Before I bring you my round-up of Clause 17, you'll have noticed a change around the blog. I've been fiddling with the settings a bit, but the main point is the labels on the right, to make it easier for you to focus just on a particular bit - or to find something from the past that you want to see. It's for my benefit as well, of course. Anyway, there you go.
Clause 17: Power to amend copyright provisions. Well, I knew from 2nd Reading that there would be a lot debated on "the eagerly anticipated" Clause 17, and I was right. Lord Young of Norwood Green got things underway by trying to make clear what the clause was for, but Lord Howard of Rising on the Tory bench was having none of it. He said that the clause - which allows the Secretary of State to alter copyright law through secondary legislation, thereby ignoring Parliamentary scrutiny - shows "a contempt for Parliament which has been demonstrated all too often by this Government". He goes on to point out that with the 'super-affirmative process' (the form of secondary legislation that the government insists will still retain some parliamentary scrutiny), there is "no chance to insist on amendments", and although it's possible for either House to throw out a resolution, in practice, this almost never happens. Despite Lord Puttnam's protestations, he insisted that "the supremacy of Parliament is more important" than protecting intellectual copyright - this is obviously as much an issue of principle as anything else.
Labour's Lord Whitty was obviously more favourable, but he did agree that the clause is too wide-ranging, and unlike Clauses 4 to 16 might not only be used to combat unlawful peer-to-peer file sharing. There was an allusion to Henry VIII, as is expected of such a clause, though Lord Whitty's view was that if the clause "were used for all sorts of copyright protection in that context, it would undoubtedly be a Henry VIII use of powers". Thus, it should be more narrow. Lord Puttnam dug his heels in and declared that "it is foolish to pretend that, somehow or other, primary legislation is the way through. It is not".
The ever-present Lord Lucas piped up with "we know what steps people will take if they wish to continue to file-share illegally. They will use cyberlockers, encryption and proxy, and the Government, as my noble friend on the Front Bench has said, have no clue what to do about these things. Nor do I; these are very hard things to deal with". The response from Lord Young was that he was "not sure that we have not been focusing on it, but he is right to say that that will present another challenge". As usual, he made some good points, though, such as that rights holders should "give customers what they want, charge them for it, and get tough if they do not pay", rather than simply "stick with legislation and be tough with customers who misbehave". He insists that the industry needs to give customers "what they want, how they want it, and when they want it. Then we will reduce this problem substantially. That is the right way in which to protect our copyright" (he says 'our' as he is a copyright holder himself, which of course makes his remarks even more refreshing).
Lord Howard returned to his point that "the Executive [Labour, in other words] take more and more power away from Parliament, which as a point of principle should be opposed at all times, if it is not a matter of national survival". He was surprised that nobody picked him up on his comments regarding the unlikelihood of houses throwing out resolutions. "Eight times since the war in the House of Commons and three times in this House does not seem to be a very effective brake on anyone or anything. But if I was on the other side and wanting to do things, it would be a very effective way of getting absolute power while pretending not to have it." This last comment received a few 'hear, hear's from the chamber.
Lord Young came back with a lengthy reply, which he apologised in advance for. He said he would "try to keep it short, but if I do not cover the waterfront, I will not have been a contender-if noble Lords will pardon the pun, which those in the cinematic area will recognise". Groan. Anyway, Amendments 211A and 211B from the government were agreed to, but that was secondary to the idea that Clause 17 should even be in the Bill at all. Lord Clement-Jones began the broadside with a rather long speech, the gist of which I'm sure you can guess. Lord Triesman of Labour (and chairman of the Football Association) completely disagreed with Lord Clement-Jones's remarks. He used BT and Napster as two examples where things happened so quickly that bad things were tough to stop.
The Earl of Erroll was clear on his view that the law shouldn't just be about sending a message and educating people. "Laws have to be effective or they are pointless. Sending messages that do not work merely debases the law in the public's eyes, because then they just ignore it." He made a curious point about 'mashups', saying that the clause could be used to "loosen copyright, which might be a good idea, so that mashups, for instance, were no longer a grey area. I could take a short clip from one of the films of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, overlay it with a bit of music by one of the noble Lords here, put my own content underneath it and put it on YouTube, at which point I would have breached maybe three copyrights. This is going on the whole time". There are millions of such things on YouTube, it's true, so something could be done.
Lord Howard did a bit of name-dropping, on an interesting point: "I said to the managing director of Nintendo, which after all is one of the biggest games things in the world, "What are your views on illegal activities?" I was privileged - I got number one interpreter, I could have had number one, two, three or five but I got number one for this important question. He said, "Could you do something about Spain and China?" I did not like to tell him that my influence in the United Kingdom is pretty abysmal, but when you get to China it is absolutely sub-zero. However, they said that because it is illegal in these countries and we are putting in provisions like these, they sell enough to make the whole thing work. Therefore, from his point of view - I am not saying whether he was right or wrong - he was not worried". Anyone who has followed Nintendo since the 80s like I have, you'll know that Nintendo have always been very draconian when it comes to using their stuff. Interesting anecdote, though.
Lord Razzall made a good point about the clause, given that it's essentially a clause to say that the government may get it wrong, and would like to change it in the future. He said that the "Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill has been going on for years and years. Why do the Government not put a clause in the Bill that says, "Oh, by the way, we are going to amend the constitution, but we might get it wrong so let us put in the power to amend it again by the affirmative resolution process?". Why do the Government not do that?" A good question.
Lord Young joked that the Earl of Erroll "took chunks out of the wonderful work of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam. "Chariots of Erroll" is a frightening concept". He also gave an example of Samuel Johnson's Journey to the Western Isles being "pirated almost immediately in Ireland, so plus ça change in this matter". Lord Clement-Jones appreciated the reference, quipping that when "a man is tired of the Digital Economy Bill he is tired of life. I am sure that this show will run and run". He pointed out that the fast track process was used for the Video Recordings Bill (re-enacting the 1984 Act because it wasn't reported to the European Commission) and I agree that that Bill went through very quickly indeed, so this new "constitutionally inappropriate way of changing the law" shouldn't be used. The clause was agreed to, but clearly we'll get back to this another time. In his final word on the subject, Lord Clement-Jones brought out a chuckle by saying that if the clause wants to send a message to people, "I think the Post Office is a much better way of doing it.".
Clause 17 passed - Amendment 211A & 211B agreed
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
After the big discussion on Clause 10, things got much easier. There was a flurry of relatively quick clauses passed through, with six clauses agreed to in the space of a hour and 40 minutes - which, by the standards of this Bill, is very quick indeed. Of course, it was all leading up to the eagerly-anticipated Clause 17 (the one about changing copyright law without Parliament's approval). Let's power through these simple-looking clauses, and I'll leave Clause 17 to another day.
Clause 11 : Obligations to limit internet access. The major discussions were made in the previous clause, which was about preparations for this stage. There wasn't all that much discussion about the actual obligations. There was an amendment agreed to from the government, which added that technical measures cannot be taken without a resolution from both Houses, which is a very sensible point, as everyone ought to agree before Ofcom start cutting people's internet off.
Clause 11 passed - Amendment 177B agreed
Clause 12 : Code by OFCOM about obligations to limit internet access. No debate. No amendments. No problem.
Clause 12 passed - no amendments
Clause 13 : Contents of code about obligations to limit internet access. An important initial debate ensued about whether people would have technical measures imposed on them before or after an appeal is put forth. There has been a lot of debate about appeals against being wrongfully accused of illegal file-sharing. Various ideas have been bandied about, such as paying a refundable fee to deter "frivolous appeals". On this particular question, Lord Young of Norwood Green made it very clear that "the full appeals process should be completed before any technical measure is imposed". So that's alright, then.
Lord Clement-Jones brought up the point about public internet in universities, libraries and so on. Members from all sides - bar the government - agreed that this could be a problem, as it would be very difficult to monitor public systems like this. For example, Swindon had plans to make the town a wi-fi hot-spot, so how you could monitor the whole city is a cause for concern. The argument against, by Lord Young, is that bandwidth, especially in the case of Swindon, would make file-sharing unrealistic, which I agree with - I can get free wi-fi at McDonald's, but I'm not going to download torrents from there as it would take hours, and frankly I don't want to spend all day in McDonald's. The other point about policing it was addressed by saying that there are "reasonable steps" to stop people accessing certain sites and using P2P programs, though the government "do not pretend that such measures are 100 per cent effective and we do not require this". They just want to make sure that would-be infringers have to "make a conscious decision and some effort to continue to infringe".
Related to the appeals process, Lord Whitty returned to the point about how alleged infringers can defend themselves, as the current balance "is almost entirely on the side of the copyright holder". He insisted that this was a very important point, since "in the Swedish elections after the piracy case nearly a quarter of all voters under 25 voted for the Pirate Party. Their votes were completely wasted, but the mainstream parties had alienated those voters. There are bigger social and political issues involved in this than the Government are facing up to".
Clause 13 passed - no amendments
Clause 14 : Enforcement of obligations. The first question was concerned with the maximum penalty on ISPs to be £250,000, should they be guilty of allowing illegal stuff to be done on their watch. Several members around the chamber agreed that this is an enormous sum of money, and the argument that ISPs are mere conduits - and thus can't be responsible for the content that they serve, just like the Post Office can't be responsible for delivering illegal material - has already been debated. The Earl of Erroll warned that although it is a maximum, it will be "misused" (he tries to be as pessimistic as possible on the whole Bill). Lord Faulkner of Worcester insisted that the text of the Bill "makes it clear that this has to be both appropriate and proportionate to the contravention", so it is simply a maximum, and we have to trust Ofcom to do the right thing. Lord Clement-Jones slyly quipped that "we had his velvet glove when he talked of a graded response, but now we get the mailed fist of the £250,000 maximum penalty".
Clause 14 passed - no amendments
Clause 15 : Sharing of costs. This has been discussed at length already, with the consensus being that ISPs shouldn't shoulder legal costs that rights holders induce, such as the cost of sending letters to subscribers. The Earl of Erroll argued that if ISPs have an extra cost of sending letters to accused illegal file-sharers, eventually the costs will be shifted to subscribers. In his words, "we will see the monthly cost of internet service provision going up. That will be broadcast in bright lights to subscribers. If the Opposition hope to come to power, they do not want this happening on their watch". Lord Young responded that it's "not appropriate for the Government to dictate how any of the industry parties should cover their costs or to prohibit any particular route". Well, that answers that, then. Lord Howard of Rising was "not sure that we would have demonstrations in Trafalgar Square about this, with people being thrown into fountains, but who can tell?"
Clause 15 passed - Amendment 200A & 206A agreed
Clause 16 : Interpretation and consequential provision. There were a couple of quick questions, but nothing really major. It's just about interpretation of terms used in the Bill.
Clause 16 passed - no amendments
Clause 11 : Obligations to limit internet access. The major discussions were made in the previous clause, which was about preparations for this stage. There wasn't all that much discussion about the actual obligations. There was an amendment agreed to from the government, which added that technical measures cannot be taken without a resolution from both Houses, which is a very sensible point, as everyone ought to agree before Ofcom start cutting people's internet off.
Clause 11 passed - Amendment 177B agreed
Clause 12 : Code by OFCOM about obligations to limit internet access. No debate. No amendments. No problem.
Clause 12 passed - no amendments
Clause 13 : Contents of code about obligations to limit internet access. An important initial debate ensued about whether people would have technical measures imposed on them before or after an appeal is put forth. There has been a lot of debate about appeals against being wrongfully accused of illegal file-sharing. Various ideas have been bandied about, such as paying a refundable fee to deter "frivolous appeals". On this particular question, Lord Young of Norwood Green made it very clear that "the full appeals process should be completed before any technical measure is imposed". So that's alright, then.
