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.
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24 Responses to “Special interests have captured the copyright debate”
Richard
@BekiT
“Where do you get disconnections from that? It says ‘suspend’ and ‘limit’ the connection, not disconnect.”
What is the difference between suspension and disconnection? Can you connect to the Internet on an account that has been suspended? No. So are you disconnected? Yes.
The Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to decide to suspend accounts for any length of time, including indefinitely. Are you arguing that this is a proportionate response to copyright infringement? Even when the suspension targets the account-holder and others who rely on that connection rather than the infringer directly? Even when that account-holder could be a library, a coffee shop, a hotel or a university?
This Bill does nothing to support creative business in the digital era. It’s a protectionist tool to prop up obsolete analogue business-models.
Tom
@BekiT – you’re failure to grasp the significance of this billis astounding. As an IT professional I have every reason for believing in proper structure and legislation in my chosen industry. HOWEVER, it doesn’t matter what the billsays it MIGHT do or RECOMMENDS – what really, really matters to us a society is that we do not allow vested interests to circumvent our rights, no matter what the justification. This is a very slippery slope. Your attitude appears to be that it doesn’t matter that commercial forces have lobbied certain elements of whitehall into pushing this bill through because the it’s only an internet disconnection at stake, and that may not happen anyway. That is foolhardy and naive. This is the part of a new approach to dealing with the difficult questions raised by the new age of telecommunications and internet usage i.e. when faced with a massively diverse and amorphous body of interconnected individuals we’d rather restrict their basic rights to make it easier on our policy making, than find new more technical ways to prevent fraud, copyright infringement etc. Certain rights are inalienable, that isn’t always easy, but is absolutely necessary, particularly in an age where may bureaucratic systems are now maintained by employing some form of automation. It would be terrible to live in a world of reduced basic rights and corporate automation, surely you can see that? Stop backing the big boys of commerce and come and join the side of the truth.
BekiT
Richard,
Firstly, the difference between suspending an account and disconnection is that suspending is temporary (24 hours was suggested) – disconnection is permanent. Would you rather be disconnected or suspended? I think on Mondays publication of the Lords report this bit will probably be missing entirely from the bill. As I said, fines and limited access seem to be the preferred stick, I think the Lords report will reflect that and all of your fear will be wasted.
“Are you arguing that this is a proportionate response to copyright infringement? ”
No, you’re arguing against it. Nobody at all is arguing that is a proportionate response – you just made that up.
“The Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to decide to suspend accounts for any length of time, including indefinitely.”
Show me the passage that you got this idea from. This would only be possible if he changed the rules via Clause 17, or used a previous clause to redefine one of the terms – again, will nearly certainly be missing on Monday. I suggest you look at the tabled amendments and the Joint Committee On Human Rights report on the bill (which prompted those amendments). I don’t want clause 17, nobody does. It will obviously never make the final bill because both main opposition parties have said they’d vote against it, so you’re working yourself up about nothing, again. You’re acting hysterically regarding something that hasn’t happened, and isn’t going to happen. Your points have all been raise during the procedure and amendments have been tabled, I think when the Lords report it’ll hopefully categorically deal with your paranoia on this issue.
The bill makes an attempt to protect IP holders in the digital age. That isn’t “nothing”, it’s a very valuable tool to our economy and the progress of our country. Do you want further recession and job losses?! Other countries have a plan, we don’t – we’re losing out because of it.
Tell me, what is the differences between a “creative business in the digital era” and “analogue business-models” exactly? The digital economy works on age-old principles of business, there is simply nothing new in this model, except the delivery mechanism – which up until now has been easy to use to duplicate the product. Spotify, P2P, iTunes, etc, are all analogous to previous models and work in the exact same way and with the same concepts as “analogue business-models”…whatever that really means.
Refs:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt200910/jtselect/jtrights/44/44.pdf
BekiT
Tom
I have grasped the significance of it. I’ve watched people lobby on both sides of this debate. Ironically, the bigger business (the ISPs) are opposed to this legislation, it’s the smaller businesses, the record companies and media firms that argue for it.
“It would be terrible to live in a world of reduced basic rights and corporate automation, surely you can see that?”
Of course it would, what human rights are being infringed by slowing your internet speed down? Everything you’ve written seems to be on what you think the bill says, not what it says today, and certainly not based on what it’ll say after the Lords report is published on Monday. But that doesn’t matter, but you won’t of read either and you’ll still believe that is what it says.
“Stop backing the big boys of commerce and come and join the side of the truth.”
I’m not backing the “big boys” – you are. I’m backing the one man show’s all over this nation that create music, art, film, applications, games, literature, architecture and any other form of digital medium. You’re backing the big boys – the huge telecommunications behemoths that profit from stealing from the content creators that want to keep the status quo. Most digital content is not made by media giants, it’s made by one-man operations, so whose side are you on? BT? Sky? Pipex? Or UK independent music labels that have made us one of the most respected countries in the world for music like Domino, WARP, Ninja Tunes, Tru Thoughts, etc. Once we’ve lost it all, we’ll never get it back.
Jim Killock
@BeKit We are not here to argue about copyright, which we support, or artists making profits, which we support.
On the length of time people’s account may be disconnected (or ‘suspended’ if you prefer) BIS officials this week confirmed to the Guardian that this would be set by the Secretary of State.