ways, notably live performances. Members of private music filesharing communities like the defunct OiNK might contest - many sites featuer torrents for high quality FLAC rips of rare material that isn't commercially avaialble in lossless audio formats

#6: 9 min - Neil Timms and Fergal Sharky idenitify that the rights hodler to copyright material will identifty an IP address that they beleive is infringing their on thier content an issue a series of 3 letters.

-This was what was referred to as Clause 17 which has since been amended to include more sweeping powers that include the blocking of complete websites hosting material thought to be illegal (bye bye YouTube) . Those suspected of infringing copyright can be sued, throttled or cut off from the Internet? At least Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics and Andrew Heaney of TalkTalk had some sense to refute these ideas

The second half of the episode got a little better...

---

To think that this was meant to help explain the current copyright context is worrying to say the least

Speak out against the Digital Economy Bill

Now that the third hearing of the Digital Economy Bill has passed through the House of Lords with many of the original problems either ignored or exacerbated, there is very little time for the public to make their impression felt. It is likely that this Bill will be rushed through the House of Commons with little space being given over to a consideration of it's unintended consequences.

The recent episode of Panorama (Are the Net Police Coming for You?) completely ignored the rights of the public. It suggested that it is persistent downloaders who need to be worried, but it goes even further than that and has the potential to impact on educational institutions and businesses. For many people, this would have been the first time they will have heard about the Bill. When the Bill is first debated by MPs in the House of Commons, they will shut democratic discussion down – after about two hours of debate. As Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group puts it:

So our elected MPs will have spent a whole two hours on this Bill – before they disappear back to Constituencies to ask for our vote.

It's time for more direct action - you need to write to your MP today.

Click this link to write your MP with a preprepared letter

I've sent an amended version of the following letter to my MP, David Miliband, the contents of which can be found below:

Dear [Insert MP Name]

I'm writing to you today because I'm very worried that the Government is planning to rush the Digital Economy Bill into law without a full Parliamentary debate.

The law is controversial and contains many measures that concern me. The controversial Bill deserves proper scrutiny so please don't let the government rush it through. Many people think it will damage schools and businesses as well as innocent people who rely on the internet because it will allow the Government to disconnect people it suspects of copyright infringement.

Industry experts, internet service providers (like Talk Talk and BT) and huge internet companies like Google and Yahoo are all opposing the bill - yet the Government seems intent on forcing it through without a real debate.

As a constituent I am writing to you today to ask you to do all you can to ensure the Government doesn't just rush the bill through and deny us our democratic right to scrutiny and debate.

[Insert your Name]

This will take you two minutes of your time

If you want to know/do more...

The internet ISP, TalkTalk, has created a campaign group called 'Don't Disconnect Us' where you can find the concerns of the industry being voiced. There's also an e-petition over on the government's website which currently has around 34,00 signatures. Sign it.

Meanwhile, Dan Bull has been at it again:

The Digital Economy Bill #debill summary to date

Late yesterday afternoon amendments made to the Digital Economy Bill (Twitter hashtag #debill) were heard in the House of Lords. This is a controversial bill for a number of reasons, not least the threat of disconnection for illegal filesharers without due legal recourse, but also for the sweeping powers the Bill seems to give to Ofcom to regulate 'broadcast' content (ie the content that a partial newspaper or press publisher can host on their website), thus jeopardising press freedom. Writing in the Guardian last November, Lillian Edwards, a professor of internet law warned how the Bill would jeopardise open wi-fi spaces. Universities and libraries have also complained about the Bill's impact.

For the uninitiated text from the original Bill can be found here and the amendments can be found here.

Responses

There has been a great deal of interest in this Bill from people interested in copyright and what it might mean to them in the future. Indeed, the Open Rights Group have been actively lobbying to raise public awareness, and several of their members provided excellent Twitter commentary whilst the debate was taking place (notably Glyn Wintle @glynwintle and Florain Leppla @florian107).

In the blogosphere photographer, Philip Dunn, wrote one of the most compelling and lucid criticisms of the Digital Economy Bill. I'll have to link to the Google cached page hosting the piece as his host received so much attention the server was closed. [Edit: Paul Bradshaw @paulbradshaw is hosting the article via the Online Journalism Blog]. His main bone of contention was with what the Bill describes as 'orphan works' under Clause 42 - these are typically works where it's difficult or impossible to contact the copyright holder. This situation can arise for many reasons, not least that the author may never been publicly known because the work was published anonymously or the work may have never been traditionally published at all. The concern in this context is that the bill may mean that photographers might lose ownership

You can find excerpts of his argument below:

Photographers to lose copyright protection of their work

This startling and outrageous proposal will become UK law if The Digital Economy Bill currently being pushed through Parliament is passed. This Bill is sponsored by the unelected Government Minister, Lord Mandelson [sic].

