The Open Internet: what type of regulation do we want?
Published April 16, 2011
Net Neutrality: Opportunities and Challenges.
HoC Committee Room 19, 29th March 6.30-8.30pm
This was a packed event with public and parliamentarians filling the room to listen to a very knowledgeable panel argue the case for or against more regulation of the Internet: Rob Reid (Which?), Robert Hammond, (Consumer Focus), Kip Meek (Everything Everywhere), James Heath (The BBC), Jim Killock (Open Rights Group), Dominique Lazanski (Tax Payers Alliance). Chair: Eric Joyce MP. There were some equally knowledgeable people in the audience, see James Firth’s blog post about this event. It is also useful to take a look at the Adjournment debate on Net Neutrality held in the HoC on 05/04/11.
Rob Reid spoke first followed by Robert Hammond. They have published a joint statement on maintaining an open internet. Read the briefing provided for the deappg here: see a video clip of Rob speaking here and Robert speaking here. Rob talked about research Which? had carried out, showing that Internet users were concerned about ISPs because they had failed to keep customers informed about traffic management policies and patterns. Rob and Robert talked about the need for a voluntary code for best practice, for example with switching requests, because customer satisfaction with the biggest three ISPs is not good. There was general agreement with this point in the room, summed up best by Jean-Jaques: ” consumers can’t switch because they don’t understand a) how to switch b) what the service is and c) how connectivity actually works”. Some also felt that Ofcom could offer better advice to consumers on switching. Issues of transparency were expanded on by several speakers during the event.
Jean-Jaques has also provided the deappg with a statement: read his briefing paper here. He argues strongly for an open Internet in order to maintain the present pace of digital innovation. He wants to see regulations which will remove mobile access restrictions and unfair traffic management policies. He used the example of video conferencing which is a mainly untapped resource with which businesses can better connect people up, be more creative, and save on organisational costs.
Jim Killock agreed with Jean-Jaques that innovation on the internet was slowing because of certain dominant services such as iTunes. He argued for more regulation because it was clear that ISPs, fixed line and mobile broadband providers were now involved in content delivery, content policing and traffic management which is likely to include a larger role as a censor (web blocking). The public do not understand why services they have paid for are ‘throttled’ by ISPs. Ofcom should intervene more if self regulation does not deliver better internet services for the consumer. You may want to take a look at the Open Rights Group campaign to prevent web blocking.
Kip Meek a senior policy advisor to one of the largest ISPs, Everything Everywhere, disagreed with Jim Killock and Jean-Jaques. He did not recognise their view of slowed innovation, in fact he saw many new possibilities for using fixed and mobile broadband technology. He also felt that the conversation so far had not covered the big issues, which were really about infrastructure: Spectrum for improving mobile services and more fibre for superfast services. He felt that the European directive on communications was effective in helping the UK to deal with all of it’s internet problems, however, ISPs needed further incentives for investment in infrastructure because consumer and commercial demand for better services will continue to outstrip connectivity. See Kip speak here. Dominique Lasanski was also concerned about the unintended consequences of further regulation of the internet. She wanted to see more competition among digital businesses and let the market bring changes that digital regulation can not possibly keep up with.
James Heath gave a different slant again by describing what a major content provider like the BBC needs from the internet. He spoke passionately about the value of the Internet to the public, in many ways matching what the first two speakers said about the huge social and economic benefits of the Internet. He felt the essence of this debate was with two issues: high quality services and better transparency. He wanted to see more premium services but not at the expense of good access generally. In other words faster services should not over-ride fair services. The BBC has worked closely with ISPs to improve connectivity and manage their services on the back of creating demand for digital content. Hear more from James here.
