The Digital Economy Bill, currently at the report stage in the Lords has caused concern, as Lib Dem peers Lord Razzall and Lord Clement-Jones are seeking an amendment to allow site blocking for copyright infringement.
Earlier this week, Open Rights Group posted an appeal for people to write to the peers, asking them to drop the amendment.
Here, Lord Tim Clement-Jones sets out his response:
The Digital Economy Bill, as currently drafted, only deals with a certain type of copyright infringement, namely peer-to-peer file sharing. Around 35% of all online copyright infringement takes place on non peer-to-peer sites and services. Particular threats concern “cyberlockers” which are hosted abroad.
There are websites which consistently infringe copyright, many of them based outside the UK in countries such as Russia and beyond the jurisdiction of the UK courts. Many of these websites refuse to stop supplying access to illegal content.
It is a result of this situation that the Liberal Democrats have tabled an amendment in the Lords which has the support of the Conservatives that enables the High Court to grant an injunction requiring Internet Service Providers to block access to sites.
The amendment (amendment 120A) has generated some concern on the internet in the last few days.
Amendment 120A makes an explicit reference to human rights implications being taken into consideration by the Courts whilst they consider the imposition of an injunction. Such a safeguard is paramount to our concerns.
The intention is also for the injunction to only be possible for 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 injunction will only be granted where copyright owners had first requested ISP’s to block access to the site and where they had also requested the site operator to stop providing access to the infringing material (either by removing the material itself or removing the ability to access the material).
There already exists a remedy under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (section 97A) which grants copyright owners a broad power to apply to the Court for an injunction. Therefore, all amendment 120A does is enhance this power by giving copyright owners a more clearly defined route.
Site blocking is not a new phenomenon, the most well-known being the recommended list of sites to block provided by the Internet Watch Foundation
Clause 17, the Government’s completely objectionable power to enable the Secretary of State to attempt to amend copyright law at any time is deleted by the joint Lib Dem and Conservative amendment.
Unlike Clause 17, amendment 120A depoliticises the process. The amendment will ensure any action will be heard before the High Court. The liberal principle of equality before the law remains intact allowing both sides to make their case before a judge, not by appeal to the Secretary of State.
Before making an injunction, under the amendment the Court has to have regard to whether the copyright owner has made reasonable efforts to facilitate legal access. This is designed to ensure that copyright owners continue to develop innovative ways of enabling their material to be accessed online legally, such as Spotify, before turning to legal action.
To conclude, the Lib Dems are not seeking to censor the internet but are responding to genuine concerns from the creative industries about providing a process whereby their material can be satisfactorily accessed legally.
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UPDATE: There’s been a vigorous debate in the party since this post, including an open letter from 25+ Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidates opposing the amendment. See the update here for more information.
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236 Comments
What proportion of material is required to qualify as “substantial”? 1%? 2%? 10%? 50%? “Substantial” is a word that is open to a very wide degree of interpretation. In short, is this something that could apply to YouTube, which undoubtedly does contain copyrighted materials from time to time?
If this is what you intend, I think that you may have mis-drafted your amendment. The amendment sets out the following steps:
1) The service provider is notified of the allegedly offending content
2) If the service provider does nothing, an injunction is issued to both the service provider and the operator. We can assume here that if we are talking about, say, a blog then the service provider is whoever owns the physical hardware and network connections, and the operator is the person or business who pays them for hosting.
3) If the injunction is ignored, blocking can take place
In contrast to your above quote, the amendment does not require the operator to be notified, merely the service provider. To quote from the amendment:
As you can see, there is no mention of any requirement to contact the operator prior to the injunction. This is vitally important as the operator is likely to be the only person with the ability to actually modify or delete content on the site. The service provider has only the option to take down the entire site.
This is hardly a ringing endorsement of the concept. The IWF remains a controversial and relatively unaccountable body, whose past attempts at censorship have frequently been ham-fisted and counter-productive.
By and large, I don’t see too much to object to in what you’re trying to do. I think there’s a discrepancy between the process you describe and the process outlined by the amendment, and that somewhat undermines any other argument you’ve made. In practice, this amendment will be used to place service providers in a position where they have to remove entire sites from the web or face legal costs. As there is no requirement to contact the operator of the site prior to the injunction, it is likely that the first that they will know of it is when their site is taken offline by the (regrettably but understandably) cautious actions of their service provider.
As a further safeguard I think the process should be spelled out in much greater detail. Far too much of this amendment hinges on the interpretation of words such as ‘reasonable’ and ‘substantial’. It would be better to give clearer guidance, and also to spell out the timescales within which operators and service providers are meant to respond to any enquiry and to any injunction. Furthermore it should be made clear that any ‘blocking’ action taken should apply to the smallest amount of content possible; it should be ‘surgical’ in nature, blocking only the offending content and not any other content that may be hosted on the same site (or on the same physical server). This is an important safeguard not mentioned at all.
FFS – The DEB is bad enough without this sort of amendment being made. ISP cannot just ‘block’ sites when they get told, even if it were technically feasible (trust me it isn’t) the ability of Rupert Murdoch et al (who have lots of lawyers) to get a judge (who likely doesn’t know any better) to block a small protest site (which probably doesn’t have lots of lawyers) which contains a small except from his newspaper (copy and pasted, with proper attribution) and criticizes something he says or done is just one way in which this amendment could be used.
If I tried harder I’m sure I could think of something else that also could be blocked such as: http://www.voteforachange.co.uk/ which really goes show how much power you could be handing to the ‘wrong’ people
Dear Tim
There may be some problems with copyright. But rushing to nail up such potentially draconian powers against Internet users is a hopelessly wrong way of tackling it. We are a party that is instinctively for freedom and against censorship. How can you have lost sight of this?
Your amendment potentially gives the power to block vast swathes of the Internet to UK citizens – to punish vast groups of people for what you consider (and which our party has yet to properly debate) the petty wrongdoing of a few.
Do you usually propose laws of collective punishment?
Do you not realise that – as Section 28 once was – the power of this law will be exercised primarily through fear, as siteholders will feel forced to censor the innocent for fear of massive court overreaction?
Do you seriously contend that the last thirteen years have been ones of feather-light laws only being used when absolutely necessary and for exactly the purpose they were intended?
Do not put this level of unequal power on one side of the copyright argument. History shows that you must know it will be abused.
Suggesting that the courts must have regard to human rights implications is a fig leaf – do you seriously think the country is less authoritarian than it was in 1997? Those 4,000 bossy new Labour laws have massively outweighed the Human Rights Act.
If I can’t get you worried about the principle, let me appeal to you – despite your being a member of the unelected House – to consider the naked politics of it.
How many votes are there in big copyright owners?
And how many are there in the millions of people who use the Internet?
Proposing this thoughtlessly draconian law without considering its side-effects will drag down the name of our party with many who are our natural supporters in favour of freedom and against censorship. They are right, and you are wrong. You are bringing our party into disrepute.
For goodness’ sake, think before you do this wrong, stupid, illiberal and massively-vote-losing thing.
Alex Wilcock
Former Vice-Chair, Liberal Democrat Federal Policy Committee
Hmmm, I wonder whether DLA Piper are calling Tim’s tune?
I wish to wholeheartedly endorse Alex Wilcock’s comment above
Richard Gadsden
PPC Worsley and Eccles South.
Okay, on the one hand, it’s better than the clause it is replacing, and it’s not actually a new web-blocking law, just an update to an existing one.
On the other, we still don’t need or want a web-blocking law.
What will this blocking achieve, apart from minor inconvenience? Any blocked site can easily be accessed through a proxy server.
As if the fact that the Internet Watch Foundation exists is an argument for further censorship.
The IWF just goes to show how unaccountable, draconian and opaque internet censorship can be, even in a relatively free, tolerant society such as Britain. For those not in the know, they’ve censored Wikipedia; on Virgin Media, at least, there was no way to tell the page had been censored, merely a false “404 not found” error. And this without any form of democratic mandate or public scrutiny of what they’re doing.
Slightly more on topic, I’m worried how this amendment seems biased in favour of the accuser rather than the accused.
As to Rob’s second point, that you have misdrafted the amendment, my suspicion would be that someone doing the drafting has assumed “notifying the ISP” and “notifying the site operator” come to the same thing. It does not. By analogy with accusations of libel, an ISP presented with a written threat of action, however dubious the origin, will often just pull the whole site immediately without recourse to the site operator. Partly, of course, this is just a reflection of the shitty behaviour of ISPs, and not your problem. But to not even mention it in your article as a consideration in framing the legislation suggests either ignorance or disingenuousness.
*looks around for another to party to vote for in May*
Congratulations guys!
You’ve just lost the vote and trust of thousands of UK geeks.
I joined the party last week. This really isn’t what I was expecting to see.
Alex Wilcock puts it well. I believe your intentions are good – but the execution is poor. Please change the amendment
What was personally abusive about Alex Wilcock’s second comment, by the way?
‘Ere, why am I caught in the spamtrap? Have I been grabbed by the Tims?
Alix: it employed no rude words, but the cutting naughtiness known as ‘sarcasm’.
“Have I been grabbed by the Tims?”
Ooh, that’s gotta hurt. Maybe they’ll hang you up by the…
…
…
…
…
…
…town hall.
I’m personally hoping that becomes exactly that sort of new euphemism. They deserve it.
@Stuart Moore – at times like this I find it helpful to employ a mantra, e.g. freedom bill, freedom bill, freedom bill, Evan Harris, tax reform, freedom bill
I’ve already commented at length about why our party’s approach to this bill as a whole is wrong in my opinion. Personally I would hope that there would be enough free-trade Tories and Liberal Democrats to deny it a reading, period as it needs to go back to the drawing board and to challenge current intellectual property assumptions rather than just accept them and defend these rights to fictional property.
The only good thing about this sort of legislation (like the DMCA in the US too) is that it galvanises the clever people behind the internet to prove them unenforceable and in the process help evolve a more resilient, less controllable cyberspace.
I think the chilling effect is crucial here. This bill – and this amendment – would massively increase the legal costs of any website seeking to allow user generated content on their space. To minimise risk without having to pay to literally moderate every single comment, they would have to employ blanket measures that will inevitably have all sorts of unforeseen consequences for legitimate users (and that’s even if you agree with the principle of cracking down on so-called copyright “theft” – which I don’t).
As consumers (and creators) we should be getting legal protection from Parliament to avoid being tarred with the same brush, not be made even more vulnerable.
As for “depoliticising the process,” well the whole copyright debate is political. That cat is out of the bag. Setting up laws which side with a certain side of that debate and then leaving it for judges to arbitrate is an abrogation of responsibility. I’m not sure I trust the rigid Justice Eady’s of this world any more than I trust the infinitely flexible (one way at any rate) Lord Mandelson.
One question for the Tims: who did you consult before coming up with this amendment? What efforts did you make to discuss this amendment with consumer and digital rights groups?
On the one hand, this amendment removes the enabling powers Mandy is after to change the law at whim, which is obviously ridiculous and has to be blocked.
On the other hand, I agree with Rob, I think what we have is a well intentioned big mistake, that will alienate a large number of well informed younger people to whom we should be strongly appealing at this election.
This includes, well, me.
While we wait for the party to clarify its line on homeopathy, we also see two prominent parliamentarians messing up on another issue. Not sure I can get away with two emergency motions to submit at once, but this has to be stopped.
Mat Bowles,
Chair, Brighouse Branch, Memb Sec, Calderdale.
Haha – there goes your vote. Jesus, politics gets more corrupt by the day….
“While we wait for the party to clarify its line on homeopathy, we also see two prominent parliamentarians messing up on another issue.”
This is exactly my state of mind on the party at the moment. In the immediate term, an emergency motion can (I hope) be mounted. For the future, could we build some sort of wider effort to scrutinise these obvious illiberalisms before they happen? This week has been one spray of shite after another. I’m deeply unimpressed with the way this debate has only come up on this site this afternoon, and I don’t know whether I should be blaming LDV or the Tims or both. This is news I care about, and I want a chance to write to MPs and Lords *before* they vote in favour of things that are anathema to me, not while they’re off doing it. I’m also deeply unimpressed that Alex Wilcock’s comment on this post pointing out the timing was moderated (and it was moderated, not spammed, because I read it and it was not by any stretch of the imagination personally abusive). This is not good enough.
Alix, I’ve not long ago written about what I’ve termed “rigourous liberalism” which I think has tremendous potential resonance with both true liberals in the party and, if Clegg was right in his leadership acceptance speech, the “liberal majority” in Britain. A state, small but just.
I plot.
(And I do so at a length that satisfies the comment lengthifier).
There are many things wrong with this bill, and this amendment is even worse, but I ask what would happen in this set of circumstances?
Imagine, a failing company makes an unfounded allegation that an open-source operating system contains their copyrighted code and seeks through legal means to stop the distribution of this open-source operating system. Everyone knows that this is wrong, but some hosters stop hosting copies of the operating system, just in case.
This amendment would have taken that operating system offline. And just so you know, that example is what SCO UNIX, a company that folded a couple of years ago, did to Linux, the OS at the heart of a large proportion of the Internet.
Your amendment will help destroy the UK’s ability to compete even more than the current unamended Digital Economy Bill.
Please withdraw it.
Well done. You’ve achieved the seemingly impossible.
Taken an already draconian bill and made it even worse, and turned the UK’s internet into a police state.
This will mean the death of any site with user generated content, such as YouTube or Blogger.
I’ll never vote for the Liberal Democrats again.
By making ISPs liable for the costs of obtaining an injunction if they don’t act upon an allegation, you’re preventing those cases from ever getting to court. They can’t afford to take the risk of a big legal bill, so they will be forced to act upon any allegation of infringement, no matter how unsubstantiated.
ISPs must be able to reject allegations that they believe to be unfounded with no financial risk to themselves. They can only be liable for costs if they fail to act after receiving an injunction. Otherwise, you are simply bypassing due process.
Also, there is no provision that I can see for penalties for unfounded allegations of copyright infringement. For the sake of balance, these must be present.
The language of copyright has been carefully warped and mutated over the years by those interested to cast it in a favourable light, until people are now readily deluded into believing it is a natural right of the individual instead of a commercial privilege intended to reward the press (with a monopoly), in exchange for the state enjoying effective supervision (against insurrection).
In truth, copyright is a suspension of the individual’s liberty, their natural right to sing any song they hear, to copy the work of another artist and improve it, whether folk song or folk tale.
A liberal who would yet enforce copyright is a misguided utilitarian. A liberal who would restore the individual’s liberty by abolishing copyright is an enlightened libertarian.
A democrat who would represent the people is worthy of the term. Those who would represent the immortal corporations with their commercial privileges lasting 150 years or more have lost sight of their true constituency.
Yeah! Read, read, Crosbie Fitch! Absolutely correct in my view and as a party we have this bill as an opportunity to change the nature of the debate – not just for the UK but for everywhere that is attempting to impose similar revenue protection laws.
There is plenty of good literature out there about why IP laws a. are unjust, and b. do not even achieve what they are supposed to achieve anyway.
And Crosbie is right, the origins of copyright after the printing press was invented were rooted in the state’s desire to control and censor this new mass media technology, and five and a half centuries later we are allowing it to happen all over again only with a mass media technology that could only have been dreamed of forty years ago.
Nonetheless, I do have this confidence however that whatever they try someone clever will have a way around it very quickly.
Jock, people will circumvent ‘blocks’ but many websites threatened with ‘blocks’ will simply keel over, as will ISPs facd with court action.
Copyright actions should not be used to threaten legitimate services and our free speech, but that could be the effect of this approach.
This a bad amendment to a bad bill, I am very disappointed that a supposedly liberal party has proposed it. I am surprised that you have ignored the views of so many people and pushed through a bad bad law.
The worst thing is I don’t even believe you understand the severity of what you have done here.
Jim, I agree, I’m only saying that I have confidence in the “distributed brain” that is the internet will find ways of adapting. Not before there have been casualties mind, but that in the longer term these sort of laws *will* be proven futile and ineffectual. Which is why now is as good a time as any to have the debate on copyright and stop everyone wasting all that time and talent getting round laws when they could be producing something useful.
I’ll agree with Jim and Jock that the Internet will treat this censorship as damage, and route around it. I can think of a dozen technical ways to circumvent this, which I could teach my grandparents to use, and they’re all dead. Ergo this amendment is useless at its stated intent, and will hav a chilling effect on non-copyright-violating web providers and users.
If this amendment is voted into the Digital Economy Act, I will have to seriously reconsider my membership of the Liberal Democrats, and divert my membership fees to supplement my support of ORG. There comes a point where being a good party on liberal issues turns into being the least-worst party, and that’s just not good enough for me.
Apart from the BPI, who mostly represents the interests of US based corporations, the lib dems have consulted absolutely nobody on this… in fact this amendment was written by the BPI. FOI and judicial review come to mind.
Just a question “service provider” as stated in the amendment, does that include schools, universities, libraries, hotels…
and what if the service provider is not based in the UK – UK courts do not have global jurisdiction, but the internet is global.
Other than ensuring that no service provider will headquarter in the UK, or even open an office here, this provision will achieve absolutely nothing. .. well apart from losing the Lib Dems and the Conservatives vital votes in what will be a very close election.
Some time ago the Conservatives asked stakeholders why there is no “UK Google”… maybe the lib dems can answer that question.
Well done for supporting the UK digital economy.
Fail on a grand scale.
This amendment demonstrates how deeply hostile the UK has become towards the Internet industry. As both a lifelong LIbDem voter and a now-expat founder of that industry, with this amendment you’ve just lost me making the effort to vote for the LibDems at the next election, and I really don’t see me taking my skills back to the UK for the forseeable future.
The Digital Economy Bill debate will decide my next vote. I was following the coverage in the Lords and previously decided that Lib Dem were the last place I could turn.
Today you lost my vote.
