UK Downloading Bill passed....

[alunfennell]

The government forced through the controversial digital economy bill with the aid of the Conservative party last night, attaining a crucial third readingthird reading – which means it will get royal assent and become law – after just two hours of debate in the Commons.

Earlier the government removed its proposed clause 18, which could have given it sweeping powers to block sites, but replaced it with an amendment to clause 8 of the bill. The new clause allows the secretary of state for business to order the blocking of "a location on the internet which the court is satisfied has been, is being or is likely to be used for or in connection with an activity that infringes copyright".

A new law in the UK now means that ISP's in Britain will be forced to feed information to the government about our actions online. ISP's will be forced to disconnet users who infringe upon copyright for fears of being fined up to ?250,000 if they do not and ISP's will also be forced upon the secretary of states say so to completely block sites & content from UK access.

It was passed last month but is now finalised...

Implication
Any website hosting or referring Rapidshare, Megaupload-Share, and other filesharing websites or content will be forced to close or be blocked by ISP,s (internet service providers) in the U.K including Movies, Software, Music, and all other Digital-signed Media held under rights of its owner.

How far these new laws will go time will tell, but Peer to Peer conections to filesharing will be the start followed by ISP blocking any related websites containibg URL-Links from around the world will be restricted to viewes & users across the UK & NI.

[pantomime horse]

bill

this is soooo not good
big brother is watching us

[lusephur]

this is strange, but how was there a third reading during the election? wasn't the house dissolved?
Reason I ask this is, Cory Doctorow has been reporting on the DEB since it was announced and has commented nothing about this, nor has the EDRI?

[alunfennell]

House of Lord is different as its represented not by MPs but by peer's such as Lords, Bishops, dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons who are not politically motivated.

[alunfennell]

Lords force rethink of government's online piracy plans

BBC News - Lords force rethink of government's online piracy plans

The government has been defeated in the House of Lords over measures to tackle online piracy after opponents said the plans could hamper digital innovation.

Ministers want the power to change laws on online copyright in future without the need for further legislation.

The Lords said the "blanket nature" of the clause was "objectionable".

But their chosen replacement - giving courts the right to block internet sites which are infringing copyright - has also prompted criticism.

The government argued that the new Digital Economy Bill should include the power to amend copyright law to ensure legislation could cope with more technically advanced forms of piracy in the future.

But Google and Facebook were among the firms to express "grave concerns" about the provision, saying it could allow ministers to "increase monitoring of user data even where no illegal practice has taken place".

'Swift recourse'

And on Wednesday, Lords voted to support a Conservative and Liberal Democrat amendment to the bill which paves the way for the clause to be scrapped.

Lib Dem spokesman Lord Clement-Jones said it would be replaced with a measure allowing courts to use injunctions to force internet service providers (ISPs) to block certain websites.

He said the "more proportionate, specific and appropriate" measure, approved by 165 votes to 140, would tackle websites offering films or music illegally.

"There are several sites out there on the web, many of which are based outside the UK, which refuse to stop supplying access to illegal content - indeed whose business plan depends on supplying illegal content," Lord Clement-Jones said.

"At the moment it is not explicit what could be done about such sites.

"This site-blocking remedy would give rights holders an explicit, swift recourse to courts to block access to those sites."

He added: "I believe this is going to send a powerful message... that we do not believe in censoring the internet, but we are responding to genuine concerns from the creative industries about providing a process whereby their material can be satisfactorily accessed legally."

But the amendment has caused just as much concern in some quarters.

Search engines

The Internet Services Providers' Association (ISPA'S) said it would lead to "blocking based on accusation rather than a court injunction".

The Open Rights Group said the industry was "faced with an appalling sight" - a choice between the government's flawed stance, and that of the Lib Dems and Tories, who are "pushing an approach likely to produce straightforward threats, bans and withdrawals of sites with user generated content".

Pirate Party UK, which campaigns on the issue, said the new measure does not require offending websites to be hosting the infringing material, only that such material is "accessible at or via" the location.

Therefore, it said it could affect search engines like Google and sites like YouTube, adding: "Today's events clearly demonstrate that we cannot rely on the front bench of any major party to respect or understand the internet and modern technology."

Junior innovation minister Lord Young of Norwood Green said blocking websites was an "enormous step".

He said it would be hard to block sites offering illegal content without also blocking legitimate material, and agreed that sites linking to other sites - such as search engines - could be adversely affected.

"I don't think it would be sensible or appropriate to adopt this approach," he warned during the debate on the bill.

