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Digital Top Stories
Pro-file-sharing types use their ‘freedom’ to call for DEA axe
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 22 July 2010
The coalition government’s ‘Your Freedom’ website, which encourages members of the public to suggest what laws should be abolished, has received in the region of fifty submissions proposing changes to copyright laws, most calling for the copyright section of the Digital Economy Act – which introduced new measures for targeting illegal file-sharers – to be abolished.
Launched at the start of the month by Deputy PM and Lib Dem man Nick Clegg, the Your Freedom forum encourages voters to propose the abolition of “pointless regulation and unnecessary bureaucracy” in a bid to “redress the balance between the citizen and the state”. On launching the site, a government statement said: “Rules in society create good law and order, but too many nannying, unnecessary rules can restrict freedom and make criminals out of ordinary people”.
Your Freedom wasn’t really set up with the rather new Digital Economy Act in mind, but some would argue that the new measures in it to stop individuals from sharing music and movie files without a license – in particular the three-strikes system – is unnecessary, restricts freedom and makes criminals out of ordinary people. And with the DEA still so fresh in everyone’s memories, it’s not surprising it’s been a target in the new forum.
According to Music Week, nearly fifty submissions to the website deal with copyright so far, some calling for copyright protection to be scrapped completely, others for copyright terms to be reduced, others for file-sharing to be legalised. One submission spotted by the trade magazine specifically asked for the three-strikes section of the DEA to be axed, pointing out how the new laws were rushed through parliament, and adding that anti-file-sharing measures apply “20th century thinking being applied to a 21st century way of life”.
Of course, such calls for the relaxation of copyright laws are common in some quarters, and it is unlikely the Your Freedom forum will result in any radical reform of intellectual property laws being added to the government’s agenda. But it is a reminder that the DEA was seen by many as very one-sided legislation, in favour of the copyright owners. There’s definitely an argument that all sides could have benefited from having user rights included in the new Act too.
In related news, the consultation on just how the three-strikes section of the DEA might work continues. As previously reported, an earlier document from OfCom – who will manage the three-strikes process – on exactly how the system might work skirted around all the tricky issues. One such issue is who should pay for the sending of letters to suspected file-sharers, and all the other shizzle that will accompany that process.
Original government proposals suggested the content industries should cover 75% of the costs, the internet service providers 25%. Lobbyists for the music and movie industries have been lobbying hard to have their percentage share of the bill cut. The ISPs too have been calling for a different system, where share of costs is linked to the commercial benefit each party gets from any three-strike action, presumably because they reckon the content owner gets all the benefit so, under that system, would have to cover all the costs.
It was thought OfCom might comment on costs by the end of this month but, again according to Music Week, this now seems unlikely. OfCom’s provisional thoughts on who should pay should now be available by late August.