[...]

The idea that the author of a photograph has total rights over his or her own work – as laid out in International Law and The Copyright Act of 1988 – will be utterly ignored. If [sic] future, if you wish to retain any control over your work, you will have to register that work (and each version of it) with a new agency yet to be set up.

[...]

International Law, through the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, recognises the ownership rights of the creator of the ‘property’. This enables image owners to control how their work is used, and whether it is used at all.

International Law will be ignored by the British Government and this new Act will overturn more than 150 years of UK copyright law.

If that wasn't enough reason to be concerned, there are even more problematic implications:

Photographers are to lose all effective rights to take photographs in public places.

Not content with taking away photographer’s copyright, another section of this Government is proposing sweeping changes to your freedom to take pictures in public places.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has deemed that a photograph taken in a public place may now be considered to contain ‘private data’

This means that if you take a picture in the street and there is a member of the public in the shot, that person has the right to demand either payment – if you wish to publish the image – or that you do not publish it. In fact, according to the ICO. There does not actually have to be an objection, it is up to the photographer to ‘judge’ whether the subject might object.

You can find more posts by Philip Dunn over on www.photoactive.co.uk

Philip goes on to question the sense of such a decision when the average Briton is captured on surveillance camera as much as 300 times per day! It also calls into whether or not a photographer can be prosecuted for uploading an image featuring members of the general public to a photo sharing site like Flickr or Facebook.

Exactly how this can be policed or enforced remains to be seen, especially when the services listed may be outside the national jurisdiction of the UK. Already, Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act has deemed it illegal to take photographs of police officers - something that would render the recording of Ian Tomlinson's death following police intervention during the G20 protests a crime. Critics fear this may lead to people being unable to record or photograph legitimate public protests which frequently feature the police.

Back to the Bill

Another area of concern was addressed by Conservative front bencher Baroness Buscombe (Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission), a point I alluded to briefly in the introduction. She pointed out that the phrasing of the Bill seemed to give Ofcom the power to regulate what was described as "broadcast material". The concern here lay at how that term was interpreted. Currently Ofcom regulates broadcast television content whilst the PCC deals with matters involving the press. In the context of news this is very important and the rules governing "due impartiality" are applicable to broadcast content, but not to the press which is permitted to be partial (ie the oft-quoted 'freedom of the press').

Lord Puttnam supported Baroness Buscombe in this matter by expressing his concern over what can be described as "broadcast" in a converged multiplatform media environment by citing the example of material rejected by a Public Service Broadcaster which then goes on to be picked up by a partial press publisher and is subsequently hosted on their website. Does Ofcom or the PCC regulate in such matters? Lord Davies' response was less than precise in that he described broadcasting as that pertaining to be the type of content appearing on television. The way in which audio and video content is remediated in the digital age poses more questions of this Bill than can be answered by its proponents, so it seems.

Anger

Lord Puttnam (a former Chancellor of the institution in which I work) expressed some anger at the fact the Bill was not going to be referred to the Information Commissioner, responsible for dealing with privacy issues. Lord Young (who is co-sponsoring the Bill with Lord Mandelson) indicated that such a deferment would delay the Bill from being passed. It seems the government would rather pass a Bill that is deliberatively vague, poorly written and ill conceived which would need to be rewritten rather than make the appropriate amendments first!

Lord Puttnam accused Lord Young of attempting to rush a Bill though the House "that none of us is particularly proud of" and which hasn't been discussed appropriately. He also expressed concern at the "extraordinary degree of lobbying" that those involved in drafting the amendments had come up against from the creative industries. Lord Whitty expressed concerns that the Open Rights Group have been actively campaigning against: that the consumer accused of infringement will not be able to defend themselves in a court of law.

Make no mistake, this is a Bill which seeks to favour the rights of the content industries over the rights of individuals who will be labelled as guilty until proven innocent. They will be pit against the strong arm of the content industries and their financial powers, with the burden of evidence placed at their feet to prove their innocence.

ISP TalkTalk has already expressed their concern at this Bill:

"The Digital Economy Bill will give rights holders the power to act as a judge and jury, allowing them to demand that ISPs disconnect their customers without having to prove their case in a court of law. TalkTalk is the only major ISP that has said it will simply refuse to do this and will fight its case in every court in the land and in Europe if it has to."

It's still not too late to get involved and have your concerns voices. Visit the Open Rights Group's website today and find out what you can do to be heard.

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nb: apparently #debill is an appropriately hashtag - in Polish it means 'moron'. Thanks to Falkowata for that.