ACS Law, Ralli Solicitors and Being Threatened
Published April 1, 2011
DEAPPG/Consumer Focus Event: ACS Law and the deact
This panel event finally took place in the Thatcher Room in Portcullis House, on Tuesday 22nd March (4.00-6.30pm) having been moved from the smaller Wilson Room at the last minute; mainly because of increased demand for places. We had originally thought a small round table event would suit. The panel was made up of Saskia Walzel (Consumer Focus), Michael Forrester (Ralli Solicitors), Francis Davey (Barrister), Mathew X (Being Threatened). The Chair was Eric Joyce MP (deappg). There was lively discussion with the audience after presentations from the panel. We heard from Lord Clement-Jones, Emily Cleevely (Publisher’s Association) James Firth (DaltonFirth) and Richard Clayton (Highwayman Associates). The event was covered by PC Pro in their blog Eric Joyce MP was also interviewed by Nicole Kobie for his comments on the deact.
Mathew X from Being Threatened spoke first you can see some video of that here and get his handout on Speculative Invoicing here.
Michael Forrester from Ralli Solicitors spoke second sharing quotes and anecdotes from the court case: you can download his presentation here:
His Honour Judge Birss QC stated at paragraph 21 of Media CAT Ltd v Adams & Ors [2011] EWPCC 6:
“it is easy for seasoned lawyers to under-estimate the effect a letter of this kind could have on ordinary members of the public. This court’s office has had telephone calls from people in tears having received correspondence from ACS:Law on behalf of Media CAT. Clearly a recipient of a letter like this needs to take urgent and specialist legal advice. Obviously many people do not and find it very difficult to do so. Some people will be tempted to pay, regardless of whether they think they have actually done anything, simply because of the desire to avoid embarrassment and publicity given that the allegation is about pornography. Others may take the view that it all looks and sounds very official and rather than conduct a legal fight they cannot afford, they will pay £495. After all the letter refers to an order of the High Court which identified them in the first place. Lay members of the public will not know the intricacies of the Norwich Pharmacal jurisdiction. They will not appreciate that the court order is not based on a finding of infringement at all.”
While Michael and Mathew moved the crowd by sharing their experience of the ACS Law case, Francis Davey, Barrister, went further to describe some of the problems that might reasonably be expected with the deact in the near future. He can be seen and heard in our you tube video clip here.
Copyleft, Free and the deact #deappg
Published March 22, 2011
Richard Stallman came to Portcullis House on the 8th March, from the other Cambridge, as part of his UK tour to talk about Internet freedoms and his ethical approach to the use of software and computing technology. He met with Julian Huppert MP, Eric Joyce MP, Alan Berry (Institute of Engineering and Technology) Pete Bradshaw (Open Rights Group) and Grahame Danby (HoC Library ).
Richard was interviewed by ORG after a long chat with Julian Huppert and before making a solid presentation about his views on the use of proprietary software and the role of the state in managing technology for maximum public benefit. You can see the main part of his talk in you tube here. It was a refreshing and entertaining talk from a person who inserts ‘unusual sense of humour’ on his business card. This proved to be true, Eric Joyce asked about the manipulation and devaluation of the Internet, referring to the mass following of Justin Bieber, adding: Have you heard of Justin Bieber? Richard replied: No, adding: if we dont mention him he does’nt exist.
Stallman or RMS, as he is known, is very serious about free software. He is the founder of the free software foundation. Interestingly he says, his views are not really entertained by American legislators but he was able to translate his ideas into a useful British political context of state versus privatisation. His views on fairness and state intervention in the use of technology for public service seemed reasonable to us. The private public division is more blurred here than across the water and it seems we are probably in a better position to start a conversation here about free software issues: the state, personal privacy and public security. RMS asks that the state invests first in a free operating system in order to open the door to using more free software, mainly because public entities are losing control of their technology. He suggests this is a serious problem more serious in some areas, such as defence, health and policing.
