Talk Talk Immediately Defies Digital Economy Bill
Another poll tax-style rebellion looming? From the Talk Talk blog:
It looks like much of the Digital Economy Bill will make it through to get Royal Assent by the end of the week.
The Bill is now in much better shape than when first tabled by the Government last year – the ability of the Government to impose disconnection at will has been checked and the Henry VIII clause that literally allowed the Government to do anything else to reduce copyright infringement has been removed.
However, many draconian proposals remain such as the responsibility on customers to protect their home networks from hacking at a collective cost of hundreds of millions of pounds a year, the presumption that they are guilty unless they can prove themselves innocent and, as in China, the potential for legitimate search engines and websites to be blocked.
This is made all the more appalling by the ability of big music and film companies to influence government and the absence of any proper debate or scrutiny by MPs – only 5% of MPs turned up for the brief debate yesterday and the other important Parliamentary stages will be bypassed in the wash-up process.
TalkTalk will continue to battle against these oppressive proposals – they will require ’secondary legislation’ before they can be implemented.
After the election we will resume highlighting the substantial dangers inherent in the proposals and that the hoped for benefits in legitimate sales will not materialise as filesharers will simply switch to other undetectable methods to get content for free.
In the meantime we stand by our pledges to our customers:
- Unless we are served with a court order we will never surrender a customer’s details to rightsholders. We are the only major ISP to have taken this stance and we will maintain it.
- If we are instructed to disconnect an account due to alleged copyright infringement we will refuse to do so and tell the rightsholders we’ll see them in court.
ISP Chief Executives Attack Mandelson’s Filesharing Plans
Peter Mandelson’s sudden conversion to disconnecting filesharers from the internet to get the ‘problem’ of p2p under control has been attacked by chief executives of Britain’s internet service providers (ISP):
In a letter to The Times, Charles Dunstone of TalkTalk, Ian Livingston of BT and Tom Alexander of Orange UK criticised the proposals on how to reduce illegal filesharing announced last month, which include the possibility of disconnecting accounts.
The letter, also signed by Deborah Prince of Which?, Ed Mayo of Consumer Focus and Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group, said innocent consumers would suffer.
The letter itself reads as follows:
Consumers must be presumed to be innocent unless proven guilty. We must avoid an extrajudicial “kangaroo court” process where evidence is not tested properly and accused broadband users are denied the right to defend themselves against false accusations. Without these protections innocent customers will suffer. Any penalty must be proportionate. Disconnecting users from the internet would place serious limits on their freedom of expression. Usually, constraints to freedom of expression are imposed only as the result of custodial sentences, or incitement to racial hatred, or libel.
A point very nicely put. Mandelson’s plans represent the same problem posed by the Independent Safeguarding Authority – they are the equivalent of a sledgehammer to crack a nut, benefit entirely the wrong people, and would have side effects – most notably (in both cases) of undermining the rule of law. It’s heartening to see these people bringing the issue back to that, because ahead of any other transgression, it’s the undermining of the rule of law which remains this government’s most appalling achievement. Join us in fighting to stop it, and join me at the Pirate Party UK’s first public meeting this Saturday at 5.30pm in London.