"When is ‘disconnection’ not disconnection? When it is ‘account suspension’, of course."

A day or two ago, the news that campaigners against the Digital Economy Bill (or at the very least, Clause 17) wanted to hear was announced. Or so it would seem. The Guardian technology pages led with somewhat optimistic headline: "Plans to cut off internet connections of illegal filesharers dumped"

Background

First, a little context may be useful. This is drawn on what has commonly been referred to as the "3 strikes" rule, whereby people accused of copyright infringement via the internet will be given three warnings before disconnection (like the unpopular HADOPI law in France, which seems like the inspiration for Clause 17 of the Digital Economy Bill). The role of peer-to-peer technology is central to this argument.

The Guardian story came off the back of a relatively small petition on the Number 1 website which highlighted the problems of the phrasing in the Bill, a point that will be picked up on again later in this post. The petition states:

The use of P2P is neither illegal nor exclusive to copyright theft. Many free software providers use this form of distribution, as does the BBC’s iPlayer. If citizens are innocent until proven guilty, ISP’s would be forced to monitor internet usage to ensure that no copyrighted material is being transferred. This flagrant disregard for privacy is comparable to forcing the Post Office to search through parcels for photocopied documents or mixtape cassettes. Such requirements would place enormous strain on ISP’s whilst failing to prevent the distribution of copyrighted material through hidden IP’s, http or ftp.”

Previous concerns have stated that the Internet is increasingly central to everyday life and that the act of identifying who was actually guilty of using peer-to-peer software to infringe copyright was difficult and ill-conceived, especially in shared households or on public 'cloud' based services. This is a point that is also addressed later in the same petition.

All of this is with the aim of cutting illegal peer-to-peer filesharing by 70% - something the Government, led by Lord Mandleson, is determined to do in order to appease the copyright industries. The Digital Economy Bill proposed a series of 'technical measures' including traffic shaping and disconnection for those the offending IP addresses the copyright industry identifies as being guilty of a crime. The major concern here is, of course, the lack of judicial process or the ability for the accused to defend themselves. The onus will be on the accused to prove they are innocent - people who may not have the technical knowledge or skills required to sift through router logs to be able to prove they were not responsible for the 'crime' they may be accused of.

What's changed (if anything)?

With the context established, let's consider the Number 10 response to the petition which got The Guardian and critics of the Bill excited (if somewhat momentarily):

[T]he Bill provides a reserve power obliging an ISP to apply ‘technical measures’ to a customer’s internet account to restrict or prevent illegal sharing. Technical measures might be a band width restriction, a daily downloading limit or, as a last resort, temporary account suspension. A proper independent appeal would be available against application of technical measures.

The key phrase here is 'temporary account suspension' as opposed to disconnection. It sounds much less punitive and more temporary than permanent. Jim Killock, the Executive Director of non-profit human rights group ORG, was quick to point out to several people via Twitter (myself included) that the phrasing was misleading 'government-speak'. To the Guardian's credit, they updated their news story with reference to Killock and the ORG's blog.

It's worth citing some of the blog post at length:

When is ‘disconnection’ not disconnection? When it is ‘account suspension’, of course.

The government therefore felt justified in a response to a petition on Friday in claiming that they were not intending to ‘disconnect’ families from the net after accusations of copyright infringement. If you think they mean that their internet cabling will still be plugged in at the wall, then that’s true.

If you think they mean that these families will be able to connect to the internet, well, no they won’t. Their connection will be switched off.

Please do not be confused by the government’s semantics. BIS and DCMS decided in the summer that they would not refer to ‘disconnecting’ users, because that sounds harsh and over the top. ‘Temporary account suspension’ sounds much more reasonable.

Language matters. What journalist is going to run a story on ‘temporary account suspension’ (yawn)? This is why the government has chosen these disingenuous terms: it‘s just more spin.

What we still don’t know is how long a family’s internet might be disconnected for.

A month? Three? A year? There is nothing in the Bill or any of the notes that we are aware of that might give us a clue.

‘Temporary account suspensions’ sound like the government would to suspend accounts for a few hours, or at most a day, to fit most people’s idea of ‘temporary’ and ‘suspension’. We doubt ‘suspensions’ would be so brief. We can assume what the government means to you and me is ‘disconnection’.

The issue here is what Killock referred to as 'government speak'. The phrasing of the response by the Number 10 website seems to hint at a compromise when the Open Rights Group suggest this semantic distinction is a deliberate attempt to mislead the public. A classic case of New Labour spin.

