Seam.

Digital Economy Bill

April 10, 2010, 7:12 p.m.

As you may be aware, the Digital Economy Bill was passed two days ago. Whilst this provides some positive legislation regarding the video game industry amongst others, it also has some rotten bits regarding the ‘creative’ industry and copyright infringement.

Labour has been in power through the Internet’s rise and has had some thirteen years to carefully consider and legislate to promote growth and new business models regarding digital distribution. However, they’ve left it to the wash, after the disillusion of Parliament for the General Election, to debate it; which has allowed for a mere 3 hours of scrutiny by the House of Commons after it was similarly rammed through the House of Lords by it’s proposer, the highly unscrupulous (and unelected) Peter Mandelson.

What’s in some ways more vexing is, as anyone who saw the debate in the Commons will have laid witness to, how many politicians shared their extreme displeasure at the manner in which the Bill was fielded and the potentially harmful content that was never scrutinised, but then almost unanimously passed it in a chorus of ‘Ayes!’. This is compounded by the embarrassing turnout of under 5% of MPs to the third reading and subsequently low number whom even bothered voted on the bill (with the notable absence of my local MP, Theresa May).

So, the effect on the lowly constituent. The most dramatic is the legal recourse offered to copyright holders and application of ‘technical measures’ likely to be introduced in 2011, namely disconnection, for users alleged to have been illegally downloading copyrighted material three times. This disconnection would hold the person named on the contract with the ISP responsible. Obviously, this raises issues for shared facilities such as those present in shared housing, Libraries, academic institutions, Internet cafes and businesses. Furthermore, the alleged will have to pay to appeal against a ruling, with the onus on the alleged to prove they didn’t commit an offence, rather than copyright holders proving the opposite. Even if an alleged copyright infringer does decide to appeal, it will be before a tribunal, *not* a court of law. This effectively results in a process which assumes guilt before innocence, which is morally reprehensible and wholly undemocratic.

The situation feels analogous to a quote from the unfinished screenplay, Incomplete Movie About Death - “We’re trapped in the belly of this horrible machine, and the machine is bleeding to death”. A last hurrah of the old school record industry, a pause before a suicide orchestrated through failure to progress and abhorrence of new technology. This Bill does nothing to actually address problems or consider how to legally fulfil the public’s lust for digital content. What’s important to remember is that the music industry and record labels are anything but synonymous and whilst labels are bemoaning poor revenues, the industry has never been doing better, even through the recession.

All that was fairly melodramatic and rambling. What makes this all relevant and arguably appropriate to put on the Numinous site, is that many arguing for this legislation claim it protects new music and guarantees artists the money they deserve. The exact opposite is the case in reality; it panders to the big business side of the industry, and enables them to maintain the status quo of exploiting artists and stifling sharing and exploration of music by those who ultimately matter most, the fans.

Hope you’re well, Phil.

P.S. If you’re twitterly inclined, you can voice a bit of objection over at http://whatdebill.org/. Or if all this has whetted your appetite for a bit of well needed reform, you might want to have a look at the Pirate Party.

P.P.S.“Yeah, but like Lily Allen said copyright infringement is bad.” - Well, she’s a puppet and furthermore, a hypocrite.