Lord Clement-Jones brought up the point about public internet in universities, libraries and so on. Members from all sides - bar the government - agreed that this could be a problem, as it would be very difficult to monitor public systems like this. For example, Swindon had plans to make the town a wi-fi hot-spot, so how you could monitor the whole city is a cause for concern. The argument against, by Lord Young, is that bandwidth, especially in the case of Swindon, would make file-sharing unrealistic, which I agree with - I can get free wi-fi at McDonald's, but I'm not going to download torrents from there as it would take hours, and frankly I don't want to spend all day in McDonald's. The other point about policing it was addressed by saying that there are "reasonable steps" to stop people accessing certain sites and using P2P programs, though the government "do not pretend that such measures are 100 per cent effective and we do not require this". They just want to make sure that would-be infringers have to "make a conscious decision and some effort to continue to infringe".
Related to the appeals process, Lord Whitty returned to the point about how alleged infringers can defend themselves, as the current balance "is almost entirely on the side of the copyright holder". He insisted that this was a very important point, since "in the Swedish elections after the piracy case nearly a quarter of all voters under 25 voted for the Pirate Party. Their votes were completely wasted, but the mainstream parties had alienated those voters. There are bigger social and political issues involved in this than the Government are facing up to".
Clause 13 passed - no amendments
Clause 14 : Enforcement of obligations. The first question was concerned with the maximum penalty on ISPs to be £250,000, should they be guilty of allowing illegal stuff to be done on their watch. Several members around the chamber agreed that this is an enormous sum of money, and the argument that ISPs are mere conduits - and thus can't be responsible for the content that they serve, just like the Post Office can't be responsible for delivering illegal material - has already been debated. The Earl of Erroll warned that although it is a maximum, it will be "misused" (he tries to be as pessimistic as possible on the whole Bill). Lord Faulkner of Worcester insisted that the text of the Bill "makes it clear that this has to be both appropriate and proportionate to the contravention", so it is simply a maximum, and we have to trust Ofcom to do the right thing. Lord Clement-Jones slyly quipped that "we had his velvet glove when he talked of a graded response, but now we get the mailed fist of the £250,000 maximum penalty".
Clause 14 passed - no amendments
Clause 15 : Sharing of costs. This has been discussed at length already, with the consensus being that ISPs shouldn't shoulder legal costs that rights holders induce, such as the cost of sending letters to subscribers. The Earl of Erroll argued that if ISPs have an extra cost of sending letters to accused illegal file-sharers, eventually the costs will be shifted to subscribers. In his words, "we will see the monthly cost of internet service provision going up. That will be broadcast in bright lights to subscribers. If the Opposition hope to come to power, they do not want this happening on their watch". Lord Young responded that it's "not appropriate for the Government to dictate how any of the industry parties should cover their costs or to prohibit any particular route". Well, that answers that, then. Lord Howard of Rising was "not sure that we would have demonstrations in Trafalgar Square about this, with people being thrown into fountains, but who can tell?"
Clause 15 passed - Amendment 200A & 206A agreed
Clause 16 : Interpretation and consequential provision. There were a couple of quick questions, but nothing really major. It's just about interpretation of terms used in the Bill.
Clause 16 passed - no amendments
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Clause 10 : Obligations to limit internet access: assessment and preparation. Well, this was a major stumbling block. One of the most controversial aspects of this Bill has undoubtedly been the idea of restricting people's internet access. Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of spirited debate as a result.
Everybody chipped in, pretty much. Amendment 140, which kicked off the debate, was to make Ofcom wait two whole years before deciding if they should use 'technical obligations' - the euphemism for restricting or cutting off people's internet. The basic government position, made clear by Lord Faulkner of Worcester, is that if war on file-sharers breaks out, Ofcom will be ready (I'm paraphrasing, naturally, but that's the gist). Their reasoning is that, if they do need to bring in technical measures, they'll need "a good deal of work, analysis, consultation and a three-month notification with the European Commission" - by which point, of course, much time may have been wasted. I suppose you have to prepare your army in case you need to go to war: if Britain had to wait until the Nazis invaded Poland before training their army, we know what would've happened.
The others around the chamber were dismayed at this announcement. The Earl of Erroll pointed out that, amidst the government's talk of the 'softly, softly' approach, it "was implied that we were suggesting Armageddon in our amendments by saying that they would be introduced immediately. I think that the Minister has just told us that Armageddon is going to happen almost on day one". Lord Clement-Jones found the new revelation "breathtaking". He said he could compare it to "preparing for war in 2002 without any UN resolutions, but that may be a slightly extreme example". Lord Lucas disagreed: "I think that the Government have learnt their lesson, which is why they want to prepare for the occupation before they declare any public intention of a war".
In the ensuing debate, Lord Howard of Rising reminded Lord Young of Norwood Green that, despite all the assurances by Lord Faulkner, this would be "abused sooner or later by somebody". He echoed the arrest of "old ladies who get up and read out lists of the Iraqi dead in front of the Cenotaph". Lord Young of Norwood Green insisted that the government didn't want to "rush into technical measures". However, no amount of reassurance would satisfy the chamber, and we won't hear the last of this, I'm sure.
On a lighter note, Lord Mandelson tabled several amendments, which pleased Lord Clement-Jones: he thought that "for a brief moment, the Minister [was] dispensing sweetness and light". On the subject of limiting speed, Lord Young pointed out that "the subscriber would still be able to operate e-mails and various other features", which reminds me of the Panorama documentary's suggestion that using email would be affected. Hmm.
Lord Lucas also made such a simple observation: if your ISP limits your connection, why not just subscribe to another one? Yeah, it's a pain, but how can the government stop it? Well, Lord Young agreed that "changing an ISP is an option. We have no intention of creating a blacklist, but it is inconvenient, especially if they change too often". That sounds a bit crap, really, as it does make the whole idea of speed restriction sound pointless, but he did insist that they'd get back with a better answer in the future. Lord Clement-Jones echoed the thoughts of Lord De Mauley, who believes that "the primary reason [for these measures] is to prevent ongoing copyright infringement, not to act as a punishment". I hope that remains the intention.
Still, this debate rolled on. Lord Lucas was dead against 'reconstructing traffic', or basically spying on people's internet activity. The ability for the government to read your emails and see what you're looking at can be done through surveillance which "is available, under particular circumstances, to the security services, but should not be there to protect EMI". It's one thing keeping an eye on terrorists, quite another assisting a record company in their pursuit of profit. I was a little confused with the Earl of Erroll's assertion that "if you are trying to restrict access to a website, it is not your ISP that would do it, but the host of the website". Really? Can't an ISP block access? I'll bow to the Earl's knowledge on this, as he's proved that he knows his stuff.
Lord Young made it very clear, however, that they were talking about "the possibility of blocking access to particular types of traffic. I stress that it is certainly not to look at the contents of any of the subscriber's traffic or to change the contents in any way". So, peer-to-peer stuff, then. Lord Maxton wanted to know the technical details about this from Lord Young, but the Minister had difficulty in finding out the answer he was supposed to give. The simple answer was, "we'll get back to you".
As usual, the Earl of Erroll came back for the techie stuff. It seems that the government, as I said, is more interested in stopping unlawful peer-to-peer activity, rather than websites, but the Earl pointed out that Skype is also peer-to-peer. He hoped that the government wouldn't attack people's Skype usage because they thought it was file-sharing (which, of course, they couldn't find out without reconstructing traffic, which is what everyone is against). Lord Lucas, mischievously, ended the debate after the mention of Skype by saying that "more and more people are using image over IP, so you can no longer answer your telephone in your bathrobe or less. You have to be very careful and rush for the make-up before you pick up Skype. With that horrible thought, I am very grateful for what the Minister has said". Cheeky.
As the day's debate drew to a close, Lord Faulkner insisted that suspending a subscriber's service was a measure "which we hope will never need to be employed". On Lord Lucas' amendment about paying rights owners compensation to get your internet working again, the Earl of Erroll made the important point that "lawyers tell me it's not illegal downloading, it's unlawful downloading" (I'm, for once, not quoting Hansard, as their transcript of what he said actually seems wrong). This is "a civil breach of copyright, which is a civil offence and not a criminal one", so paying compensation makes more sense than slapping people in prison. Of course, it ends up being very similar to the actions of Davenport Lyons and ACS:Law, but at least the government would be controlling. Lord Young, obviously, thought this idea was crazy, as the Bill intends to change the whole culture of illegal downloading by switching to legal services, not just pay a fine and carry on doing it illegally. There was a minor amendment passed without debate right at the end of the night, also.
Debate continued for a while on 26th January. Very quickly, debate resumed on ACS:Law and Davenport Lyons, about whom "there has been a torrent of complaints to the [Solicitors Regulation Authority]", according to Lord Clement-Jones. Baroness Howe of Idlicote described their actions as "pretty disturbing". Lord Howard chipped in, describing their behaviour as "appalling". Lord Young would go on to say he was "glad that it has at least been reported to the SRA but regret that no action seems to have been taken to date". Given the venom from other members on all sides, he obviously remained diplomatic as he represents the government.
The Earl of Erroll, on the other hand, made the technical points that most copyright "is owned by six large rights holders - copyright holding companies - because they have the originators under contract from day one. Only a very small amount of money filters out to the creators the work. Most of it is rental on the back catalogue owned by large rights holders. We have to keep that in the back of our minds when we are told that this will kill creativity - it is not necessarily so". I refer to my point during my blog post about the Panorama documentary. Lord Puttnam came in, however, to suggest that the creative process would dry up, because investment will withdraw. I still don't agree with that in the case of music, of course, though in Lord Puttnam's area of the film industry, it's a valid point.
The old chestnut of Avatar popped up again. Lord Young said that we "should not kid ourselves that these are just minor downloads of the odd piece of music" when Avatar was downloaded 300,000 times on the first day of cinema release. The Earl of Erroll was having none of it: he said that, in the case of Avatar, "a few downloads has hardly affected it", given its enormous gross receipts. Lord Lucas (who I think is now my favourite Tory) weighed in with a contribution that is worth quoting in full:
"I suspect that we are not going to agree on "Avatar". It seems to me that the industry is being peculiarly stupid about it - it got 300,000 free advertisements. "Avatar" is something that you cannot consume sensibly on a small screen: you need the big-screen experience to appreciate all the work that they have put into it. The immediate consumption of it created an enormous demand for going to the cinema, which has benefited the film enormously. That is the fundament of this - we must get the industry to see this as an opportunity and not as a threat.
We must get the industry to be in there selling these downloads. If the industry had been in there selling at a dollar a time, it would be better off for it and it would still get the advertising. Its refusal to deal with the way that the world has moved on and with what technology makes possible, and its attempt to stick to old ways of doing things and to the idea that you can release a film in the United States today and wait six months to release it in the UK, is a looking-backwards attitude which we should not support through legislation. Yes, we should support copyright, but we should direct ourselves at real losses and not imagined losses. I do not believe that the makers of "Avatar" have lost a dollar; in fact, I think that they have gained a great deal from the piracy. We should not seek to punish people for losses that have not occurred."
