Thoughts on the Digital Economy Bill

(This was written on April 13th. I almost didn't post this as there is a large section of the bill devoted to television and radio regulation, the role of Channel 4 and the role of Ofcom which I have not covered. All this rant does, is focus on one aspect of the bill. For a wider perspective, please read the bill in full here: (http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2010/ukpga_20100024_en_1)

I was very annoyed to hear about the abrupt passing of the Digital Economy Bill. The bill is a new set of measures the government wishes to put in place to ensure that the internet is run justly and that ghastly acts of file-sharing, that may cost companies and artists money are culled.

One of the major parts of the bill aims to limit the use and access of illegal use of copyrighted material, material which has been copyrighted as intellectual property, and in order for a person to use/reproduce such property, they must seek permission from the owner of the material. Sounds fair enough don’t it? Not quite. You see, most artists rarely own the rights to their music, in fact, industry insiders will tell you that it is standard practice for music labels to stipulate ownerships of an artists’ work in contracts, with ownership lasting anywhere between 5 – 25 years. All that aside though, how could the bill affect your internet experience? Well, sites that post audio/visual copyrighted material without consent could be fined, as could the viewer. One such site is YouTube, the one stop shop for all things audio and visual, the lion share which is posted illegally. At this junction, I find it fitting to give you an example of an illegal post. Person A buys a Justin Bieber CD and thinks that his art is so fantastic, that they world must be able to have access to it, so they rip the tracks and post them on YouTube, with accompanying artwork. While this sounds like commonplace activity, it is, in fact, an illegal act because buying a CD does not give you permission to share/reproduce the material in such a way without permission sought, however, illegalities aside, such acts are commonplace. One of the biggest questions is how practical is enforcement?

The bill stipulates that ISPs (internet service providers) would have to present Ofcom with the details of their service users who engage in file-sharing, after which, that person would first have their internet connection speed severely reduced if not temporarily suspended, in an attempt to curb their net browsing, then, the person could be brought before a court or made to pay a hefty fine or both. The problem there is an ISP never represents one person, it typically represents a space and that space, such as a house, a business, a library, a school or even a university dorm, so in theory, a whole family could have their internet speed reduced to a snail’ pace thanks to the activities of one – justice, really?

Broadband provider TalkTalk were quite forthcoming with their stance, insisting that they would refuse to play ball and handover information on their service users without a court order. It was a convincing display of courage and resolve at the time but in hindsight, it was as ignorant as it was predictable, for if it becomes law, a court order would be issued post haste, throwing their allegiance to their users into the spheres of farcical or candour.

The sad thing about this whole debacle is that it was a unique opportunity to engage the younger, more apathetic end of the electorate, as it is an issue that affects them directly, for which they hold multiple opinions. Instead, the opportunity was squandered and the bill was rushed through its final reading in the Commons with little to no debate from MPs and Lords with very limited insight into the ideals of file sharing and the digital realm as a whole. 

Even sadder, is the fact that it was back-doored days after distracting the public with the announcement of an election; it’s just that this is the worst, most corruptible example of protectionism. In order to save the thrones for those at the heads of media organisations everywhere, the government proposed and legitimised a bill that panders to their every demand. Over the next few months, News Corp will charge for their online content, which means any article featured in any of their publications will no longer be indexed in Google searches. While this is understandable, what this bill does is say to other online companies, that subscription for your content is dandy. How long before a number of other news outlets follow? For that matter, how long before there is a fee, regardless of size, to read blogs, to join forums? Of course that is an extreme walk in the mind of me; nevertheless, this bill does set the precedent for all manner of things to take place.