This amendment is madness. Sheer madness. I do not think that Lord Clement-Jones has any kind of understanding of the issues at stake here. It would now appear that every single mainstream political party has bypassed ever argument made online rights groups, copyright reform groups, and internet bloggers, and fallen into line with the views of large media and entertainment companies.
Today is a black day for internet users in the UK.
Horrifying rights-trampling idiocy worthy of China or Australia.
The next general election would have been the first time I voted Lib Dem. Not any more.
If we lose the LibDems on this stuff then the outlook is pretty dire.
If artists, creative types, consumers and people who understand and love the Internet had done the secret drafting and lobbying work behind this legislation it would look very different indeed.
Unbelievable. The Liberal Democrats have just killed the internet.
The UK can say goodbye to YouTube
… and the LibDems can say goodbye to a million votes.
Well done.
Calm down, dears, it’s only a proposal. It hasn’t been passed yet. It’s also a product of cross party stuff with the tories, so I am choosing to charitably believe that the ridiculous illiberal bollocks has sprung from the blue side rather than the golden. And do any of us really think that, with conference a bare two weeks away, there WON’T be an overwhelmingly landslidey emergency motion condemning this?
Having said all that?
What
Daddy AlexAlex Wilcock says in comment three is all perfectly true. This may be “only” a proposed compromise measure, but it’s not one that anyone who has even the most passing fondness for Liberal principles should be putting their name to, especially if they want their party to win votes from the geek Massive.I’m confused. I’m sure I read a comment here earlier today saying that the amendment had been passed earlier today; now Jennie seems to be saying there is time yet to kill it. Does anyone have the definitive answer?
Stop typing and listen to the radio, oh gravelly-voiced one. It’s going back to the commons. The amendment we are talking about has been put in instead of clause 17 in the current draft which is going back to the commons. It’s not law yet, and if I get my way it never will be.
Jennie, wonderful though your charitable nature is, the amendment was submitted by Lords Clement-Jones and Razzall, both of whom wear the golden ermine:
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2010/lib-dems-seek-web-blocking
Actually, I went away and looked it up in Hansard. The Lords did pass it. You’re right to say that it isn’t law yet, but the Lords is the chamber where the Lib Dems can actually affect votes because no single party has overall control. The only way to defeat it in the Commons would be to persuade 50 or so Labour MPs to rebel (which ain’t gonna happen). The Commons barely functions as a scrutinising chamber at the best of times, so under the thumbs of the whips that it is.
It certainly is the case that it might run out of time and fail to make it through the wash up – indeed hopefully the Lib Dems will refuse to force it through – but the status of this amendment is more than “proposal”; it currently forms the substantive version of the text under debate.
I know, but it’s still a compromise position that was pre-negotiated. Look, I’m trying to find a bright side here. I don’t WANT to believe that representatives of the party I give my very very small amount of money to would do this willingly.
Between this and homeopathy and scientology and the various other assaults of woo going on at the moment, I think I’m going to need to build a Wicker Evan Harris to sacrifice people to the Gods in soon… 😉
You may wish to see my proposed draft motion on Freedom, creativity & the internet which I’d originally proposed back in January. Graham Watson MEP was among those who had been prepared to back it but I didn’t find 10 conference reps within the deadline as I started rather late. See http://forum.libdemvoice.org/viewtopic.php?t=2664 .
If anyone wants to use the text as the basis of an emergency motion for the Spring Conference and can persuade enough conference reps to back it by midday on Tuesday 9 March, please do so.
My forum account is inactive, so can’t follow the link, but I’m always bemused by the inability of people to get 10 reps to sign something–you can either a) get your local party exec to endorse it or b) know more people.
But then I probably ought to know that not everyone has moved across country enough to know many many active members.
James, or someone else with access, can you give the proposed motion a butchers? Pretty sure we can rustle up a LP or ten reps fairly quickly (worth noting, not guaranteed I’ll be at conference but I’m still a rep).
Pretty good motion Obhi. I am a rep. Not sure if I will be there (unlikely) but if you need my sponsoring on it, the link on my name will take you to my website and you can contact me through there if you want.
Having looked at it, it looks like a perfectly decent motion but I’m not sure it qualifies as an Emergency Motion. It needs to consist of a “specific recent development which occurred after the deadline for submission of motions”. In this case the DEB certainly doesn’t qualify although obviously the Timendment does.
For it to stand a chance of getting past the conference committee you’ll have to refocus the motion. Even then you may struggle to get it prioritised.
For future reference, if you want signatures for a motion put it up on a public platform such as LDV, don’t hide it away on a webforum. Finding 10 signatories is a doddle; expecting them to find you is somewhat harder.
Thanks to Jock & James. . I’m not a rep and won’t be at the conference myself but I do know quite a few Lib Dem MEPs, MPs, Lords and activists. My local party (Sutton) wanted to have a debate before proposing such a potentially ‘controversial’ motion.
OK, here it is with a refocus on the amendment. Feel free to remix/mash up.
Motion: Freedom, creativity and the internet
Conference notes that, according to the party constitution: “We champion the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals, we acknowledge and respect their right to freedom of conscience and their right to develop their talents to the full. We aim to disperse power, to foster diversity and to nurture creativity.”
Conference further notes that:
a) the internet allows creators to make their work available to their audience and interact with them directly, without passing through traditional publishers or distributors, or collecting societies;
b) the focus of the Digital Britain Bill is on clamping down on illegal filesharing, rather than on nurturing creativity;
c) Lib Dem peers helped to introduce a last-minute web-blocking amendment to Clause 17 of the Digital Britain Bill, contrary to simply deleting, as had previously been announced. The amendment also amends copyright law and means that websites, including those which may legally be distributing free content, could be blocked at the request of rights holders. Many online posts have questioned whether the Lib Dems can keep their civil liberties credentials as a result of the amendment;
d) the effect of the Digital Britain Bill is likely to be to discourage filesharing of any kind, even if it is legal;
e) the main challenge for independent creators is obscurity rather than illegal copying or filesharing;
f) business models whose revenues go directly to creators, and not largely to middle-men such as traditional publishers, distributors or collecting societies, risk being stifled by legislative efforts to enforce copyright to protect the traditional business model of these middle-men;
Conference condemns the threat to the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals from the monitoring of their internet activity and the potential termination of their internet connections.
Conference therefore calls on the leadership of the Liberal Democrats to:
1. Oppose Clause 17 of the proposed Digital Britain Bill and other regulatory attempts to monitor and limit internet access.
2. Take steps to disperse power, foster diversity and nurture creativity by ensuring a level playing field between the traditional, copyright-based business model and alternative business models which may rely on personal copying and legal filesharing.
3. Ensure that the business models of creators who do not rely on copyright enforcement are not regulated out of existence.
It’s not necessary to take James Blessing’s word for the fact that ISPs can’t prevent their customers accessing websites. The Internet Watch Foundation’s own site states quite clearly:
People clearly are “actively seeking” copyright infringing material, so attempting to prevent that by technical means will simply promote the use of the simple techniques that allow them to disable all protective and preventive measures provided by their ISPs.
I agree with Alex Wilcock’s views above and am unhappy about the Lords amendment. I spent a decade working as a librarian, including managing the library’s compliance with copyright, and the last decade working for a software house that supplies highvalue proprietary software – and I still don’t like the amendment.
It may be a well-intentioned attempt to soften Labour legislation but its effects are bad. I also think it’s bad politics. Most people don’t care about this issue and those who do know and care about it think this amendment is totally wrong! LibDem Lords have a great track record, with lots of examples of good amendments to lousy laws; this is not one of them. I think both Tims are good eggs, but wrong on this issue.
To those saying they won’t vote LibDem again, I say this. Look at the stance of the candidates in your seat, who can win under our electoral system (sorry Pirate Party), and judge accordingly. What you want are as many MPs as possible in the next Parliament who are not going to support such measures, of whom I am one.
Bridget Fox, PPC Islington South & Finsbury
I’ve written more about it – and included Cory Doctorow’s comments to me – here http://tinyurl.com/y9ltfvj
What angers me about this is the extent to which Tim Clement-Jones’ position appears to be based on an ignorance of what he’s legislating on. As I pointed out in my first comment, the amendment makes a very weak distinction between the site operator and the service provider, and from the transcripts I’ve read of the debate, it appears that Tim isn’t particularly aware of this distinction at all. Now, I don’t expect a typical Lord to know anywhere near as much about the internet as the typical Lib Dem Voice commenter, but I expect them to be able to find someone to explain these things to them before they start writing laws.
This post sets out a fairly even-handed treatment of what has happened and accurately captures the sense of bewildered despair at the party’s behaviour on this matter. Personally, I’m at a loss to understand it, and can only assume that some combination of ignorance and misguided somethingmustbedonery has caused Lord Clement-Jones to overreach both his understanding of the issues and his support within the membership of the party. I can well understand that he thinks that he’s done the right thing in getting rid of the old clause 17, and I agree that this is an achievement. If only the replacement were better thought-out, we might be saluting a triumph instead of despairing at a missed opportunity.
I’ve written to Clement-Jones asking him to point out to me the sub-clause in which it is required that the site operator be contacted before the injunction is sought. Sure others are doing similar/related.
Mike Scott’s point is also a really good one and well worth putting individually to the Tims if anyone has the time. (Let’s face it, they’re not going to read this thread).
The two Tim’s have sold the party down the river – there was obviously *no* consultation with the industry or the party, and not only is the amendment ill-considered and badly drafted, but they missed many opportunities to either get it kicked out wholesale (as there are precisely 0 redeeming features of the DE Bill) or remove all the new bullying tactics available to Racketeers like the BPI and RIAA.
There was nothing liberal about the amendment – and they failed to add anything related to our campaign slogan of freedom and fairness – where was the protection against the sort of C&D bullying that sees hosts remove websites without a basic fact-check on receiving a form letter from solicitors, or protection against software patents that are harming our IT (and other) industry ?
What about fair use rights, or fairer arbitration so that a few downloaded mp3 worth less than a record company lawyer spends on a pair of socks aren’t valued in court at thousands of pounds?
Our frontbench in the lords has failed the public and alienated voters and party members.
Aaron, your analysis is sadly, the logical conclusion that most who understand the issues will come to.
I’ve just posted a comment on Bridget Fox’s blog that suggests an alternate, but unlikely possibility:
Alex Wilcock puts it extremely well above. And the bill as a whole is not something Lib Dems in either chamber should be supporting; not that the law doesn’t need updating, but this text needs ripping up and starting again. I’m sure the balance of sentiment in the party as a whole is not that far off the universal criticism in these comments – I look forward to an emergency motion at Birmingham.
Unfortunately, this amendment is even worse than the original proposal. Lord Clement-Jones explains that his amendment is intended to attack “web-lockers,” such as YouSendIt and RapidShare:
The idea that web-lockers should be blocked nationwide by court order is a bad idea:
1. Web-lockers are useful for more than piracy. I routinely use web-lockers for my own business and personal affairs. When I need to send a large video of my daughter playing to my parents, a web-locker is the simplest way of doing this. Web-lockers are also a vital part of how I produce my audiobooks and podcasts, since they allow me to privately share large pre-release audio-files with readers, editors and publishers. Web-lockers are also how I communicate with my attorneys and accountants for transmission of sensitive documents, such as scans of my passport and bills.
2. The reason web-lockers are useful for piracy is because they support privacy. The entertainment industry’s principle objection to web-lockers is that their contents are private, and cannot be readily survielled by copyright enforcement tools. When I send a video of my daughter in the bath to her grandparents, the only people who can download that video are the people who have access to the private URL for the locker. This is the same mechanism that infringers use to avoid detection: upload an infringing file and share the URL with friends. You can’t fix the web-locker problem without attacking the right of Internet users to privately share large files with one another.
3. The establishment of a national blocklist is itself a bad idea. Creating a facility whereby ISPs can be compelled to block entire websites is a bad idea on its face. The security problems raised by such a facility are grave (a hijacker could use it to block the BBC, or Parliament, or Google), and the temptation to extend this facility for use in other civil actions, (say, libel) will be great. Also, as my friend Lilian Edwards has pointed out, the LibDem proposal does not stipulate how long sites must be blocked for, nor what the procedure is for unblocking them.
4. There is no evidence that this will work. Dedicated infringers have shown a willingness and capability to use technologies such as proxies to evade firewalls. These proxies — many of them legitimate businesses at home and abroad — are cheap and easy to use, and make it trivial to evade ISP-level filtering. However, “good guys” (small traders, individuals wishing to share private material with friends and family) should not have to bear the expense and difficulty of evading the Great Firewall of Britain to do legitimate business on the net.
5. This is bad for the nation. The only country to enact anti-web-locker legislation to date is South Korea, which brought in a similar measure to the LibDem proposal as a condition of its Free Trade Agreement with the USA, whose IP chapter focused largely on locking down the Korean Internet. In the time since the US-Korea FTA, Korea has slipped badly in the global league tables for ICT competitiveness, going from being a worldwide leader in technology to an also-ran.
I have sent a version of these comments to both of the LibDem peers using ORG’s Write to Them links. I hope you’ll get in touch with them, too. This is a grave blunder for the supposed “party of liberty,” especially on the eve of a national election.
Hadn’t thought of it being a “wrecking amendment” but they are not uncommon, especially in the House of Lords; send the bill back in a form they think nobody can possibly support and so on. And of course you cannot let on that it *is* a wrecking amendment, if it is, or it will fail in its aims.
That said, even if it were, it would have been well for the party to have taken a position opposing the entire premises of the bill which of course it has not done (indeed has done the opposite so far as I can see pronouncements from Don and co over the past few weeks).
I’ve been a LibDem voter for many years but you’ve totally lost my vote this time.
You failed to come up with any clear position on this when it was essential that you did (indeed, as far as I can tell from Don Foster et al, you’re more or less in support of it).
That this is some kind of “wrecking amendment” doesn’t wash with me at all. The notion that this amendment will not pass more or less unscathed through the Commons is absurd.
Way to alienate our target demographic, here. This morning finds me feeling rather ashamed of us.
Could someone explain how this works from a Party policy standpoint?
As I understand it, the Lords are whipped. Does that imply that this amendment is official LibDem policy, or is m’Lord C-J making it up on his own behalf?
If it’s the former, then the LibDems (and Nick Clegg specifically) have just thrown my vote away. If it’s the latter, what options are available to bring the Lords into line so this kind of thing doesn’t happen again?
I would think Don Foster is the person steering parliamentary tactics on this bill.
I am afraid I find these proposals chilling and disturbing. The idea of blocking remote archiving and file transfer sites – that I use frequently for totally respectable applications – is absurd. The illegal file-sharers will get around this in an instant by using proxies and other techniques, while ordinary people will simply have internet functionality taken away.
These measures help to limit Britain’s ability to develop digital businesses and services to take our economy into the next stage of development. Many people are now able, thanks to modern technology, to exploit their own creativity and create video, writing, audio, internet radio and much more. It is activities like this, with many small creators in locations all over the country, collaborating on projects without having to be in the same county, transferring files to work on them and so on, that will be most hit by absurd blocks like this. Measures of this type strangle the development of a new digital economy – and for whose benefit? For the benefit of old-style media moguls who cannot think beyond how to stop people doing new things when their time has passed.
Our party in particular should not be in thrall to these dark lords. We expect it of the others, that they will be driven to serve the goals of big business at the expense of individual liberty and artisanry. We do NOT expect it of the Liberal Democrats.
I have been a member of the Liberal democrats for several years, as has my wife, and we have both been active supporters of our local party and have stood in local elections. As a result of this current absurdity we are considering LEAVING THE PARTY and if we do so, we will do our utmost to ensure that our friends and colleagues do likewise. I notice from other comments here that many members are thinking the same.
I am a member of the Liberal Democrats because I value the party’s traditional stances in a number of policy areas, including personal freedom. I am most dismayed to see us moving away from these into Tory territory. I did not join the LibDems to become a proxy Tory. Please reconsider this position immediately: we are not only shooting ourselves in the foot; we’re aiming for the heart.
For those that have access, Aaron Trevena has a “Lib Dems for some decent IT policy” group on ACT which includes a letter to sign asking for a shadow spokesperson and a working group.
It mentions the DEBill, but it’s more a future thing obviously. What we need if we’re to stop our credibility on this going completely down the tube, is the IT equivalent of Evan Harris to get elected and lead the charge. *looks pointedly at Martin Tod*
Also, can I suggest Obhi submits the emergency motion text as an article to LDV so’s we can comment on it as a separate exercise, and leave this thread running for general comment? Better out here than in the forum because then non-members can have input.
The EM deadline is next Tuesday.
Who is this guy and why is he representing the Liberal Democrats? Here are some of Lord Clement Jones outside interests, from: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldreg/reg06.htm
CLEMENT-JONES, Lord
*12(b) Parliamentary lobbying
Partner of DLA Piper (international law firm) and adviser to its global government relations practice.
The member is paid £70,000 in respect of his services as Co-Chairman of DLA Piper’s global government relations practice
The member acts personally for TransMedics Inc, a medical technology manufacturer
The member acts personally for Eli Lilly and Company, the pharmaceutical manufacturer
The member acts personally for University of Cambridge Local Examination Syndicate
The member acts personally for Raytheon Company a defence and homeland security technology company
Whose interests is he really representing here?
…ooh, and surprise surprise, according to their website. Clement-Jones’ employers, DLA Piper, have:
“one of the largest groups of IP lawyers in the world… When disputes arise, your commercial objectives are our main concern… Our IP experience includes IP litigation as well as representation in areas such as applications, prosecution, and filings for patents, trademarks, and copyrights… The ability to advise on all aspects of technology law expands the efficiencies and breadth of service for our clients – we offer advice on all related IP matters such as advertising and promotion law, data security, digital media content, e-commerce/Internet transactions, and privacy protection. We also help develop compliance programs in response to new corporate policies or national and local government regulations, including IP, privacy, or quality control audits.
Wherever you are, and whatever your industry, you need people you can trust to meet your IP business objectives…
Absolutely clear cut conflict of interest here. This is just so unbelievably blatant.