Back on topic. He described the actions of people like ACS:Law as "straightforward legal blackmail". I'm sure we'll come back to this at another time, but they dropped it at this point. Lord Lucas' arguments against protecting the copyright holders "puzzled" Lord Young, and he didn't "understand why we should be happy for people to go into cinemas with camcorders and illicitly download material". Er, I think he means 'camcorders, as well as downloading'. It just sounded like you download films with camcorders. Never mind. Lord Lucas made it clear that nobody in the chamber was "defending illegal downloading", however the technical measures discussed will drive users to file-sharing methods that can only be stopped by spying on people's traffic - something that is unacceptable, "particularly as a measure just to protect copyright". He blasted the industry's backward-looking approach, since "we are in a new century and that there are new ways of doing things and making money out of copyright". Lord Clement-Jones, in closing the argument, half-joked that Lord Young's words "will be read with enormous care in years to come when people see the Secretary of State, by edict, imposing technical measures".
Clause 10 passed - Amendment 148A & 155A agreed
Everybody chipped in, pretty much. Amendment 140, which kicked off the debate, was to make Ofcom wait two whole years before deciding if they should use 'technical obligations' - the euphemism for restricting or cutting off people's internet. The basic government position, made clear by Lord Faulkner of Worcester, is that if war on file-sharers breaks out, Ofcom will be ready (I'm paraphrasing, naturally, but that's the gist). Their reasoning is that, if they do need to bring in technical measures, they'll need "a good deal of work, analysis, consultation and a three-month notification with the European Commission" - by which point, of course, much time may have been wasted. I suppose you have to prepare your army in case you need to go to war: if Britain had to wait until the Nazis invaded Poland before training their army, we know what would've happened.
The others around the chamber were dismayed at this announcement. The Earl of Erroll pointed out that, amidst the government's talk of the 'softly, softly' approach, it "was implied that we were suggesting Armageddon in our amendments by saying that they would be introduced immediately. I think that the Minister has just told us that Armageddon is going to happen almost on day one". Lord Clement-Jones found the new revelation "breathtaking". He said he could compare it to "preparing for war in 2002 without any UN resolutions, but that may be a slightly extreme example". Lord Lucas disagreed: "I think that the Government have learnt their lesson, which is why they want to prepare for the occupation before they declare any public intention of a war".
In the ensuing debate, Lord Howard of Rising reminded Lord Young of Norwood Green that, despite all the assurances by Lord Faulkner, this would be "abused sooner or later by somebody". He echoed the arrest of "old ladies who get up and read out lists of the Iraqi dead in front of the Cenotaph". Lord Young of Norwood Green insisted that the government didn't want to "rush into technical measures". However, no amount of reassurance would satisfy the chamber, and we won't hear the last of this, I'm sure.
On a lighter note, Lord Mandelson tabled several amendments, which pleased Lord Clement-Jones: he thought that "for a brief moment, the Minister [was] dispensing sweetness and light". On the subject of limiting speed, Lord Young pointed out that "the subscriber would still be able to operate e-mails and various other features", which reminds me of the Panorama documentary's suggestion that using email would be affected. Hmm.
Lord Lucas also made such a simple observation: if your ISP limits your connection, why not just subscribe to another one? Yeah, it's a pain, but how can the government stop it? Well, Lord Young agreed that "changing an ISP is an option. We have no intention of creating a blacklist, but it is inconvenient, especially if they change too often". That sounds a bit crap, really, as it does make the whole idea of speed restriction sound pointless, but he did insist that they'd get back with a better answer in the future. Lord Clement-Jones echoed the thoughts of Lord De Mauley, who believes that "the primary reason [for these measures] is to prevent ongoing copyright infringement, not to act as a punishment". I hope that remains the intention.
Still, this debate rolled on. Lord Lucas was dead against 'reconstructing traffic', or basically spying on people's internet activity. The ability for the government to read your emails and see what you're looking at can be done through surveillance which "is available, under particular circumstances, to the security services, but should not be there to protect EMI". It's one thing keeping an eye on terrorists, quite another assisting a record company in their pursuit of profit. I was a little confused with the Earl of Erroll's assertion that "if you are trying to restrict access to a website, it is not your ISP that would do it, but the host of the website". Really? Can't an ISP block access? I'll bow to the Earl's knowledge on this, as he's proved that he knows his stuff.
Lord Young made it very clear, however, that they were talking about "the possibility of blocking access to particular types of traffic. I stress that it is certainly not to look at the contents of any of the subscriber's traffic or to change the contents in any way". So, peer-to-peer stuff, then. Lord Maxton wanted to know the technical details about this from Lord Young, but the Minister had difficulty in finding out the answer he was supposed to give. The simple answer was, "we'll get back to you".
As usual, the Earl of Erroll came back for the techie stuff. It seems that the government, as I said, is more interested in stopping unlawful peer-to-peer activity, rather than websites, but the Earl pointed out that Skype is also peer-to-peer. He hoped that the government wouldn't attack people's Skype usage because they thought it was file-sharing (which, of course, they couldn't find out without reconstructing traffic, which is what everyone is against). Lord Lucas, mischievously, ended the debate after the mention of Skype by saying that "more and more people are using image over IP, so you can no longer answer your telephone in your bathrobe or less. You have to be very careful and rush for the make-up before you pick up Skype. With that horrible thought, I am very grateful for what the Minister has said". Cheeky.
As the day's debate drew to a close, Lord Faulkner insisted that suspending a subscriber's service was a measure "which we hope will never need to be employed". On Lord Lucas' amendment about paying rights owners compensation to get your internet working again, the Earl of Erroll made the important point that "lawyers tell me it's not illegal downloading, it's unlawful downloading" (I'm, for once, not quoting Hansard, as their transcript of what he said actually seems wrong). This is "a civil breach of copyright, which is a civil offence and not a criminal one", so paying compensation makes more sense than slapping people in prison. Of course, it ends up being very similar to the actions of Davenport Lyons and ACS:Law, but at least the government would be controlling. Lord Young, obviously, thought this idea was crazy, as the Bill intends to change the whole culture of illegal downloading by switching to legal services, not just pay a fine and carry on doing it illegally. There was a minor amendment passed without debate right at the end of the night, also.
Debate continued for a while on 26th January. Very quickly, debate resumed on ACS:Law and Davenport Lyons, about whom "there has been a torrent of complaints to the [Solicitors Regulation Authority]", according to Lord Clement-Jones. Baroness Howe of Idlicote described their actions as "pretty disturbing". Lord Howard chipped in, describing their behaviour as "appalling". Lord Young would go on to say he was "glad that it has at least been reported to the SRA but regret that no action seems to have been taken to date". Given the venom from other members on all sides, he obviously remained diplomatic as he represents the government.
The Earl of Erroll, on the other hand, made the technical points that most copyright "is owned by six large rights holders - copyright holding companies - because they have the originators under contract from day one. Only a very small amount of money filters out to the creators the work. Most of it is rental on the back catalogue owned by large rights holders. We have to keep that in the back of our minds when we are told that this will kill creativity - it is not necessarily so". I refer to my point during my blog post about the Panorama documentary. Lord Puttnam came in, however, to suggest that the creative process would dry up, because investment will withdraw. I still don't agree with that in the case of music, of course, though in Lord Puttnam's area of the film industry, it's a valid point.
The old chestnut of Avatar popped up again. Lord Young said that we "should not kid ourselves that these are just minor downloads of the odd piece of music" when Avatar was downloaded 300,000 times on the first day of cinema release. The Earl of Erroll was having none of it: he said that, in the case of Avatar, "a few downloads has hardly affected it", given its enormous gross receipts. Lord Lucas (who I think is now my favourite Tory) weighed in with a contribution that is worth quoting in full:
"I suspect that we are not going to agree on "Avatar". It seems to me that the industry is being peculiarly stupid about it - it got 300,000 free advertisements. "Avatar" is something that you cannot consume sensibly on a small screen: you need the big-screen experience to appreciate all the work that they have put into it. The immediate consumption of it created an enormous demand for going to the cinema, which has benefited the film enormously. That is the fundament of this - we must get the industry to see this as an opportunity and not as a threat.
We must get the industry to be in there selling these downloads. If the industry had been in there selling at a dollar a time, it would be better off for it and it would still get the advertising. Its refusal to deal with the way that the world has moved on and with what technology makes possible, and its attempt to stick to old ways of doing things and to the idea that you can release a film in the United States today and wait six months to release it in the UK, is a looking-backwards attitude which we should not support through legislation. Yes, we should support copyright, but we should direct ourselves at real losses and not imagined losses. I do not believe that the makers of "Avatar" have lost a dollar; in fact, I think that they have gained a great deal from the piracy. We should not seek to punish people for losses that have not occurred."
Back on topic. He described the actions of people like ACS:Law as "straightforward legal blackmail". I'm sure we'll come back to this at another time, but they dropped it at this point. Lord Lucas' arguments against protecting the copyright holders "puzzled" Lord Young, and he didn't "understand why we should be happy for people to go into cinemas with camcorders and illicitly download material". Er, I think he means 'camcorders, as well as downloading'. It just sounded like you download films with camcorders. Never mind. Lord Lucas made it clear that nobody in the chamber was "defending illegal downloading", however the technical measures discussed will drive users to file-sharing methods that can only be stopped by spying on people's traffic - something that is unacceptable, "particularly as a measure just to protect copyright". He blasted the industry's backward-looking approach, since "we are in a new century and that there are new ways of doing things and making money out of copyright". Lord Clement-Jones, in closing the argument, half-joked that Lord Young's words "will be read with enormous care in years to come when people see the Secretary of State, by edict, imposing technical measures".
Clause 10 passed - Amendment 148A & 155A agreed
Saturday, 20 March 2010
Before Clause 9, Lord Lucas introduced an amendment to tackle insidious law firms such as ACS:Law and Davenport Lyons. These two firms are responsible for getting flimsy evidence of someone's guilt in sharing a copyrighted title, and harassing them for several hundred pounds. Lord Clement-Jones, a (former?) lawyer himself, was happy to join in the kicking of these guys, claiming they've even asked someone "how old their daughter is and what games console she has, when they have only a Nintendo DS", insisting that this "intrusion is unacceptable", which, of course, it is. There are no words to describe these law firms, but clearly they must be stopped, and it was nice to hear most people denounce them (as Lord Young of Norwood Green seemed to agree with the opinion of their behaviour during the following session, after receiving information about them - though being in government, he was not so explicit). In the midst of all this, Tory Lord Howard of Rising revealed, surprisingly, that he knows that BBC licence fee letters are very unfriendly, as he has "rather a good collection of them, actually".
Clause 9 : Progress reports. This was a relatively short debate. There were some good points, however.
During a debate on Ofcom reviewing its plans for the future based on whether the new regulations are encouraging people to download legally, Lord Lucas, a very liberal Tory as far as I can see, made a wonderful plea. He said that "reducing the level of illegal downloading is not in itself an absolute good. If we reduce the level of illegal downloading, all we will do is to reduce a lot of people's enjoyment of music and films. If we do not at the same time increase the level of revenue to the copyright owners, we will do nothing for them. We will produce a widespread bad, but no good. Just depriving people of something is not a good thing to do. It is good only if we can get more revenue for the copyright holders". He made it clear that the position on this Bill should not be of punishing file-sharers, but of benefiting the copyright holders. The Earl of Erroll agreed in a later debate, saying that unless the regulations help the rights holders, the law will be "acting like the traditional puritan who has a haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might be enjoying himself".
There were a couple more tiny discussions before passing the clause unamended.
Clause 9 passed - no amendments
I'll leave Clause 10 till tomorrow. I've already written my post, but it's very long, so I'll add it to the site tomorrow. Incidentally, the Bill has currently passed to the House of Commons, so I still have a lot of catching up to do.
Clause 9 : Progress reports. This was a relatively short debate. There were some good points, however.
