[Archived] This Website (And Others Like It) Are Under Serious Threat From A New Bill Being Rushed Through Parliament

[Glenn]

We lost.

By a HUGE majority

The vast majority of those the voted weren't present in the chamber.

Tom Watson is a hero, he put up one hell of a fight, but nobody dare cross Mandy.

One small victory was the dropping of Clause 43 (all your photographs can be re-licenced by the government if they can't/won't find you).

The impact on the UK sadly will be large and negative.

As bad as the bill is, it's also left the 200,000 people who contacted their MPs realising that even if their MP agrees the bill is dangerous, flawed and stupid (as many have done over the last two days) that they daren't vote against it for fear of their careers. People now realise this is no democracy.

[philipl]

Lib Dems voted against

[Glenn]

Lib Dems voted against

They did, which pleased me a little. They had a couple of false starts along the way (trying to insert clauses which made the bill worse) but the came good in the end.

If anyone cares, the hansard has a full list of who voted for and against

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmtoday/cmdebate/32.htm#hddr_2

But MPs on both sides have said their were issued a three line whip (basically an order to turn up and vote the way they are told, or give up any hope of furthering their political career, a very brave move with an upcoming general election).

Oh, Jack Straw voted in favour (but like 90% of those who voted, wasn't present in the chamber for the debate).

[Stuart]

Glenn, what are the immediate and longer term implications for this site?

[Glenn]

It's tough to say, in theory we'd have to put a stop to any content we can't control in fear of one of the users infringing copyright and us facing a nice court injunction and being blocked. So that's 99.9% of the site as the forums and wiki would have to go.

However, realistically, Google, YouTube, Facebook etc and most importantly wikileaks are all in the same boat, that's the madness of the bill. The wording is so stupidly bad that it can effectively be used to throw just about any household or business off the net and block access to pretty any website .... at the request of a copyright holder.

So, I can't see us changing too much unless these powers are used, in which case the entire internet will have to change.

The other good news is the technology is way ahead of the law, this site is hosted in the USA and should it ever be blocked, there are lots of ways still to access it (so don't worry about wikileaks).

I imagine the first real life impact you'll see of this is places will stop offering free wifi. They are classed as service providers now, so unless the have the infrastructure to record and track each and every user and the content they access. They're potentially facing a £20k fine if those logs are requested by a copyright holder and they can't produce them and risk losing their entire connection if one of their users is accused of accessing copyright infringing material.

I'd also imagine that parents and people in shared houses will take a lot more notice of what Little Johnny downloads as if he's spotted downloading something he shouldn't 3 times, bang goes their household internet.

The other upside is Talk Talk have already said that they fight the copyright holders in court rather that cut people off.

[Seggie]

Am I right in thinking Mandleson isn't even elected?

Seriously 200k people contacted their MPs but they had to follow the party line whats the fricking point of having an election if they are just going to do what they want anyway.

[thenodrog]

Am I right in thinking Mandleson isn't even elected?

Seriously 200k people contacted their MPs but they had to follow the party line whats the fricking point of having an election if they are just going to do what they want anyway.

That's been an issue with me for a long time seggie. The term a "wasted vote" used to refer to a non vote or a vote for a minority party. Cos of the devisive Whip system it's clear that a wasted vote is a vote for one of the big 3.

[Beta Ray Bill]

Politicans don't need to follow the whipline for every vote. (And I don't mean those which are 'openly' a free vote.)

Otherwise the only votes against this would have been Lib Dems.

I also remember that former Tory MP for Chorley, Den Dover, actually held a record for most votes against the government by a member of it's own party at one stage. He said he voted for what he thought was right for the people of Chorley, not his party. Obviously an MP will generally follow the party line; partly because the electorate vote for the party's stance not just the person.

It's quite amusing that Den was such a "rebel", because he ended up the Chief Whip for the Conservatives in Europe, before resigning over an expenses scandal!

[thenodrog]

Politicans don't need to follow the whipline for every vote. (And I don't mean those which are 'openly' a free vote.)

Otherwise the only votes against this would have been Lib Dems.

I also remember that former Tory MP for Chorley, Den Dover, actually held a record for most votes against the government by a member of it's own party at one stage. He said he voted for what he thought was right for the people of Chorley, not his party.

Chorley is a marginal seat and therefore the likes of Den Dover and now Lindsay Hoyle desperately need to be seen representing the electorate. Compare this to Blackburn and the Ribble Valley where both seats are so safe that the respective MP's do not need to be seen trying so hard.

[Paul]

I'd also imagine that parents and people in shared houses will take a lot more notice of what Little Johnny downloads as if he's spotted downloading something he shouldn't 3 times, bang goes their household internet.

