Following a barage of criticism over amendments to the Digital Economy Bill, the backers of the amendment are to make concessions which, they hope, will answer many of the objections.
As the FT reports [free registration may be required to view article]:
The Liberal Democrats will publish changes on Friday to their original amendment, of which the Conservatives said they were “broadly supportive”.
Under the new proposals, which will be put to the vote on Monday at the bill’s third reading in the Lords, a judge could order copyright owners to pay legal costs and other compensation for asking a service provider to block a site. Content owners must also inform owners of sites they accuse of infringing their copyright before asking that it be blocked, and list the works illegally hosted.
Site owners or “any person aggrieved” would be able to appeal against a block under the latest amendments.
The overall tone seems to be “we did this with the best of intentions, we now accept it isn’t good enough and we think these changes will make it better.”
Whether the critics agree with this assessment remains to be seen.
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15 Comments
I’m surprised to hear myself say this (or rather, watch myself type this), but these are good concessions.
I still want blocked sites to have a message “this site has been blocked by the UK government at the request of XYZ, to complain write to …” rather than have sites mysteriously disappear. If that could be done too, I might even support this amendment. Maybe.
The whole bill, however, I still have a problem with.
Also, the error message should explain why the page has been blocked, and maybe list the copyrighted works that were infringed.
Right, censorship on the basis of an accusation of copyright infringement is fine as long as the people concerned are informed about it, and there is a chance for bleeding heart liberals to waste their money on lawyers for an inevitably expensive and interminable appeal.
You know, I expect China has similar provisions for its people to similarly appeal any ‘accidental’ censorship.
What good is freedom of speech if you have no mouth from which to speak freely?
In case it’s not obvious, I should add that state censorship is unethical on any basis, even given incontrovertible evidence of copyright infringement, heresy, witchcraft, or any other thought crime the state would like to protect its citizens’ fragile minds from.
The criminal is not the reader of the fatwa, but the individual who authors, commissions or endorses it, or who fails to cease unwittingly publishing it upon notice.
It may be subtle to some, but there is an ethically critical difference between prohibiting incitement of violence or racial hatred, and censoring it (physically preventing its communication).
We have not so far as I am aware been informed that this will have any effect on the desire to hold an emergency debate this weekend, so hopefully people will continue to lobby for and vote for that on Saturday morning in the conference hall when the emergency motion ballot is likely to be held.
This isn’t state censorship, it’s corporate. That can be ethical sometimes. (In this particular case, I’m inclined to doubt it is, but I haven’t read the amendments yet)
Since it is the state offering to assist those to whom it has already granted an intellectual property privilege then ultimately it *is* exactly state censorship.
Just as were the first copyright laws whereby the state could ensure that only people it approved of and could rely on only to publish things of which it approved was (explicitly) a form of state censorship, intended to prevent dissent being promulgated by this new-fangled printing thing.
Well said Jock.
Jock
You need to do a bit (actually, a lot) of basic reading up on copyright law.
I know it’s fashionable to say “everything on the Internet should be free”, but you need to consider how that affects people whose livelihood is protected by copyright law. How would you react to someone suggesting that the fruit of _your_ labour (whatever that is) should be free?
Anthony Aloysius St, that’s not ‘everything should be free’, but everyone should be free. It’s the individual’s liberty we’re interested in here, not the preposterous idea that people shouldn’t be able to exchange their labour in a free market.
As Richard Stallman puts it: Free as in free speech, not as in free beer.
Oh! You think I am some ignorant philistine do you. if you say so.
Have you ever thought about who is really, practically speaking, protected by these laws? The artists, or the middle men in the media giants? And who controls access to mainstream markets, preventing many artists getting anything, because they can’t or won’t screw the right svengali? Oh yes, the media giants. Let’s see, who makes the most money out of “copyright farming” – bullying even their own artists and would be customers alike.
There’s an enormous paucity of imagination going on here if you think there are no ways of monetising creative output without having to grant monopoly rights on fictional property. When we see Prince grossing £13m+ for 21 nights in London (with ticket prices artificially reduced to make them “affordable for everyone” and throwing in a copy of the latest album to 420,000 fans) I think we can find other ways of monetising creative output. There’s lots of investors want a piece of something like Avatar, grossing nearly six times its production and marketing costs so far, even before it becomes something to buy and take home with you are your property. And the damned thing is reputed to have got a $30m *tax credit*.
I have no doubt that without copyright and the attendant economic rent it confers, more, not fewer artists would be making a passable living, instead of a few manufactured superstars earning millions or even billions from their “long tail” and protective monopolies whilst others struggle even to get on the first rung. The focus would move from the “long tail” and milking your catalogue to “first night” and “first edition” and “added value”.
As for patents, well I believe there is no empirical evidence that having and enforcing patents encourages *more* invention. And there’s plenty of evidence that it holds back development and always has. Some of the big pharmcos in any case spend more on marketing than they do on genuine R&D, and even much of that R&D is frequently focussed on making small, barely significant improvements to existing treatments so that they can be reregistered for another twenty years’ exploitation.
There is vast economic rent created by intellectual property laws, that, like most other forms of economic rent, is scooped up, no, nearly monopolised, by corporate giants who hardly have a creative mind amongst them. They prevent constant improvement, and impinge on others’ property rights by barring them from doing what they want with the fruits of *their* labour, their property. And they are not required to be able to make money out of your creations. They are unjust and illiberal.
As I highlighted in another of these threads though, do visit Crosbie’s website or that of one of the chaps behind this weekend’s emergency motion at conference for some ideas, and maybe have a read of “Against Intellectual Monopoly” for a more detailed demolition of IP monopolies.
These seem good ammendments. I’m not some anti-copywrite doctrinaire, nut that may be becasue I don’t know much about it. I find it odd that thwere would be more innovation without the economic incentive.
These concessions are far too little far too late, rather than being based on negotiations with the party (Lords Clement-Jones and Razzle haven’t contacted LDO or any of the groups within the party opposing the #debill or their amendment to it) but with the BPI.
None of the main concerns with the bill itself or amendment 120a have been addressed – ISPs are still responsable for defending 3rd party and their own client’s sites – which of course they have no interest in paying for, so they will continue to comply immediately with any dodgy request to take down and block sites.
The Digital Economy Bill doesn’t seem to have anything at all to do with the Digital Economy, it’s about Radio Stations and the music industry and the sole concession to liberalising copyright is a mishandled bodge that allows media companies to help themselves to orphaned works.
Hey look, that means that only the richest in society have the right to fight copyright claims.
I have to admit, the version of “liberalism” we employ in the Lords is a paragon to the rest of the party. (Sarcasm)