In Westminster yesterday BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones chaired a Net Neutrality debate on a motion entitled:
“That this House agrees that traffic management is essential for the running of modern networks and that improved and enforceable transparency and market competition will ensure that consumers are protected from potentially negative effects.”
In an initial vote 50% of those present were in favour of the motion with perhaps 10 – 15% against but there was a twist.
At tonight’s Internet Services Providers Association (ISPA) Awards Labour MP for West BromwichTom Watson was announced as the Internet Hero for 2010. This is just a bit of fun at the one time in the year that the ISP industry lets its hair down, but it does have its serious side.
The work that Tom Watson did in opposing parts of the Digital Economy Bill was highly creditable. He stood up for human rights and fairness. It shows that Members of Parliament do have a conscience and are willing to speak out when that conscience troubles them.
It might be my naivety but I was surprised nay shocked at the ISPA Council meeting today. You must read all this post.
The informed betting is that the General Election is going to be on May 6th. The betting for the dissolution of Parliament is either the 1st or 8th April. Normally notice given is 6 weeks but I’m told that because the Labour Party is (allegedly) short of funds they only want a 4 week election campaign – eat yer heart out US of A. My bet is the 8th because they will all want a nice Easter break before the pitched battle to come.
The Government has confirmed that the Budget will be on 24th March (at 12.30pm for the detail minded – warm the TV up soon). Normally we might expect a week to be given for the media to digest and comment about what will presumably be a budget pitched to give us all as much of a feelgood factor as possible after the last year or two of financial hell/instability/crisis/disaster/nightmare/worry/prosperity (delete as appropriate).
The Second Reading of the Digital Economy Bill was held yesterday in the House of Lords. All sections of the Bill were considered, although the main focus was on clauses 4-17 that address copyright infringement. A brief summary is provided below:
At this stage of the game it is difficult to tell how this Digital Economy Bill will pan out because it seems to be getting some degree of qualifed support from all parties at the Second Reading stage.
The debate in full is available here. I understand that the Committee Stage of the Bill will begin on January 6th. Also I am indebted to the ISPA Secretariat for this input which is mostly a plagiarism of their report. It is a full time job keeping an eye on this stuff.
Sometimes music is intended to be pirated. Check out the YouTube video by Dan Bull.
The people speak out.
Now that the Digital Economy Bill has been published we can comment on its specifics. and in particular on the aspects relating to what the Government describes as “Online infringement of copyright” or illegal filesharing/Music Piracy in every day language. It doesn’t just pertain to music, it includes movies and software as well – many of the abuse notices received by Timico in respect of naughty customers are concerned with the latter.
First of all the proposed Bill grants Lord Mandelson far too much control. The Secretary of State will have the power to make specific recommendations on costs and impose an obligations on ISPs to use technical sanctions. The uninitiated should read this as “telling ISPs how much they will be allowed to charge rights holders for the implementation of the requirements of the Bill. Technical sanctions = cutting off broadband connections.
In the first instance the industry thinks these responsibilites should be given to an independant body. Also the idea that ISPs should share some of the cost burden is contrary to the Government’s own legislation – the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000) (RIPA) – which considers it appropriate for ISPs to be reimbursed for costs incurred when assisting in serious criminal investigations, such as terrorism or kidnap.
What the Government is saying here that it believes that it is ok to recover costs for assistance with the pursuit of serious criminals but not for costs incurred pursuing an alleged civil infringement on behalf of a commercial interest. A scenario that normally burdens the party with the commercial interest with the cost.
ISPs are happy to help and indeed are not in favour of copyright infringement but think it is grossly unfair that they have to pay to police it.
Secondly the suspension of users’ accounts as a potential sanction is wholly disproportionate and is in direct opposition to the objectives outlined in Digital Britain to increase online participation. It seems that this will enable the suspension of users’ accounts without a ruling from a judge. This is potentially in defiance of the forthcoming EU Telecoms Package that guarantees users’ rights to a presumption of innocence until proved guilty.
The Government seems to be blind to the fact that serious copyright infringers can easily evade detection by employing encrypted P2P (for example).
Instead of wielding a big stick Government should be asking rightsholders to reform the licensing framework so that legal content can be distributed online to consumers in a way that they are clearly demanding. Currently the online copyright law is a mess spread across many countries and legislatures and the costs to industry of getting it sorted are huge.
The Government is trying to push this Bill through quickly but it isn’t going to stop the problem. Lift up your heads and raise your voices all!
Now that the Digital Economy Bill has been published we can comment on its specifics. and in particular on the aspects relating to what the Government describes as “Online infringement of copyright” or illegal filesharing/Music Piracy in every day language. It doesn’t just pertain to music, it includes movies and software as well – many of the abuse notices received by Timico in respect of naughty customers are concerned with the latter.