Highly unlikely in my view Glenn, speaking as a parent of three between 18-23. As it happens the youngest informed me yesterday he has 3000 songs on his iPod at much the same time I was thinking about this bill while driving up the M6. Now I doubt he paid for these and I'm certain I didn't. I fully support copyright protection and appreciate the implications for the originator but the reality of parents checking what Johnny is downloading is zero. The problem here is one for the originators of the material and their total failure to keep up with modern technology. When I was a teenager we recorded Alan Freeman's top 20 show off the radio, listened to the illegal Caroline, we bought LPs and an armful of casette tapes (some I still have). The "authorities" couldn't stop it 40 years ago and won't be able to today. Pathetic but there you go. Heard it all before one way and another. It was totally illegal and my folks never even discussed it. I'm not condoning either action but saying it is nothing new at all, simply the scale has changed.

I have a hard enough time keeping the monthly useage under control let alone worrying about the downloads. OK I know how to control it but am I expected to treat an 18 year old like a child and ask him to come to me every time he needs an access key? I can't live with that. Won't happen in the majority of households.

Do you believe BT are going to cut me, and millions of other users, off because my son downloads some stuff? Not a chance because they cant afford to do so, the income is too great. All that will happen is various major companies will get locked in court action resulting in millions being made for the legal profession. A few examples will be made but for most of us the bill will have no impact....................and frankly if my kids can't get on Facebook who cares, perhaps they'll go out and play cricket instead........like I did.

[stuwilky]

Chorley is a marginal seat and therefore the likes of Den Dover and now Lindsay Hoyle desperately need to be seen representing the electorate. Compare this to Blackburn and the Ribble Valley where both seats are so safe that the respective MP's do not need to be seen trying so hard.

Chorley is a funny place election wise - it isn't 'technically' classed as marginal as Lindsay has a majority of something like 8000 (about the same as Jack Straw's majority). However it is a seat which seems to indicate the results nationally fairly well.

[Kelbo]

You obviously missed this!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8549112.stm

[S15]

Do you believe BT are going to cut me, and millions of other users, off because my son downloads some stuff? Not a chance because they cant afford to do so, the income is too great. All that will happen is various major companies will get locked in court action resulting in millions being made for the legal profession. A few examples will be made but for most of us the bill will have no impact....................and frankly if my kids can't get on Facebook who cares, perhaps they'll go out and play cricket instead........like I did.

Here lies the biggest issue.

The success of the bill all comes down to the co operation of ISP's.

MILLIONS of people use 'bit torrents' on a daily basis; Three people have been convicted in the past decade.

The bill will change very little, and at this stage certainly, is not worth worrying about. There might be the token case now and then, but the beauty of this country is the people making the laws are such idiots and so out of touch with areas like this, thus making it very easy for ISP to keep things pretty much exactly as they are now.

[Kelbo]

See my link above, the bill has been defeated!

[stuwilky]

See my link above, the bill has been defeated!

It went through last week http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8609555.stm

[Kelbo]

How the hell have they done that after being defeated!!

Mind you, we have a reall Nanny state here at the moment, thank god its almost ended!!

[Eddie]

You think there will be major changes? Things will remain pretty much the same regardless of who wins the election.

[Biddy]

my mistake, getting my dates wrong :-)

[Glenn]

The state of play.

Some of the nastiness (clause 38 on orphaned worked for example) was removed and the Lords played a blinder of clause 18 (replacing it with something similar in spirit, but with some enforce common sense added). Also the evil clause about changing copyright rules without debate has been scrapped. But the bill is now law.

However ... there is still a vital stage to go, the so called "super affirmative action" which basically means that a parliamentary committee goes through a period of review before they define how the law is enforced and what the punishments are, this stage also has a public consultation period. So it's not as bad as it could be.

As for the ISPs, talk talk have said sod the 50k fine, we'll see them in court before we cut anyone off (as Paul predicted). As their parent companies as "content providers" Sky and Virgin are unlikely to be so lenient and BT as always will sit back and watch what everyone else does.

There are two grass roots efforts from this which intend to help. The first to make sure when the public consultation starts, the committee is given proper technical guidance. The second is aimed at informing non-technical internet users about how the act works, and how to work within it. What was obvious from this was that the whips have so much power the system doesn't work as intended and that apart from Tom Watson, Dr Evan Harris and a handful of others, our MPs are not given sufficient information to make the decisions asked of them and the main people advising them are corporate lobbiests.

[Paul]

I appreciate the direction Glenn is coming from on this and fully understand his concerns, our personal freedoms, which are to an extent threatened are very important. Looking at the bill from another aspect I'm struck by the irony of the situation. I think I'm right in believing some major electronics companies, Sony for example, own or have significant shareholding in the media, especially music and film, publishing industries. This is the very same industry which, in my lifetime, has provided the consumer with every conceivable device for acquiring and copying film or music - cassette, VHS, Betamax, CD, DVD, mp3 players, iPods, phones, etc etc. All great technology and very enjoyable.