As with most interesting people, RMS is also a person of (apparent) contradictions. A private person who does not want to share personal information (with corporate software involuntarly?) online and…. who will not buy anything on the internet. He said he would like to write an alternative software program to paypal, so that he could make purchases online anonomously. If that did’nt happen he would like to see a version of a North Korean shop over here: where the customer goes to the counter and the shop makes online purchases for you from various sites. He is also a person who believes most strongly in building communities by improving connectivity and online cooperation. He does do email: rms@gnu.org
RMS’s real strength is that he offers a counterpoint with his copyleft vs copyright view. He argues strongly against the creative industries polemic and the deact (as it stands) arguing for the large public value of creativity and the importance of the role of the state in overseeing technology companies. In short he believes governments should legalise sharing: “sharing is too important… companies who attack this undermine society because bit by bit people become a market, not people in their own right.” His criticism included examples from Amazon, Microsoft and the BPI, who he believes restrict creativity and our freedom to share. He also talke at length about the importance of education to improve creativity and digital literacy. In order for us to go forward we should alter the way we offer education about and with technology in schools… so that young people understand what is good software code: without handcuffs, back doors and catches. Young people must experience the principles of good collaboration through collective improvement and shared knowledge. If we had a few more Richard Stallmans we might not have the ugly spectacle that we see in the copyright court this week with ACS Law who have been involved in speculative invoicing against the public for alleged copyright infringements.
IP, Fair Use and Copyright #deappg event
Published March 18, 2011The Government’s IP Review and Fair Use Rights.
Rip, Mix, Burn – How can fair use rights make UK copyright fit for the digital age?
This was a very successful event held in the House of Commons on 8th March and sponsored by Consumer Focus. The panel was Mike Weatherly MP, Jeff Lynn (coadec), Simon Indelicate (The Indelicates) and Saskia Walzel (Consumer Focus). Chaired by Lord Lucas. You can hear some of what was said by Simon, Jeff and Mike in this video link, or Lord Lucas in this video link.
Consumer Focus have published further information in their website:
The economic impact of consumer copyright exceptions: A literature review
Time to change the tune – Consumer research briefing on copyright
In November last year David Cameron announced a review of the UK’s copyright framework, to make it more innovation friendly. It is generally accepted that existing Copyright Law in the UK is restrictive to new media start ups and the digital economy. The government’s Independent Review of IP and Growth, is being led by Prof Ian Hargreaves: it will examine what the benefits of ‘fair use’ exceptions to copyright might be to the digital economy. What has been termed ‘fair use rights’ are essentially exceptions which allow consumers to copy, adapt or distribute copyrighted works without the permission of the copyright owner. While the UK has a number of fair use rights, called fair dealing, normally for the benefit of research and news reporting, the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act only provides consumers with the fair use right to right to backup software and time-shift broadcast material, ie record broadcasts to watch/listen at a later time. Essentially the copying of copyrighted content for personal use by consumers is largely illegal under UK law: the back-up of music, film and e-books is currently illegal and so is format-shifting, eg copying music into different formats to listen to on different devices.
Fair use of copyrighted content, consumers have purchased, is legal in most other countries. For example, format-shifting is legal in the US, and Apple has developed the iPod and iTunes on the basis that consumers format-shift their CD collection into digital. UK consumers can purchase hardware and software that has been designed overseas, to do something that is illegal in this country. But no UK consumer has ever been sued for the fair use of products they have purchased. So, is it time to update UK copyright law? Our panel made many very useful points; here is a flavour of what they said.
Simon Indelicate spoke first and described how he felt about copyright and creativity as a recording artist. He started by saying that format-shifting is a pressing issue and that ultimately it makes no sense for a law to excist that is so widely disobeyed and about which people are ignorant. His comments on re-purposing were particularly well received by the audience: “copyright law is out of step when you parody or quote using the ideas and language of other artists in order to create a new common culture”. The example he gave was the court case against a musician who had re-purposed words and music from the Rolling Stone’s song “Ruby Tuesday”. He felt that the law should focus on obvious (commercial) infringement not on everyday use, repurposing or parody.