During a debate on Ofcom reviewing its plans for the future based on whether the new regulations are encouraging people to download legally, Lord Lucas, a very liberal Tory as far as I can see, made a wonderful plea. He said that "reducing the level of illegal downloading is not in itself an absolute good. If we reduce the level of illegal downloading, all we will do is to reduce a lot of people's enjoyment of music and films. If we do not at the same time increase the level of revenue to the copyright owners, we will do nothing for them. We will produce a widespread bad, but no good. Just depriving people of something is not a good thing to do. It is good only if we can get more revenue for the copyright holders". He made it clear that the position on this Bill should not be of punishing file-sharers, but of benefiting the copyright holders. The Earl of Erroll agreed in a later debate, saying that unless the regulations help the rights holders, the law will be "acting like the traditional puritan who has a haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might be enjoying himself".
There were a couple more tiny discussions before passing the clause unamended.
Clause 9 passed - no amendments
I'll leave Clause 10 till tomorrow. I've already written my post, but it's very long, so I'll add it to the site tomorrow. Incidentally, the Bill has currently passed to the House of Commons, so I still have a lot of catching up to do.
Thursday, 18 March 2010
Clause 8 : Contents of initial obligations code. There was a ton of debate on this subject precisely because we don't yet know what this new code will contain. Anything that is outside the complete control of Parliament, in the form of Primary Legislation (like this Bill), is not going to be met with much approval. There has been much insistence on certain things being 'on the face of the Bill', rather than letting Ofcom or some other body decide things for themselves. The consternation is, I think, understandable.
Lord Clement-Jones suggested a time limit between somebody transferring a copyright-holder's file, and that person receiving a copyright infringement report (CIR). His suggestion was three months, arguing that if there is "some sort of Sword of Damocles hanging over a subscriber", then subscribers shouldn't have to respond to allegations beyond their memory, as it's unfair. The argument against this by Lord Young of Norwood Green was that people will take this as a default - that is, 'oh, we don't have to do anything for three months, then we'll get them'. He insisted that everyone should simply trust the code to get this right. Lord Clement-Jones retorted that Lord Young is "optimistic about the way the code will operate, but he is probably surrounded by rather more pessimism than he would like. "Trust the code" was his watchword, but the fact is that if the code is going to be created by different stakeholders, it will be like having a bunch of ferrets in a sack". Not quite sure I understand the last bit, but I think I know what he's driving at.
So, that's pretty much where it ended on 18th January. The House came together just two days later, on 20th January, to continue debating Clause 8. It got off to a shaky start, however - it seems as though the woman here didn't really know what to say. Christ, I'm a bystander and I think I could reel off the required words after all these debates. Maybe she was just confused by all the comings and goings.
Both Lib Dems and Tories were very concerned about the formation of another body to assist Ofcom in their activities, who may or may not be independent. In fact, the latter point was strongly debated, with Lord Clement-Jones wondering if they would need "the old test of the length of the Minister's thumb to decide whether independence is sufficient". The government assured everyone that this would be fine, but I'm sure this will rear its head in the future.
There was also some important (in my opinion) debate about the 'burden of proof' being on the copyright owners, not subscribers, when it comes to a case being brought against someone. The debates have made it very clear that 'innocent until proven guilty' is the default stance we should be taking (as I said in a previous post, I've heard nothing but support for subscribers against copyright owners throughout the debates), but the opposite stance appears to be the case here.
This discussion was linked to the contentious subject of costs. The government suggested a 75/25 split - 75% of legal costs paid by copyright owners, 25% by ISPs. Lord Howard of Rising stated that "copyright owners want a 50/50 split while the internet service providers want none of the costs. The Government seem to have made a final decision just to split the difference and have an easy life". Lord Clement-Jones chimed in that Lord Young "would not be taking the Digital Economy Bill through the House if he was really after an easy life". Lord Young made it quite clear that the 75/25 number is not set in stone, so no need to get hot and bothered about it now.
There was a bit of confusion at one point, as Lord Clement-Jones said he was going to give a speech if Lord Young was to speak about both Amendments 120 and 124, but he wouldn't if he did them separately. Lord Young seemed to get a bit confused by this. The fallout from this resulted in Lord Clement-Jones joking that he was "slightly hurt" by Lord Young's admonishment of his amendment grouping.
Lord Lucas made the pertinent point of asking how a subscriber can defend himself from accusations of illegal file-sharing, "other than by saying, "I didn't do it, guv"". His suggestion of a technical solution - like a program that will "inspect [your computer] and say, "Yes, you have taken the measures necessary and yes, there is no trace of unlicensed copyright material on this machine", sign it off and thereby provide sufficient proof that he is innocent" - may be difficult in practice. Nevertheless, what other options are there? Other than having to "surrender my laptop for three months or, as has happened in other civil cases, more than a year", there doesn't seem to be much choice. Lord Lucas was not satisfied with Lord Young's response, so he pledged to return to this at Report.
He made another interesting, though brief, amendment, suggesting that if there are millions of illegal file-sharers, and a fraction get accused of doing it, that's still hundreds of thousands of cases clogging up the civil courts. This was a point I mentioned in an earlier post. His suggestion was a simple fine, which would essentially make it like it is now, but government authorised and without all the bullying tactics. It makes sense: if you're going to go after people, you might as well save a lot of trouble. Lord Young insisted that the potential levels of damage are so wide-ranging that it wouldn't be practicable. Lord Lucas accepted that, but warned that the government will have "failed in their duty to their citizens if they do not keep to themselves a mechanism for making sure that at least the initial fine or punishment is within bounds". He referred to the astronomical amounts of damage demanded by companies in the USA.
Lord Howard was very keen to know if "no technical measure will be imposed until the appeal process has been completed". He, thankfully, received that assurance. I don't think anyone would like to lose their internet because of a false claim by a copyright holder.
There was a little more debate before, finally, Clause 8 was agreed, unamended.
Clause 8 passed - no amendments
Lord Clement-Jones suggested a time limit between somebody transferring a copyright-holder's file, and that person receiving a copyright infringement report (CIR). His suggestion was three months, arguing that if there is "some sort of Sword of Damocles hanging over a subscriber", then subscribers shouldn't have to respond to allegations beyond their memory, as it's unfair. The argument against this by Lord Young of Norwood Green was that people will take this as a default - that is, 'oh, we don't have to do anything for three months, then we'll get them'. He insisted that everyone should simply trust the code to get this right. Lord Clement-Jones retorted that Lord Young is "optimistic about the way the code will operate, but he is probably surrounded by rather more pessimism than he would like. "Trust the code" was his watchword, but the fact is that if the code is going to be created by different stakeholders, it will be like having a bunch of ferrets in a sack". Not quite sure I understand the last bit, but I think I know what he's driving at.
So, that's pretty much where it ended on 18th January. The House came together just two days later, on 20th January, to continue debating Clause 8. It got off to a shaky start, however - it seems as though the woman here didn't really know what to say. Christ, I'm a bystander and I think I could reel off the required words after all these debates. Maybe she was just confused by all the comings and goings.
Both Lib Dems and Tories were very concerned about the formation of another body to assist Ofcom in their activities, who may or may not be independent. In fact, the latter point was strongly debated, with Lord Clement-Jones wondering if they would need "the old test of the length of the Minister's thumb to decide whether independence is sufficient". The government assured everyone that this would be fine, but I'm sure this will rear its head in the future.
There was also some important (in my opinion) debate about the 'burden of proof' being on the copyright owners, not subscribers, when it comes to a case being brought against someone. The debates have made it very clear that 'innocent until proven guilty' is the default stance we should be taking (as I said in a previous post, I've heard nothing but support for subscribers against copyright owners throughout the debates), but the opposite stance appears to be the case here.
This discussion was linked to the contentious subject of costs. The government suggested a 75/25 split - 75% of legal costs paid by copyright owners, 25% by ISPs. Lord Howard of Rising stated that "copyright owners want a 50/50 split while the internet service providers want none of the costs. The Government seem to have made a final decision just to split the difference and have an easy life". Lord Clement-Jones chimed in that Lord Young "would not be taking the Digital Economy Bill through the House if he was really after an easy life". Lord Young made it quite clear that the 75/25 number is not set in stone, so no need to get hot and bothered about it now.
There was a bit of confusion at one point, as Lord Clement-Jones said he was going to give a speech if Lord Young was to speak about both Amendments 120 and 124, but he wouldn't if he did them separately. Lord Young seemed to get a bit confused by this. The fallout from this resulted in Lord Clement-Jones joking that he was "slightly hurt" by Lord Young's admonishment of his amendment grouping.
Lord Lucas made the pertinent point of asking how a subscriber can defend himself from accusations of illegal file-sharing, "other than by saying, "I didn't do it, guv"". His suggestion of a technical solution - like a program that will "inspect [your computer] and say, "Yes, you have taken the measures necessary and yes, there is no trace of unlicensed copyright material on this machine", sign it off and thereby provide sufficient proof that he is innocent" - may be difficult in practice. Nevertheless, what other options are there? Other than having to "surrender my laptop for three months or, as has happened in other civil cases, more than a year", there doesn't seem to be much choice. Lord Lucas was not satisfied with Lord Young's response, so he pledged to return to this at Report.
He made another interesting, though brief, amendment, suggesting that if there are millions of illegal file-sharers, and a fraction get accused of doing it, that's still hundreds of thousands of cases clogging up the civil courts. This was a point I mentioned in an earlier post. His suggestion was a simple fine, which would essentially make it like it is now, but government authorised and without all the bullying tactics. It makes sense: if you're going to go after people, you might as well save a lot of trouble. Lord Young insisted that the potential levels of damage are so wide-ranging that it wouldn't be practicable. Lord Lucas accepted that, but warned that the government will have "failed in their duty to their citizens if they do not keep to themselves a mechanism for making sure that at least the initial fine or punishment is within bounds". He referred to the astronomical amounts of damage demanded by companies in the USA.
Lord Howard was very keen to know if "no technical measure will be imposed until the appeal process has been completed". He, thankfully, received that assurance. I don't think anyone would like to lose their internet because of a false claim by a copyright holder.
There was a little more debate before, finally, Clause 8 was agreed, unamended.
Clause 8 passed - no amendments
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Clause 8 is rather long - well, the debate on it is, anyway - so I'll focus solely on Panorama: Are the Net Police Coming for You, the BBC programme shown on Monday night. I've watched it, and since I've been reviewing all the debates, I figured it'd make sense to do the same to this.
I wasn't 100% convinced by their ham-fisted method of explaining the finer points of the Digital Economy Bill. It began in pretty bullish fashion, claiming that "if you're a persistent downloader, the government is threatening to cut you off", which is the same as saying "if you commit a crime, the government is threatening to put you in prison for life". From what I've gathered from listening to the discussions in the Lords, the emphasis has been overwhelmingly on protecting people's rights, not "threatening" anything. I don't think they're giving the government enough credit here. Besides, as they mention later, the Bill has "cross-party support", so it's not just the Labour government who want to see this Bill through.
Anyway, let's move on. The focus in this show is purely on file-sharing of music - and only music. Nothing else is covered. Naturally, they got Radio 1's Jo Whiley to do the 'investigation', if you can call it that, since I imagine she holds currency with the 13-25 year-old demographic who like music. As usual, though, the descriptions of anything remotely technical come off sounding even more clueless than the 50 year-old men I've been listening to in the Lords.
At the very least, they pushed all points of view, from musicians and industry people, as well as the great unwashed. For the latter, they decided to watch an "ordinary household" - that is, a middle-class family with ridiculous names for their children (Posey? Seriously?). Anyway, the kids are big downloaders, of course, and the adults have no idea about computers, so at least that part sounds accurate. Thus, they employ the services of an IT sleuth, who can find out what you're doing online. Now, I thought "IT sleuth" meant that he would use special programs to monitor what you do, and tear through the hard drive's sectors for deleted stuff, but no.
