Safe for Work - the UK DMCA Bill

Paul Carr is mellowing! Yes, dear readers - he has written a well thought out post on the UK's new Digital Economy Bill. Not only that, he actually read the Bill! I haven't in detail*, so I'm just going to cut and paste Paul's stuff. As he points out, some of the huffing and puffing about Draconian Crackdowns on Free Spirits is somewhat overstated:

For a start, the first point of contention – the compilation of a persistent offenders list, and the potential banning of them from accessing the Internet – isn’t quite as unfair as it sounds. Despite Doctorow’s claim that “your entire family [can] be cut off from the net if anyone who lives in your house is accused of copyright infringement, without proof or evidence or trial”, there are actually multiple points at which evidence comes into play, and the accused file-swapper is given a chance to defend themselves. The bill requires the creation of an independent tribunal body to hear claims of unfairness arising from the new laws, and alleged infringers have not one but two rights of appeal to the tribunal. With each alleged breach, the new law demands that the ISP send a letter to the subscriber putting the allegations and the evidence to them.

Only once a significant number of breaches have been alledged (the drafters of the bill suggest 50) will the subscriber be added to the persistent offenders list. Again, they will be notified. Only at this point can the copyright owner appeal to the court – using a law that has been around for 36 years – to get the name and address of the offender. Even then, though, they won’t be taken to court. Instead, the copyright owner has to send the subscriber yet another letter (this will be their 52nd) warning them that legal action is imminent if they don’t stop. It’s only then that legal action will be taken, leading to a possible fine and – only at the extreme end of the scale – their Internet access being disconnected.

And, as he points out, much of it is just confirming what already exists:

Yes, the courts will have the power to require ISPs to block sites that egregiously host copyrighted files. But they can only do so if the site involved has refused to remove the copyrighted files – a last resort against foreign file lockers who ignore British court injunctions. More importantly it’s also a power that the British courts have had since the 2002 E-Commerce Directive Regulations (with ISP’s being similarly liable for inaction): the new legislation simply creates a DMCA-style process for making take-down requests easier to issue.

As Paul points out, a lot of the opposition to the Bill is coming from people without any intention of actually reading it (the "numpties" who so frustrated me last year when there were public debates about the Digital Britain report). this does not help debate, nor do the inflamed headlines from those who oppose it on ideological grounds (The Grauniad has been pretty poor in its articles on all this in my opinion).

But the thing I still don't get is why Her Majesty's Government is so desperate to get this through in the dog days of the administration. As Paul says, this is the sort of thing we must get right, so surely we can wait until after the May elections?.

* Haven't read the latest British one but had to get our heads around the DMCA, WIPO and various bits of EU legislation a few years back. Exciting reading it is not