Jeff Lynn spoke on behalf of tech start ups and larger businesses in Shoreditch. In his experience there were two types of ‘copyright infringement’: ‘torrenting’, more commonly known as ‘piracy’, was the more significant one, and that he fully understand why content owners are concerned about that. However the other type of infringement is ‘daily use’ and that is very different. He believed that fair use is a step in the right direction.
Mike Weatherly MP talked about how important the creative industries are to the UK economy: 8% GDP employing over 2 milion people. He mentioned that the collecting societies he had met did not believe that fair use was the way forward, but that educating consumers was the better course of action. He was sympathetic to the idea that is fair use, particularly in relation to content consumers have purchased, though it needs to be narrowly defined to avoid litigation. Weatherly mentioning how even the BPI had changed their view on format-shifting recently. However he wanted to emphasise that fair use is not free use. The business model should change but artists need to keep ultimate control.
Saskia Walzel asked: what do you say to the consumer?… “that it is illegal to format-shift your CD to your iPod, and to back-up your e-book, but please don’t upload anything on the Pirate Bay because that is illegal as well”. She said that the law is nonsensical, and that it needs to be brought in line with consumer expectations. She also pointed out that there is often a big difference between creators and copyright owners, and that creators do not necessarily benefit, because they have assigned their copyright. She said that in the past collecting societies have frequently failed their creator members, but that the mass use of copyrighted content in the digital economy is not possible without functioning collecting societies.
What does Google know about you? #deappg event
Published March 17, 2011
We were very pleased to have Alma Whitten, Google’s Privacy Director, in the House of Commons last week and it was great to have Robert Halfon MP chair this event. Rob has done so much to raise awareness in the House about Internet privacy issues. You will probably be aware of the Backbench Business Debate he organised: The Internet and Privacy October 2010. MPs discussed our civil liberties and personal privacy on the Internet. Rob started that debate by telling us he was a Google products user and that he strongly believed in the power of the Internet to do good.
Alma started her presentation here by stating that privacy is a fundamental for Google. She went on to say that it is also a huge challenge, not least when you consider that Google’s aim is such a big project: to make the world’s information more accessible to all. She described three categories of information or data that Google holds: Log data (Search details), Account data (User name, password etc) and non-transactional data (Google earth, google maps etc). Rob asked if the same data is logged during a Google search from a mobile phone: answer, yes.
The video clip here shows Alma, describing Log data and the Google cookie in the Thatcher room of Portcullis House. As an aside, this may become more interesting because a new European Law restricting how cookies are used by Internet companies has just come into force and there is much discussion about how it will affect the digital economy more generally. In the screenshot below we can see what Google captures during a typical search by you the user. The log line shows your: IP address, date, time, URL, search query, browser type, Cookie ID (Google preference cookie ID number). What Google knows about you, is this and your Account data/personal profile. You may be pleased to know they don’t keep log data forever but it is retained for 9-18 months before being trashed.
Alma went on to explain how this simple set of retained search data can be very powerful in helping google to improve the quality of it’s search and to combat any ‘manipulations’ of the search engine. By ‘crowd-sourcing intelligence’ google can both help users and hinder the bad guys. The famous google algorithm is designed to improve searches through better page ranking: the science of making search results work better.
It was also interesting to hear Alma talk about what is coming next from the engineers at Google: such as a new tool bar which will allow me to log into multiple Google email accounts at the same time.
deappg bulletins, our blog and #deappg news
Published March 1, 2011
Thank you!
Thank you to everyone who contributed to our efforts over the last few months. From following our activities, commenting on our bulletins, attending our events and sharing information with us on twitter @digecon, your support and feedback has been invaluable.
We want to keep DEAPPG members updated with all the latest news and events. From the latest news on Digital Economy in the UK, bulletins on our activities, and notices to MPs and Lords, we will be working to engage with the public on multiple platforms. We have a variety of information, from ‘Bulletins‘ on meetings, events and recent news as well our latest Tweets. Our blog has the latest news and information on meetings and events we’re holding. We also regularly expand on recent news with political commentary and analysis. If you can’t make it to one of our events, follow us through our website or through twitter. March will be a busy month with lots happening in the House of Commons, take a look at our events page for more information.
