Somehow a deeply illiberal, anti-progressive approach is seeking to place the interests of one group – rights holders – above those of everyone else.
Rights holders have been lobbying governments across the globe for laws like these, which seek to disconnect people from the internet if they have infringed their copyrights. This possibility is introduced by the Digital Economy Bill, if a 70% reduction in infringement does not take place after a letter writing campaign.
Unfortunately, rights holders cannot identify actual people who download music and film – only the household or business where this has taken place. They have, therefore, persuaded the government that it is reasonable to punish the whole household or business by disconnecting them, rather than taking them to court and seeing what has really happened.
Innocent people will be punished if disconnection takes place. It is inevitable. If a family is disconnected, then in nearly every circumstance, someone innocent will be punished. Somebody who has nothing wrong might find their education, their work or their political activities disrupted because a law has been framed to punish everyone for somebody’s copyright infringement: an offence comparable to trespass or fare dodging.
It also means many businesses, libraries and cafes will have to shut down their open wifi for their customers, or put in place expensive contracts with third party services like BT Openzone.
And in a last minute amendment, Liberal Democrats have sought to allow the courts to ask Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block websites where ‘substantial’ amounts of copyright infringement takes place. This may place services like Youtube and Rapidshare under a threat of blocking which could quickly mean services decide it is safer and easier not to provide them for the UK. It will certainly be easier for ISPs to agree to block services, than to contest such blocks in court.
Law is not meant to work like this, still less progressive law from a government which espouses progressive values. Something deeply wrong has happened, and we need to act now to redress this.