What is more alarming is that the power to determine the length of the suspension will be granted to the Secretary of State, based on recommendations from Ofcom (something I blogged about late last year). This is highlighted in a subsequent story in the Guardian yesterday when a Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (DBIS) spokesperson was quoted as saying:

"If government decides to use technical measures the Secretary of State would be required to consider an independent report from Ofcom on whether they should be imposed, and on the most effective and proportionate measures."

Mandelson would then decide the upper limit for a "temporary" suspension – which the DBIS indicated would be at least a few days. Parliament needs to be consulted in order to establish the duration of any suspensions towards the upper limit of the punishment scale. The worrying issue here is laid bare in the article:

"an Order cannot be amended by parliament; it can only be accepted or rejected. Any government with a working majority will be able to get an order passed – and so would be able to implement a "temporary" suspension of indeterminate length without any legislative review."

The Government has all the balls in its court with this one, and on the current form, seem determined to push through their plans despite opposition. Only time will tell if they are able to do so before the General Election is called in May.

Take Action

The ORG are encouraging people concerned by this Bill to take action. If you are encouraged to resist this problematic Bill then write to your MP and write to your local newspaper demanding that they get your local MPs to reveal their support for these proposals. You can find convenient templates over on their wiki page here. Get involved

The Digital Economy Bill, Clause 17

About a week or so ago the Digital Economy Bill made it's second pass through the House of Lords. Lord Lucas has been one of the most vocal critics of the Bill, especially the controversial Clause 17 which gives the First Secretary of State (currently Lord Mandleson) the power to enforce sweeping copyright reforms without public consultation in the face of future technological developments. Briefly, this section of the Bill would grant the government the power to make changes it sees appropriate to help enforce the copyright held by the content industries (eg the music industry). These powers are so broad they can be applied to adapt any future changes in technology without consultation (emphasis needed!). The Bill also proposes to disconnect illegal filesharers from the Internet after three warnings - commonly referred to as the "3 strikes" ruling. If you want a quick overview of how serious this is, check out the video below:



Back in December '09 PC Pro reported on how Lord Lucas expressed some doubts as to whether the Government's plans to disconnect users, claiming that the entertainment industry hadn't done enough to encourage people to pursue legal methods:

"We need to bear in mind that the problems now facing the industry are, to quite a large extent, of their own creation ... The industry has been extremely slow to listen to the demands of its customers, and has had something of an abusive relationship with them, seeking to punish them before thinking of how to serve them better."

"It has taken a decade for the industry to produce sensible alternatives to illegal file-sharing, and the fact that a generation of people have become used to an illegality comes down to the industry’s sluggishness. It is still slow."

He also raised some concerns that the methods being proposed to pinpoint who was actually responsible for downloading illegal content was inaccurate - the harvesting of an IP address doesn't always guarantee that the person responsible for paying the bill is the person engaging in filesharing activity, especially in households where several people have shared access. The same could be said of the hospitality sector in which hoteliers, bars, cafes and conference venues offer free wireless access to patrons.

Educators have complained that the bill also endangers their businesses and internet provision to the general public (via city-wide cloud-based services) is also under threat because of the insistence that organisations providing net access should be liable for the actions of their customers. The British Library with its public Wi-Fi access would be in jeopardy.

In January 2010 Lord Lucas suggested a number of amendments to the Bill including adding a remedy to help prevent false claims from being made against the innocent by giving them legal recourse to pursue counter actions against the accuser. He also tried to add an amendment that would require copyright holders to detail actual damages done by file sharing in their reports to ISPs notifying them of infringement. There were a total of 299 amendments suggested by the House of Lords. Lords Razzall and Clement Jones proposed one amendment (no. 34) to Clause 4 that stands out, mainly due to its evocation of the Human Rights Act:

Compliance with fundamental rights

In drafting or amending any code, laying any statutory instrument, or taking any other action under sections 124A to 124L of the Communications Act 2003 or under section 302A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, the Secretary of State must demonstrate before such action is implemented that he has considered whether such action—

• a) is necessary and proportionate to the goal of protecting and enforcing copyright, and
• b) appropriately balances the interest of rights holders and the interests of the public in due process, privacy, freedom of expression and other fundamental human rights guaranteed by inter alia the European Convention of Human Rights and the EC Charter of Rights."

The safety and privacy of the general public must not be disregarded in lieu of the demands of the content industry.

Earlier this month the Joint Select Committee on Human Rights also claimed that sections of the Digital Economy Bill needed clarification. The technical measures and the powers that are to be given to government were not "sufficiently specified". The fear here is that they might result in sweeping powers which restrict the freedom of expression and the privacy of individual users. Andrew Dismore MP and chair of the Commitee stated:

"The concern we have with this Bill is that it lacks detail ... It has been difficult, even in the narrow area we have focussed on, to get a clear picture of the scope and impact of the provisions."

