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Rights owners form alliance to defend DEA in court
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 1 February 2011
A coalition of rights holders, including record label trade body the BPI and the Musicians’ Union, will represent the content industries at the upcoming judicial review hearing regarding the three-strikes components of last year’s Digital Economy Act.
As previously reported, BT and Talk Talk were last year granted the right to take the copyright components of last year’s DEA to court over allegations the new anti-piracy legislation is in conflict with various aspects of European law. The net firms also argue that the so called ‘graduated response’ approach to tackling file-sharing, in which ISPs will be ordered to send warning letters to suspected file-sharers, with the ultimate threat of net suspensions being introduced for those who fail to heed warnings, was not give sufficient parliamentary scrutiny, as the Labour government rushed the DEA through parliament as the deadline of the then pending General Election approached.
In the alliance of rights owners set to defend the anti-piracy provisions in court are also the Producers’ Alliance For Cinema & Television (or PACT), the Motion Picture Association, the British Video Association, the Film Distributors Association, unions Equity and Bectu, and the Premier League. They will argue that the copyright components of the DEA are essential to ensure the future of Britain’s creative industries.
The alliance was given permission to present its case, or “intervene”, at the judicial review yesterday. For the other side of the debate, lobbying organisation The Open Rights Group will also have a chance to speak up in support of BT and TalkTalk’s opposition to the DEA.
Calling the net firms’ attempts to halt the DEA’s anti-piracy measures in court as a “misconceived case”, John McVay, the boss of one of the content owners in the alliance, PACT, told reporters yesterday: “The act can help repair the damage that illegal downloading causes to the UK creative industry and reduce the threat to the hundreds of thousands of jobs that the creative companies supports. The DEA is the result of many years of consultation and presents a reasonable and balanced solution”.