There are two problems with this Amendment:
1) It will not have the desired effect on copyright infringement.
Independent experts will tell you that dedicated infringers can use technologies such as anonymous proxies, virtual private networks and onion-routing to get around any blocking mechanism employed by ISPs. These tools are widespread in other countries that censor the Internet, such as China, Iran and Australia. Only law-abiding yet technically-ignorant net-users will be disadvantaged, i.e. the general public.
2) Censorship is wrong in principle (make no mistake – censorship is what this amendment will mean.)
The Carter Ruck case and the expenses scandal remind us that sometimes people publish information on the web that the state and/or powerful corporations would like to keep secret. The proposed measures would give the Government and rights-holders the ability to force ISPs to block any content they don’t like. This would be an unprecedented attack on individual liberty, press freedom and freedom of expression.
Surely a party that calls itself liberal should be fighting against censorship, repression and state control, not facilitating it. If this bill passes into law I’ll be forced to reconsider my membership.
DLA Piper have acted for, and lobbied on behalf of, the RIAA and MPAA in the past.
And having worked there, I can guarantee that whatever understanding of technology m’Lord may have, he didn’t pick it up via his employers…
My reading of the bill (and the amendment) is that it starts with a misunderstanding of who creates content in the internet age and how. If large publishers were the *only* significant source of new content, then it all makes sense. However, as most comments on here recognise, it’s actually a bit more complicated than that. One example – in my own workplace I commission educational exhibitions. I use web-lockers to exchange proofs of large images with external freelance designers and writers. The content is created collaboratively, and we rely on the privacy these services offer to make sure that only the final version (with all the embarrassing errors removed!) becomes public. This is a microcosm of work within the UK creative industries which rely on cheap (or free), reliable and secure digital infrastructure. Removing elements of this, or making it prohibitively expensive, damages UK competitiveness. This is before considering non-commercial activity and issues of social justice. I’m not a party member, but I desperately want to be able to support you at the election. However, actions like this serve to confirm the Liberal Democrats as the “almost, but not quite” party once again. Tragic.
To be fair, Richard, one of the foremost libertarian campaigners *against* intellectual property law, Stephan Kinsella, of whose pamphlet “Against Intellectual Property” I recently recorded an audiobook is…you guessed it, a US patent attorney. So it’s not necessarily an indicator of one’s personal position.
It is also plausible that the one thing the incumbent copyright and patent monopoly exploitation industry fears the most is an ascendant Liberal Democrat party. What better than to have a fifth columnist put the party’s name to one of the most draconian and illiberal bills yet?
It’s now a lose-lose situation for the LibDems. They can’t ameliorate the amendment or that demonstrates it was intentional (albeit faulty). They can’t retract it as that demonstrates they’re so disorganised they’re unelectable. If they stand by it verbatim, they’re seen as illiberal and undemocratic (representing corporations instead of people). If they claim it was a wrecking amendment the Tories will be first to claim that glory.
There may a better damage limitation strategy…
“They can’t retract it as that demonstrates they’re so disorganised they’re unelectable.”
Well then, frankly, so be it. Better than bad law. There are good, liberal people in this party, electable people. And most of the policy commitments are sensible and costed and liberal. But ultimately it’s our collective fault, from Clegg to me, that we’ve let this sort of ignorance get this far in such a crucial area, and if it scuppers our other efforts then tough. We didn’t work hard enough. Don Foster, amongst others, needs to be willing to tear down what he thinks he knows about his portfolio and be taught right back up again.
(I love the idea that it’s a wrecking amendment, but I’m afraid only a geek would find this amendment *obviously* impossible to pass :-/ Based on everything else I know about Foster, and about parliament’s grasp of the internet in general, it’s not.)
Jock: “one of the foremost libertarian campaigners *against* intellectual property law, Stephan Kinsella, of whose pamphlet “Against Intellectual Property” I recently recorded an audiobook is…you guessed it, a US patent attorney. So it’s not necessarily an indicator of one’s personal position.”
Sure – but the guy does get paid £70,000 a year by a firm that would stand to gain a great deal from the state having more sweeping powers to suppress real-or-imagined copyright infringements. Call me uncharitable, but when it’s this blatant it does seem reasonable to wonder if there might be a connection…
He’s right that this is going to be bad press either way, though. The MSM characterise us as always infighting anyway. What gets me is that we have resources like the Lib Dem technology board, which is stuffed with people who would know what they are talking about on this issue, and they weren’t consulted.
Richard, I was only *trying* to find a way to put a charitable spin on it!
I think some of Kinsella’s main clients are even “patent farmers” whom he ought to loathe more than most! But if TC-J were of the same opinion, he could never have proposed such an amendment. The DEB for an anti-IP campaigner ought to be an opportunity to open up that whole debate, not agree with the rights holders and find new ways of protecting them. So I find it highly unlikely that my attempt to be charitable hits the right target in this case!
Alix, I’m highly skeptical it was an intentional wrecking amendment, especially given the background of the proposing Lord. That doesn’t prevent the LibDems winning back ‘geek support’ in the unlikely event they can demonstrate it was intentional, that actually it was only through carefully fostered ties with the IP maximalists (via DLA piper) that they could be persuaded that this (faux naive) liberal ‘compromise’ amendment should have their support.
Anyway, despite the fact that making Mandelson a law maker could be worse in theory (if he’s not as philanthropic as we’re led to believe), there’s nothing like a draconian amendment in bold, black ink to galvanise horror at a clear and present danger – in contrast to mere misgivings that harsh law may yet be enacted by a less than scrupulous secretary of state.
The shit has hit the fan.
I think the only way the party can save face in this situation is to revoke Lords Razzle and Clement Jones’ memberships. They have clearly shown themselves to not be liberals and so have no place in this party.
And wearing one of my many hats, Council Member & Chair of Broadband Subgroup of ISPA
==
ISPA Outraged by Amendment on Network Level Blocking to Digital Economy Bill
4th March – ISPA is outraged that amendment 120A to the Digital Economy Bill was voted through in the House of Lords yesterday. Whilst we appreciate the concern of opposition front benches to clause 17, we regret that this amendment has been hastily constructed and rushed through at report stage without due consideration of the implications or consultation with the interested parties that would be affected. In the words of Shadow Secretary of State for Culture Jeremy Hunt “trying to rush through controversial powers at the tail end of a Parliament is simply no way to make law and not something we will be supporting”.
The many associated legal, technical and practical issues have simply not been debated in nearly enough depth. For a policy of such gravity, this is negligent.
Lord Clement-Jones noted in proposing his amendment that the courts in fact already have the power under 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act to grant an injunction requiring ISPs to block access to sites that contain unlawful copyright content. S97a strikes an appropriate balance between the interests of different parties and leaves the court free to consider each claim on its merits and independently of other factors. Amendment 120A, however, abandons this balance, introduces a bias in favour of one party (rightsowners) and limits the court’s discretion to judge each case on its merits. There is no “equality before the law” as his Lordship suggests.
ISPA is particularly disappointed that the Lords supporting this amendment draw parallels with the model of network-level blocking administered by the Internet Watch Foundation. The suggestion that a framework developed to fight against the distribution of criminal images of child sexual abuse is appropriate to tackle allegations of civil copyright infringement is incomprehensible.
This amendment is misjudged and disproportionate and this Bill is a wholly inappropriate place to introduce this debate. Other countries have explored similar policy options but surfaced these concerns and focused their policy debate accordingly on the most egregious content offences in the cases where the policy has progressed at all. ISPA has been a long term advocate against any form of network level blocking as it ineffective when applied to content that people are actively searching for and believes the Peers behind this amendment should consider the available research, which supports this view.
Nicholas Lansman, ISPA Secretary-General, said, “ISPA has been supportive of Peers’ excellent scrutiny of the Bill to date. However, in this instance, our members are extremely concerned that the full implications of the amendment have not been understood and that the reasoning behind the amendment is wholly misguided. We would therefore urge the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to urgently reconsider their position and vote against this amendment.”
For more information contact [email protected].
-ends-
Obhi, I am a Lib Dem conference representative, and would be happy to sign your emergency amendment. I’ll post to the forum too.
To other people wondering why there was insufficient support for the earlier motion, it was only posted up hours before the deadline for normal motions.
*cough!* *cough!* Michael Brown donation *cough!*
Are these amendments the policy of the LibDem party, or just these particular industry shills? Are there any parties out there that actually represent the people, instead of big businesses?
Jennie, “What gets me is that we have resources like the Lib Dem technology board, which is stuffed with people who would know what they are talking about on this issue, and they weren’t consulted.”
That’s because we don’t have a Technology board or a working group or a spokesperson, I know this because I’ve been campaigning (in between commitments like work and family) for one for a couple of years… all we have is Lynne and her pet geeks (barely paraphrasing her own words) that are NOT about policy but purely electioneering.
It shows how very wrong the priorities are within the party.
Jennie, is the Lib Dem technology board full of clever people? I’ve heard nothing about it since I volunteered to be a member many moons ago.
It seems to me that it’s another situation where we’ve done the wrong thing – tried to impose some top-down heirarchy on something rather than just let people get on with it. A Lib Dem members-only version of SourceForge would be a great way to let Lib Dems collaborate on projects together; we already have the LDV forums for people to discuss policy.
Anyway, that’s getting a little off-topic for this debate, but it’s kind of indicative of ways in which the party has failed to harness the power of Internet-based collaboration – which is the sort of mindset that leads to amendments like this.
Please, anyone who’s either resigning from or not voting for the Lib Dems as a result of this: don’t give up hope. Not immediately, at least.
History is littered with well-meaning but horribly ill-informed actions by individual peers, in particular, but it’s not the whole Lib Dem party that’s let everybody down here – and there are ways the rest of the party might be able to save the situation.
First, what can you do from home? Get in touch with Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat Leader; Lord Tom McNally, Liberal Democrat Leader in the Lords; and Baroness Ros Scott, Liberal Democrat President. Tell them why this is wrong. The two Tims may even return to read this page, too, and change their minds – I’m sure they did not intend to bring the party into disrepute.
I’m hoping to find out who the Lib Dem IT Spokesperson in the House of Commons is, so that people can press Lib Dem MPs to vote against when the Bill moves to there.
And there are also letters to party newspaper Liberal Democrat News in the offing, along with – perhaps more importantly – potential emergency motions and other ways of raising the issue which are being planned for Lib Dem Spring Conference in a week in the hope of getting the party as a whole to take a more Liberal position.
Don’t judge us on the basis of two guys getting it wrong. We might still be able to persuade the Lib Dems to turn against it in the House of Commons by making them better-informed.
And if even that fails, it’s time to contact Danny Alexander and all the other members of the party’s Policy Committee to get a commitment against Internet censorship into the Manifesto.
Alex,
“I’m hoping to find out who the Lib Dem IT Spokesperson is” ha ha ha ha!
We don’t have one, there is nobody qualified and the cabinet don’t take the subject seriously.. trust me, after a couple of years trying to do exactly that I’ve come up empty – we don’t have a working group and LibDemsOnline fizzled out in 2003 after a fairly bland and unimaginative motion was passed at that years conference.
The “Technology board” that Jennie mentioned is purely for electioneering purposes not to provide expertise or policy, nor make recomendations to LD local goverment or other.
If you have any luck finding anybody in the Commons or Lords with some qualifications for such a role I’d be glad to hear it, especially as I think the two Tim’s have shown they are so poorly briefed and not afraid to put the interest of their clients/employers above party and nation (not unlike a certain patent lawyer and MEP of ours in Herts who has done the same in the EP)
Mike Scott was right on the money when he said this, if you pardon the pun.
What on earth was Lord Clement-Jones thinking of when backing that aspect of the amendment? One can only assume he was persuaded that ISPs ought normally to be blocking whatever the rights holders ask, and that they should only be able to refuse in utterly extreme cases of manifest error. Otherwise why tilt the scales in favour of the rights holder?
Surely this is not in the public interest, although it is exactly what the BPI and the MPA(A) have been lobbying so hard for.
“Don’t judge us on the basis of two guys getting it wrong” – I thought the Lib Dems were a party where things like this are discussed.
If not, then the problem is not restricted to two guys…
Where’s Richard Allan when you need him?
Alex, why would LibDems vote against the DEBill, now that they’ve tabled an amendment that supposedly makes it acceptable to them? They certainly can’t vote for the bill, but against their own amendment (restoring Mandelson’s career as copyright legislator).
The LibDems have been scuppered. They must vote for the amended DEBill and thus lose support from those who had been looking to them as the only party that might put the individual’s liberty before the corporation’s commercial privilege.
If the LibDems had been against the DEBill in any shape or form at the outset they could have won considerable support from the online, informed and well connected constituency, and as with Obama it could have swept the party into power at this forthcoming election.
Now, it’s simply going to be the people vs the corporately sponsored government. All three parties are now tarred with the same brush, all regarded as in hock to their corporate paymasters, bailing out their banker buddies with billions ‘borrowed’ from the public purse, leaving the next generation of taxpayers to foot the bill for an unseen aristocracy (how convenient a distraction the MPs’ expense embezzlement was).
The LibDems have an opportunity to turn away from the triumvirate. It’s probably now too late…
It *is* gong off topic I guess to discuss wider policy in this area. I have already aired my views on IP, but many of us have been viewing the internet as an *epoch changing* innovation, the likes of printing and steam engines, and for us not to have policy on that is astounding. The globalisation of communications that it has enabled is potentially a huge threat to states and governments and at the same time a huge opportunity for expanding freedoms. I remain convinced that it was the internet to which Richard Cobden must have been referring when he said that “peace will come to earth when people have more to do with each other and government less!”
I would be happy if our policy did say little but “we will protect that network from threats of monopolisation and censorship” and almost leave it at that, but we ought to recognise the future and have something to say about it. We are at a sort of a T-junction – and one route brings ever increasing freedom, the other a very bleak totalitarianism as states try to maintain control.
This goes way beyond the DEB of course, but it is not an auspicious start to that discussion we should have had years ago to be participating in and colluding with this draconian government’s ideas of where the future of control lies. The DEB is *their* outcome of their debate. We needed ours before now and cannot allow it to be made up as we go along.
Alex W is right. Not voting Lib Dem won’t help. Electing a new generation of Lib Dem MPs who are clued up about technology and committed to liberalism will. I refer you to the future Hon Member for Winchester among others….
“I refer you to the future Hon Member for Winchester among others….”
True. But I wouldn’t expect people to vote Lib Dem on a promise. I think the onus is on us who are already here to push creation of the structure Aaron is suggesting.
Also. Richard Allan has images from the Tres Riches Heures de Duc de Berry on his site. BRING THIS MAN BACK AT ONCE.
(A quick reminder about our moderation policy – in particular, in the light of one comment moderated today, making accusations that someone has broken the law.)
The fallout where “LibDems become renamed as IllibUndems” has already begun:
E.g. Lib Dems scupper Clause 17 of the Digital Economy Bill.
And that’s putting the LibDems in a good light.
You’re in deep doo-doo once the great unwashed digerati get hold of this.
Indeed – we’ve apparently (it was shortly before I joined the party) asked people to vote for us on a promise that we’d oppose software patents in the past, and failed to do that when it came to the crunch in Brussels.
This bill is balderdash – it is well on the slippery slope of censorship and totalitarianism – copyright infringement is a civil offence and long may it remain so – what various laws and governments are trying to do is criminalize it by the back door. Lord Clement-Jones should not take part in this debate – he draws a salary of £70,000 to serve as Co-Chairman of law firm DLA Piper’s global government relations practice. DLA Piper is “one of the largest groups of IP lawyers in the world” and has “acted for, and lobbied on behalf of, the RIAA and MPAA in the past”. (and that is from this web site)
In an Open Letter to the LibDems Felix Cohen asks “What are you playing at?”
Damage limitation?
Apologise for the failure to properly brief the lord valiantly proposing the amendment to remove the bill’s far reaching powers, and that this embarrassingly pre-empted the party’s intention to denounce the Digital Economy Bill as illiberal, undemocratic, and anathema to The Party’s manifesto.
This is madness. These Lords clearly have no understanding of the Internet. Won’t be voting for Lib Dems now.
I’ve looked through it and through it and I can’t find the same level of problems you all do. You seem to presume that this can’t already be done (it can, with less safeguards) and that the problems that come from it are born solely of this legislation rather than from an already established way of dealing with claims such as copyright infringement and libel.
This legislation achieves two things, it tightens up what was already a relaxed law, and it removes clause 17. It doesn’t in it’s language suggest that a company will ever be able to censor whole sites, and where it fails it is no worse than other more abhorrent parts of the same bill.
I think you Lib Dem’s have an interesting internal debate to have, but publicly for the state of this bill I think we need to move on and get back on track…and that is now lobbying our MPs like hell over the REAL problems in the bill: Three (technically zero) strikes, government registrar take over, and lack of court involvement in decisions/punishment.
John,
Perversely now is the time to get involved if you want a party worth voting for in may.. there are several emergancy motions on key liberal issues being put forward to specialist groups on drugs and IT and there is now widespread support for sorting out IT policy with a proper working group and shadow spokesperson.. so if we can get this bill quoshed and the working group in place then it will be a net win… of course it could all ammount to nothing.. and in that case expect hundreds or thousands of members to quit the party before the election.
I’m happy to help in drafting party digital economy policy if someone would like to give me an email address or person to write to offer support. I’m in fulltime employment and in NW Cambs so need meetings to be virtual. I can also suggest some people who would be good consultants on the subject.
I’ve just returned to the LibDems last week,a fter a period away. I suspect I’ll be off again now – what on *earth* did you think you were doing? It’s perfectly clear that you simply don’t understand this stuff – so in future, please just keep your lordly nose out.
Yours disappointedly.
It’s now a day since this was posted, there are over 100 comments, and Tim Clement-Jones has not been along to address any of the serious issues raised here. Do you intend to actually have a dialogue with the voters on this website, or is it merely a mouthpiece for dissemination of the Holy Writ according to the Lib Dems?
