HOT: UK’s Pirate General.. Overseen By Mr.Corrupt Himself

Would you let a wolf guard sheep?
No? Well, if you were in the UK you would perhaps let a (two strike disgraced) crook make laws, at least that’s whats happened now that I-wanna-be-dictator (Mandy) Madelson will be doing… if he has his way.

In what’s arguably one of the hottest topics on the net concerning 3 strikes, privacy, power-to-the-wrong-person, MAFIAA flexing of muscles etc has the UK at ground zero and their Hitler look alike wielding any weapon he can find against ‘the dirty filesharers’ to please his puppeteers who run the music and film industries.

Here are a couple of excerpts from a few sites viewing the subject from different angles:

UK “Pirate Finder General” law innocuous now, could get ugly

Just two days after the Queen announced that an online copyright enforcement bill was coming, it landed in the House of Lords. It has no sanctions, no “three-strikes” rules, and no fines—but it gives one official the power to levy them at any time in the future.

The Queen announced on Wednesday that her government would deliver Internet piracy legislation; today it arrived in the form of the massive Digital Economy bill meant to modernize the UK’s approach to everything from copyrights to broadband to video game ratings to domain names. The bill contains no sanctions against suspected P2P file-swappers, but it introduces a “reserve power” that can be deployed whenever the Secretary of State feels that it’s time to bust out the switch and administer some beatings.

The bill implements the Digital Britain report, which was completed earlier this year and attempted to chart a course forward for Britain in a high-tech world. It initially imposes two obligations on ISPs: they must forward warning letters from copyright holders to their subscribers, and they must maintain an anonymized list of the number of such warnings received by each subscriber. If a copyright holder asks, they must be shown the list, at which point the rightsholder can go to court and seek to uncover the names of the top offenders, and then sue them.

There are no sanctions, but such sanctions could be coming. The government has written “reserve powers” into the law that can be deployed at a later date without needing Parliamentary approval. What powers are those? Here’s how the bill describes them:

“The Secretary of State may by order amend Part 1 or this Part for the purpose of preventing or reducing the infringement of copyright by means of the Internet, if it appears to the Secretary of State appropriate to do so having regard to technological developments that have occurred or are likely to occur.”

In other words, whenever the Secretary of State decides that speed throttling or Internet disconnections are a good idea, he can implement them with a simple order. The government insists that such power will be introduced only against the “most serious infringers” and only “in the event the initial obligations do not prove as effective as expected.”
Public outrage

But the prospect is clearly on the table in this bill. That has kicked up furious opposition since the idea was floated back in April; public opinion was so against the idea—which came weeks after current Secretary of State Peter Mandelson vacationed with media mogul David Geffen—that the government had to publish a response called “Filesharing: some accusations and some answers.”

Clearly sensitive to public outrage, the drafters of the Digital Economy bill go out of their way to explain that “introducing account suspension is by no means a given. If the initial obligations prove as effective as we expect, we will not need to introduce technical measures… We recognize that there is some concern over the proportionality of this measure [disconnection], and so we will ensure that the interests of consumers are properly recognized.”

This is very much a “take our word for it” approach, since the bill does not appear to contain such safeguards. Indeed, the Secretary of State is given broad powers to give or remove rights and even to impose fines of his or her own choosing.

But there are two safeguards; the idea that the bill suddenly creates a totally autonomous Pirate Finder General who can go on a crazed seek-and-destroy mission and implement any rules he or she chooses has both a political and a Parliamentary limit. The political limit is that the bill requires any new order drafted by the Secretary of State to first be put up for public comment.

“Before making any order under this section,” says the bill, “the Secretary of State must consult such persons who the Secretary of State thinks likely to be affected by the order, or who represent any of those persons, as the Secretary of State thinks fit.” As the Secretary “thinks fit” leaves a bit a wiggle room, but it’s clear that the consultation needs to happen first. And given public pressure and the government’s defensiveness this summer, any such new rules will be met with a furious outpouring of complaints.

The Parliamentary limit is that any new order from the Secretary may not be issued until “a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”

The government at least recognizes that copyright isn’t a one-sided bludgeon that can simply be wielded against an entire nation; it can only function effectively when there is some level of social support for the idea. “Copyright, if it is to maintain respected, must be seen as a fair deal—for the creator, the investor, the re-users, and also the consumer.” The bill does attempt to free up access to copyrighted works through several streamlined licensing provisions that could make it easier to bring new services to market, as well as new “orphan works” rules expanding the ability to use copyrighted works whose owner can no longer be found.
pirate_finder_general.jpg

But Jim Killock of the UK’s Open Rights Group isn’t buying what the government is selling. “People’s rights are at stake,” he said today in a statement. “The Bill doesn’t require any test of evidence before harsh punishments are imposed on people accused of copyright infringement, and opens the door to a ratcheting up of unwarranted powers without democratic scrutiny.”

And the EFF,….

Read the rest of the much larger article on Ars (as well as some sound commentary)

Last week the Digital Economy Bill was released and included tough measures to deal with illicit file-sharing. It was preceded by a consultation period where individuals, consumer groups and ISPs voiced serious concerns over the proposals. The government seems to have completely ignored them – not so the rights holders.

Last week, details finally emerged concerning the Digital Economy Bill. In a nutshell, the bill aims to turn elements of Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report into law.