It seems a bit rich for the very industry that develops, markets and sells the products people use to break copyright law to complain about that fact. It also demonstrates quite clearly the equipment manufaturers, could if they truely wished to, develop methods which could prevent copyright infringement..........but hey that might damage their image, not to mention bank balance.

[Glenn]

I normally don't try and defend the file sharers (to me, that's not what the bill was about) whilst I would like to see copyright reform I still believe copyright holders have good reason to want to protect their income. However ...

Radio didn't kill the phonograph, home taping didn't kill music, VHS didn't kill TV, nor will file sharing kill the music and film industries. The answer here is the big music and film companies (and it is only the big ones backing it) need to adjust. The technology is already way ahead of the legislation (it's already trivial to hide your file sharing from your ISPs eye) but big business isn't embracing it and using it to their advantage. Spotify (a legal music streaming site from Sweden) has seen and 800% increase is users in the last 12 months, iTunes is growing day upon day and the largest group of people paying for these legal service ? Thats right, the early adopters, the people who get used to the ease of the technology ... the file sharers. But still the industry view such services with an extreme suspicion.

File sharing isn't going to go away, the bill was never about that, it was about providing the media companies an added revenue stream (they already issue "we caught you file sharing, want to settle out of court" letters, but word got out these were worthless as they couldn't prove who'd committed the offence) rather than them changing their business model to cope with the technology.

[Biddy]

It also demonstrates quite clearly the equipment manufaturers, could if they truely wished to, develop methods which could prevent copyright infringement..........but hey that might damage their image, not to mention bank balance.

Remember, they did indeed try. All early legit music download sites had DRM riddled files that prevented you copying more than once or basically using how you wanted a file that you paid for. Unfortunately, all this did was to annoy the legit users who had rightfully paid for the files. Everyone else was still ripping from CD and getting from other sources.

Its always been that way with the PC games industry too. Copy protection means that having paid for the game, you must have it spinning in the drive all the time. If the CD breaks or gets scratched you have to pay for a replacement. People who buy cracked copies however, install to the hard drive and have fun.

Industries should embrace the real consumers and stop making it so hard to enjoy the products you have legitimately bought. Perhaps if they actually embraced the market, removed unfair price differences between US and Europe, removed release delays on DVD's / Blurays (and got rid of draconian region coding) and made everything cheap enough to be worthwhile spending your money on, more people might actually buy the products.

On the cheapness for example, Microsoft released Windows 7 for half price as pre-order. £45 I think is a great price and I bought 2 copies for both my PC's. This sold out in a matter of days and is now over £90. Surely this shows them that people are willing to pay a reasonable price for a product. As soon as the greed kicks in and the charge double FOR THE SAME PRODUCT, people start looking at downloads.

This government bill is just so wrong its untrue. As Glenn says, its alreay easy enough to hide what you are doing on the internet. If websites get blocked from view in the UK (welcome to China people), those in the know will just use proxies to see them. Again, it is the normal users who lose out, not the ones this bill is supposedly trying to combat.

Most people will also move to encrypting their traffic. pretty much all newsgroups now offer that facility and therefore no one can see what you have actually downloaded. This will mean that the industry are pushing what they are trying to combat even further away from their grasp.

I'd also be interested to see what happens the first time some one who is cut off takes the government to court. Pretty sure I read somewhere that someone in France took their ISP to european court and they ruled it was against their civil liberties to be cut off. Maybe europe is good for some things.

[Beta Ray Bill]

Radio didn't kill the phonograph, home taping didn't kill music, VHS didn't kill TV, nor will file sharing kill the music and film industries.

It could, however, cause significant problems for the tv industry.

An increasing amount of drama (and to a lesser extent comedy) output is reliant on the potential international sales market. Unfortunately, these are also likely to be the programmes that are most likely to be popular at torrent sites.

The more downloads, the fewer viewers through normal means. The fewer viewers, the less a tv company can sell a programme for. The less a tv company sells a programme for, the less they can invest in future productions. The less invested in these marketable products, the more we end up with soaps, gameshows, talent contests and no-mark rubbish.

Admittedly, a part of the problem rests with the domestic channels themselves. The UK market used to be way behind the States on the most popular series (and vice versa). Sky realised this a few years back and now try to get the first runs in the same week or as close to as possible. For example, 24 was being watched via net downloads as there was a distinct feeling why wait weeks when I can see it in hours and don't have to avoid spoliers for extended periods. Channel 5 are doing it with FlashForward, but the BBC doesn't seem to learnt the lesson with regards Heroes, yet BBC America has with Doctor Who.

[Glenn]

I think that TV is another situation where the business model needs to catch up with the tech. Again, people like iTunes and Hulu are making headway here (as have the various "iplayers") but relying on people to watch stuff when the TV company wants you to, when it's already available elsewhere, isn't something they can easily stop.

[ffan]

Ok.

So, for the sake of it, say I had downloaded a couple of songs before this law came to pass, does this mean that can be brought against me or does everyone start with a clean slate?