First of all the proposed Bill grants Lord Mandelson far too much control. The Secretary of State will have the power to make specific recommendations on costs and impose an obligations on ISPs to use technical sanctions. The uninitiated should read this as “telling ISPs how much they will be allowed to charge rights holders for the implementation of the requirements of the Bill. Technical sanctions = cutting off broadband connections.
In the first instance the industry thinks these responsibilites should be given to an independant body. Also the idea that ISPs should share some of the cost burden is contrary to the Government’s own legislation – the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000) (RIPA) – which considers it appropriate for ISPs to be reimbursed for costs incurred when assisting in serious criminal investigations, such as terrorism or kidnap.
What the Government is saying here that it believes that it is ok to recover costs for assistance with the pursuit of serious criminals but not for costs incurred pursuing an alleged civil infringement on behalf of a commercial interest. A scenario that normally burdens the party with the commercial interest with the cost.
ISPs are happy to help and indeed are not in favour of copyright infringement but think it is grossly unfair that they have to pay to police it.
Secondly the suspension of users’ accounts as a potential sanction is wholly disproportionate and is in direct opposition to the objectives outlined in Digital Britain to increase online participation. It seems that this will enable the suspension of users’ accounts without a ruling from a judge. This is potentially in defiance of the forthcoming EU Telecoms Package that guarantees users’ rights to a presumption of innocence until proved guilty.
The Government seems to be blind to the fact that serious copyright infringers can easily evade detection by employing encrypted P2P (for example).
Instead of wielding a big stick Government should be asking rightsholders to reform the licensing framework so that legal content can be distributed online to consumers in a way that they are clearly demanding. Currently the online copyright law is a mess spread across many countries and legislatures and the costs to industry of getting it sorted are huge.
The Government is trying to push this Bill through quickly but it isn’t going to stop the problem. Lift up your heads and raise your voices all!
Carphone Warehouse’s consumer ISP TalkTalk seems to have stolen a march on its rivals with a PR campaign against the Government’s stance on Music Piracy. This is where Lord Mandelson wants to disconnect persistent illegal downloaders from the internet.
TalkTalk has done a great job with the campaign website, also available via the domain name dontdisconnect.us.
It must be said that this is a sterling effort on their part to even up the balance on the huge lobbying campaign conducted by the music industry on this subject.
Representatives of the big five consumer ISPs together with Nicholas Lansman of the Internet Services Providers Association met with Lord Mandelson on Wednesday to discuss P2P legislation. I will have more details of the meeting next week.
There is quite a bit going on here and this week speaking before the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee under persistent questioning from former Minister Tom Watson MP, Secretary of State Ben Bradshaw confirmed that rightsholders would have to seek a court order before restricting or suspending users’ connections and also explained that users would have the right to appeal before any sanction was enforced. The evidence session in full is available on video here (relevant section starts at 20:35). This appears to be a postive move from the ISP industry’s perspective.
Also an Early Day Motion tabled by Tom Watson last week has now been signed by 36 MPs, including representatives from all three main political parties. The EDM and signatories can be viewed here.
I would like to thank ISPA for this input. This level of Parliament watching requires some diligence and in the ISPA trade association the industry has a faithful servant.
The Goverment today did a U turn in respect of its approach to the treatment of illegal music downloading. One of the key features of the Digital Britain review is the fight against music piracy. The ISP industry has been in deep discussion with the music industry over this for at least 18 months and probably more and the outline approach being adopted in “Digital Britain” was something notionally agreed by the various stakeholders.
Today Department for Business has today published an amendment to the original consultation on P2P. The amendment contains proposals to give the Secretary of State the power to introduce technical measures and proposals for the cost to be apportioned in the legislation. The amendment also reintroduces the idea of suspension of broadband service as a final resort. This is something that is being opposed in many camps for many reasons already discussed in this blog, not the least being that it is difficult to prove who was doing the downloading.
Although I’m not a lawyer I understand that there is a scenario here that the Government’s own Code of Practice on Consultations has been breached. The amendment is already causing large ripples in the industry and I think we can expect to hear a lot about this in the press over the next days and weeks.
There are already reports in the press that this change of mind is rumoured to have been occasioned by a meeting between Lord Mandelson and Music Industry mogul David Geffen during the summer break. I am all for making things happen quickly. However it does seem to me that Lord Mandelson is inserting the boot here without enough understanding of the issues.
In my mind he would be better off spending his time trying to raise funding for Rural Next Generation Broadband Access, an aspect of the Digital Britain report that has been widely criticised as being a cop out.