Look forward to seeing you soon.
Creative Coalition Campaign Event #deappg #deact
Published February 3, 2011The Digital Economy Act and The Creative Coalition Campaign
Creative Coalition Campaign (CCC) held a panel event with the deappg in the House of Commons to talk about how important the Digital Economy Act is for the future of creative industries in the UK. It was chaired by the Digital Economy APPG treasurer Chris Heaton-Harris MP (on Tuesday 1st February, 4.30-6pm).
The Creative Coalition Campaign is a group of rights holders and some trade unions. In the words of the CCC this event was held to “dispel common myths surrounding the DE Act”. The CCC came together a few years ago with help from Lexington Communications a leading public affairs and communications agency who arranged this event. It’s most active member is the British Recorded Music Industry (BPI). This group, of mainly rights holders, argues that there is a need for more technical measures, some disconnections and large scale internet blocking to make the internet a better place for us all. The public know that the internet requires more management than there is at present but do they know how the deact will be used to improve things? More regulation or internet policing is unfortunately likely to come at a cost to the consumer. But will the cost of an internet connection rise dramatically if new measures such as monitoring of subscriber activity, infringement reports, technical measures, disconnections and web site blocking are introduced? The big Internet service Providers (ISPs) think it is inevitable as the deact will be expensive for them and rights holders, and that these costs will be passed on to the consumer. The CCC believe that the deact in its fullest form is necessary because the internet is still like the ‘wild west’. They aim to reduce online copyright infringement and secure jobs in the creative industries, in the UK using the deact. They argued their case.
There were three representatives on the panel, one from the Musicians Union, one from the British Video Association (BVA) and one from the Citizen’s Advice Bureau. The first panel speaker, John Smith (General Secretary), argued that there was a great deal of commonsense in the deact, no one disagreed. He quoted from the BPI’s (British Recorded Music Industry) glossy, ‘Digital Music Nation’: “in the UK in 2008 there were £1.4 billion losses to our industry caused by piracy and 39,000 jobs lost”. On page 28: ”In September 2010 4.4m individuals used at least one of the P2P sites or applications tracked… ” The second speaker, Livinia, talked about how essential the deact was for the BVA and the new business models rights holders want to invest in. The last presentation was from the Citizens Advice Bureau, Susan, who gave a fascinating insight into the stories of ordinary people who had been threatened with court action by ACS Law for online copyright infringement. CAB argued that we need the deact but with a more proportionate response for ordinary infringers; one that did not lead directly to unfair fines, technical measures or disconnection (but could include some internet blocking). (See video)
The deappg asked the panel how internet blocking and censorship of web sites might be best managed (by the government) and paid for, if introduced by the deact. This is unclear, not least as the size of the problem would be a large one, by the BPI’s own accounts. A lawyer in the audience suggested that the government should follow the American model (COICA) and there was brief mention of the Ofcom review of the deact at various points during the evening . It is worth taking a look at the review of web blocking measures, that the government have asked Ofcom to undertake, the BBCs blog post on this is very useful:
- Is it possible for access to the site to be blocked by internet service providers?
- How robust would such a block be?
- Can specific parts of the site be blocked?
- What would it cost ISPs to implement such blocks?
It would have been useful to hear a little more from the content providers in the room about their latest business ideas to win over the music nation to british digital services. A really useful article on this subject was written by Alexandra Topping for the Media Guardian last week: ” Music’s Leap of faith”. Topping describes the state of play in the music business and quotes the head of Vivendi (Universal Music Group): with 30% of it’s revenues coming from new business models “the music business is still only part of the way towards reinventing itself”. She says that a large part of the problem is the failure of rights holders to provide licenses for content based services or to recognise the importance of improving the online experience for users over protecting income from copyright. This is the main reason new businesses such as Spotify or other new digital busineses can’t make a profit. Is the deact a stick without a carrot or are the CCC (and the BPI) right to push for stronger legislation to defend traditional copyright online with strong measures in the deact?
