Our guest writer is Jim Killock, Executive Director of the Open Rights Group (@jimkillock)
Progressive politics stands for justice and understanding, and facing up to corporate special interests to defend the public good. Yet somehow those corporate special interests have captured the debate on copyright enforcement and the future of the internet.
A huge lobby – Labour’s Tom Watson MP reports at least 100 full time employees – is being employed to campaign for disconnection of internet accounts when copyright infringement may have taken place.
There will be no need for a court hearing. Whole families, businesses, schools or community groups disconnected for the actions of one person. The government admits that innocent people will be punished. They understand this fully, because that’s the nature of the evidence, as it can only pinpoint the internet connection (ie, the household) not the person doing the infringing.
Civil liberties groups from the Open Rights Group, to which I belong, to Liberty and Consumer Focus, are saying very clearly: disconnection would be a very severe punishment in the internet age. Under human rights law, punishments are meant to fit the crime, and not intrude into other parts of people’s lives more than necessary. That’s why fines are such a common punishment. Lords, including Labour’s Larry Whitty, chair of Consumer Focus, made these points very powerfully in their debates.
Industry’s response has been hysterical. From Lily Allen to Simon Cowell, supposed gems of cultural achievement have been lined up to cry out that the industry will die and ‘something must be done’. Fine. But not at the expense of our basic human rights. Not at the expense of innocent people’s education, work and political freedoms.
Industry’s problems isn’t the point. We’re talking about punishments here, and what is appropriate when someone infringes. This isn’t a choice between industry’s doom and imposing disconnection: the choice is between appropriate punishments and imposing disconnection.
The progressive view is clear: whatever it takes to enforce copyrights or change an industry, that cannot be at the expense of our human rights. The duty of the progressive now is to make this clear: a Labour government committed to a progressive agenda should never have signed up to such draconian proposals. And with strong voices opposed within Labour’s ranks, it isn’t too late for a change of heart.
24 Responses to “Special interests have captured the copyright debate”
Jim Killock
Hi Mr Sensible; why wouldn’t fines work? Nobody’s tried that. In fact, letter writing works extremely well. And best of all, services people like. I bet BBC iPlayer and on-demand TV have massively cut illicit TV downloads. Many people think the same of Spotify, and that P2P is declining. There’s plenty of answers when you look around.
BekiT
If you look at the bill, section 13 states :
“(3) A “technical measure” is a measure that:
(a) limits the speed or other capacity of the service provided to a subscriber;
(b) prevents a subscriber from using the service to gain access to particular material, or limits such use;
(c) suspends the service provided to a subscriber; or
(d) limits the service provided to a subscriber in another way.”
Where do you get disconnections from that? It says “suspend” and “limit” the connection, not disconnect. I think you’re creating irrational fears here and missing the point. Reducing speeds is much more appealing for ISPs, because they keep the customer but limit the high bandwidth users. I suggest that could reduce the overall cost of delivering the service. So, you download a load of music, someone objects, the ISP starts the procedure, sends you a letter, then if you carry on they give you a further warning, then you get limitations on access or a fine. Many ISPs already have a policy like this to reduce costs of carrying high bandwidth users. People will still be able to get online, they’ll just be back to “56k” days. No human rights violated, industry largely happy – not the dark tale of human rights abuse you allege.
If we lose the creative sector we’re bankrupt – the revenue from the changes in entertainment is moving out of our economy and into countries that have a found ways of making revenue from these changes. (For example, Germany allows Rapidshare, then sues the company to take the money they’ve removed from our economy).
These are (mostly) rational policies aimed at an increasing threat to our economic development. They’re not perfect (clause 17) and they’re clearly not fully formed, but few bills are before Parliamentary debate, or even Lords report stage; you seem to be alarmist regarding what could be, rather than focussing on what is. Not dealing with these threats will make us much less competitive and push more of our economy into the black market. It drives industry away from this island and towards countries that offer better protection and clearer legal positions than we currently have. The measures do include letters, as you suggest, see section 4 of the draft bill. I don’t think anyone want to see people disconnected for downloading a few songs, but that isn’t what the bill says; that’s what you’ve said with your bizarre fictional narrative. How does limiting net speed infringe human rights? It just makes it harder to download films and music, what else requires connection speeds over 1Mb?
Also, amendments that have been tabled all water down the plan and make it more acceptable to human rights groups. Among the changes were shifts to fines. Seeing as they’ve adopted both of your ideas, and the threats you state are not in the bill, can we take it you now fully support this legislation?
What price will you pay? Andrew Orlowski’s negative takes on the bill are much more convincing, realistic and pragmatic; as I said, the Lords report hasn’t been delivered yet, let’s see what we’re meant to be scared of first before getting too worked up about it.
References :
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200910/ldbills/001/10001.i-ii.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/23/mandybill_petition/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/24/mandybill_tribunal_tweaks/
MIchael Biddulph
RT @leftfootfwd: Special interests have captured the copyright debate http://bit.ly/ci305P
CS Clark
BekiT’s comment above really should be promoted to counterpiece.
It beats me why the OP thinks that being snide over Lily Allen’s musical abilities – I’ll give you Simon Cowell though – and insinuating that her opinions were not her own (‘lined up’? honestly) makes the argument stronger. Come to think of it, it’s also confusing me why it is thought in any case that unilaterally declaring one position progressive is persuasive.
Otherwise, precious little evidence for this blog.
Fab 5: Thursday 25 February 2010 | The Young Fabians Blog
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