Lee, if this had been the ERBill (‘extraordinary rendition bill’) setting out measures for collecting terrorist suspects for questioning at dedicated facilities and a LibDem lord had proposed an amendment that instead of the secretary of state being able to define what constituted torture vs intense interrogation, the latter should simply be defined as “anything not contributing to loss of limb, vital organ, or life within a year of questioning”, then this would lead people to conclude that the LibDems had lost their way (never mind how great it is that they prevented the grant of arbitrary power to define torture).
The DEBill and its apparent support by the LibDems with an explicitly draconian amendment leads people to the same conclusion.
It’s about the LibDems effectively supporting a bill that enables anyone in receipt of a press privilege granted by Queen Anne in the 18th century to shut down anyone’s website from public view on a mere accusation of infringement of their monopoly. They don’t even have to show a basis for suspicion. If any copyright holder decides they don’t like your site. Voom! Gone! Unless you’re particularly wealthy, as most of the media conglomerates are…
It’s just like witchcraft. Don’t like someone? Accuse them of practising witchcraft. They’re gone (unless they’re well connected or such an accusation would be preposterous).
The LibDems shouldn’t even be countenancing the possibility that this turd of a bill could be polished into sanitary goodness, let alone amending its shape into something a little less unwholesome.
Throw it out.
What started as something wrong and a vote loser now has potential to be a good advertisement for the democratic nature of this possible.
In Labour or the Tories, could the Party Conference take a vote to stop two peers making such a big mistake? Undoubtedly not.
Anthony,
It’s a good test of the new libdem act social network – the “Lib Dems for Decent IT Policy” group now has 60 members (tripled in 48 hours) and will soon be one of the largest groups.
We hope to bring LDO back to life, organise a response to the DE Bill in an open letter signed by > 100 party members (and hopefully some non-party experts too), an emergancy motion for the spring conference and eventually form a formal working group and establish a shadow cabinet row for a spokesperson on ICT.
Of course it could easily end up being ignored by the party HQ and leadership.. but it’s a good reason to get involved and give it a go before tearing up your membership card and quiting the party.
@Lee, I can’t support a Lib Dem amendment because it’s a slight improvement on something *Labour* want to do. I’d have thought you’d be just the sort of unaffiliated thoughtful chap who’d have harsh words to say if I did, and quite rightly.
I also can’t blame the majority of commenters here for not understanding the nuances of parliamentary arithmetic. Of course, Clement-Jones had the opportunity in this piece to explain both what his clause replaced and the negotiation process that produced his amendment, but he has done neither. He’s baldly set out a stall in favour of his amendment, and reaction is proportionate to that (in fact he’s done what a lawyer does, and argued a case rather than explaining what’s actually going on). If we can’t do better than this, either in substance or in communication, then I think we deserve the kicking.
He or someone also appears to have made a poor job of the drafting. His stated intentions here do not appear to me to reflect what the amendment actually says – and that’s a complaint we usually find ourselves making about Labour’s legislation. Saying, as you do, that the language doesn’t suggest it can be misused flies in the face of our experience of most legislation since 1997, all of which we were assured would never be misused.
However, I entirely take your point that the only way is forward now. On that note, Richard Elen and others may want to look at Aaron Trevena’s group on ACT where there’s a discussion on getting a working group together.
As if to underline my second para:
“Throw it out”.
We don’t have the numbers to throw anything out of anywhere. That’s the lot of the third party, unfortunately.
I wonder if it’ll work any better than Aaron’s attempts on LiveJournal and e-mail lists to get a working group together.
Bleh, I should probably get round to joining ACT at some point, but I want proof that there’s some point in doing so before I put the effort in…
Alix, numbers come from the people, money comes from the corporations.
I suggest the tide is turning and the people at this juncture could well stampede to a party that exhibited an intention to represent them, instead of the pursuit of money to buy their affection.
Alix: I don’t support this amendment either, but I don’t think it’s worthy of this amount of ire either. It does, at it’s core, strengthen people’s rights compared to pre-existing legislation, not derogate them. People are losing sight of that. There is the worrying thing about why a Lib Dem would want to shut down entire cyber lockers (as per Cory’s point) which infringes on the majority for the actions of a minority, but that is most certainly an internal issue.
I take people’s points that the legislation provides nothing as to the length of an injunction, how it can be reversed, appealed, etc…I can’t find anything that corresponds in the original Copyright law either, and I am all for strong and clear worded legislation (of which this doesn’t reach perfection), but the process here is put in the hands of the court with enough lee-way on terminology that the bigger question is… “Can we trust the courts to ensure our rights aren’t infringed while tackling Copyright infringement”.
A lot of the vitriol about this revolves around big site censorship, which the Originators of this amendment have clearly stoked through this explanation, however if we are all sitting here believing that a) ISPs will roll over and let whole domains be censored (against their current behaviour) and b) Courts will fail to take in to account the legal usage of those sites and the human rights we all have associated with that, then aren’t we ultimately not deriding the legislation as posed here which opens doors, but also the entire justice system that would allow such a thing to happen? The law is present right now for injunctions to be served, yet we haven’t had swathes of sites censored by ISPs scared of being charged too much. Mainly the action remains in the much easier to enforce/threaten area of web hosts and site owners.
After all, this is ultimately an international-only law, as no copyright holder in the UK is going to try and have UK wide censorship through the ISPs when they can go right to the source, in which case we have to ask is the *Current* law up to scratch in protecting the innocent from false claims, threats and corporate bullying?
The fact that I believe the current law isn’t up to scratch is why I think this whole bill should be canned, but there are bigger and more evil sections to crow about than this which, I repeat, as bad as you may see it is an improvement on the current law, if only by a little.
I also fail to see why a Lib Dem Lord amendment would stop a set of informed Lib Dem MPs voting against the bill which is at least 75% illiberal and over the top.
Lee, you’ve now put everyone at ease. All the flak the LibDems will get while this bill proceeds (possibly evening surviving the amendment to become legislation) can be ignored. It’s just a storm in a tea cup. A fuss raised for no good reason.
One can simply remain amused at the pitiful tweeting by people who don’t understand why they should still vote LibDem…
Mike Scott said:
To be fair, this site is not a “mouthpiece for dissemination of the Holy Writ according to the Lib Dems” but a voluntarily run, as the strapline says at the top of the page, “place to talk”. That said, if one thought it important to ask to put an explanatory piece up on a site like this one might also wish to look back and see the pigeons scattering at least!
Since this is a techie debate in the main, it’s more the equivalent of the Apple support discussion forums – peer support rather than Apple appointed support operatives. And as you can probably see, it’s like one of those Apple threads in which even the Apple loyalists get really annoyed with some bug or something and that nobody from the company is coming along to tell them when it will be fixed.
Nevertheless, as you will also see there is a lot of motivation to get something done about this, and who knows, in ten days’ time the headlines might be “Lib Dem members force U-Turn on DEBill” which would be, well, democracy in action if so. So I would suggest people suspend their decisions about how to vote or whether to remain a member at least until those avenues have been explored, as this is in reality the only mainstream party in which such a member-led U-turn could be forced in such short order.
Believe me, I have remained a member through an awful lot of policy with which I do not agree, but continue to vow to try and persuade them out of!
Crosbie: Indeed those 7 people are a terrible indication of the massive swing the Lib Dem’s will now lose towards the Greens or other independents. I’m sold.
Seriously though, it’s clearly an issue Clegg is going to have to contend with, and the way to do that is to vote against the bill in the commons.
I feel people don’t understand the process of legislation some times, and that’s understandable…but think back to when 28 days detention was made. Lib Dem’s and other liberals voted in such a way that 28 days was agreed (as opposed to 90) because if they didn’t there was a chance that if the legislation passed properly it would be even more illiberal. Unfortunately the way things work mean you sometimes need to suggest something slightly less illiberal to ensure the absolute worst thing can’t happen. With Clause 17 now gone, even in the worse case scenario of the bill being given Royal Assent, at least Clause 17 will be gone.
Is this ideal? Of course not, but I for one am happier and thankful that if this shower of shit bill gets all the way through that it won’t have lumps of corn in it too.
I come from a background of running ISPs and am an ISPA Council Member so I speaking from experience on these things, ISPs rely on mere conduit defence in many cases but are still chased about things outside of their control. Introducing this amendment will give an absolute route for right holders to make ISPs lives hell.
ISPs will implement blocks at the ‘most efficient level’, today there have been (afaik) no cases where content outside of the UK has been blocked for copyright reasons. Since a judge will probably not bother to identify the content at a level where it can be specifically filtered and just reference the ‘site’ where the content is hosted an ISP will block that domain and/or IP address so the level of collateral damage is expected to be high. With the IWF block list each entry is a specific URL so that the ISPs can block as little as possible, but the list is 4-500 long and as such means that there is very little damage.
Courts don’t understand the technical operation of the internet and the level of unintended consequences will be horrific and open to all sorts of abuse. As its worded the amendment seems to require a per ISP action to be taken, that means in operation that 300+ companies are going to have to be dragged into court for each piece of content that the rights holder wants blocked, and there are potential issues with restriction of trade if not all ISPs are summonsed…
The concept about this being ‘international only’ is also mislead, for one many UK based sites are hosted on non-UK servers (mostly for cost reasons) it is also a lot easier for a rights holder to follow this route, get the content blocked and then get round to talking to the host some point in the future…
This amendment doesn’t (deliberately) doesn’t limit itself to a particular type of content and as such it means *anything* that is copyrighted (for example the text I have written on this page) could be blocked (or requested to be blocked) I’ve already pointed out that the David Cameron spoofs that have the potential for being blocked by the original image holder..
I’m incredibly disappointed about the way the Lords have suddenly decided to do this, but having appeared before both apComms and HoL Science and Technology committees I can actually see why they thought this was a better way of doing things, when the correct answer was to remove the bits of the bill that gave the government the powers to block/disconnect.
If anyone does get anywhere towards some form of Tech Advisory Group then count me in
Amendment 120A has introduced what could be called the Pirate Bay-RapidShare clause. However, in both of these high profile examples, they are being taken to task through their local courts. It would be perverse to introduce UK legislation claiming it is necessary to cover deficits in other countries’ legislation, where those deficits do not exist.
I am not aware of Russia being especially well known for hosting ‘cyberlocker’ services, so I can only assume the reference to Russia relates to sites such as MP3sparks (formerly AllofMP3) that sell access to music. And, herein lies the issue. The clause refers to copyright infringement, but infringement on whose terms? It is with reference to UK copyright law. The Russian music websites came into existence due to the unique copyright law of that country, and are legal in Russia.
Any website in a country whose copyright law is not at least as restrictive as the UK’s in all respects is put at risk by this clause. A foreign site may host material that is completely lawful within its jurisdiction, because it has a strong fair use/fair dealing defence there. It may not enjoy that defence in the UK courts, and so is at risk of being blocked.
Similarly, copyright term length differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. A foreign site may provide access to historical works all of which are in the public domain within its jurisdiction. If a substantial proportion are not in the public domain in the UK, it is at risk of being blocked.
When those resident in the UK look out at the rest of the world using the Internet, should their view be filter through the lens of UK copyright legislation?
“The concept about this being ‘international only’ is also mislead, for one many UK based sites are hosted on non-UK servers (mostly for cost reasons)”
So it’s international only, for the purposes of trying to bring injunctions against a physical data store.
“it is also a lot easier for a rights holder to follow this route, get the content blocked and then get round to talking to the host some point in the future…”
To clarify, the law as it stands is against “Service providers”, this is not just ISPs, it is also web hosts and anyone that provides (for money) a service of data storage or transfer upon request by a customer. If they can go to you, as an ISP, and demand you block the website, they can go to the host and demand they take it down.
If I’m wanting to make a fuss, and both options are equally as viable under the law with the same process, then I know which I’m going to try and hit (the little guy that isn’t a major national ISP, for removal of doubt).
Lord Clement-Jones’ interview published a few minutes ago on ZDNet: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,1000000085,40070579,00.htm .
130 comments here in 24 hours and not one in favour of the amendment or the Bill. Two things I’d suggest instead of soul-searching any longer:
1) aim to have an emergency motion on Freedom, creativity & the internet discussed at the Spring conference (see http://act.libdems.org.uk/group/libdemsforsomedecentitpolicy, for a suggested text you might wish to reuse/remix/improve);
2) lobby Lib Dem MEPs to vote down the amended Digital Economy Bill at its Commons reading (Don Foster coordinates the policy line);
3) lobby Lib Dem Voice and ACT websites to switch to a wiki format with which we could all collaborate more easily than through trailing blog threads or discussion forums
Finally, well put Charles Marsh: “When those resident in the UK look out at the rest of the world using the Internet, should their view be filter through the lens of UK copyright legislation?” – Isn’t that the equivalent of what happens in China … ?
“To conclude, the Lib Dems are not seeking to censor the internet but are responding to genuine concerns from the creative industries about providing a process whereby their material can be satisfactorily accessed legally.”
Whilst you may not be seeking to seeking to censor the internet; your lack of understanding does not give much confidence you’ll not end up censoring the internet through a distinct lack of understanding.
From the introduction of tape in a cassette the ‘creative industries’ have studiously tried to do their King Canute best to block new technology; better that you didn’t make yourself their tool now.
Lee, people don’t need to understand the legislative process to know that:
a) Their social and working lives online are going to be interfered with by the copyright cartel even more than they already are (qv spurious take-downs of their posts to YouTube, etc.)
b) It’s all the fault of those incompetent LibDems who don’t know an ISP from a IP address, still think web pages are printed on paper by certified members of the Stationer’s Guild, and didn’t see anything moronic in granting them a ‘take-down-on-accusation’ privilege.
What causes so much wailing, hair pulling and gnashing of teeth is that unlike the other two parties the Lib Dems should have some fricking clue about the difference between the cultural liberty of the individual and the 18th century suspension of that liberty (to favour the press). Any political party that sides against the individual and their liberty can neither consider itself democratic nor liberal.
An illiberal undemocratic party pursues its mandate from publishing corporations to suppress the illicit cultural exchange of the proletariat.
Has anyone got a mirror?
“a) Their social and working lives online are going to be interfered with by the copyright cartel even more than they already are (qv spurious take-downs of their posts to YouTube, etc.)”
I think you both over-exaggerate how much copyright holders will go after people after this bill compared to before and underestimate how current law is used to do this already.
“b) It’s all the fault of those incompetent LibDems who don’t know an ISP from a IP address, still think web pages are printed on paper by certified members of the Stationer’s Guild, and didn’t see anything moronic in granting them a ‘take-down-on-accusation’ privilege.”
You’ll have to source that for me, because I’d love to read the comedy.
“Any political party that sides against the individual and their liberty can neither consider itself democratic nor liberal.”
Would you like to boil down the complex issue of competing liberalism in to any smaller and simpler soundbite, please?
Sadly I think Lord Clement-Jones knows exactly what he’s done. He’s produced an amendment that might as well have been written by a law company specialising in IP litigation. Which is surely no coincidence when he accepts tens of thousands of Pounds every year from… one of the biggest IP lawyer companies in the UK who have acted on behalf of RIAA and the MPAA. Even if this amendment was proposed with the best will in the world, it looks sleazy plain and simple and I find it hard to believe his Lordship cannot have seen that.
It’s a sad day for the LibDems when they’re actively trying to strangle free expression. Perhaps they’re hoping to be invited on to Geffen’s yacht with Mandelson next year?
If this amendment stands I’ll be taking my vote (in a LibDem marginal seat BTW) elsewhere. Is no one senior in the Party going to comment on this issue – if not here, then somewhere?
More unfettered big brother powers.
I won’t be voring for Lib Dems now.
Lord Clement-Jones’ interview published on ZDNet that Obhi linked to is definitely worth a read.
Lord Clement-Jones certainly seems keen to protect ‘rights’, however, I wonder if he knows or expects his audience to know the difference between a legally protected, natural right of the individual, such as the right to life or privacy, and a legally granted right (or privilege) enjoyed by corporations, such as copyright?
Here’s an excerpt from WikiPedia on Thomas Paine’s ‘Rights of Man’:
This is the clash we are witnessing today, between the rights of the individual and the privileges of the corporation.
I wonder if there are any lessons the Lib Dems could learn from history?
Can I just say that I just took a look at Crosbie Fitch’s website and recommend that it is exactly the sort of things that he is doing that we need to look into if we ever manage to shake off this current debacle and try and have a real debate about the future of “IP” and/or alternative ways of monetising creativity and innovation prior to any further attempt to legislate to support such a vision.
Crosbie Fitch said:
Exactly what I have been banging on about. These criticisms have been around of the “Liberal Party” at least since the mid nineteenth century when Herbert Spencer was complaining of “us” becoming the “New Toryism”.
I am really disappointed that this has the amendment 120a and the failure to successfully oppose the Digital Economy Bill.
You have to be ignorant to think censoring the internet is a good idea. Whether you’re providing legal redress for both parties or not — you’re not, small sites will have to comply to the mere _threat_. If this really is a situation like the US DMCA then already there’s been many many false positives and spurious allegations to, for example, YouTube. Where the alleged infringer has shown to be not guilty of infringing anything, what happens there hey?
It is important for any legislation in this area to properly represent the little guy on the street and not the large media interests.
There are so many situations that you don’t take into account. What about when there are no legal means to obtain some digital media? For instance an old game. What is a consumer supposed to do?
Simply shocked and disappointed.
What irritates me about this is judging from Tim’s initial post here, he was aware of the objections to this amendment before he pushed it through. There’s even a link to the ORG appeal page which cotains copies of letters I and other people sent to him explaining why this was such a flawed idea, which means he must have read them, but continued regardless. This gives the impression that he knew exactly what he was doing.
£70,000 per annum to sell out the country and undermine commercial potential is a really ‘cheap date’. As an earlier responder has already intimated – deduct one more supporter for the Liberal Democrats. This is totally outrageous!