One of the real concerns is with the lack of "due judicial process" to people accused of illicit filesharing. There is a real fear that the burden of proof will lie at the feet of Internet users who may be unable to prove they are innocent as they may not have the knowledge or skills to do so, nor the space to react to accusations accordingly.

Get involved and find out more by clicking the banner below:

Students quiz me on piracy

I've been asked by a couple of our Magazine Journalism students to help them with a second year module by answering some questions about filesharing. I thought I'd share the questions and my responses to them here as they touch on some of the issues I've been posting on here in recent weeks. There is a little but of cut and paste to be found in one of the answers but mostly, the questions and the answers differ.

Student 1's questions:

I am going with the angle that as much as the government is trying to get rid of file-sharing, it is always going to exist because it is a relatively new technology and is still evolving. The first generation of file-sharers have established the act but now the new generation are expanding it making it close to impossible to eliminate completely.

Do you think that the government were slow to act on file-sharing sites and underestimated how popular they have become?

What do you think to the 'three strikes and you are out' method of coping with individuals? is it all coming too late?

Do you think that the DEMOS report on file-sharing has shown us anything that we didn't already know?
Do you think that file-sharing will continue to exist and what from will it take?

My answers:

The government were very slow to react to digital file-sharing, as was the entertainment industry. The reason for this is complex but comes down to their suitability as a regulator of the Internet - a technology which transcends traditional (read: old media) forms of regulation in that traditional territorial rules don't always clearly apply. A file-sharing site may be registered in one country, it's servers hosted in another, it's user's in many different countries - which national legal system should be drawn upon? How does the law react to these international issues? Generally, laws take a long time to be proposed, written and drafted into being. Given those logistics it's no surprise that the responses were slow.

The 'three strikes' policy as it stands is poorly thought out and is wholly inadequate as a method for combating file-sharing. There are a number of reasons for this - too many to go into here, I suspect. However, I shall try and outline the key points.

Firstly, the methodology for identifying suspected copyright infringers is far from an exact science - a 2008 report from the University of Washington Computer Science and Engineering department revealed how a networked printer managed to be implicated in DMCA takedown request. It was highly unlikely that the printer was downloading copyright content! This hasn't stopped over zealous legal firms like Davenport & Lyons from issuing false claims against innocent parties with insufficient evidence, such as Mr and Mrs Murdoch (aged 66 and 54) who were accused of downloading the Atari game Race07.

Secondly, the law fails to take into account the role of the exact infringer - many people may share an Internet connection, especially if they live in large family or student household. An infringement may take place on the network but it is very difficult to prove who was responsible for the act without a thorough investigation - something the 'three strikes' policy refuses to do. The accusation would then fall at the feet of the bill payer who may not have done anything wrong, but will potentially be labelled a criminal.

Thirdly, an unsecured wireless network may be used to share bandwidth meaning that anyone in a certain radius can access the Internet with that connection. There are different legal implications regarding this behaviour, but ignoring those for now, the bill payer will be held responsible in this instance despite having not committed a crime. There are many reasons why a network may be unsecured, from a lack of technological knowledge through to a purposeful attempt to share bandwidth - the proposed 'threes strikes' ruling would treat both as the same when they are clearly not.

Add to these factors the increasing dependence on the Internet for public services and its future use as a medical tool (video streaming a doctor!), then disconnection seems wholly disproportionate and at odds with a recent All Party Communications Group report (.pdf) regarding the promotion of eGovernment.

If a crime is committed it should be dealt with in the courts, not by the content industries who employ dubious methodology to make their accusations.

As for the DEMOS report, I'm not quite sure what you mean about the 'what we didn't already know' bit. If you are referring to the claim that file-sharers typically spend more money on music than those that don't admit to file-sharing then the report does echo the sentiments that have been expressed quite vocally on many public and private file-sharing sites and services. However, what the report does do is it points to an empirical basis for measuring attitudes towards file-sharing. I think a Norwegian paper from earlier in the year did much the same thing

One of the key ways in which file-sharing is monitored is by tracking the IP addresses of people involved in torrent swarms. This how the basic tracker service works in torrent technology. However, technologies like DHT, PEX and Magnet Links completely do away with the need for file sharers to be identified in this manner. Add to that, people can use encrypted VPN (Virtual Private Networks) or services like TOR to hide their identity online and continue their file-sharing activities. WASTE networks will also play a part. If the deep-packet-inspection (DPI) techniques some ISPs are using continue to improve so they can examine traffic on their networks then I wouldn't be surprised to see the exchange of large but portable hard drives in school yards and parking lots in much the same way cassette tapes were traded in the 1980s.

Student 2's questions

1) What was your reaction the news that file sharers also buy the most music legitimately?