Posted in Events | 
BPI, Chris Heaton-Harris, Creative Coalition Campaign, deact, deappg | 
Leave a commentInternet knowledge and blocking #deappg
Published January 27, 2011
Read the proposal for extending internet blocking in Europe, here.
On the face of it web blocking looks like a very sensible thing. Take a look at the work of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a body set up to deal with illegal websites, mainly for child pornography. They put together a list of offenders, a few 100 only, and they update that list twice daily online. They share this list and work closely with ISPs who have volunteered to help block the sites on the list. However, those ISPs are aware of quite a few difficulties in extending this model of blocking. The problems of managing a block list grow exponentially when you try to include other types of (illegal) content, or add more websites or include other inernet based activity in the blocklist. Some believe the list would become unmanageable quite quickly and voluntary cooperation could quite easily diminish as the list increased from 100s to 1000s or even millions of censored addresses. Which brings us quite quickly to the matter of costs, both legal and technical. Who would pay for a new, bigger blocking service: Ofcom, ISPs or possibly the IWF (who currently spend about a million pounds a year doing the job)? This would ultimately be a public service of sorts but not a free one. It would most likely show in increased household internet charges, somewhere? While the IWF have done good work in bringing our attention to a real and relatively easily defined problem, they have experienced some problems along the way: for example when they censored some pages from wikipaedia last year. User generated content, censorship and copyright are a bigger legal minefield in social media sites where there is some essential legal dispensations and where the site owner, not the original publisher or uploader of the content has the final say about takedown. Legal costs are likely to become much more important once block lists start to censor other less well defined types of ‘illegal’ content.
The problem is in the main a technical one. How to block effectively as new technology becomes easier to employ in avoiding blocking measures. Take a look at these slides from LINX to get a better understanding of what blocking and take down mean. We hav’nt actually shut down that many child porn sites. So far, its been a bit like moving drug dealers out of one neighbourhood, only to find that they find another for their trade. In general terms most child pornsters and paedophiles just ’move’ location, use encryption or other technical means to avoid detection and blocking. The idea that ISPs can be effective censors and gate keepers is not well thought through, as yet. Will every Internet Service Provider employ an expert in technical censorship; in effect a digital Mary Whitehouse or….. will the goverment support an NGO to do this work? Perhaps rights holders have more developed ideas on how to work with ISPs to ensure more effective web blocking? As we have seen with google, making some sites less visible in searches is useful, but what else is useful? We should also ask how can our existing laws for illegal online activity support more responsible computer use. And how can we improve public awareness of the need for better digital literacy to support all this? Talk Talk and BT seem to understand this idea, as they seek to support subscribers in managing their technology and internet connection, not just for better broadband speeds but for legal content aswell. It is too easy for any of us to fall behind and not keep up with the latest emerging technology. And it’s more likely if you hand over too much responsibility for your internet security to an outsider or a bit of software. Householders and parents need to keep up with whats happening and they need to understand what internet blocking means. The solutions can never be purely technical as increasingly larger volumes of data and higher speed connections push us towards more expensive automation for the management and censorship of content.
This is an important issue for both rights holders, consumers and ISPs. We will see more discussion on this as the deact, section 17 and 18 (formerly clause 17) is revisited and further developed by Ed Vaizey MP in Westminster. Content providers would like the government to be a bit tougher on online copyright infringers and ISPs are likely to be asked to enforce technical measures or disconnection on file sharers. Web blocking is another measure, in this mix, and as far as I know, rights holders will probably want to use a list to assist in preventing online copyright infringement with commercial blocking. It would be interesting to hear more about how they might see this system operating in the near future? The conversation is just starting, add your voice.