I was going to vote LibDem in the forthcoming election.
After this farce, I’m not.
Talk about selling out on liberal principles.
I wonder where all these fickle ex-Lib Dem voters will be going…
@Lee
Ye-es. I did become a tad suspicious about a comment in the other thread which finished up with the commenter discovering the Greens and being saved.
“Amendment 120A makes an explicit reference to human rights implications being taken into consideration by the Courts whilst they consider the imposition of an injunction. Such a safeguard is paramount to our concerns.”
Tim – this is nonsense and the amendment says nothing of the sort. Human Rights concerns are only listed as one of several factors the courts should take into account. Nothing is said about the different weight that should be applied to the factors listed.
If you think they should be a paramount concern then the amendment should say so. eg with a further amendment along the lines of:
“(2) In determining whether to grant an injunction under subsection (1), the Court shall have particular regard for the importance of preserving human rights, including freedom of expression, and the right to property.”
Though I suspect the courts might not love you for evermore for asking them to make two conflicting rights the key consideration.
It’s a legal nonsense to include such a sub-section IMO. The court is already under such a duty under the Human Rights Act, which provides particular protection against injuctive relief for freedom of expression under s.12. You might just as well have drafted it to say “The courts shall consider such an application no differently to any other application”
In my area the next election choice the choice of keeping Labour or the Tories out is between the Green or the Lib-Dems. Lord clement-Jones idiocy has allowed me to choose.
Two updates:
– Some people may not have noticed that 25 Lib Dem PPCs have written an open letter to the Lords Tim asking for them to reconsider their approach (see sidebar)
– Also, from twitter I learn that Don Foster and Tim Clement-Jones are meeting with ORG as soon as possible.
In the event that this hideous mess is not resolved, I suggest those who understand that a free and open approach to technology and intellectual property is a requirement for economic success in the 21st century start preparing for the future.
Nick >> I am a member of Pirate Party UK but I see them as a political pressure group, just as the Greens were until recently. I know they had some success in Sweden but I think it will be a long time, if ever, until they are a viable party.
Would still like to find a mainstream party that I can support but I think I must just be a bit too liberal for any of them!
A naive and no doubt ignorant question from a non-geek.
Do the posters on this thread argue that a blind eye should be turned to internet piracy? Or, do they think that internet censorship is outrageous and that piracy is a much lesser evil? Or, that piracy is bad but there are better ways to deal with it? Or what?
My response is not a geek response, it’s a liberal response:
Intellectual Property is, per se, A Bad Thing and should not receive the state protection it gets. There are other ways of generating income from creativity and innovation that do not involve the injustices of IP, such as preventing others doing what they choose with their property, and which would in my opinion lead to a much broader spread of creators being able to make enough to live on and fewer making the ridiculously large sums of scarcity rent they do.
Now, I guess that doesn’t quite answer your question – the current situation is not right. People are, legally speaking, breaking the law, which, a little like any prohibition, causes widespread disrespect for the rule of law. Before we can frame any legislation to support creative and innovating industries, if any is necessary, we have to resolve the problems with IP itself, not merely accept the IP status quo and try to protect it.
My opinion is that the matter of copyright violation on the Internet is a lot more complicated than it may appear at first. However, even if copyright violation were a great evil which did cause serious financial harm to content creators (which is very debatable), the DEB won’t do much to prevent it.
The Internet is designed to “treat censorship as damage and route around it”, and people who are determined to violate copyright will be able to do so in ways which cannot be detected even by the most intrusive censorship and monitoring.
I’m honestly not sure that there are any technical means that will allow “good content” to flow around the Internet, and stop “bad content”. I think the way to tackle copyright violation is to try and compete with it – if people can get hold of content online conveniently, it seems that most people will be happy to pay a reasonable amount to acquire it legally.
@Davis Allen
Piracy is problem for the content industries but it is the result of a lack of a change in their business model that it exists in the first place.
As a consumer I still can’t download content from a large numbers of acts (including ACDC, The Beatles) which means that if I want that content then I have to buy it only on CD. As it stands the rules are that I *can’t* then take that audio and use it on my iPod (or other generic mp3 player) much as though many people do this.
Add to this the fact that the cost of a CD and the same album in digital format are near parity means that if I want a particular piece of music it becomes easier to fire a p2p client and download it from someone, this is wrong and I shouldn’t do it but it is the easiest thing to do to get what I want.
The creative industries repeatedly claim that if p2p was stopped today then they would miraculously find that the general public would spend the money on their content, what the research shows is that the people that download large amount of content actually spend *more* per capita on digital content than other users as they frequently sample content and if they like it then buy the material later.
Add to this that there is a generation of young people who have grown up with the simplicity of using p2p and sharing content and you can see why the creative industries are in uproar and demanding that ‘something be done’ (as long as it isn’t a change in their business practices), Until these companies are being run by a generation of people who understand that they must change and adapt then this argument will continue and ISP will be squeezed by both customers who want to use their connection without proper regard to the cost and the rights holder who want them to ‘protect them’.
On a separate note, part of the issue is the concept of network level blocking and the impact on the end to end principle that has allowed the internet to adapt and grow over time (if you want more on this argument go read this http://goo.gl/nkwl )
David Allen, for myself I can refer you to articles I’ve written on the subject of piracy.
Essentially, it comes down to how much thread you’re willing to unravel from the emperor’s 300 year old robe that is copyright. Some would preserve the emperor’s modesty, fearing to propose more than reform and perhaps a shortening of copyright’s term. Others would leave copyright as it is, but undo and call a halt to any other legislation providing more draconian enforcement, e.g. the DEBill.
David, like I mentioned above, Crosbie’s work looks very good – as well as those of us who make the arguments against IP as it stands, we need lots of people innovating different business models that could do without IP. But for the former I would commend to you the Against Monopoly website that has as contributors a good number of the most active evangelists against IP.
“what the research shows is that the people that download large amount of content actually spend *more* per capita on digital content than other users as they frequently sample content and if they like it then buy the material later.”
This is however a commercial reason why copyright holders (in some instances) should take a relaxed view to material being distributed without their approval and at no cost.
It doesn’t follow that there should be no legislation which allows copyright holders to enforce their rights. As an example I have produced several campaign guide books to help Liberal Democrats win elections. I actively don’t want those to be distributed freely as I only want Liberal Democrats to get them.
I’ve also produced stuff for legal subscriber services – again without any copyright protection they would be unable to market their services (basically publically available legislation with value added commentary).
At its core the idea of copyright and IP is that someone is entitled to benefit from the fruits of their labour. Whatever the flaws with the system we actually have now I think that is an important principle.
Hywel:
I’ll try telling that to the tax man next month and see what he says.
Equally, if one person is entitled to the “fruits of their labour” is not everyone else? When I buy something, it becomes the fruit of *my* labour. Yet IP would in that case prevent me from using the fruits of my labour, my property, however I choose.
It also prevents me using the fruits of my labour in terms of independent discovery if you, unbeknownst to me, discovered what I discovered first.
And it arbitrarily distinguishes between different types of discovery and creation – so philosophical, scientific and mathematical truths cannot be protected as IP no matter how hard and long one has worked to discover something.
All in all, there are sufficient problems with it, to have to ask whether the benefits granted by the state to one person really justify the costs to others, and that if there are models of monetising your creations without such state aid, we should do without IP laws.
“It doesn’t follow that there should be no legislation which allows copyright holders to enforce their rights. As an example I have produced several campaign guide books to help Liberal Democrats win elections. I actively don’t want those to be distributed freely as I only want Liberal Democrats to get them.”
Is that really a copyright issue? If anyone that was a Lib Dem knew of the partisan benefits to not copying, and could get the copy for free by being a member, then why would it necessarily be distributed to other parties? This is aside from the incidence of people swapping affiliation of course.
“I’ve also produced stuff for legal subscriber services – again without any copyright protection they would be unable to market their services (basically publically available legislation with value added commentary).”
The question comes as to whether, like the music industry, a business model like that is sustainable in this day and age.
People don’t want to stifle creativity, they want it to be nurtured. Yet ironically more is nurtured through free and easy exchange of ideas and innovations than holding on to what you’ve got an demanding your money for having been the one to sign the legal line.
I find it interesting that there is a large movement in the software (web) coding community right now to open source everything, some with no caveats and some with a non-commercial caveat. The feeling is generally that we get more and better things done by being less individualistic and selfish over our discoveries. Consequently those that have been strong providers have still gone on to reap indirect rewards from doing so, in money recompense and beyond.
To answer David Allen’s question, I don’t think Piracy is a problem on the whole. I think some users take the piss when it comes to obtaining things for free, however this just mirrors our society. In society we also have to accept some people are going to be lazy to do the least they can while taking the most benefits, the reason being that as a whole society still works better by providing the function of wealth redistribution. The same kind of thing happens when piracy is looked at holistically. Studies have shown (as someone else said) that people that share music for free also pay more for music, I’ve in the past gone over figures for the American music industry during the rise of Napster and seen *increases in profit margins* during the early, gimmicky days of piracy and a *decrease in profit margins* when Napster was shut down.
It’s largely circumstantial, but there is evidence all around that new artists and content producers benefit from free distribution, certainly in the short term and probably in the long term depending on how they manage the relationship with their “customer”, a relationship that can no longer be the same as it was two decades ago, as the customer simple expects a different kind of service.
This bill detracts from that positive element and tosses it aside to deal with the problem few infringers that really do contribute nothing back, it’s the digital equivalent of the Tory and Labour fight to make it harder for everyone to be on benefits because of the absolutely tiny minority that try to abuse that system.
“I’ll try telling that to the tax man next month and see what he says.”
Unless you are paying tax at 100% you do benefit from the fruits of your labour. Arguably market rates of pay are increased to take account of the taxmans take. This is however a point on which we are not going to agree so I’m not going to continue down that route 🙂
“When I buy something, it becomes the fruit of *my* labour. Yet IP would in that case prevent me from using the fruits of my labour, my property, however I choose.”
That’s a valid argument – and certainly a case for a general fair usage provision in the purchase of copyright material. That could cover something along the lines of “copying onto other playback devices for genuine and reasonable personal use” (sounds vague but I think those terms are sufficiently well legally defined to be robust).
However if I purchase a CD I have purchased one copy. I think that gives me a legitimate right freely sell or igve away one copy but I don’t see where I get the right to to that hundreds of times.
However there is an alternative way of looking at it that you don’t purchase something out right but merely purchase a licence to use the material in the way the author allows you to. It really becomes a question of what you have “purchased”
“we should do without IP laws.”
That may seem superficially attractive but:
1) In such a situation why would Westlaw pay me to produce some commentary on a piece of legislation for their subscribers if as soon as it was made available LexisNexis were to cut and paste it and post it on their sites for their subscribers? (note to employers – I’m not suggesting that either do any such thing! :-))
2) How do I stop the Conservatives photocopying the campaign manuals I spent a considerable amount of time authoring and sending them to all their councillors?
I’m not for one minute saying the current system is effective, fair or works in a liberal fashion (in fact when the scenario in (2) happened it was deemed too expensive to do anything about it so there is a valid question about whether any rights were actually enforceable.
“2) How do I stop the Conservatives photocopying the campaign manuals I spent a considerable amount of time authoring and sending them to all their councillors?”
Blunt but honestly intended question; Why should you be able to?
“Is that really a copyright issue? If anyone that was a Lib Dem knew of the partisan benefits to not copying, and could get the copy for free by being a member,”
I think photocopying a 90 page book hundreds (thousands?) of times is a pretty clear copyright issue!
Most of it wasn’t provided free to members (there is a case that it should have been but (a) I had sales targets to meet to keep the organsation solvent and there was substantial evidence that when people paid for things they made more effort to read them and take the points on board)
Sales were restricted to party members – The problem was when they got into the hands of the opposition
““I’ve also produced stuff for legal subscriber services – again without any copyright protection they would be unable to market their services (basically publically available legislation with value added commentary).”
The question comes as to whether, like the music industry, a business model like that is sustainable in this day and age.”
I’m not sure the case that the music industry per se is unsustainable has been made. On the legal database side some very big companies would seem to think is is! 🙂 Basically with a legal system based on precedent and with new legislation being produced I think there is as there will always be a market for verified and accurate commentary on legislation and cases. Something like the Weekly Law Reports may struggle more as they are substantially producing paper copies of what is available electronically in the public domain and through BAILII etc.
Eventually the Government should get round to a proper consolidated set of legislation, update and available online – like statutelaw.gov.uk ought to be. I suspect the big legal reference services have spotted that potential danger to their business models and are moving into more value added/ease of use type services.
The issue in that market is the viability of such things being available in book form rather than all online and kept continually up to date. All a bit niche though – not sure it will be competing with iTunes any day now though but it does make that point that IP goes wide than music and videos
Declaring my interest as my day job is now with Facebook, I did want also to declare my profound sense of disappointment that the Lib Dems have been supportive of this particular measure.
They did a great job being early opponents of the Government’s original Clause 17 of this Bill which had the potential to grant sweeping powers with little scrutiny and we should celebrate its demise.
I understand that support for this more specific provision on injunctions may have been seen to be necessary to secure consensus with the Conservatives around the removal of Clause 17.
But this provision is also fatally flawed IMO as, however it is dressed up, it does take us in a direction of forcing internet service providers to block websites on grounds which do not meet what I believe is the correct threshold at which we should ever contemplate such measures.
I personally do support the Internet Watch Foundation blocking scheme as the sad reality is that there are a small number of websites that are involved in the business of child abuse and which are not being taken down in their host countries even after the authorities have been notified.
But the IWF case to me exemplifies precisely why this power to block should be used with extreme caution. As long as the line is being drawn around a very specific area of concern where there is near universal consensus that the material is grossly illegal and that the harm caused is substantial then this is defensible even, I believe, by a liberal.
To then try to extend what is always going to be a highly illiberal measure, the blocking of access to internet sites, to other circumstances where the same criteria of extreme necessity and proportionality to the harm caused do not apply is not justified and is certainly not liberal.
So, I would, and have, opposed site blocking when it has come up in all sorts of contexts such as illegal internet adoption sites. It is an instinctive response of politicians to argue that the solution to a problem which has an online component is just to block access to those websites.
This is a lazy response which we must resist as the price we would pay in terms of limitations on both our speech and our freedom to innovate is too high.
My biggest fear about this amendment is that it would give the green light to those who feel that internet blocking is a generally acceptable response to combat all manner of harms, and not a nuclear option that should only used in the most extreme of circumstances such as the prevention of the gross abuse of vulnerable children.
I do not think it is too late to shift the Lib Dems on this. The mobilisation efforts here and across the web are helpful in communicating very real concerns that may not have been fully apparent to the original supporters of the amendment.
I remain a political optimist so would hope that as these concerns do become apparent there will be an honest recognition that in trying to do good, ie removing Clause 17, a further harm has been introduced which is more extensive than at first realised, and that this should now also be removed.
Hi, I am a representative of the Pirate Party of the UK. We have been watching this thread as it develops. We have obviously been following the proceedings of the DEbill with great interest, and while it seems it was generally a relief that C17 has been binned, we are all most unimpressed with its replacement, but the kicker that shocked us was that a120a was proposed by a Lib Dem peer. I suppose we all viewed the Lib Dems as the most enlightened party of the ‘Big Three’, and I personally never expected something like this. The level of outrage here amongst rank and file members of the Lib Dems is palpable, to say the least. These issues require some very serious discussion indeed, and urgently.
The Pirate Party UK has been against these draconian and ridiculous proposals, the entire bill, from the beginning. It is 180 degrees out of phase with our beliefs not just on copyright, but on personal privacy, censorship, the power of the state, the inherent beauty and fantastic democratizing power of the free Internet, and natural justice and fairness itself. We invite any Lib Dem members who may be looking to discuss these issues further to come and visit us at our website http://www.pirateparty.org.uk, and to come and chat to us on IRC at irc://irc.piratpartiet.se/PPUK (you can also reach our IRC room easily via the mibbit client on our website if you don’t have an IRC client installed)
Thanks.
I thought this faux naïve Internet cluelessness was limited to those parties in the pockets of big content 🙁 Or have the Lib Dems found some new investors?
I work in the creative industries mentioned; and the Lib Dems are losing my vote. The liberty of the Internet – human communication – is sacrosanct. This is another law about technology brewed up by people who don’t understand technology, do not understand that the economics already work (iTunes far more successful than ‘copyright theft’), who don’t understand the implications of what they’re doing, who are influenced by their own interests and the relentless bullying of lobbying interests which are in opposition to the interests of voters. It sounds rather like some Lib Dems are getting into bed with the Tories like a Conservative surrogate: and that is precisely what one does not want from them.
I’m not a one-issue voter; but if this is what the Lib Dems are becoming, they’re not representing me.
All these type of laws endanger reasonable liberty – even if that’s not their explicit intention.
@MC
“These issues require some very serious discussion indeed, and urgently.”
You’re a little behind with events. The front benches are meeting with the ORG and the Lords Tim have responded indicating they’re happy to negotiate on the wording of the amendment. The discussion you call for is taking place in (currently) the top post on this site.
I’m sure, given the importance of this matter, you will want to join in and encourage your membership to do the same. There isn’t, I’m sure you’ll agree, a lot of point in using this issue as a party political wedge when we actually have the ear of the parliamentarians who are doing this. The legislation is surely the important thing.
“But this provision is also fatally flawed IMO as, however it is dressed up, it does take us in a direction of forcing internet service providers to block websites on grounds which do not meet what I believe is the correct threshold at which we should ever contemplate such measures.”
I honestly can’t believe how far this thread has gone with what is surely what can only be described as blinkered lunacy. I’ll repeat again this amendment does nothing extra that the law doesn’t already allow. All of this “woe is me” malarky from people that may well be (ex)Lib Dem’s or may well be members of the Green or Pirate party trying to poach supporters, it’s all based on an individual level of ignorance of not knowing what copyright holders here in the UK can already do.