2) Why do you think people choose to download illegally?

3) How much of a negative effect, if any, do you think it has on artists and labels?

4) What are your thoughts on the digital economy bill and the proposed move to ban users who download illegally from the internet?

5) Do you think, in practice, it is possible to completely quash illegal downloading?

6) What could record labels do to encourage music fans to buy legally before looking elsewhere?

7) What are your views on artists joining the file sharing debate, for example Lilly Allen and her recent (bizarre) comments which you twittered the link to?

My responses:

1) I wasn't at all surprised by the findings. The claim that file-sharers typically spend more money on music than those that don't admit to file-sharing in the DEMOS report does echo the sentiments that have been expressed quite vocally on many public and private file-sharing sites and services. However, what the report does do is it point to an empirical basis for measuring attitudes towards file-sharing. I think a Norwegian paper from earlier in the year did much the same thing

2) The reasons for piracy are nebulous and far ranging. I can give you at least 10 reasons off the top of my head without even going down the 'free music' route:

1.File-sharers resent years of overpriced products (expensive CDs & ‘filler’ tracks)
2.Pre-release exclusivity
3.Discover new music/ lost classics without financial risk
4.Community spirit (private sites, social networks, blogs)
5.Very easy to do and low risk!
6.Reaction against mainstream mass-produced pap/pop
7.Fan ownership of musical products & free will vs. industry attempts to control content
8.DRM encourages passivity and limits future development/creativity
9.The sound quality of legitimate digital music is insufficient for many audiophiles
10.Music consumption has changed (gigs, merchandise, Guitar Hero, etc)

Have you seen this study (.pdf) by some behavioural economists who experimented with price differences to see how people reacted? They offered a group of subjects a choice between two chocolates, Hershey's Kisses for one cent and Lindt truffles for 15c. Three quarters of the subjects chose the truffles. When they did it again after reducing the cost of each chocolate by 1 cent (now free & 14c), they found the obvious - that the order of preference was revered with more people choosing the free offer. Now despite the price difference being the same (14c) the consequences of shifting to 'free' was dramatic - it produces a completely different consumer dynamic.

3) It's difficult to quantify a 'negative effect' in this case as there are way too many variables to consider. If music fans stop paying for music then there is an obvious problem, but there is little conclusive evidence to suggest this is the case - in fact, a recent report (.pdf) by the Performing Right Society concluded that UK music economy is getting bigger, not smaller. The figures bandied around pointing to how widespread file-sharing is are also subject to exaggeration. The point I'm trying to make is that nobody really knows how harmful filesharing is, if it is at all, but it is PRESUMED to be in a common sense manner taken as fact. Very problematic. The real problem, as I see it, comes through the typical royalty rates given to artists by labels - as seen in the Gowers report from 2006 (p51). This was typically about 9% for CD sales and is about 8% for digital downloads. Labels and retailers (& even credit card companies!) make more more than the creators. Even though there is no shop space or physical packaging to pay for, the artists are worse off due to the licensing of digital content.

4) My thoughts on the Digital Economy bill are on my blog (mentioned above: pirate finder general post). I think that the bill is an attempt to force unworkable laws into being that will end up doing more harm than good. Copyright needs reforming, but not in the ways proposed by Lord Mandelson.

5) I'm not convinced it will be entirely possible to quash illegal file-sharing. Technology has a knack of offering new possibilities at a rate far faster than the legal system can adapt. One of the key ways in which file-sharing is currently monitored is by tracking the IP addresses of people involved in torrent swarms. This how the basic tracker service works in torrent technology. However, technologies like DHT, PEX and Magnet Links completely do away with the need for file sharers to be identified in this manner. Add to that, people can use encrypted VPN (Virtual Private Networks) or services like TOR to hide their identity online and continue their file-sharing activities. WASTE networks will also play a part. If the deep-packet-inspection (DPI) techniques some ISPs are using continue to improve so they can examine traffic on their networks then I wouldn't be surprised to see the exchange of large but portable hard drives exchanged in the school yards in much the same way cassette tapes were traded in the 1980s. Even if a new method for blocking content is developed I suspect hardcore copyright infringers will find a way to continue their activities - they may just be physically scaled down somewhat.

6) I'm not really sure what record labels can do about this. Usually they fund lobbyists groups like UK Music or the BPI to do this in the form of educational campaigns about the problems of piracy (ie hurting artists). There have been a few innovations in recent years that are often heralded as an alternative to piracy (eg Last.FM, Spotify, We7, iTunes, RouteNote, etc) but as for whether or not they actually help support artists is another argument entirely given the royalty deals mentioned earlier. There have been some stories that suggest Spotify pays artists slightly more than nothing for streams, but only just! One of the problems with setting up new services like Spotify is that these small companies have to negotiate with the record labels to be able to carry their copyrighted content. If one of the major labels refuses or demands a royalty rate higher than Spotify can afford to recoup then the service will be incomplete or it may struggle to scale up and find a sufficient user base to make it a viable alternative. Record labels could help foster innovation and their long term survival by relaxing their restrictive licences.