In fact, this guy just had a look around someone's hard drive, and says he's got films, TV shows and so on. Did you really need to be a super sleuth to click 'Start', 'Search', and '.avi'? Seriously? You needed a "Forensic Computer Investigator" to do that? Just to rub it in, they ask him where he gets his stuff, and he replies with, surprise surprise, The Pirate Bay, arguably the most well-known Bittorrent tracker in the world. So, helpfully, the cameraman gets a close-up on the URL for... piratebay.com. Which, in case you don't know, is a different site. Still, this internet's all the same, innit?
After a silly rapper raps about how it's terrible to download, Stephen Timms MP comes on to explain the Bill, but, struggling for an analogy, he says that "just as if you're using electricity you need to use it in lawful means, so with broadband". Could someone explain an 'unlawful' use of electricity? If you electrocute your parents, I guess that's 'unlawful'. There then follows a little animation for the thickies out there.
But after getting the differing opinions of musical talking heads, our super sleuth Keith has "found something interesting on the family computers". Hands up if the first word that came to mind was 'PORN'. Well, you're wrong. There's "a piece of software called Bittorrent" on the computer. How'd you find that, super sleuth? Did you go in their 'Program Files' folder and look for the most common method of sharing files? Or typed 'torrent' in the aforementioned search box? Seriously? Forensic expert Keith? Sigh. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but it seems like we need an 'expert' in every documentary, even if they're nothing of the sort, just so we have someone to trust with these matters. When quizzed on the existence of uTorr... sorry, 'Bittorrent' - better keep it generic here - the mother comes out with the classic line: "They're not downloading porn or anything, so it's just music, so it seems to be okay". Finally, someone mentioned the p-word.
They bring up the dreaded 'throttling', a term which I find unsavoury given the proximity to 'strangling'. The mum of the family thinks she'd be affected "massively" by this, because she needs to get email at home. Yes, because cutting you down to 50kb/s would stop your email from coming through. Something tells me the purpose of throttling your connection is to stop the big transfers of films and music, not a sodding Word document. But I digress. Throttling or cutting off your internets is "controversial", which it should be, of course. I like the revelations by Ms Whiley that people do banking, shopping and "even socialising" via the web. Yes, even socialising. It's not as if social networking sites are a cultural phenomenon at the moment or anything.
I think I'm getting a little petty, so I'll thunder on and get this over with. I really like TalkTalk's mischievous video mocking the music industry's attempts at stopping this sort of thing, and go to YouTube if you want to see the whole video. I like Billy Bragg's simple equation for how artists can make money with file-sharing going on: "If you can find 5,000 people anywhere in the world (because of the internet) who are willing to spend a tenner on you in the space of a year, you've got the basis of a career". It's a great point, as £50,000 a year would be a great salary for most of us, and any argument that losing money through file-sharing "stifles creativity" is bollocks, frankly. Thing is, when musicians are used to the high life, they'll be damned if they should give it up.
Another rapper comes along and says that the Featured Artists Coalition is a bunch of rich musicians who've already made it, so they should be ignored. Pop twat Louis Walsh says that, whatever your genre, "you need the big machine behind you". Thanks, but no thanks. They then made the valid point that people who download a lot also spend a lot too, so the industry probably makes more money from the evil pirates than from your average Joe.
Back to the techie stuff, though, as our man Keith sits in a car outside the house and 'hacks' their wi-fi. This is a concern, of course, but the debates on the Bill have made this point clear, that it's more about educating people on how to keep their wi-fi secure, as guys sitting in cars using wi-fi is hardly a huge problem at the moment. A couple of people then complain that lawyers representing companies have accused them of downloading and demanded money - something that was also debated and the consensus is obviously that this is an awful thing to do. So, how do you find the evil pirates? IP address. Can you fake your IP address? Of course you can. They don't use the word 'proxy', even though that word isn't a purely techie one as it's used for other things - they simply say 'anonymity system'. Jo Whiley also points out that websites to get stuff from include "the Pirate Bay, Bittorrent and LimeWire". Well, despite the fact that Bittorrent is a protocol, and LimeWire is a program that uses that protocol, you're nearly right. I know I'm getting petty again, but it's like saying "some different travel companies are EasyJet, petrol and motorcycles" - it sounds silly.
Finally, our Jo's "astonished" at the stuff the kids have been downloading, including some new bands, "the kind of stuff that I'm really into". Okay, Jo, we know you're 'down with the kids, innit', but you don't have to sound desperate.
In summary, it had a sprinkling of good points mixed in with a lot of stupid. Never was it mentioned that the Bill actually has nothing to do with DOWNloading files, but is specifically concerned with making files available for UPload. This is why, thoughout the debate (and on this blog) there have been mentions of 'illegal file-sharers', not 'downloaders'. Companies don't like downloading, of course, but the Bill is concerned with uploading to others, via Bittorrent for example. If someone stuck an album, film or whatever onto one of the many file-hosting websites, it's impossible for anyone to know that you got the files from there. So, you could stop the Bittorrent uploaders, one by one, but file-hosting sites continue to thrive.
I hope you enjoyed my review, and as a result of it I hope you stick with me for news on this Bill, because documentary makers clearly don't have a clue what they're talking about.
I wasn't 100% convinced by their ham-fisted method of explaining the finer points of the Digital Economy Bill. It began in pretty bullish fashion, claiming that "if you're a persistent downloader, the government is threatening to cut you off", which is the same as saying "if you commit a crime, the government is threatening to put you in prison for life". From what I've gathered from listening to the discussions in the Lords, the emphasis has been overwhelmingly on protecting people's rights, not "threatening" anything. I don't think they're giving the government enough credit here. Besides, as they mention later, the Bill has "cross-party support", so it's not just the Labour government who want to see this Bill through.
Anyway, let's move on. The focus in this show is purely on file-sharing of music - and only music. Nothing else is covered. Naturally, they got Radio 1's Jo Whiley to do the 'investigation', if you can call it that, since I imagine she holds currency with the 13-25 year-old demographic who like music. As usual, though, the descriptions of anything remotely technical come off sounding even more clueless than the 50 year-old men I've been listening to in the Lords.
At the very least, they pushed all points of view, from musicians and industry people, as well as the great unwashed. For the latter, they decided to watch an "ordinary household" - that is, a middle-class family with ridiculous names for their children (Posey? Seriously?). Anyway, the kids are big downloaders, of course, and the adults have no idea about computers, so at least that part sounds accurate. Thus, they employ the services of an IT sleuth, who can find out what you're doing online. Now, I thought "IT sleuth" meant that he would use special programs to monitor what you do, and tear through the hard drive's sectors for deleted stuff, but no.
In fact, this guy just had a look around someone's hard drive, and says he's got films, TV shows and so on. Did you really need to be a super sleuth to click 'Start', 'Search', and '.avi'? Seriously? You needed a "Forensic Computer Investigator" to do that? Just to rub it in, they ask him where he gets his stuff, and he replies with, surprise surprise, The Pirate Bay, arguably the most well-known Bittorrent tracker in the world. So, helpfully, the cameraman gets a close-up on the URL for... piratebay.com. Which, in case you don't know, is a different site. Still, this internet's all the same, innit?
After a silly rapper raps about how it's terrible to download, Stephen Timms MP comes on to explain the Bill, but, struggling for an analogy, he says that "just as if you're using electricity you need to use it in lawful means, so with broadband". Could someone explain an 'unlawful' use of electricity? If you electrocute your parents, I guess that's 'unlawful'. There then follows a little animation for the thickies out there.
But after getting the differing opinions of musical talking heads, our super sleuth Keith has "found something interesting on the family computers". Hands up if the first word that came to mind was 'PORN'. Well, you're wrong. There's "a piece of software called Bittorrent" on the computer. How'd you find that, super sleuth? Did you go in their 'Program Files' folder and look for the most common method of sharing files? Or typed 'torrent' in the aforementioned search box? Seriously? Forensic expert Keith? Sigh. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but it seems like we need an 'expert' in every documentary, even if they're nothing of the sort, just so we have someone to trust with these matters. When quizzed on the existence of uTorr... sorry, 'Bittorrent' - better keep it generic here - the mother comes out with the classic line: "They're not downloading porn or anything, so it's just music, so it seems to be okay". Finally, someone mentioned the p-word.
They bring up the dreaded 'throttling', a term which I find unsavoury given the proximity to 'strangling'. The mum of the family thinks she'd be affected "massively" by this, because she needs to get email at home. Yes, because cutting you down to 50kb/s would stop your email from coming through. Something tells me the purpose of throttling your connection is to stop the big transfers of films and music, not a sodding Word document. But I digress. Throttling or cutting off your internets is "controversial", which it should be, of course. I like the revelations by Ms Whiley that people do banking, shopping and "even socialising" via the web. Yes, even socialising. It's not as if social networking sites are a cultural phenomenon at the moment or anything.
I think I'm getting a little petty, so I'll thunder on and get this over with. I really like TalkTalk's mischievous video mocking the music industry's attempts at stopping this sort of thing, and go to YouTube if you want to see the whole video. I like Billy Bragg's simple equation for how artists can make money with file-sharing going on: "If you can find 5,000 people anywhere in the world (because of the internet) who are willing to spend a tenner on you in the space of a year, you've got the basis of a career". It's a great point, as £50,000 a year would be a great salary for most of us, and any argument that losing money through file-sharing "stifles creativity" is bollocks, frankly. Thing is, when musicians are used to the high life, they'll be damned if they should give it up.
Another rapper comes along and says that the Featured Artists Coalition is a bunch of rich musicians who've already made it, so they should be ignored. Pop twat Louis Walsh says that, whatever your genre, "you need the big machine behind you". Thanks, but no thanks. They then made the valid point that people who download a lot also spend a lot too, so the industry probably makes more money from the evil pirates than from your average Joe.
Back to the techie stuff, though, as our man Keith sits in a car outside the house and 'hacks' their wi-fi. This is a concern, of course, but the debates on the Bill have made this point clear, that it's more about educating people on how to keep their wi-fi secure, as guys sitting in cars using wi-fi is hardly a huge problem at the moment. A couple of people then complain that lawyers representing companies have accused them of downloading and demanded money - something that was also debated and the consensus is obviously that this is an awful thing to do. So, how do you find the evil pirates? IP address. Can you fake your IP address? Of course you can. They don't use the word 'proxy', even though that word isn't a purely techie one as it's used for other things - they simply say 'anonymity system'. Jo Whiley also points out that websites to get stuff from include "the Pirate Bay, Bittorrent and LimeWire". Well, despite the fact that Bittorrent is a protocol, and LimeWire is a program that uses that protocol, you're nearly right. I know I'm getting petty again, but it's like saying "some different travel companies are EasyJet, petrol and motorcycles" - it sounds silly.
Finally, our Jo's "astonished" at the stuff the kids have been downloading, including some new bands, "the kind of stuff that I'm really into". Okay, Jo, we know you're 'down with the kids, innit', but you don't have to sound desperate.
In summary, it had a sprinkling of good points mixed in with a lot of stupid. Never was it mentioned that the Bill actually has nothing to do with DOWNloading files, but is specifically concerned with making files available for UPload. This is why, thoughout the debate (and on this blog) there have been mentions of 'illegal file-sharers', not 'downloaders'. Companies don't like downloading, of course, but the Bill is concerned with uploading to others, via Bittorrent for example. If someone stuck an album, film or whatever onto one of the many file-hosting websites, it's impossible for anyone to know that you got the files from there. So, you could stop the Bittorrent uploaders, one by one, but file-hosting sites continue to thrive.