But Geoff Taylor, from BPI, which represents the recorded music industry, welcomed the amendment and said the ISPA's claim it could lead to "blocking based on accusation" was unfounded.

"It is highly unlikely that a court would order blocking of websites that adopt responsible copyright policies, including effective take-down procedures, so the suggestion of YouTube being shut down is just scaremongering," he added.

[Devilfish]

UK Downloading Bill passed....

Happy days!

[Canker_Canison]

"There are several sites out there on the web, many of which are based outside the UK, which refuse to stop supplying access to illegal content - indeed whose business plan depends on supplying illegal content," Lord Clement-Jones said.

"At the moment it is not explicit what could be done about such sites.

So what they're saying is the bill won't stop what the music & film industry want. But it will severely damage everyone else.

Has anyone been able to resurrect the dead yet? I have a burning need to bring Guy Fawkes back to life.

[chroma]

The only way to block sites like these legaly (im using it in its loosest sense here) would be from the dns nameserver level, pirates would just switch from the ISP DNS to another to circumvent this.

The only other way to get around that is through using sketch Deep Packet Inspection kit, which would monitor everything too and from your computer, surveiling your every move and acting accordingly.

DPI is where the government is heading unfortunately, so everything you do online will be tracable and monitored.

[boothuk]

DPI is a contravention of human rights, it will never happen. This digital bill will be drafted into the great repeal bill before it is finalised - i'm sure of it. It is on the Lib Dem's agenda to remove such a bill! They've talked the talk. Now its time to walk the walk.

[Canker_Canison]

Virgin are already using DPI. They claim to be monitoring 60% of their users. Although they did stress it was only for research... yeh right... They also won't bother trying DPI on encrypted traffic.

[NUKEMALL]

this contry gets worse or did i go to bed and wake up in china , the only bloody differance now is we get to choise who Dictates over us ...........

[lusephur]

and how will onion and garlic routers fare in all this dpi approach

[chroma]

DPI is a contravention of human rights, it will never happen. This digital bill will be drafted into the great repeal bill before it is finalised - i'm sure of it. It is on the Lib Dem's agenda to remove such a bill! They've talked the talk. Now its time to walk the walk.

Human rights? So detaining someone without a trial for being a suspected "terrorist" is ok? Being redacted to an internment camp and then tortured without any concrete evidence is all good with the geneva convention and human rights too?

Since when did the powers that be give a toss about whats fair or right when it stands in the way of power and money?

[alunfennell]

My View on it is,

If this is all been done for the Hollywood movie industry, Software Companys Like Microsoft, Game Companys like EA, They they should Do it them selves !

Not at our Countrys expence, The cost of implementing such draconian measures will at the end of the day become our expence with higher subscription costs by the ISPs, never mind our freedom on the WWW.

The Goverment / House of lord especially is made up of old farts who are out of touch with reality and at no point should have be given the right to vote on something most of them know little about.....

[lusephur]

yes but remember, the entertainment industry is dominated by large (very f'n large) corporations, who are primarily externalising machines, they see nothing wrong with someone else paying for their expense and they reap the profits.
And this is were the bottom line occurs, especially with the recording industry (which is the proper name for who is calling the shots, not the music industry, two seperate areas)
The recording industry giants have had decades of unchallenged rule, they controlled the studios, they controlled the contracts and distribution, things have over the last ten years changed all that, and they see a serious threat to their profits.
remember they are not trying to ban or kill downloads, they are trying to ban/kill downloads they can not control (as are the other areas of the digital media set)
in other words, p2p = bad, rapidshare/depositfiles = bad, itunes = good, you can see the result forming already.

and lets be completely honest, it is not some wild specultaion to say storage media will grow exponentially in storage space and shrink in physical size over the years, I can remember the first time i sw a gigabit drive, huge it was. and right now in a cup beside me, there are a number of sd cards and thumb drives which total, at a guess, at around 200gb. Now it's not out of the realm of possibility to suggest in a few years time there will be personal drives that will fit in your pocket and easily retain every recorded piece of music ever recorded.
and what's to stop people getting together and swapping files, similar to the disk swapping parties in the amiga days?
as hard as copying a cd or dvd is now, that's as hard as it will ever be, it will in fact get easier. So will these plutocratic entities bring in new laws that you can't visit a friends house, or leave your own home with a personal drive? will they make it illegal for you to whistle a tune because you haven't paid the public broadcast license fee?
might be a little far fetched, but then again if someone suggested 5 years ago that the Uk would be introducing the Digital Economy Bill he would have been looked at as mad.