7) I'm all for artists joining the debate about filesharing. It's possible to find many artists who refuse to condemn the practise as they see it as a potential business opportunity. I'm thinking of Matt Mason on 'The Pirate's Dilemma' and Chris Anderson's 'freemium' argument here where free content (downloaded music) can serve to act as a marketing tool around which other services/goods can be sold (gig tickets, merchandise, naming rights deals, etc). Lily Allen, I think, has a tendency to engage in public arguments without always fully understanding the range of positions available. She has done so in the past when talking about being middle class, she did it again with the piracy debate and her most recent outburst: "If someone comes up with a burnt copy of my CD and offers it to you for £4, I haven't a problem with that as long as the person buying it places some kind do of value on my music". The woman is a walking contradiction.

EU Parliment's credibility undermined by 3-strikes U-Turn: follow up

You may recall that last month I blogged about the EU's credibility being undermined by the 180 degree reversal that was made regarding the Telecoms Package, incorporating Amendment 138. I wrote to my three MEPs (Martin Callanan, Stephen Hughes and Fiona Hall) expressing my concerns. Only one of those MEPs took the time to acknowledge my email, the Lib Dem MEP, Fiona Hall. Her response from the 16th of November is outlined below:

Dear Mr Jewitt

Thank you for your email regarding the EU Telecoms package.

The European Parliament and the European Council reached a deal on this text last week after the Council agreed to MEPs' demands that internet users suspected of uploading or downloading illegal material should face a "prior, fair and impartial procedure" rather than an arbitrary ban on their internet use and being simply cut off.

For many people, the internet is not just an optional add-on: it is a vital lifeline. Citizens rely on the web to do business, buy goods and maintain social contacts and some of our most vulnerable people need it most. I believe that the European Parliament has acted to make sure that those who are accused of breaching the law are treated in a fair and impartial manner.

The British government is planning its own telecoms bill later this month and I am concerned that it is expected to feature a three-strikes-and-you're-banned policy. The British Government must respect the decision on this made at a European level and ensure that its own telecoms bill reflects people's rights to internet access.

Thank you once again for your email.

Yours sincerely
Fiona Hall MEP

As you can see, the Lib Dems share many of the concerns that I've covered on this blog in recent months - notably the imminent Digital Economy bill in which the unelected Secretary of State Lord Mandelson is planning on giving himself 'secondary legislation' powers to write into law anything he sees fit to help protect copyright owners, even if that means disconnecting Internet users without due legal recourse. Nicholas Lansman of the Internet Service Provider's Association has been highly critical of the government's recent behaviour, especially the burden it is placing on ISPs:

“ISPA is extremely disappointed by aspects of the proposals to address illicit filesharing. This legislation is being fast-tracked by the Government and will do little to address the underlying problem.”

Too much power is being accrued by Mandelson. Visit The Register's site for more details.

Old letter I forgot to publish

I usually use this blog to publish any of my engagements with MPs or MEPs regarding digital matters and I found a copy of an email I sent last month to my MP, David Miliband, regarding Tom Watson's Early Day Motion on filesharing. You can find the email below:

Dear David Miliband,

I'd like to express my desire for you to support Tom Watson’s cross-party Early Day Motion, 1997, on file sharing. I believe that it is crucial that external organisations who suspect internet users of file-sharing are not able to require Internet Service Providers to disconnect or throttle data based on accusations (especially given the well known problems associated with the methodology used to gather such "evidence").

I would find it difficult to support a political party that approves of such measures which would impact on a wide range of essential digital services (commercial services, online shopping and banking, etc), and a recent YouGov poll for the Open Rights Group suggests much the same: http://www.openrightsgroup.org/assets/files/pdfs/ORG-YouGov-internet-sanctions-poll.pdf

I support disconnection for court proceedings, but not for accusations

Yours sincerely,

Robert Jewitt

All this was in vein as my MP is a memeber of the cabinet and can't vote on Early Day Motions, which is prorbably why I didn't post the message back on the 19th of October when I originally sent it.

Pirate Finder General

Yesterday it emerged via Cory Doctorow's boing boing blog that the UK government is planning to introduce some radical changes to the Digital Economy bill that will seek to combat copyright infringement in a most aggressive manner. One of the consequences of these changes is a serious threat to democracy in that the Secretary of State (currently Lord Mandelson) will have the power to make "secondary legislation" (legislation that is passed without debate) to amend the provisions of Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988).