I hope you enjoyed my review, and as a result of it I hope you stick with me for news on this Bill, because documentary makers clearly don't have a clue what they're talking about.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Before we begin today's look at the Digital Economy Bill (I've still got a lot of catching up to do, but I hope I'm up to date before it becomes an Act, otherwise I'll look silly), I'd like to draw your attention to BBC's Panorama, available here on the iPlayer. I haven't seen it yet, but Pete informed me via the comments that it's concerned with the exact thing that I've been poring over for the last month or so. This'll probably be the first that most British people have heard of this, which shows somewhat how little interest everyday people have in the drafting of laws that could put them in big trouble. Anyway, give it a watch. In case you don't, then, just like the umpteen hours of debates, I'll give you a review, maybe tomorrow.
Clause 7 : Initial obligations code by OFCOM in the absence of an approved code. The theme at the beginning of the debate on this one was that of haste. The Bill obviously needs to get passed pretty quickly, as an election's coming soon, so we have even less time than normal to get through it. Lord Howard of Rising warned, however, that "too much haste can lead to mistakes and, indeed, some would argue that this Bill is an example of that".
Nevertheless, Amendment 84 was proposed by the government and, of course, agreed to. This dealt with notifying the European Commission, which takes time - something the government clearly doesn't have, as they want to get this thing on the road as soon as possible.
This is related to the re-enacting of the Video Recordings Act, which was necessary as the European Commission was not informed way back in 1984, and so anyone who was prosecuted for selling adult videos to kids had no right to be, as the VRA was not enforceable. They obviously want to make sure that this doesn't happen with this Bill. The amendment gives Ofcom an extension to coming up with their new code, in order to make sure that the EC can receive it. They still want it done quick, mind, but they have to cover all the bases. The Tories and Lib Dems (via Lord Howard of Rising and Lord Clement-Jones respectively) weren't thoroughly convinced, but they let it through.
Something to point out before I move on. I'm learning things all the time throughout this process - that's mainly why I'm reviewing it on this blog, for my own benefit - and one thing that is very clear is that the Committee Stage may involve people proposing amendments, but that doesn't mean they actually want the amendment to succeed. They just want an opportunity to speak on a matter of concern. Of course, they obviously want the Bill to be changed somehow, but not necessarily with the words they suggest: perhaps they want the government (in this case) to go away and think about it, and maybe come up with their own amendment. A phrase
that's popped up frequently is that of a "probing amendment" - an amendment that just wishes to ask questions, not change anything. The amendment is just an excuse to speak. Just some info for those out there who aren't aware of it.
There was a bit of concern about whether all these new powers will be taken up by Ofcom, or if a new body will be created. As Lord Howard of Rising put it, the "material that we have recently been given appears to confirm that the new body is still unconfirmed - if my English is not too upside down". The Tories hate 'quangos' - quasi non-governmental organisation, or a body that has some power but is not necessarily connected to the government - and the Lord continued that Labour "have a record of creating quangos and a seemingly unabated appetite for more". Lord Young of Norwood Green described that as a "harsh accusation". Baroness Buscombe retorted that, with the Labour Lord not wanting more powers for Ofcom but also not wanting a quango, he has "almost lost the will to live". Joining in with this joking around, Lord Young insisted that "I have not lost the will to live. Fancy being deprived of the sheer pleasure of listening to the noble Baroness enunciating my poor performance in these areas, or the ineffectiveness of the superb briefing notes supplied by my superb Bill team".
All of this fun was rounded off by Lord Howard of Rising as he withdrew his amendment, by saying that he was "rather worried about [Lord Young of Norwood Green]'s health. He seems to be looking all right; I just hope he will make it through the rest of this evening - perhaps even for the rest of the debate. It looks as if we have a long hard road ahead in this Committee, and I would hate to think that he would not make it".
Clause 7 passed - Amendment 98 agreed
Clause 7 : Initial obligations code by OFCOM in the absence of an approved code. The theme at the beginning of the debate on this one was that of haste. The Bill obviously needs to get passed pretty quickly, as an election's coming soon, so we have even less time than normal to get through it. Lord Howard of Rising warned, however, that "too much haste can lead to mistakes and, indeed, some would argue that this Bill is an example of that".
Nevertheless, Amendment 84 was proposed by the government and, of course, agreed to. This dealt with notifying the European Commission, which takes time - something the government clearly doesn't have, as they want to get this thing on the road as soon as possible.
This is related to the re-enacting of the Video Recordings Act, which was necessary as the European Commission was not informed way back in 1984, and so anyone who was prosecuted for selling adult videos to kids had no right to be, as the VRA was not enforceable. They obviously want to make sure that this doesn't happen with this Bill. The amendment gives Ofcom an extension to coming up with their new code, in order to make sure that the EC can receive it. They still want it done quick, mind, but they have to cover all the bases. The Tories and Lib Dems (via Lord Howard of Rising and Lord Clement-Jones respectively) weren't thoroughly convinced, but they let it through.
Something to point out before I move on. I'm learning things all the time throughout this process - that's mainly why I'm reviewing it on this blog, for my own benefit - and one thing that is very clear is that the Committee Stage may involve people proposing amendments, but that doesn't mean they actually want the amendment to succeed. They just want an opportunity to speak on a matter of concern. Of course, they obviously want the Bill to be changed somehow, but not necessarily with the words they suggest: perhaps they want the government (in this case) to go away and think about it, and maybe come up with their own amendment. A phrase
that's popped up frequently is that of a "probing amendment" - an amendment that just wishes to ask questions, not change anything. The amendment is just an excuse to speak. Just some info for those out there who aren't aware of it.
There was a bit of concern about whether all these new powers will be taken up by Ofcom, or if a new body will be created. As Lord Howard of Rising put it, the "material that we have recently been given appears to confirm that the new body is still unconfirmed - if my English is not too upside down". The Tories hate 'quangos' - quasi non-governmental organisation, or a body that has some power but is not necessarily connected to the government - and the Lord continued that Labour "have a record of creating quangos and a seemingly unabated appetite for more". Lord Young of Norwood Green described that as a "harsh accusation". Baroness Buscombe retorted that, with the Labour Lord not wanting more powers for Ofcom but also not wanting a quango, he has "almost lost the will to live". Joining in with this joking around, Lord Young insisted that "I have not lost the will to live. Fancy being deprived of the sheer pleasure of listening to the noble Baroness enunciating my poor performance in these areas, or the ineffectiveness of the superb briefing notes supplied by my superb Bill team".
All of this fun was rounded off by Lord Howard of Rising as he withdrew his amendment, by saying that he was "rather worried about [Lord Young of Norwood Green]'s health. He seems to be looking all right; I just hope he will make it through the rest of this evening - perhaps even for the rest of the debate. It looks as if we have a long hard road ahead in this Committee, and I would hate to think that he would not make it".
Clause 7 passed - Amendment 98 agreed
Friday, 12 March 2010
Clause 5 : Obligation to provide infringement lists to copyright owners. There was an amendment before Clause 5, dealing with ISPs blocking websites (an attempt to tackle infringement via websites rather than P2P, which is clearly where the Bill has focussed most of its attention). It wasn't agreed to, of course, but I'm sure we'll hear more of it in the future.
The first discussions centred on a 'threshold' again, and wondering whether a fixed number should be put in the Bill. For example, as suggested by the Lib Dems, when someone has 50 copyright infringement reports (CIRs) against their name, then they get their asses kicked. The only conclusion drawn from this was that it's going to be a little more complicated than just downloading 50 things. We'll get back to this another time.
Wow, an amendment was agreed to! Amendment 84 was simply removing the words "(if any)" when describing a threshold. Clearly the debates that have ensued have suggested that the Bill needs to make it clear that there is a threshold of some sort, whether it be a simple number or something more complicated. The government agreed to the amendment, and with that, the Clause.
Clause 5 passed - Amendment 84 agreed
Clause 6 : Approval of code about the initial obligations. Straight away we have another amendment agreed to. Amendment 85A was put forth by the government, so no surprise that it was agreed to (any amendments from the government will likely be passed, as they're promoting the Bill). It simply changes Ofcom's agreement to a 'code' from being a choice to not being one. It's nothing worth worrying about.
There was a lot of debate on the subject of libraries and universities being considered as different to normal subscribers at home, since they can't be expected to police their own networks. Lord Young of Norwood Green's viewpoint was that you can't just give carte blanche to these kinds of places, but I think the intention of the amendments discussed were more to do with treating educational establishments differently, not simply ignoring any file-sharing that goes on there.
Amendments 95A and 95B were simple drafting amendments put forward by the government, so naturally they were accepted without question. 96A was a substantial re-wording of what was already in the Bill, but didn't make any significant changes (and was also tabled by the government). Up to this point, the government has stuck to its guns and turned down virtually all amendments, with the only opposition coming in Clause 1.
Clause 6 passed - Amendment 85A, 95A, 95B, 96A agreed
The first discussions centred on a 'threshold' again, and wondering whether a fixed number should be put in the Bill. For example, as suggested by the Lib Dems, when someone has 50 copyright infringement reports (CIRs) against their name, then they get their asses kicked. The only conclusion drawn from this was that it's going to be a little more complicated than just downloading 50 things. We'll get back to this another time.
Wow, an amendment was agreed to! Amendment 84 was simply removing the words "(if any)" when describing a threshold. Clearly the debates that have ensued have suggested that the Bill needs to make it clear that there is a threshold of some sort, whether it be a simple number or something more complicated. The government agreed to the amendment, and with that, the Clause.
Clause 5 passed - Amendment 84 agreed
Clause 6 : Approval of code about the initial obligations. Straight away we have another amendment agreed to. Amendment 85A was put forth by the government, so no surprise that it was agreed to (any amendments from the government will likely be passed, as they're promoting the Bill). It simply changes Ofcom's agreement to a 'code' from being a choice to not being one. It's nothing worth worrying about.
There was a lot of debate on the subject of libraries and universities being considered as different to normal subscribers at home, since they can't be expected to police their own networks. Lord Young of Norwood Green's viewpoint was that you can't just give carte blanche to these kinds of places, but I think the intention of the amendments discussed were more to do with treating educational establishments differently, not simply ignoring any file-sharing that goes on there.
Amendments 95A and 95B were simple drafting amendments put forward by the government, so naturally they were accepted without question. 96A was a substantial re-wording of what was already in the Bill, but didn't make any significant changes (and was also tabled by the government). Up to this point, the government has stuck to its guns and turned down virtually all amendments, with the only opposition coming in Clause 1.
Clause 6 passed - Amendment 85A, 95A, 95B, 96A agreed
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Clause 3 : OFCOM reports on media content. Clause 3 wasn't even discussed at all, as there was only one amendment, which was not moved. That was easy.
Clause 3 passed - no amendments
So, now we move to the second part, Online Infringement of Copyright, by far the biggest part of the Bill, and the most controversial. It was discussed at length on 12th, 18th, 20th and 26th January.
There was a bit of discussion on inserting a new clause before Clause 4. Amendment 33 dealt with insisting that copyright holders must use the new laws instead of simply harassing people with lawyers for money. Lord Mitchell pointed out that, on the subject of illegal downloading, it's something that "every single child in this country is doing - you would be hard pressed to find any person under the age of 25 who is not illegally downloading". Thus, the recurring theme from these debates resurfaced: that it's "dangerous for us to be putting into effect legislation that puts a whole lot of people in a criminal situation when they do not think that they are committing a crime".