Internet users will face being monitored by the music and movie industries, and their ISPs forced to pass on infringement notices based on rights holder supplied evidence alone. ISPs will also have to keep records of who gets warnings and share this information with the rights holders.

If reduction targets aren’t met, file-sharers could have action taken against them by their own ISP, including the ultimate sanction of disconnection, all this without setting foot in a court. Also on the cards is allowing changes to UK copyright law without Parliamentary oversight, which means whatever the government decides to do, it can, with no threat of being blocked. Under the influence of the music and movie industries as it is, this can only go one way.

One of the benefits of living in a democracy is that entities like the Digital Economy Bill are preceded by everyone having their say. Rights holders, Internet service providers, consumer groups and, of course, the lowly individual, were allowed to participate via the BERR consultation.

While rights holders achieved almost everything they asked for and will undoubtedly be very happy with the outcome, the government insisted last week that ISPs were also widely supporting the Digital Economy Bill. But that claim turned out to be false, with the Internet Service Providers Association saying that it was “extremely disappointed” with aspects of the proposals aimed at illicit file-sharing.

Consumer groups also submitted to the consultation, including those from Which? and BeingThreatened, a portal created to provide help and support to ISP account holders who have been wrongfully accused of infringement by copyright holders.

“We are extremely disappointed, though not at all surprised with the nature of the response the government have given. Despite the 13 page response consisting of 11 pages of summary, much of which relates to the concern over the evidential collection, due process and appropriate appeal, the government makes absolutely no mention of this in the response,” they told TorrentFreak.

Indeed, as they quite rightly point out, the only items that remain in focus are those relating to protecting the entertainment industries by the introduction of technological solutions and a 3 strikes-style regime.

“The government response fails completely to put any provisions in place to deal with mistaken allegations. Whilst there is a right for appeal, there is no consequence to a rights holder for making vexatious and false claims,” they added.

Also of concern is that the new system being put forward by the government does not trump the old system, indeed they will remain in operation together. If rights holders and lawyers such as ACS:Law wish to continue with their campaigns of sending letters and demanding huge sums of money instead, they will be perfectly entitled to do so, perhaps with the added assistance of the new information ISPs will be compelled to store.

However, what BeingThreatened find most disappointing is…

Read the rest of the article on TorrentFreak

Just as the leaks predicted, the UK government has offered up its Digital Economy Bill, which includes massive changes to copyright law, including the power of the government to effectively change the law at will with little to no oversight. Basically, it would let the Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, change copyright law through secondary legislation, which requires no Parliamentary approval. As people are noting, Mandelson has had to resign from elected positions twice in the past in disgrace, and is now in an unelected position. And he’s the guy who gets to change copyright law at will? That does not seem right. On top of that, the bill doesn’t even specify “three” strikes for users. Instead, it requires ISPs to notify users with warnings — and to notify copyright holders that they did notify users — and if file sharing is not reduced by 70% in a year (with no indication of how this is measured), then the government will tell ISPs to start kicking people off the internet.

Furthermore, Minister for Digital Britain Stephen Timms, who introduced the new bill, claimed that 99% of ISPs are “broadly supportive” of the bill. That’s funny because BT and TalkTalk — two of the largest ISPs in the UK — have loudly complained about the plans (with TalkTalk threatening to sue, and BT saying that this solution is “not the way forward”) and the ISP Association, which represents ISPs in the UK has loudly slammed the bill as …

Read the rest of the article as well as commentary on TD

And another one from TD, related to the first:

As pretty much everyone who reads Techdirt has been submitting today, Lord Peter Mandelson over in the UK — the guy who just discovered copyright law after a resort vacation dinner with entertainment industry mogul David Geffen — wants to go even further in changing copyright law against consumers’ rights. We already know that he was the major force behind getting the UK to move forward with a plan to kick file sharers off the internet based on a “three strikes” plan that involves accusations, not convictions. This was despite a study by the government which had already concluded that three strikes was a bad idea.

However, the latest plan seems even more ridiculous. Not only would it include a new offense for those who download unauthorized material, it would allow the government to give powers to “any person as may be specified” to do whatever is necessary to try to stop online infringement. In other words, it would allow the government to basically deputize anyone they wanted (such as record labels…) with near complete power and little oversight to do whatever they thought necessary to fight online infringement. And this includes changing copyright law at will through “secondary legislation” that involves no Parliamentary oversight or debate. Talk about a broad, sweeping and totally ridiculous change to copyright law…

read the rest as well as 40+ comments on TD

UK citizens, don’t forget, you can still try to do your part in stopping this 3 strikes madness:

This petition has been set up in response to the Government’s proposal to cut off internet access to those who are caught illegally downloading copyrighted files. We think this has one fundamental flaw, as illegal file sharers will simply hack into other peoples WiFi networks to do their dirty work. This will result in innocent people being disconnected from the internet. What’s more, such a punishment should be dealt with in the proper way, in a court of law. This guilty until proven innocent approach violates basic human rights.

Related posts:

1. Ramming Bad Copyright(BPI)
2. In The Ring Today: Draconian Copyright Vs. Ridiculous Copyright
3. A Quick Hash Up of Articles of the Mash That Makes The Digital Economy Bill
4. UK’s Proposed Laws: ‘Much Much Worse’!
5. Brits Don’t Want A Crazy Dictator Of Their Own
6. LEAKED! Britain To Get Really Draconian With File Sharing
7. The Real Pirates Are The Anti-Pirate Organizations!