You’re having a go at the butcher for the work already done in the abattoir!
Get back on track people, it’s ok for those at Facebook and Google and other companies to get on their high horse about this as it is highlighting finally that there are legal constructs that allow UK ISPs to be compelled to block those sites (not that there is any evidence whatsoever that anyone would or could successfully go up against such titans). They’re much less fussed, and so are making much less fuss, about the REAL problems that until now OpenRights and Index on Censorship were covering before they fell in line behind the silly parade.
Those problems are a law that allows us to be disconnected from our ISPs without evidence of personal wrong doing, not after three strikes but after a government minister specified number of warnings (potentially zero). A lack of actual legal recourse for those wanting to appeal their disconnection. The threat the disconnection law poses to universities, large companies and open wifi. The government being allowed to take ownership of UK domains based on a loosely worded determination of “unfair use”.
Wake up, the worst thing about this amendment now is that supporters of this bill, are probably chuckling away at how we, the liberal people of the UK, are tying ourselves in petty little knots over an amendment that barely changes the old law’s already in place, instead of dealing with the parts of the draft legislation that he would rather slid through with as little debate as possible. Pick your fights better, you look stupid.
R: I know it’s a long thread, but did you bother to read it? Did you not note the many party members who have spoken out against the amendments, and the fact that something is being done about it (see Alix’s last comment). Can you imagine another of our main parties who would be taking such grass-roots members’ reactions quite so seriously? Unlike the others we have the ability to make and change policy at conferences, and we have a conference next weekend. If anything this inadvertent highlighting of the issue ensures there will be a lively exchange where perhaps it would passed completely unnoticed in the run up to an important election.
No doubt many of the commenters in here have popped in, prompted by Cory’s article or similar and left a “Disgusted of Tonbridge” type message and not seen the actual follow-up, which is a shame.
Hello, are we China now? In China it may be state control; in the UK it is increasingly Big Business control. The outcome for the vast majority of citizens is the same. Of course, one unintended consequence of this legislation will be the malicious uploading of copyright materials to user-generated content sites precisely in order to ensure they are ‘taken down’. Imagine, i could paste various excepts from Murdoch publications here and if the Service Provider did not move fast enough (within 30mins would seem ‘reasonable’ in this high bandwidth age), the entire libdemvoice.org site could become decidedly voiceless. Of course, such mass ‘protest’ could make the legislation entirely unworkable (and no I am not ‘inciting’ such protest in case any Watchers are watching).
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, the three tools of insecure government and business.
“Hello, are we China now? In China it may be state control; in the UK it is increasingly Big Business control.”
Yes, because giving copyright holders a more structured way to get injunctions against copyright infringers through the courts is exactly like China’s state level censorship.
Seriously. Everyone who is worried about censorship needs to look instead at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200910/ldbills/032/10032.18-24.html#j831 and see the loose wording that would allow governments to take over control of your domain in the UK.
“are we China now?”
Oh! The irony. Chine, India and one or two other major newly industrialised nations are one of the major reasons why we have to have a proper debate about the nature of IP. We are now in a globalised world where not everyone accepts the western model and is quite happy to reverse engineer technologies and abuse Trade Marks and the like and we have to be able to reconcile these positions.
If this anarchist can give the party time to sort its act out, and hopefully participate in helping it do so, perhaps it does indeed indicate a somewhat narrow self-interest on the part of all the “disgusted of Dulwich” responses. Or perhaps just too much tolerance on the part o this anarchist?
Lee, you’re missing the point. Of course there are other terrible/illiberal legal sanctions in progress (viz ACTA and ‘graduated response’). The issue here is not about their introduction, but about the fact that the LIB DEMS(!) are now not only lending their support to them, but getting involved in drafting highly illiberal amendments. The fricking Lib Dems are now enacting illiberal law – just at the point people were thinking things were so bad perhaps they should vote Lib Dem. It’s like Amnesty International getting involved in drafting legislation permitting torture warrants.
Ok, Lee, I’ll bite, but only once, since we are *supposed* to be in the constructive phase now.
For one thing, it is not true that the law hasn’t changed. This is from Lord Tim’s interview on ZDNet:
“[Lord Tim]Arguably, under [section 97A in Part 1 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988], [there is] already the right to block sites. I don’t quite take the argument that this is a terribly dangerous new power, precisely because it’s an adjunct.
[Interviewer] If there is already a law for blocking websites, why is new legislation necessary?
[Lord Tim] Because it makes it more specific — specifically, this will allow takedowns. It’s very carefully controlled. The ISP is at the end of the road only when you can’t get satisfaction from [contacting] the website.”
So in fact it does change the law to specifically allow takedowns. I’ve read s 97A and it is, as Lord Tim says, arguable that this amendment is the same thing. Otherwise it wouldn’t be being inserted. (And, as has been said elsewhere, his characterisation of the process in the amendment as “carefully controlled” with the law as a last resort does not appear to accord with what the amendment says, hence my disquiet).
However, none of that is really the point. At the moment, we have a direct opportunity as Liberal Democrats to lobby our parliamentarians over something specifically they are doing, not something they’re taking a view on, something they’re actually proposing in our name. This is the bit we get to influence. A wave of opinion has helped us get the ear of the lords on this one matter, something we can change, maybe in the next few days even. If this part of the process is followed up correctly, (and in the longer term if a working group results) then we can do more. Because this is what campaigning inside a party is like. From a standing start, do you think there was the slightest chance of making our parliamentarians listen to us wax on about how crap their scrutiny of the bill was, or how dangerous particular provisions were, or how wrong their whole concept of copyright is? There *has* been bellyaching on threads here about the ISP disconnection provisions and indeed our whole approach to the DEBill and where did it get us? Generalised outrage doesn’t work, specific outrage in response to one quantifiable injustice does. I don’t care that half the people on this thread are ignorant of parliamentary process, too much enjoying being self-righteous to check facts or shilling for the Greens. By adding weight, they’ve given us a way in. So if you want to stand there snarking at us for being stupid because we’re not following your particular campaign plan of bellowing in the wilderness, feel free. I’m getting on with it.
@Lee Griffin
I’ve read your criticisms of other parts of the legislation with interest. And I certainly agree that the original Clause 17 was much worse and recognise that this new provision builds on existing powers.
But I hope you will also accept that there is real substance to the ‘slippery slope’ argument in this context. This may be a small shift in strict legal terms but potentially a very significant one in advancing the idea of site blocking as a normal response to ‘bad’ content.
If you have concerns about a slide towards a system in which ISPs are routinely having to block a large number of websites under a variety of legal threats then this proposal could be a significant part of that trend.
I have that fear, not because I am a wild conspiracy-theorist and not because I think we are suddenly about to introduce mass censorship, but simply because I have been involved in too many discussions along these lines.
We have heard in some of the defence of this proposal that “we already have IWF blocking child abuse material so why not extend this to illegal copyright material”. The next stage is to say “we already have copyright abuse blocking so why not extend this to illegal product x/banned group y/public danger z”.
That’s not a trend I feel comfortable with hence my worries about this proposal go beyond its immediate impact.
Crosbie, I would prefer your wording if you said “but about the fact that
theLIB DEMS(!) are now not only lending their support” since as you can see from this thread, there are plenty of Lib Dems not only not supporting these parliamentarians but actively standing up to them and proposing to do something about it.Sure, I have my issues with party hierarchy (well, any hierarchy really!) doing stuff on the hoof, I especially have problems that we have no “futurology” policy that covers these new challenges to old ways of working, but this particular response to this particular bill is not something we, “the Lib Dems”, have been asked to endorse – so I have every hope and expectation that the storm they have caused will make the parliamentary teams listen.
Alix: I absolutely agree, and it’s great that you and others are pushing hard internally to sort this out.
Richard: I too am disappointed in the Lib Dem Lord that decided to put this amendment through. I however like to believe that the the actions of one Lord do not signify the stance of the whole party, not until the representative arm of the party comes out in support too.
All I want people to be clear on is that there are much more dangerous parts of this bill going on right now, and while I applaud the actions of supporters and members in trying to sort their house out (and indeed the fallout of this whole mess that will have certainly increased awareness of the dangers of this bill that perhaps wouldn’t have been so easy to report on when it was the ambiguous Clause 17), the rest of us need to concentrate on the remaining issues.
There will only be three weeks to pass this law in the Commons, my personal aim is to rally as much support as possible against the whole nasty thing so that it gets bogged down in amendment hell to the extent that it either doesn’t get through to third reading, can’t make it through the ping pong session, or isn’t worth even trying to push through in the wash-up period. It’d be great if those masquerading on here as disgusted ex-supporters in the aim of scoring partisan political points could join us in putting that aside for those three weeks and concentrate efforts on sinking this bill.
Jock, I’m referring to the public’s perception, and why this amendment of web blocking (now and when its effects begin to be felt) will forever be perceived as the doing of the Lib Dems.
If the amendment had been seen to be proposed by the Labour Party (even if via a lord) it would have been perceived as typical, i.e. clamping down on liberties taken by naughty individuals to protect the public and the ability of artists and authors among them to make a living from their labours, e.g. protect them from file-sharing.
A party is not elected by its members based on their detailed knowledge and understanding of parliamentary processes, but by the people based on their perceptions of what nasty, illiberal, and undemocratic laws they get involved in drafting and supporting.
Labour=Already sliding along slippery slope to totalitarianism
Lib Dems=Salvation if Labour and Tories are perceived as equally illiberal, corporate toadies.
It’s like being on a sinking ship, going to the life boat and finding it missing, because it was sold off in a cost cutting exercise.
Dave Page: Yes, Lib Dem MEPs voted for software patents in 2003, for the 1st Reading of the Directive on “Computer-Implemented Inventions” (which was later thrown out in 2nd Reading). The ELDR group was split almost 50:50, with half its MEPs voting for wording that would have disallowed software patents. So this party has form for talking the talk but not walking the walk on digital rights/IP issues.
And to add to that though Alex, the few times I have directly lobbied MEPs were all on those issues so how much have outsiders expressing their views held them back a little from the brink of absolute support for “tough IP”. There again, I do have a patent lawyer as one of my regional Lib Dem MEPs too!
I wholeheartedly agree with Alex’s comment above.
Furthermore the lib dems have most definateley lost my vote as a result of this ammendment
What, without sticking around to see what happens? Oh well, that’s a considered decision then. There seems to be a lot of that going on in this thread.
As a Mutualist I probably have more problems than most with any number of party policies, but if I am gong to vote, it certainly won’t be for any of the others on a whole load of other issues. If your vote is decided on one issue where what seems like an awful lot of the party are also up in arms about the actions of two parliamentarians concerning something that the party does not have specific policy on without sticking round to see what the fall out is, what was the point in coming to tell us?
This thread has been a very interesting read. I have followed it for the last three days having had it brought to my attention from a technical newsgroup to which I belong. I have to say that what is not being commented on, or it is but no answer is being offered, is that a Lib Dem Lord is not be admonished for bring influence to a Bill when it appears he so obviously has a conflict of Interests. I would really like to know the party’s take on these kind of matters, and how it goes forward with seeming double standards. You listen to Question time week in and week out that the people are feed up with the lies and back handers that go on in politics, you would think that any worthy party would be seen to crack down hard on this kind of influence and commercialism from third parties especially on something as vitally important and future facing as the web blocking amendment Bill.
Alex: ALL parties have form on this. The point being missed here is that the vast majority of MPs, and probably all the Lords, don’t know a thing about the internet and how it’s evolving. They have some people whispering things in their ears, but they aren’t unbiased sources of information.
It’s all too easy to bash the Lib Dems to hell on this (even though it was a Lib Dem/Tory amendment) as if they’re the only ones doing bad but the truth is that all of our politicians are out of touch…and what is anyone doing about it? The Tories are happy to cosy up to the businesses, Labour also with an added dash of state control. Lib Dems? As we’ve seen here their grass roots are committed to actually rectifying the problem and start informing their party of what they are clearly deficient in knowledge about.
Go ahead, vote Pirate Party and get your PPC to third place in the polls if you’re lucky, or vote Green and get one MP in to the commons alone who will be able to do nothing to stop the sort of things you are trying to stop now. I for one am impressed as a Lib Dem voter that the members of the party are co-ordinated and committed enough, more than any other party, to do something about it with a party that CAN make a difference.
Okay, but why did the grass roots allow such a clear conflict of interest?
It’s unhelpful to get partisan – clearly digital rights will need defending by people in every party and none. This is a party blog, of course, and Lib Dems including Clement Jones clearly have done much good in the Bill’s debate, but in our view has made a very big mistake with this amendment.
Longer term, digitally aware people are needed in every party. ORG works with Greens, Lib Dems, Labour and Pirate Party representatives in Europe. Without our allies in each party, we would be much weaker; the question for the Lib Dems themselves is how to strengthen the digital rights agenda within their own party, and there have been some interesting comments about that on this thread.
ORG would very much welcome Lib Dems, Pirate Party, Greens, Conservative and Labour activists to join and help us get these agendas properly embedded in each party.
Forget expenses, the real stink of corruption comes from the huge amounts of cash that many legislators – both peers & MPs – get as ‘consultants’, directors etc from outside interests.
These financial interests are declared in the Register of Members’ Interests, but peers and MPs are not barred from voting on matters in which they have a financial interest. This is quite unbelievable.
Why are MPs and peers not subject to the same laws on financial interest as local councillors? Councillors are, quite rightly, as an anti-corruption measure, barred from voting , speaking or lobbying on any matters in which they, their spouses or other close family members have financial interests.
Why isn’t it ALREADY party policy to do this? Come on Nick Clegg, let’s hear you announce this tomorrow at the Scottish Conference.
Ade: I think what you raise is important, but far more important for us in the party is that we have an opportunity in the next ten days hopefully to change the outcome. Recriminations, if there are to be any, should wait till after that I think. As many have said on this thread already, especially in the house of Lords I’d suspect parliamentary parties’ departmental teams can often be made up simply of “who knows *anything* about such and such?” and so I’d hardly find it surprising that C-J is spokesman on this. As I have said, being an IP lawyer is actually no guarantee that there is a conflict and that some of the most prominent anti-IP campaigners are IP lawyers.
Voter: What I just said to Abe, plus, as has been said time and again in this thread, and should be apparent, this amendment came right out of the left field – it’s not been party policy or anything like that. So it was only once it was tabled most of us knew anything about it I suspect; there is no sense in which “grass roots allowed” anything to happen. Indeed the reaction here should rather prove we are determined not to now we know about it.
ColinW, isn’t Lib Dem elected representatives announcing policy and legislation without discussion within the party exactly the kind of problem that got us into this mess?
Jock: lobbying certainly did have an effect on the position of Lib Dem MEPs during the run-up to the 2nd Reading vote on the software patents directive. Andrew Duff was persuaded to table a set of patent-limiting amendments. There were also conversations with one other Lib Dem MEP. We’ll never know how many MEPs would have been shifted, because most MEPs on both sides of the debate voted to reject the Directive before any amendments could be voted on. The original MEP line on software patents may well have been influenced by Sharon Bowles (who’s very pro-patent, but has a much more reasonable view on digital copyright).
I confess to having voted Green at the European election last year, and that was mostly over concerns about how Lib Dem MEPs might vote on IP issues. But I shall be voting Lib Dem at the forthcoming general election. I’m pleased to see that the party’s grassroots is indeed rectifying the problem, and cannot imagine this sort of activism happening in either of the other 2 big parties.
ColinW: Because that’s not the way the Lords works. For the most part people are specifically chosen to try and ensure your party has an “expert” skill set that crosses all the issues government deals with. So like it or not (I don’t since I don’t like parliament full stop) it makes absolute sense for an IP lawyer to be “leading” on IP issues. Their integrity, or so the notion goes, should be beyond reproach.
Dave Page.
You’re correct of course – I should have said that Nick Clegg should announce this as a policy idea he will be putting forward for decision by the Party in accordance with our constitution.
Jock.
I understand the point you are making but don’t you think it looks bad that the peer leading for us on this has clear and CURRENT major financial interests in this legislation?
Several posters have already pointed out the possible conflict of interest that exists.
It just makes us look sleazy.
I know that there has been talk here of raising hell about this at your conference soon, and im very glad of that. We all hope you can get things turned around for the Dems in that regard. But the fact remains it should never in a million years have gotten this far in the first place, with such an illiberal amendment not only proposed by a Dem, but nodded into the bill also, and in concert with the Tories no less. This is the issue here, you just wouldn’t expect it from a Dem politician, we and i certainly didn’t. It points to a greater issue at hand with politics than just the amendment itself.
Also, the people stating that it isn’t such a big change in the law and nothing to really worry about are quite wrong. One only has to look at the mess caused by the very similar DMCA takedown in the US over the years as a taste of what is to come, a perhaps well meaning law if im being extra charitable that has been abused to hell and back for all sorts of self-serving and nefarious reasons, and HAS demonstrably resulted in mandatory self-censorship on a whim by many many sites hosting providers on mere receipt of notice to avoid any legal hassle. The takedown provision is a legal instrument with profound chilling effects. One only has to look at the most recent example, in which the long standing whistleblower site cryptome.org, a site which was threatened with closure by the US Govt itself under national security concerns at one point and survived, was censored off the web completely by a DMCA takedown notice (a mere copyright law) issued by Microsoft over a single document they hosted. In this case Microsoft were so shocked at the knee jerk reaction of cryptome.orgs hosting provider under the law that they withdrew the takedown notice, and the site came back with the offending document still available. We can expect much, much more of the same in the UK under a120a, make no mistake.
The whole system is bad.
I can think of no reason an MP needs to be paid thousands a year to promote caravans.
ColinW: I of course have similar concerns about, say, Lord Winston speaking on health issues. You cannot be suggesting that the only “expert” peers should be retired ones?
Current practitioners bring much to the House of Lords – if we didn’t have Anthony Lester we would have to invent Human Rights all over again!