Having said that, Football Association Chairman Lord Triesman pointed out that "not everybody who steals a file on their computer is a 16 year-old who wants one song", but also that "car boot sales and market stalls" have tons of downloaded stuff to buy, and it's "frequently associated with illegal immigrants". Not sure exactly what he's saying about immigrants there, but his main point is that it's "a very significant criminal activity", not just kids having fun. Nevertheless, he'd like to get the kids "into a sport and off the couch and away from the television - and occasionally, one hopes, away from their computers and stealing files", so he's showing his other interests there.
Lord Davies of Oldham, who is Labour's main spokesman for the Bill, made it clear that "peer-to-peer file-sharing... is a civil infringement, not a criminal one". The Earl of Erroll pointed out that "peer-to-peer" is just one technology used for file-sharing, and is not, by nature, unlawful. A good technical point. After a lot more debate, the amendment was withdrawn.
One more amendment was tabled before Clause 4, and Lord Lucas made his feelings known: "Copyright at its heart is not a right, it is a compromise... [it] is merely what we do - the tough, difficult, bad things we do in order to enable the good thing, which is creativity, to flourish". The issue in question was making sure people accused of downloading still had their human rights intact. He said that people should expect a "reasonable and rational level of cost" for admitting to illegal file-sharing, "rather than leaving him at the mercy of the courts and of solicitors who push on the fear factor".
Clause 4 : Obligation to notify subscribers of reported infringements. Watching all of this debate, it occurred to me that, although it's terrible that companies are getting law firms to attack people with threats of legal action, what will happen if every company that wants to get file-sharers has to go through the civil courts? So many people are doing it - and the evidence, in my mind, is often difficult to prove - that the courts could get clogged up with people, and some may not get convicted for years. Some things about this Bill just make me think the horse has not only bolted but is making its way over the hill.
Anyway, a couple of interesting points came up quickly: first of all, we can identify people uploading (sort of), but what about streaming and downloading? That's almost impossible. It's made clear that the provisions in the second part of the Bill deal only with P2P, not any other things like Rapidshare and so on. Lord Young of Norwood Green makes it clear that, while there may be lots of illegal downloading going on, "these provisions have been written with peer-to-peer networks in mind. That has been the trouble causing so much damage to the creative industries and is certainly the primary problem we set out to address in this part of the Bill". Second point, made by Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer, was related to communal networks (cafés, libraries, universities etc). If people do something illegal there, the institution would get in trouble. The response was that these places can take measures to stop people doing it, which is true: porn sites can be filtered out, and the speed can be reduced to make P2P pointless.
Lord Whitty was hoping that "peer-to-peer was too techie for the parliamentary draftsman and therefore he reverted to "old speak" in terms of copyright violation" with his amendment to make the P2P aspect explicit, but now he's not so sure.
At last, an excellent point, made by Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer, in support of her Amendment 43. She asks "why is simply allowing others to use the connection different from, for example, allowing someone to use your car if they were insured to do so, and they were caught speeding? In those circumstances you are asked if you were using the car, to which the response is, "No, it was X who used the car". If X was speeding, X is liable for the fine and the points on their licence. But in this case, as the Bill is written, it is still the person who provides the internet connection who is liable for disconnection, throttling or any of the other sanctions provided, not the person who was actually using the internet connection". Related to this, Lord Howard of Rising joked that there "is a railway line on which you can plug in and get an internet connection. At the moment, the ultimate person there is the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who described himself the other day as the Thin Controller. I would hate this to be another example of the Government not listening to the Opposition when making legislation and ending up with one of their Ministers falling foul". There was debate surrounding the legal definition of 'allowed' (either 'gave permission' or 'failed to stop').
The amendment had wide support around the House, but it was ultimately withdrawn. Lord Davies of Oldham strongly argued that the Bill is not so tough that "a constable and the heavy hand of the law will arrive at a house with an arrest warrant for a signal charge, with a penalty of at least 25 years hard labour" after just one incident. Instead, subscribers will receive notice that it's happened, with a polite request to stop it. If it was somebody else who did it, then no matter: you'll only get into trouble if you keep doing it consistently. Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer was having none of it, however, and expressed how strongly she feels about it.
Lord Lucas began his Amendment 52 by noticing that the two Labour men in charge weren't listening to him. It was concerned with a 'threshold' that decides when to take action against someone who's file-sharing. With an estimated 7 million people doing it, cutting a million off from the internet is not desirable (Lord Young of Norwood Green insisted they had no intention of doing that except as a last resort). The Earl of Erroll - obviously the most technically-minded person in attendance, and a frequent contributor to the debates - went even further to suggest that the public will ignore this "because there are so many holes in [the Bill]".
I'm going to print a large quote from The Earl of Erroll in full, as it's worth it: "I am not reassured by the lack of technical precision in the Bill team's briefing. You do not upload when you file-share peer to peer. The whole point about peer-to-peer file-sharing is that there is no central server on which to upload files. They are downloaded directly from the other person; no uploading is involved. If the Minister's Bill team does not understand even that amount of technology, I have very little faith that it can answer any of the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, either. Neither he nor I believe half the things that the Minister says so airily, including that it is easy to say who is doing what on your personal network at home. If you can show me technically how I can do that and if a program is recommended to me that I can use, I will gladly and happily buy it and publicise it when I next talk to PC Pro and others." Bang bang. He later apologised for his "aspersions" as he was "getting slightly frustrated".
Lord Razzall's amendment - changing "the" to "a" - was obviously minor, but it gave him the opportunity to poke fun at the Tories' relationship with BSkyB.
Debate on Clause 4 was concluded on 18th January. There were a few more interesting things discussed, but not enough to warrant any more coverage. Only highlight was Lord Davies of Oldham insisting that his nodding is as good as his words. Other than that, another clause bites the dust.
Clause 4 passed - no amendments
Clause 3 passed - no amendments
So, now we move to the second part, Online Infringement of Copyright, by far the biggest part of the Bill, and the most controversial. It was discussed at length on 12th, 18th, 20th and 26th January.
There was a bit of discussion on inserting a new clause before Clause 4. Amendment 33 dealt with insisting that copyright holders must use the new laws instead of simply harassing people with lawyers for money. Lord Mitchell pointed out that, on the subject of illegal downloading, it's something that "every single child in this country is doing - you would be hard pressed to find any person under the age of 25 who is not illegally downloading". Thus, the recurring theme from these debates resurfaced: that it's "dangerous for us to be putting into effect legislation that puts a whole lot of people in a criminal situation when they do not think that they are committing a crime".
Having said that, Football Association Chairman Lord Triesman pointed out that "not everybody who steals a file on their computer is a 16 year-old who wants one song", but also that "car boot sales and market stalls" have tons of downloaded stuff to buy, and it's "frequently associated with illegal immigrants". Not sure exactly what he's saying about immigrants there, but his main point is that it's "a very significant criminal activity", not just kids having fun. Nevertheless, he'd like to get the kids "into a sport and off the couch and away from the television - and occasionally, one hopes, away from their computers and stealing files", so he's showing his other interests there.
Lord Davies of Oldham, who is Labour's main spokesman for the Bill, made it clear that "peer-to-peer file-sharing... is a civil infringement, not a criminal one". The Earl of Erroll pointed out that "peer-to-peer" is just one technology used for file-sharing, and is not, by nature, unlawful. A good technical point. After a lot more debate, the amendment was withdrawn.
One more amendment was tabled before Clause 4, and Lord Lucas made his feelings known: "Copyright at its heart is not a right, it is a compromise... [it] is merely what we do - the tough, difficult, bad things we do in order to enable the good thing, which is creativity, to flourish". The issue in question was making sure people accused of downloading still had their human rights intact. He said that people should expect a "reasonable and rational level of cost" for admitting to illegal file-sharing, "rather than leaving him at the mercy of the courts and of solicitors who push on the fear factor".
Clause 4 : Obligation to notify subscribers of reported infringements. Watching all of this debate, it occurred to me that, although it's terrible that companies are getting law firms to attack people with threats of legal action, what will happen if every company that wants to get file-sharers has to go through the civil courts? So many people are doing it - and the evidence, in my mind, is often difficult to prove - that the courts could get clogged up with people, and some may not get convicted for years. Some things about this Bill just make me think the horse has not only bolted but is making its way over the hill.
Anyway, a couple of interesting points came up quickly: first of all, we can identify people uploading (sort of), but what about streaming and downloading? That's almost impossible. It's made clear that the provisions in the second part of the Bill deal only with P2P, not any other things like Rapidshare and so on. Lord Young of Norwood Green makes it clear that, while there may be lots of illegal downloading going on, "these provisions have been written with peer-to-peer networks in mind. That has been the trouble causing so much damage to the creative industries and is certainly the primary problem we set out to address in this part of the Bill". Second point, made by Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer, was related to communal networks (cafés, libraries, universities etc). If people do something illegal there, the institution would get in trouble. The response was that these places can take measures to stop people doing it, which is true: porn sites can be filtered out, and the speed can be reduced to make P2P pointless.
Lord Whitty was hoping that "peer-to-peer was too techie for the parliamentary draftsman and therefore he reverted to "old speak" in terms of copyright violation" with his amendment to make the P2P aspect explicit, but now he's not so sure.
At last, an excellent point, made by Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer, in support of her Amendment 43. She asks "why is simply allowing others to use the connection different from, for example, allowing someone to use your car if they were insured to do so, and they were caught speeding? In those circumstances you are asked if you were using the car, to which the response is, "No, it was X who used the car". If X was speeding, X is liable for the fine and the points on their licence. But in this case, as the Bill is written, it is still the person who provides the internet connection who is liable for disconnection, throttling or any of the other sanctions provided, not the person who was actually using the internet connection". Related to this, Lord Howard of Rising joked that there "is a railway line on which you can plug in and get an internet connection. At the moment, the ultimate person there is the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who described himself the other day as the Thin Controller. I would hate this to be another example of the Government not listening to the Opposition when making legislation and ending up with one of their Ministers falling foul". There was debate surrounding the legal definition of 'allowed' (either 'gave permission' or 'failed to stop').
The amendment had wide support around the House, but it was ultimately withdrawn. Lord Davies of Oldham strongly argued that the Bill is not so tough that "a constable and the heavy hand of the law will arrive at a house with an arrest warrant for a signal charge, with a penalty of at least 25 years hard labour" after just one incident. Instead, subscribers will receive notice that it's happened, with a polite request to stop it. If it was somebody else who did it, then no matter: you'll only get into trouble if you keep doing it consistently. Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer was having none of it, however, and expressed how strongly she feels about it.
Lord Lucas began his Amendment 52 by noticing that the two Labour men in charge weren't listening to him. It was concerned with a 'threshold' that decides when to take action against someone who's file-sharing. With an estimated 7 million people doing it, cutting a million off from the internet is not desirable (Lord Young of Norwood Green insisted they had no intention of doing that except as a last resort). The Earl of Erroll - obviously the most technically-minded person in attendance, and a frequent contributor to the debates - went even further to suggest that the public will ignore this "because there are so many holes in [the Bill]".
I'm going to print a large quote from The Earl of Erroll in full, as it's worth it: "I am not reassured by the lack of technical precision in the Bill team's briefing. You do not upload when you file-share peer to peer. The whole point about peer-to-peer file-sharing is that there is no central server on which to upload files. They are downloaded directly from the other person; no uploading is involved. If the Minister's Bill team does not understand even that amount of technology, I have very little faith that it can answer any of the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, either. Neither he nor I believe half the things that the Minister says so airily, including that it is easy to say who is doing what on your personal network at home. If you can show me technically how I can do that and if a program is recommended to me that I can use, I will gladly and happily buy it and publicise it when I next talk to PC Pro and others." Bang bang. He later apologised for his "aspersions" as he was "getting slightly frustrated".