Effectively, this would give an unelected official the power to do anything without Parliamentary oversight or debate, provided it was done in the name of protecting copyright - something which benefits big business in cases where only around 2% of copyrighted products are worth supporting in law (98% of copyrighted material is no longer supported by the market but is still covered by the blanket law). This is clearly a case of industry being more important the people. Doctorow attribute the following reasons for his new proposal:

1. The Secretary of State would get the power to create new remedies for online infringements (for example, he could create jail terms for file-sharing, or create a "three-strikes" plan that costs entire families their internet access if any member stands accused of infringement)

2. The Secretary of State would get the power to create procedures to "confer rights" for the purposes of protecting rightsholders from online infringement (for example, record labels and movie studios can be given investigative and enforcement powers that allow them to compel ISPs, libraries, companies and schools to turn over personal information about Internet users, and to order those companies to disconnect users, remove websites, block URLs, etc)

3. The Secretary of State would get the power to "impose such duties, powers or functions on any person as may be specified in connection with facilitating online infringement" (for example, ISPs could be forced to spy on their users, or to have copyright lawyers examine every piece of user-generated content before it goes live; also, copyright "militias" can be formed with the power to police copyright on the web)

What does this mean for you?

There are far ranging implications at stake in the changes being proposed here. Imagine the implications for uploading a recording of, say, a birthday party featuring background music to YouTube... That music would be subject to copyright law making the uploader a copyright infringer and a potential victim of this new bill - liable for any breaches made. Place this scenario in the context of point 2) and you can imagine being the target of record company surveillance watching your every move, even going as far to restrict your access to specific content. At what point did the British public decide to let the entertainment industry police its behaviour as if it was a state authority?

Get involved

Naturally, organisations like the Open Rights Group are campaigning against such changes and encouraging members of the public to phone their MPs with their concerns. I urge you to do the same as time is very short. You can email your MP here but due to the time limits a phone call is more likely to be effective.

Further reading:

Charles Arthur, Guardian, 20/11/09 'Treasury secretary defends government's online piracy plans'
Charles Arthur, Guardian, 20/11/09, 'Why are cyberlockers suddenly such a problem, Lord Mandelson?'
Dept for Culture, Media & Sport, 2009, Digital Britain report

EU Parliment's credibility undermined by 3-strikes U-Turn

Quick post. This week a strange turn of events occurred within the corridors of Europe which casts doubt on the faith we should have in the EU Parliament. Essentially this comes down to the long-standing "3-strikes" which threatens to have internet users disconnected if they are accused of illegal file-sharing (even if the way in which this data is collected is fundamentally flawed). Access to information via the internet is a right - disconnection compromises our civil liberties.

Parliament has voted against this disconnection process on separate occasions with an 88% majority. Just this week the MEP's negotiating team wanted to dilute these judgements (especially Amendment 138) whilst seeking a compromise with the EU Council. Historically, the EU Parliament has been relatively weak in the face of the EU Council and u-turns like this one do not bode well for democracy.

There is a little more detail on the Open Rights Group blog. They also point to an analysis by La Quadrature du Net.

Take action: write to your MEP asking them to put pressure on their team to preserve our rights and the EU Parliament's credibility.

I have written to my MEPs regarding this matter. I urge you to do the same if you care about your digital rights and/or democracy Full text below:

Thursday 15 October 2009

Dear Martin Callanan, Stephen Hughes and Fiona Hall,

I have heard the worrying news that Catherine Trautmann and Alejo Vidal-Quadras (Wed 14th October) have succeeded in leading negotiations to overturn the Telecoms Package, incorporating Amendment 138. As I understand it, Amendment 138 guarantees Internet access and protects fundamental civil liberties and is in danger of being diluted by the aforementioned Parliamentary negotiators seeking a compromise with the EU Council.

It appears that discussions between the Council of the EU, the Commission and the negotiators led to a compromise position regarding Amendment 138 that goes against the intentions of the Parliament that voted for citizens to have guarantees regarding access and other rights. These principles have twice been adopted by an 88% majority of the European Parliament.

This turnaround seems to suggest that Parliament's powers are being undermined. The negotiating team seems to have ignored the mandate they were issued from the Parliament delegation and this sets a dangerous precedent and displays a worrying lack of transparency.

Pressure needs to be placed on the negotiating team in order to preserve our rights and the credibility of the EU Parliament.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Jewitt

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EDIT

It looks like pressure is mounting around this issue: ORG. More effort is required. Get writing to your MEPs if you care bout your digital rights