Of course I can see *why* people may feel it looks like a conflict of interests. But the fact is that it is not something undeclared or kept secret…the important people are in fact his “noble” colleagues in the house who need to know whether to respect his expertise in a particular matter or decide they are being harangued by a vested interest when they decide which way to take his arguments and vote.
Naturally, it is all good ammunition for me though – interest cannot fail to enter into a political state, and this is more proof. Abolish it all I say!
MC: “Also, the people stating that it isn’t such a big change in the law and nothing to really worry about are quite wrong.”
I know I’m going to sound like I’m flogging a dead horse now (Sorry Alix) but people clearly aren’t getting this. MC it is you that is quite wrong, whether this bill stands or falls section 97a of the Copyright etc. Act 1988 will still exist and will still mean that there is a very vague and unrefined process for business to produce chilling effects more widely. Perhaps the negative thing to come out of all of this really is that there is no doubt that this will be an option available to lawyers regardless of the outcome of this bill.
The reason I think people need to understand this is because otherwise we all get complacent. You think 102a is bad? Great! If this was the first time such a law was put on the books then *I* would be angry at it too. But if you think that by defeating 102a all the danger is gone then you’re being naive and putting websites and our freedoms at risk.
I wonder if we’ll look back at this, hopefully after successes on other parts of the bill, and wonder if we couldn’t have used this opportunity to make the commons change the amendment 102a (or replace it completely) so that it had even more definition on it’s usage, on the terms of injunctions, their duration and how to overturn them, and/or to put in some of the suggestions others here and around the web have suggested, rather than to just trash it and put ourselves in a situation where we’re barely, if any, better off when it comes to blocking websites?
Jock. That’s exactly what I’m saying. If a legislator has a current financial interest then they MUST be barred from voting, lobbying or speaking on legislation relating to that interest.
If they don’t like it, then get rid of the financial interests. The expertise will still be there. I want full-time legislators who are wholly elected by PR, barred from voting on matters in which they have a financial interest.
Colin: what we want and what is acheivable within a system we have little to no say in the rules of are two different things. PArty policy is, rightly, to completely get rid of the existing HoL and start again, and do it quickly.
But these are peers in the existing HoL, and peers, crucially, aren’t actually paid. Sure, the attendance allowance per day is more than I make in a week, but for a senior figure with outside experience, the total possible earning is, to them, chickenfeed.
I don’t like the perception of conflict of interest (and I’m going to make sure it’s looked into), but the current system stinks.
Unfortunately, the only way to change it is to work within it.
For those wanting a comment on the conflict of interest allegations, you’ll have to understand that there’s no way such a thing can be commented on without a full investigation, and I’m pretty sure that such an investigation will be happening. However, public comment on it wouldn’t be possible immediately, that’s the way the system works, unfortunately.
Colin, that may or may not be better than the current system. I wonder how many “experts in their field” are going to be encouraged to stand for any kind of election, however. And if not, what is the point of a “scrutinising and revising” second chamber anyway?
Anyway, for me the answer is more simple still of course – nobody, elected or not, has the “expertise” to decide what’s best for me and sixty million others as far as I am concerned.
Still – as an aside, I thought I’d share another little piece of IP lunacy – when I did the audiobook of Stephan Kinsella’s “Against Intellectual Property” we could not help but laugh at the irony that I had to read the title, followed by “copyright, 2009, Ludvig von Mises Institute” and even though the recording as with nearly everything Mises produces is given away for free. The fact is, they have no choice but to assert their “copyright” on the stuff, even though they actively want people to copy it and spread it around, just in case someone else picks it up and decides to copyright it themselves, thereby preventing Mises potentially doing what they want with their “property”.
Bonkers, the whole thing.
Looks like this might turn into a reverse poison chalice after all
http://services.parliament.uk/hansard/Lords/bydate/20100303/mainchamberdebates/part010.html
“First, the provisions would need to be notified to the European Commission under the technical standards directive. Although I accept that the drafting attempts to deal with this, we are clear that even the creative solution offered by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in subsections (6) and (7) of the proposed new clause in Amendment 120A would not count as notification in draft. Without the proper three-month notification, the provision would not be enforceable.”
To think I was actually planning on voting for the Lib Dems in May, maybe I should just spoil it now? Do you guys even think before you think up this utter rubbish?
And do you read before your post?
Amendment 120a is completely at odds with the rights and freedoms of the individual and merely highlights just how you have failed to grasp why the IP problem exists in the first place.
Site-blocking and censorship of content does nothing proactive to address the real issues at hand, it is simply a reactive measure sought to pander to lobbyists and add even more protectionism to an already overbearing IP culture.
There is no doubt that the law is having a hard time keeping up with the changing pace in technology, but rather than seeking to punish those who are abusing this technology we must first ask WHY technology is being abused at the individual level, why it has become so widespread and socially acceptable, and what is lacking with current legal means for consuming content that makes file sharing and watching illegal streams so attractive to the common consumer. Rather than being intimidated, business should be excited by the internet and the ways it is allowing us to consume and disseminate information. Business should seek new ways to embrace and adapt to these changes with new business models that are open and innovative.
IP Infringement is a global problem, and that we must seek global solutions in order to combat it effectively. Amendment 120a does nothing to fix the problems, illegal file sharing won’t simply disappear because a site was blocked, nor will illegal streaming sites disappear altogether. It’s too inexpensive for infringers to start a new site, and the demand far too great for these draconian measures to do anything but put a smile on the face of lobbyists who think they’re one step closer to winning a war that is in fact un-winnable for as long as they insist on protectionism and lawsuits being the key to containment.
There is no doubt that file sharing is socially acceptable. There is no doubt that we have all enjoyed and consumed content on youtube that we know for a fact to be questionable in legal nature. And there is no doubt that the average consumer accepts that without advertising or a means to monetise this content, that the creative industries will be the first casualties. Internet giants like Google are not anti business, and neither are many of the sites that Amendment 120a will seek to close down.
YouTube and Google were the first to react positively to these sweeping changes in the way that content is consumed that the democratisation of the internet is seeing emerge, and they are only too willing to work with IP rights holders and copyright owners to see that they are aptly rewarded for opening up this content. Indeed, one example close to all our hearts was the decision of the Monty Python team to shift their focus away from lawsuits and takedown notices and instead choose to work with google to react to consumer demand. The result was an official Monty Python channel that drove more DVD and Box Set sales than any other online distribution channel. We are now seeing the same happening with 4OD, BBC and countless other copyright owners who are reacting positively to consumer demand and showing a willingness to adapt business models, remove barriers and allow proliferation of their content in the online landscape.
Given the means to consume content illegally or legally, people will choose the latter, but the choice needs to exist in the first place. ‘Freemium’ models are working, Spotify is a service that the average online music consumer has been crying out for since the days of Napster. Essentially, it is Napster, yet it is only now – 10 years later , and after many abortive attempts to quell the mass sharing of illegal music online through the law courts – that the music industry has woken up and allowed a service that was badly needed and wanted, to be given a chance to prove it can work.
Let’s please not wait another 10 years for other creative industries to follow suit, when there is so much evidence out there that law, censorship and further legislation will do nothing to alleviate the problem.
It’s not just the music industry through partnerships with Spotify and YouTube that have seen relaxation of copyright and licensing restrictions working in their favour. The BBC, Channel 4, ITN, countless media agencies, The Guardian Open Platform, and in the US, Comedy Central and the Hulu Web TV consortium have all been successful by opening their content up online (Hulu makes more money per web viewer from it’s online pre-roll video advertising than any of the TV networks it represents make from traditional TV advertising), and recent deals between YouTube and major record and movie / TV rights holders are just a few examples of how business can be more relaxed about IP restrictions and yet still profit through this openness and innovation and a willingness to respond to consumer need.
Sports rights holders are of course another major concern. A recent Whitepaper (Report on Digital Piracy of Sporting Events – Alliance Against IP Theft) by NetResult (the firm responsible for policing FA / EPL sports content online amongst others), cites that the only major effect to reducing the number of viewers of illegal live streams came from establishment of strategic partnerships. The NBA, who entered into a partnership with UStream and PPLive to provide legitimate streams of its content saw a widespread reduction in piracy of its live sports content, and furthermore, provided a means for the NBA to legitimise, control and ultimately generate revenues from this content. All other attempts to reduce widespread online piracy, including takedown notices and legal action, have done nothing to reduce the problem, just as Amendment 120a, will do little to stem the tide of new sites replacing those that are blocked at the ISP level.
In the ongoing lawsuit between YouTube and the FA, the FA lawyers likened YouTube (and Google) to old style mafia racketeers “work with us or against us, either way your content will be abused online”. In taking this stance, the FA have missed the point, and more importantly missed the Olive branch (and means to monetise illegal content) that Google extends to those businesses fearful of changing business models. I notice with interest that since those comments were made by the FA Lawyers (over a year ago now), FA TV have launched their own YouTube channel with official, freely embeddable highlights of FA Cup and England matches. A portent of the future perhaps?
The Digital Economy Bill, especially with respect to Amendment 120a, needs a lot more work, consideration and planning. The fact that Clause 17 was so swiftly removed is testament to that. Crucially, the ministers in charge need to better understand the problem, as well as the technology, and the reason for why there is such a high demand and consumption of illegal content in the first place. This can only be achieved by increasing dialogue with the end-users (and abusers) of this technology, who presently feel isolated and criminalised. Can you honestly say that you, and the IP lobbyists truly understand this new generation of internet savvy users who no longer wish to consume their content in a traditional, linear fashion?
Is it wrong that instead of being forced to sit through ’10 years younger’ and ‘wife swap’ and endless repeats of ‘friends’, I now choose to spend my evenings watching the Daily Show and Colbert Report (legitimately and on demand) through the web? It’s the future, and the sooner IP holders recognise this, the better off everyone will be except of course for the very people you are attempting to combat. Illegal file sharing will die a natural death at the hands of superior provisioning of legitimate services. And all of this can be achieved without lengthy and costly lawsuits and divisive legal battles.
To conclude, I am fearful that rushing this legislation through during ‘wash up’ without proper consideration and consultation with the public will just be another step back for freedoms of the individual, and a huge step back for a party that is increasingly out of touch with its electorate.
Furthermore, it is one that gets us nowhere nearer to solving the problem of digital piracy – Amendment 120a is nothing more than an attempt to put up a picket fence to quell an unstoppable Tsunami. I am ashamed that a party I used to support is even considering such an unworkable ‘solution’.
The stupidity of politicians knows no bounds. That the Lib-Dems have made the ridiculous bill even worse than it was, is disgraceful, and that they think it’s going to work is laughable. Two other countries in the world try to control the internet, China and Iran.
Um, Nick? Hyperbole has its place in debate at times, but the proposals in the amendment (that are already under review after consultation and pressure from here and elsewhere) are less restrictive than under the US DMCA.
So under your definitions, even the US restricts the internet in this way (let alone S. Korea). This amendment is wrong, and is being reworded. But comparing it to China? Get a grip.
MattGB lame attempt to patronise without any facts.
What are the equivalent infringements in internet freedom imposed
in the US? I rent office space for my small business
and the internet provision that goes with that will end.
Nor will I be able to access in many public spaces, Which other
western country would be in a similar situation?
If this goes through, Youtube would not br allowed in
the UK. That is China and Iran, so get a grip.
YouTube wouldn’t be blocked. The wording as stands isn’t clear enough on here, which is why there’s a concultation to make the wording clearer, look here:
https://www.libdemvoice.org/digital-economy-bill-parliamentarians-reply-to-prospective-candidates-18200.html
In addition, your office would not be blocked from the internet unless your business were uploading copyright material and you refused to remove it. If you actually read the proposed amendment, the takedown regime is on a par with, or otherwise less stringent, than the US’s DMCA.
I don’t know where you’ve got the bit about you not being able to access public spaces, that’s not in the amendment under discussion, whcih, as has been stated, is already being reworded. I apologise if my comment appeared patronising, but if you read through the thread, your points have, broadly, been made and rebutted a few times already.
This is not a bill that the Liberal Democrat or Conservatives should be working with Labour on. It is the most extreme piece of lobby written legislation this side of the Atlantic.The fact that it was released on Industry websites before the Governments’s own is telling.
It is designed to protect a distribution model that is in its last death throes. The only other industry that the Government has stepped in to protect has been the banking industry. Steel, Rover and ore were left to the wind.
In the Government’s own white paper, they accepted that the costs that this bill would impose on ISPs would be greater than the economic loss felt by the content industry. This bill proves that they did not care about that.
With ever growing internet speeds and PC speeds the internet has in many homes replaced the television. This bill serves to act as a Luddite piece of legislation in the face of that change.
Media Center PCs can do film searches for period of a month in advance recording tv streamed content to be played back on demand at the time of the PC users choosing. To many there is little difference between grabbing a torrent of an old film and downloading it, or downloading it through their PVR.
Sales of consumer devices such as the XBOX 360 and PS3 were boosted in the US by deals with Netflix, a low price all you can eat model of film subscription, with access to thousands of films, including recent blockbusters. This is not available here due to licence restrictions – so a better bill would have been to look at the licence restrictions.
The Government accepts that they had no proper figures about the numbers of people who download content illegally and then buy it if they like it. With music, services like spotify have had an impact on that, however the content distributors are now wanting to kill that as well. They are tearing up their agreement and it is not difficult to imagine that this is because of this bill.
When this bill returns to the Commons, MP’s will have the choice of Labour’s clause 17, which would allow Mandleson (or his replacement) to appoint anyone to decide what is or isn’t illegal, at will or a Lib/Con pact pushing legalsied threats, bans and withdrawals of sites with user generated content.
This will not simply be used against those who offer music or films. This amemdment does nothing to stop bloggers getting caught up in this. Image sharing is common with small bloggers.
There is one solution to this – kill the bill. Do whatever you can in the Lords and the Commons to block this legislation so that it falls foul of the General Election. If this amendment is part of that strategy, an amendment that is likely to be batted back by the Commons, then good. When the time comes a better bill can be worked on, one that does not have a strong smell of corruption and one that listens to todays content providers, google, facebook, myspace and spotify.
“so a better bill would have been to look at the licence restrictions.”
You don’t need a bill to do that though. I agree that companies are not embracing the opportunities of new technology but I don’t see how you legislate for them to do that. Whether we should legislate to stop people running their businesses in a stupid way is a debateable argument.
And doing away with copyright full stop – as the more extreme elements suggest – won’t help such distribution mechanisms develop as there will be no profit incentive to drive it if anyone can do it without paying the producers of Avatar/The Hurt Locker/An Education for doing that. (and profits have driven the development of other communication streams since the days of the penny post)
There is certainly material in the Bill as a whole that threatens internet access in public areas from coffee shops to hotels to librarie,s and we should be considering our policy regarding the bill as a whole (and the whole policy area of IT/IP) even though the amendment specifically referenced as the starting point of this thread is more specific.
It is likely that operators of public WiFi nodes will be treated as ISPs, ie they will be made responsible for locating the source of any infringing material carried over their networks. This is no small task and it will stop a great many providers from offering such services simply to keep their noses clean. Make no mistake, broadband access is “The Fourth Utility” and universal access should be regarded as a right. We will be seriously disadvantaged if hotels and even coffee shops are unable to offer free and low-cost services as are currently growing today.
In addition the fundamental attitude the bill takes with regard to acting against alleged infringements is that the party is presumed guilty and may be disconnected without due process.
And as far as this amendment is concerned, if a weblocker service is deemed to have “substantial” infringing content stored on it, then it can be blocked to UK users and legitimate users will lose access to their own materials stored or transferred via such sites for an unknown period, having done nothing wrong themselves.
In addition it will be impossible to determine accurately whether content is infringing or not. Or who the actual user was in a public network who might have contributed infringing material. Someone sitting in a car outside your house using your WiFi to transfer files will get you cut off. It just gets worse.
To those who say “Oh, it’s no worse than the DMCA”, be warned – the DMCA is quite nasty enough, thank you very much, and is already being used by companies to get their competitors closed down thanks to its “take it down first, ask questions later” approach which we are seeking to replicate here.
Yes, we have screwed up with this amendment, but the whole digital economy is at stake here, we need to have policies covering this whole territory, not simply a better wording for the bit we screwed up or a way out of the current mess.
It’s incredible how “Lib-Dems” behind this site insist this bill is not going to infringe on the liberties of people to browse the internet, download legally, visit sites without being watched by ISP’s, all on demand of the government.
In the real world, I have already been told that the offices my small company rents will no longer be provided with internet access should this bill go through.
Even the landlord of my local pub which provides internet access has said that if the bill goes through he will no longer provide internet access to his customers. Quite simply, because the bill says that thehe will be held responsible for illegal downloads of anyone using his internet facility.
And the ridiculous thing is that my 11-year-old son knows that the whole bill is totally unworkable. Politicians may be good at fiddling their expenses but they know nothing about fiddling technology.
To hide your IP address takes 10 seconds. To set up a company in a comparitively free country like Russia and get them to do the downloads and send them off to you in a country like Britain is no big deal at all.
Americans I know, rightly, believe we are in there with China and Iran and I totally agree with them.
Politicians in the UK have an insatiable appetitetite to control the people, from local government to Lib Dem lunatics and that idiot Cameron. You have already won on smoking, drinking, global warming etc, just leave the internet alone.
You don’t need a bill to do that though. I agree that companies are not embracing the opportunities of new technology but I don’t see how you legislate for them to do that. Whether we should legislate to stop people running their businesses in a stupid way is a debateable argument.”
When those licence agreements establish monopolistic practices between people like Sky tv and the movie industry, then there is definitely a role for government.
We are supposed to have anti-monopoly legislation after all. I’m just not sure any politician wants to fight the Murdoch empire though.
We are working on an emergency motion for the forthcoming conference, focusing fairly specifically on the current web-blocking issue rather than the gamut of IP issues. Not because we’re not interested in the rest but because the motion needs to fit the emergency criteria to get debated.