Lord Razzall's amendment - changing "the" to "a" - was obviously minor, but it gave him the opportunity to poke fun at the Tories' relationship with BSkyB.
Debate on Clause 4 was concluded on 18th January. There were a few more interesting things discussed, but not enough to warrant any more coverage. Only highlight was Lord Davies of Oldham insisting that his nodding is as good as his words. Other than that, another clause bites the dust.
Clause 4 passed - no amendments
Monday, 8 March 2010
Well, looks like I was wrong about Avatar. It didn't win after all, and six wins for The Hurt Locker, too. Crazy.
Maybe I just thought this was the Oscars of the old days, when the best overall production, or a big achievement, merited the Best Picture award. From Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth in 1952, to Around The World In 80 Days in 1956, to Ben Hur in 1959, all the way forward to Titanic. These were all great productions that merited an award for their technical achievement - as well as being decent movies. Obviously the message from The Hurt Locker seems to have gone a little further than the spectacle of Avatar.
Oh well, it'll be interesting to see which films from this year get the nod. Roll on 2011.
Maybe I just thought this was the Oscars of the old days, when the best overall production, or a big achievement, merited the Best Picture award. From Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth in 1952, to Around The World In 80 Days in 1956, to Ben Hur in 1959, all the way forward to Titanic. These were all great productions that merited an award for their technical achievement - as well as being decent movies. Obviously the message from The Hurt Locker seems to have gone a little further than the spectacle of Avatar.
Oh well, it'll be interesting to see which films from this year get the nod. Roll on 2011.
Sunday, 7 March 2010
Oscar time! Yes, time to take a breather from the politics for a second, as we take a good look at what I think about the Academy Awards' Best Picture hopefuls. Yes, I've now seen almost all ten (why'd they have to increase it to ten?) nominations, and so I'd like to briefly sum up the films that will lose out to Avatar on Sunday.
But first: Avatar - Yes, the story is incredibly cliché but it gave everyone a reason to go to the cinema again thanks to its wonderful 3D visuals. Cinema is facing its biggest ever challenge from the home: from TV in the 50s to video in the 80s, the quality of home entertainment (and the undoubtable effect of piracy) has hit box office receipts badly. To say that this isn't true because Avatar has taken $2bn (and is still on release) is like saying global warming is a myth because it's been a bit cold this winter. Which, sadly, people have suggested. Anyway, this'll obviously get Best Picture, so there's no real debate. But what about the others?
The Blind Side - Ticks all the Oscar boxes: race, inspirational story and so on. In the end it's the (true) story of a big black kid who's looked after by rich, smug white folk. Meh. I think Sandra Bullock's nomination for Best Actress is a little excessive, as the role's hardly an emotional stretch (incidentally, she just picked up a Razzie Award for Worst Actress, though it was for a different film). This is pretty much Precious for a family audience. The nomination surprises me.
District 9 - Only got half-way through this one, I'll watch the other half when I get chance. Looks good so far, though, very original. [EDIT: finished it now. It's great. Don't think it'd have won, but a great sci-fi type movie]
An Education - A British film, it got loads of Bafta noms but only won one (for the leading actress). The critical acclaim for this one is a little lost on me. It's certainly a nice film, but it was really quite pedestrian: there was no twist, I could see most of it coming a mile away. I understand it's based on an "autobiographical memoir", so maybe I shouldn't be insisting on the embellishment with falsehoods (I remember The Boat That Rocked not so long ago, which decided to fictionalise real events, with poor results). Nevertheless, there are no real surprises in this: it's a nice period piece, with a gentle story bobbing along, but no real tension to speak of. Meh.
The Hurt Locker - Iraq War movie. It's good, but I'm a little taken aback by all the coverage, awards and nominations. I'm not sure it's all that fantastic. It's a good film, sure, but that's all. I've seen similar war films before, and I wouldn't say it's a very new approach. It sounds like I'm being negative, but I must say I enjoyed it. I just think that cleaning up the Baftas and now getting nine Oscar noms is a tad too much.
Inglourious Basterds - Er, not seen this one at all. I'm sure it's great, as it's Tarantino, but I'll find out in the next day or so. [EDIT: seen now. Good, but very slow and long. Could do with a little bit of editing, Quentin]
Precious - No real surprise this was nominated: the Academy has a weakness for stories concerning people with disadvantages, be they disability, illness, poverty, or, in this case, being stuck in a nightmarish cycle of misery. I won't go into too many details, but this is really a rather depressing watch. I wouldn't call it 'uplifting' at all, as films of this ilk often are. There are some good performances, including from a rather famous singer who I completely didn't recognise until right near the end. That surprised me. In summary, it is a good film, and the nomination is, as I said, quite understandable.
A Serious Man - It seems to me that the Coen Brothers get nominations simply because they're the Coen Brothers. I'm not saying this is a bad film - the Coens find it hard to make 'bad' films - but it's far from their best. Following a man for whom nothing seems to go right, it's enjoyable in its bleak yet bright tone. On the whole, though... I don't know, it's the kind that'll get a nomination to fill out the ten, without much chance of winning.
Up - A charming and colourful family romp. After WALL-E, these guys have clearly got good at getting emotion from the audience without any words. The opening ten minutes showing the main character's journey from child to grumpy old man is very emotional, and it's hard to believe they achieve that in such a short timeframe. The rest of the film is a lot of fun, but the emotional heart is what keeps it alive. Not quite as good as WALL-E for me, but still a charming film.
And, last but not least, Up in the Air - A highly enjoyable comedy-drama. Good performances and an Oscar-type message. I liked it. Still won't win, mind.
So, there you have it. There's less than seven hours to go until the fun begins, but I won't be watching live, as it'll be the middle of the night for me.
But first: Avatar - Yes, the story is incredibly cliché but it gave everyone a reason to go to the cinema again thanks to its wonderful 3D visuals. Cinema is facing its biggest ever challenge from the home: from TV in the 50s to video in the 80s, the quality of home entertainment (and the undoubtable effect of piracy) has hit box office receipts badly. To say that this isn't true because Avatar has taken $2bn (and is still on release) is like saying global warming is a myth because it's been a bit cold this winter. Which, sadly, people have suggested. Anyway, this'll obviously get Best Picture, so there's no real debate. But what about the others?
The Blind Side - Ticks all the Oscar boxes: race, inspirational story and so on. In the end it's the (true) story of a big black kid who's looked after by rich, smug white folk. Meh. I think Sandra Bullock's nomination for Best Actress is a little excessive, as the role's hardly an emotional stretch (incidentally, she just picked up a Razzie Award for Worst Actress, though it was for a different film). This is pretty much Precious for a family audience. The nomination surprises me.
District 9 - Only got half-way through this one, I'll watch the other half when I get chance. Looks good so far, though, very original. [EDIT: finished it now. It's great. Don't think it'd have won, but a great sci-fi type movie]
An Education - A British film, it got loads of Bafta noms but only won one (for the leading actress). The critical acclaim for this one is a little lost on me. It's certainly a nice film, but it was really quite pedestrian: there was no twist, I could see most of it coming a mile away. I understand it's based on an "autobiographical memoir", so maybe I shouldn't be insisting on the embellishment with falsehoods (I remember The Boat That Rocked not so long ago, which decided to fictionalise real events, with poor results). Nevertheless, there are no real surprises in this: it's a nice period piece, with a gentle story bobbing along, but no real tension to speak of. Meh.
The Hurt Locker - Iraq War movie. It's good, but I'm a little taken aback by all the coverage, awards and nominations. I'm not sure it's all that fantastic. It's a good film, sure, but that's all. I've seen similar war films before, and I wouldn't say it's a very new approach. It sounds like I'm being negative, but I must say I enjoyed it. I just think that cleaning up the Baftas and now getting nine Oscar noms is a tad too much.
Inglourious Basterds - Er, not seen this one at all. I'm sure it's great, as it's Tarantino, but I'll find out in the next day or so. [EDIT: seen now. Good, but very slow and long. Could do with a little bit of editing, Quentin]
Precious - No real surprise this was nominated: the Academy has a weakness for stories concerning people with disadvantages, be they disability, illness, poverty, or, in this case, being stuck in a nightmarish cycle of misery. I won't go into too many details, but this is really a rather depressing watch. I wouldn't call it 'uplifting' at all, as films of this ilk often are. There are some good performances, including from a rather famous singer who I completely didn't recognise until right near the end. That surprised me. In summary, it is a good film, and the nomination is, as I said, quite understandable.
A Serious Man - It seems to me that the Coen Brothers get nominations simply because they're the Coen Brothers. I'm not saying this is a bad film - the Coens find it hard to make 'bad' films - but it's far from their best. Following a man for whom nothing seems to go right, it's enjoyable in its bleak yet bright tone. On the whole, though... I don't know, it's the kind that'll get a nomination to fill out the ten, without much chance of winning.
Up - A charming and colourful family romp. After WALL-E, these guys have clearly got good at getting emotion from the audience without any words. The opening ten minutes showing the main character's journey from child to grumpy old man is very emotional, and it's hard to believe they achieve that in such a short timeframe. The rest of the film is a lot of fun, but the emotional heart is what keeps it alive. Not quite as good as WALL-E for me, but still a charming film.
And, last but not least, Up in the Air - A highly enjoyable comedy-drama. Good performances and an Oscar-type message. I liked it. Still won't win, mind.
So, there you have it. There's less than seven hours to go until the fun begins, but I won't be watching live, as it'll be the middle of the night for me.
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Clause 2: OFCOM reports on infrastructure, internet domain names etc. There were a few amendments agreed in this one, so let's just go through them.
Amendments 10 and 13 were rather simple ones, just changing a bit of wording to remove ambiguity and make it read better. Nothing serious.
At the beginning of the second sitting on 12th January, Lord Clement-Jones made the point that, as there were over a hundred Lords suddenly making their way out due to the resumption of the Bill debate, it's never a good time to say anything important: "It is always useful to have a few general words to say at the beginning of any amendment when the Chamber is clearing. I shall try to do a "David Coleman" for a certain period of time until I know that the Minister is able to hear what I have to say".
I managed to learn a little about GPS and Galileo (which is another satellite system) as Earl Attlee confidently explained the details about those two and e-Loran, yet another system, but this time a terrestrial one rather than a satellite one. The point he was making was that e-Loran would be much more useful as it would be harder to jam in difficult times. He didn't get anywhere, though, but we may hear about this in the future.
No real controversies about Clause 2 (it's a boring clause) so it was passed with just the two simple amendments.
Clause 2 passed - Amendments 10 & 13 agreed
Amendments 10 and 13 were rather simple ones, just changing a bit of wording to remove ambiguity and make it read better. Nothing serious.
At the beginning of the second sitting on 12th January, Lord Clement-Jones made the point that, as there were over a hundred Lords suddenly making their way out due to the resumption of the Bill debate, it's never a good time to say anything important: "It is always useful to have a few general words to say at the beginning of any amendment when the Chamber is clearing. I shall try to do a "David Coleman" for a certain period of time until I know that the Minister is able to hear what I have to say".
I managed to learn a little about GPS and Galileo (which is another satellite system) as Earl Attlee confidently explained the details about those two and e-Loran, yet another system, but this time a terrestrial one rather than a satellite one. The point he was making was that e-Loran would be much more useful as it would be harder to jam in difficult times. He didn't get anywhere, though, but we may hear about this in the future.
No real controversies about Clause 2 (it's a boring clause) so it was passed with just the two simple amendments.
Clause 2 passed - Amendments 10 & 13 agreed
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