The Digital Economy Bill

The trend towards worldwide internet censorship continues at an alarming pace. As expected the UK government has begun to follow the lead taken by China, Australia and Germany towards full blown internet censorship.

The digital Economy bill is the latest in a raft of censorship and control related legislation set to be rushed through parliament without proper scrutiny or debate.

The bill in its current form – it has not been opened to public debate yet – gives the High Court (in Scotland, the Court of Session) the power to grant an injunction against a service provider, requiring it to prevent access to online locations specified in the order of the Court for the prevention of online copyright infringement.

Furthermore it gives the Court the power to order the internet service provider to pay the copyright owner’s costs of the application unless there were exceptional circumstances justifying the service provider’s failure to prevent access despite notification by the copyright owner.

This legislation if passed will signal the beginning of open internet censorship in the UK and with it will bring increased internet connection costs as well as heavy fines, jail sentences and bans for those caught downloading, distributing or even linking to copyright material on the net.

Mark Lazarowicz, Labour Member of Parliament for Edinburgh North & Leith has been following the debate carefully. He believes there are certainly a number of points in the proposals which need to be substantially amended or withdrawn. However he also believes it unlikely that the Digital Economy Bill will go through Parliament in its present form.

“When there is unfinished legislation at the end of Parliament, there is a short period (known informally as the ‘wash up’) when any outstanding business is dealt with quickly. This process, however, can only be used for legislation which is uncontroversial and has cross-party support.”

“In these circumstances, it is difficult to see how any of the controversial aspects of the Bill could be passed before the election. I agree with you that it would be wrong if they were. I have seen some of the press reports suggesting there has been some front-bench agreement – I have no information about the accuracy of these reports, but in any event, I will continue to take a close interest in the Bill, given the concerns (which I share) about some aspects of the Bill.”

I hope that for the sake of wikileaks.org and whistleblower movement this dangerous legislation is effectively countered before it reaches royal ascent.