Conference reps who want to sponsor the motion can see the latest draft in the members’ forum at http://forum.libdemvoice.org/viewtopic.php?t=2592. Thanks to Obhi who has done the lion’s share of the work on this. I’ll post it on LD Voice as soon as it’s finished but don’t want to add to this extensive comments thread with lots of minor redraftings…..
If you are a conference rep and can encourage other conference reps to prioritise the motion for debate, that is probably the single most helpful thing you can do at this stage.
I am also hoping to meet the DCMS parliamentary team this week, but that’s unlikely to be before the deadline for submitting the emergency motion; so the lobbying and the debating will work in parallel.
As a key seat candidate, and a proud & loyal LibDem, I want our party conference to be a positive and upbeat event, showing our excellent manifesto policies to the electorate. An emergency motion that restates our liberal principles and demonstrates our awareness of reality of the digital environment will enhance this, not undermine it.
Nick-none of the problems you have highlighted with the bill have anything to do with the amendment under discussion. The bill overall is something the Lib Dems oppose, but given it’s unlikely to be blockable given we’re an opposition party, anything that can be done to water down the awfulness has to be done. Overall, the LDs hope to block the bill (that’s my understanding after a discussion with one of our Whips today, I’m not a parliamentarian obviously), but if it can’t be blocked, then removing the worst aspects is good.
FWIW, your landlord is misplacing his concerns re internet access at the pub; he’s already liable for illegal content downloaded via his connection, this billmerely makes it a lot more explicit (and, again, isn’t within the controversial amendment under discussion); my fiancée is bar manager of a fairly big pub, and they’re in the process of getting WiFi setup there, the legal obligations (or at least what the lawyers say should be worried about) are very annoying but also very vague-this bill clarifies them making it explicit what is already implicit within existing law.
I’m not happy with the bill overall, and want it blocked. But blaming the Lib Dems for clauses written by Peter MAndelson and opposed by the Lib Dems is an eroneous approach. I hope the bill is blocked, but if it can’t be blocked, far better it be watered down; the new clause 17 isn’t good, but the previous clause 17 was awful, and I’m glad it’s gone.
Bridget, I don’t currently have access to the members forum (my membership lapsed and is being renewed), but you have Jennie’s email address I believe, we’re both voting reps for our LP, as is Hywel above, and I’m pretty sure two others of our reps will be happy to put their name to a motion, could probably get the Exect to endorse it if you think that’d also help. Good luck meeting with the DCMS team; my conversation with the Whip I won’t name today was rather dispiriting, he appears to be completely persuaded by the big media lobby unfortunately, but I know we can win a debate at conference.
“If a legislator has a current financial interest then they MUST be barred from voting, lobbying or speaking on legislation relating to that interest. If they don’t like it, then get rid of the financial interests.”
It pains me to claim that local government has any claims to wisdom, but in this case, it seems that it does. Financial interests are rife. However, declarations of those interests are often properly made. Hence, people with financial interests do very often withdraw from voting, lobbying and speaking on issues relating to those interests, as they should do. Parliament must catch up.
Though we are less culpable than the other two parties, we should be the first to clean up our act. Just listen to what is happening. “Ashcroft is not special” say the Tories “we are all as bad as one another”. This is a huge Tory lie, but many people believe it.
We need to cast the first stone. Before we can do that, we need to dismantle the glass house we have built for ourselves!
The Goverment / Music industry say that 7 million people indulge in illegal filesharing. However, I’ve just discovered this interesting article which clearly shows that this amount has been dramtically exaggerated. In other words, there’s now even less justification for the harsh measures present in the Digital Economy Bill.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/UK-Officials-Double-P2P-Statistics-121396.shtml
Bridget, that is an OUTSTANDING motion. What a testimony to the sensible, committed and ethical wing of the LibDems. You have my absolute support for it. Thank you.
I can’t see the draft motion right now as I don’t have my card with me to sign up for the forums, but as far as cleaning up the damage created by our own amendment is concerned, we do need to be sure that there are stiff penalties for rights holders issuing vexatious or spurious claims to shut down a site. Even the US’s DMCA has safeguards of that type, although they aren’t strong enough and the majority of recipients simply cave in to avoid hefty legal fees. We need to impose a proper burden of proof on rights-holders’ claims to make sure the process is not abused any more than is unavoidable. Because believe me, this will be used as an instrument to close down sites and other entities wholesale on the merest smidgen of “evidence” simply because big business knows people can’t fight back as they don’t have the money for fancy lawyers.
MattGB
From http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/feature/1595144/lib-dems-cock-digital-freedom
The Liberal Democrats forced through a surprise amendment to the Bill’s notorious clause 17 or “three strikes and you’re out” clause. Instead of sweeping new powers that threatened major alterations to British copyright law, the Lib Dems added a clause that gives extra oversight to the high court.
The new proposal, passed in the House of Lords by 165 votes to 140, gives a bewigged one the right to issue an injunction against a website accused of hosting a “substantial” amount of copyright infringing material, potentially forcing the entire site offline.
If that’s true tell me how we in the UK will still be able to access YouTube, for there is no doubt that YouTube does host a substantial amount of copyright infriging material. And please explain what is innacurate in The Inquirer’s report to exonerate the Lib-Dems from this travesty against our freedom?
And also explain to me how the bill as a whole is going to be policed. Everyone who uses a laptop know it’s unworkable, but SME’s in the UK will still be hurt badly.
Meanwhile, our politicians have encouraged a whole new industry for people who don’t mind flouting copyright law. Go to a (comparitively) free country like Russia and export from there to the UK via ftp/email or numerous other methods the latest blockbuster films and musical hits. It’s so easily bypassed it’s laughable.
I repeat: idiot and (often) corrupt politicians in the UK today have an insatiable appetite to rule our lives. While we freeze, they will tax us because of global warming, they will discourage us from drinking, smoking, driving our car…and now they have their sights set on controlling our internet use.
You have even less chance of your internet bill working than Prohibition worked in the US. But keep on going.
Nick, your question about YouTube has been asked and answered, repeatedly, in this thread and the follow up. Far greater legal minds than mine are debating whether ‘substantial’ has a strong enough definition and whether it needs further clarification, but the clear intent of the wording and of the authors of the amendment is not to block YouTube, specifically because YouTube has a clear take down procedure, and an injunction can only be issued if the infringing site refuses to cooperate, which Google does not do.
I don’t like the amendment, I’ve made that clear, but what you’ve quoted says it’s an improvement on what was there before (which is true). Now, linked above is a follow up post going through this in great detail, and there’re a bunch of lawyers going through the details in the comments to that thread.
And I don’t want to explain to you about the bill as a whole, I don’t like the bill as a whole, and have said as such, but if it can’t be blocked, it needs to be watered down, which is what this amendment does. If you want more justification for the rest of the Bill, go ask a Labour activist, if you want better clarification about this amendment, go read the follow up post that does this better than I am able.
MattGB>
“Far greater legal minds than mine are debating whether ’substantial’ has a strong enough definition and whether it needs further clarification.”
LOL. It’s precisely because “substantial” can’t be defined that makes the Lib-Dem clause even more ridiculous.
Of course, no UK government is going to close down Youtube because if they did everyone in the country under 30 would belatedly become aware of what sort of country we have become.
But according to the clause of the bill, Youtube should certainly be unavailable to anyone in the UK. It is unquestionable that a substantial amount (I’d call 25% substantial) of the material they host infriges copyright law.
But the bill won’t be used to close down Youtube; it will be used to close down far smaller sites on the whim of whoever it is going to be that will be policing the people’s internet habits.
At present, many of us prefer to buy DVD’s and music legally. But this bill is such an affront to our freedom to use the internet that if it ever comes into being I will go out of my way to download pirated movies and music.
And you are still not answering the question. You might bully the ISP’s into revealing our internet behaviour, but what are you going to do thereafter? Check our email attachments, our ftp files, our Dropbox accounts?
I have a Dropbox account for 50gb. That’s 60 movies. How are you going to stop my mates in the free world, AKA China, Russia or Iran downloading films or music and passing them on to me?
It’s a ridiculous bill and dreadful for this country that gets more and more totalitarian by the day, thanks to G Brown and the incomptence of the Tories and the Lib-Dems.
The bill is already making us a laughing stock in the US (the country that is surely losing most in film & music revenue from illegal downloads) and even more dubious regimes will be wondering what has happened to the Britain that once stood for freedom and liberty.
On the plus side, if it comes into being I’ll move to Russia and flog illegal downloads to the UK at 50p a pop.
And how will the Lib-Dems stop me?
Correct, that’s because I’ve told you you’re asking the wrong person
I have no desire to do so.
I KNOW. I agree with you.
Seriously, read what I’ve said. Read what others have said. I oppose this bill. I am not happy with this amendment. But the amendment does not do what you say it does, and the bill is something that we’re trying to block.
Now, seriously, if all you’re going to do is repeat the same points without reading the responses, there’s no point in continuing this discussion. Broadly, I agree with you about the stupidity of this bill, and I dislike this amendment, but your hyperbole over the amendment itself is misplaced and incorrect, and the rest of the bill is something that we’re trying to block.
Nick:
Whilst this is probably not the way to achieve it, and one would certainly not want it to be the Lib Dems that did, but this outcome would not be a bad thing IMHO!
“LOL. It’s precisely because “substantial” can’t be defined that makes the Lib-Dem clause even more ridiculous.”
I have to interject again on this wording issue. Substantial is possibly, though not certainly, a good type of language to use in this law. It once again comes down to loopholes and work arounds. If you define what “substantial” is then you give people scope to “by the book” become legal copyright infringers. By leaving a term like substantial in the text it allows the court to take in to account the precise nature of the accusation, the situation and the relevance of the environment the infringement is taking place in, and come up with it’s own (informed) decision on if it passes the threshold.
The only issue with “substantial” is that it could do with the slightest more definition as to the intent of the wording to ensure there is some form of precedent set in the legal text rather than having to be set by an initial case.
Floating voter rapidly floating away from Liberals
David. If you want a homogenised viewpoint that you can accessibly agree with rather than disagree and engage in debate with, then the “Liberals” probably aren’t for you in any sense of the word.
An emergency motion has gone into LibDem conference. You can read the text at http://bridgetfox.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/that-emergency-motion-in-full/
This motion has been written for LibDems by LibDems so if you agree with it, you certainly should not stop voting LibDem!
Lee asked for debate, well here’s some. The stupidity of the bill has been discussed and articulated above, on other lib dem websites and indeed on hundreds of other web sites across the internet, so I don’t propose to list these, indeed the emergency motion is just about spot on. However to have some debate, lets discuss 120a’s amazing timing (amazingly poor timing that is). A very unpopular law being brought in by the labour party just before a national election has now become known as a lib dem motion – look at web sites everywhere they almost all think its a poor motion and they all refer to it as a lib dem amendment. Talk about shooting yourselves in the foot. The fact is that the emergency motion may pass but Lib Dems don’t have enough seats to defeat the bill – the damage is done. I could go on but I won’t.
Indeed – the irony of it all would appear to be that we are now being led to believe that the LD only amendment was actually to remove clause 17 and not replace, this was the C-J/Razzall amendment, and that it was only because this was not gong to get enough support to pass and clause 17 was so egregious, that C-J combined with the Tory Howard to produce 120a. Given the LD DCMS team’s pronouncements on clause 17 a fair while previously, it should be no surprise that we were going to try almost anything to get rid of it, even if “anything” turned out to be “almost as bad”.
Let’s face it, clause 17 was pretty heinous. Allowing some future minister to tinker with copyright definitions without scrutiny after whosoever plied them with freebies on their yacht.
I, obviously, oppose this part completely as egregiously stupid.
Except…
There’s a little part of me that wants it past, and then in the next Parlt get an onside minister on these issues (many of ours, a few Labourites, etc).
Rewrite copyright law to stop illegal infringement? OK, let’s change the law to make most of what’s being done perfectly legal…
But no, enabling powers of any sort are WRONG.
MAttGB, I trust you are being sarcastic. The powers also enable the Minister to appoint anyone who plies them with enough drink on a yacht to decide copyright. This will never be someone who takes a realistic view of copyright. It would always be a Content Industry hack.
The Tories could not make the poll tax better. Labour can not make compulsory ID cards better – even if they came with a free fluffy pink teddy bear. This awful lobbyist sponsored, digital economy destroying bill can not be made better either.
There is a clear way that the Liberal Democrats can gain from this. Fight to either kill the bill before being passed or as a priority bill to repeal should it pass. In fact repeal of this bill and every other civil liberty robbing bill passed by Neo Con Labour over the last 13 years should be a condition of any post election alliance.
The Liberal Democrats should once again take the high ground on civil liberties, Liberal is after all in the Party name.
Ah yes, liberal in name. Sometimes feels that way doesn’t it!
🙂
TheBigotBasher, the DEB isn’t in there (yet), but it sounds like the Freedom Bill addresses your other concerns…
Can we, members of the public, lobby Lord Clement-Jones like the creative industry does? I mean, there must be some kind of a sum that can be ‘donated’ to the party causes to influence his opinion. Hell, we’ll even pitch it for a trip to Maldives!
We want to make our voices heard in the same ‘special way’ as the creative industry does, as I don’t see them posting comments on your blog like the rest of us do.
We want to tell you that if the creative industry wants to shut down a website in Russia, they should do so in Russia, not in the UK (they’ve succeeded in this with allofmp3.com, they can do so with others). They consider themselves to be a global business, but obviously cannot play by global rules and ride the wave on the back of countries like the UK, where people do buy music legitimately. But our wallets are only this deep, and if they want to be pleasing shareholders year on year, they have to come up with other ways to do their business.
They should wake up and realise that it’s about the consumer choice – if I choose to pay for Spotify instead if iTunes but Spotify has only half of the studios in its catalogue, whose fault is this? People do want to pay for the content on the platform of their choice, but if the labels don’t give it to them because they haven’t worked out their digital business plan in the last decade, it’s their fault. Although, I understand that telling you guys all this is like banging my head against the wall.
The creative industry is a BUSINESS and no democratic country should allow any business to intervene into lawmaking process on this scale. Business is about competition and in no way must it be given the right to influence the state to protect its interests that result in forceful and invasive actions against the citizens, who are in their overwhelming majority its consumers.
But after all, it seems this type of amendment is convenient for the both parties. The creative industry, using dubious and error-prone detection methods, would be able to force the denial of a modern basic right to the citizens of the state and the state can use this amendment as a launchpad for even more restrictive measures in the future. The Internet must be regulated only in its social aspect, and no business must have an impact on its operation in any detrimental way, just like no business has an impact on the UK’s road system.
The creative industry isn’t without its problems, but they can blame only themselves for the majority of them.
Oh, another thing – seems like LibDems are forgetting what being ‘liberal’ and being a ‘democrat’ stand for. In this case it is on-way traffic and feels like you are more corporate pluralists, just like the Tories and Labour.
P.S. Please get back to us with regards to that Maldives offer or any other that we can take to make you re-consider your stance and listen to BOTH parties.
I fully support the Freedom Bill; the point I hope I was making is if this bill passes – that bill already needs to be amended. The opposition needs to oppose this bill and when it comes to the process of tidying up bill before the election this should not be passed as a non controversial bill.
Lord Clement-Jones. I would like you to know that I strongly disapprove of both the Digital Economy Bill and your recent amendment to it. The Digital Economy Bill will remove automatic copyright from artists, requiring them to register their works and making the theft of their works trivial. In addition, much of the bill that should define terms in relation to this matter is not even written.
Furthermore I find your stance on censoring the internet by blocking access to sites or removing users’ access without due process to be naive and unjust. In particular I am extremely concerned that we should not erect our own “great firewall of Great Britain” in the same mould as the way the Chinese government and the Australian government have.
I understand your amendment has to do with copyright infringement and I am very much in favour of strong copyright – I am, after all, a photographer myself and I wish to continue to sell my work. This is why the Digital Economy Bill is a disaster for copyright law in the UK. It will, through the changes to automatic copyright assignment, make it harder and more expensive to claim copyright while making copyright theft easier and then at the same time it will remove the question of what consitutes copyright infringement and the proper punishment for it from where it belongs – in a court of law, placing that power in the hands of the big business copyright holders.
I urge you to remove your support for this bill in its entirety. I do not want it and I believe that the majority of British people do not want it. I urge you to reflect their views.
I do assume that our MPs and Lords will be ensuring that their current and future positions on the Digital Economy Bill respect Party policy defined by the Emergency Motion passed by Conference at the weekend.
If this was about preserving Britons Digital future where are the provisions for helping web developers, chip manufacturers like ARM who are world leaders?? instead we receive this autocratic tripe that is grounded in preserving the last centuries business model. Look forward to ‘enjoying’ a censored/policed internet, either under Mandy or the courts with no real provision for challenging what can very easily be dubious data with the most basic know-how, let alone small businesses and innocent men and women who will have their accounts hacked into.
Innocent until proven guilty? Forget it. The next time we lecture the Chinese I wont know whether to laugh or cry.
I will NEVER vote for the LibDems following this ridiculous proposal….This man doesn’t even see the distinction between a CIVIL matter and a CRIMINAL matter – how can a law maker be so utterly stupid?
“Q. But is there not an important distinction to be made, in that child pornography is a criminal offence, while copyright infringement is a civil matter?
A. I don’t think so, no. If you’re infringing somebody’s copyright on the web, it’s something that should not be taking place.” http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/networking/2010/03/04/lib-dem-peer-on-why-site-blocking-is-needed-40070579/
You will never get my vote – and being under 30, that’s a lot of elections.
LF, the discussion has moved on since this thread started and the Lib Dems unanimously adopted a pro-net-freedom policy at their conference last Sunday: http://www.libdems.org.uk/policy_motions_detail.aspx?pPK=e22de4e4-eebf-41b6-b671-11669fe9c81d&title=Emergency_Motion%3A_Freedom%2C_Creativity_and_the_Internet_-_carried. You can see the latest developments on the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/UK-Lib-Dems-Save-the-Net/394055569528.
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