To: Marta Andreasen; Richard Ashworth; Catherine Bearder; Sharon Bowles; Nirj Deva; James Elles; Nigel Farage; Daniel Hannan; Peter Skinner; Keith Taylor
Subject: Open Email… Constituent Concern: Internet freedom threatened by EU directive Date: 11 January 2011
Dear MEP
I am writing to you as an MEP for the South East Region and therefore in your capacity as one of my direct representatives in the EU Parliament. I felt compelled to write to you about current proposals, put forward by the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, for a Directive to combat child exploitation. Full text at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52010PC0094:EN:HTML. I am particularly concerned about Article 21 “Blocking access to websites containing child pornography”. I understand that these measures will be the subject of a vote at the beginning of February and so will give you an opportunity to be heard on this issue.
See Amalia’s notes on the issue here
Look out for a #deappg event on web blocking in our bulletins
how not to make a policy
Posted in deact | deact, Ed Vaizey, internet blocking, Internet Watch Foundation, linx | Leave a commentcoadec event: #deact 12/01/11
Published January 23, 2011
The coalition for the digital economy (coadec) held and event in the Tech Hub in Shoreditch on 12/01/11 . See the coadec blog for photos and more on The Digital Economy and the Government, challenges and opportunities for 2011. Also see zedscore’s blog post (@ZeshanGhory) for who said what. An able and entertaining panel was chaired by Mike Butcher (Techcrunch, @mikebutcher):
Tim Bradshaw (Digital Media Correspondent, Financial Times)
Rt. Hon. David Davis MP (Conservative, deappg member)
Julian Huppert MP (Liberal Democrat, vice chair deappg )
Sean Seton-Rogers (General Partner, PROfounders Capital)
Milo Yiannopolous (Technology Columnist, The Telegraph)
Wendy Tan White (CEO Moonfruit) Mike
If you have a few minutes take a look at the opening questions, about the DEACT, from Mike Butcher, and replies from David Davis MP and Julian Huppert MP in our youtube video channel. Many thanks to Jeff Lynne (coadec) for organising this excellent event.
FLAG and Talk Talk talking #deappg #deact
Published January 17, 2011
45 members from the Fastiis Legal Advisory Group (FLAG) attended a meeting with the deappg in the Atlee Suite in Portcullis House on Wednesday morning 13th Jan. Thanks to Julian Heathcote-Hobbins from FLAG for his work in arranging this event. Our Chair Eric Joyce MP welcomed the group talked about the deappg and took some questions from FLAG members. He described how we have been engaging with the public, businesses and politicians to raise awareness of issues relating to our digital economy, not least the likely impact of the digital economy act on the public (follow us at @digecon).
We heard four FLAG presentations: Andrew Heaney (Talk Talk) Paul Gunn (Pronett) Frank Jennings (DMH Stallard) and Simon Malynicz, (Barrister). Andrew Heaney described how the deact was in many ways going to be unfair to subscribers and providers. Furthermore it is most likely to be ineffective in controlling p2p file sharing, Frank Jennings picked up on this later on referring to the increasing use of ‘cyberlockers’. Andrew also drew attention to some of the likely and high costs of the deact, for example a possible additional five million pounds for Ofcom to oversee the deact. If you have been keeping an eye on the wider politics, it looks like the government may now be having second thoughts about the effectiveness of the deact. As they compress Ofcom, reconfigure parts of BIS and focus on technology solutions to make cost savings with public money, it would be a shame if the deact developed expensive unintended consequences and the coalition are, I’m sure, aware of this. Commonsense, conversation and cooperation is the way ahead if the deact is to emerge as a better product able to serve the public and the creative industries, including investors in software. FLAG recognise the need to listen to people with different views is one of the reasons Andrew Heaney, who has successfully stopped the deact in its tracks (for a while), was talking at this event. Mr Heaney was as brave as FLAG was wise, as he got questioned by some very knowledgeable lawyers about Talk Talk’s Judicial Review. See more in our Youtube channel here.
Paul Gunn from Pronett (slides here) told us about his concerns about corporate copyright theft because the law could not keep up with the rate of change in technology. He asked what can the deact do for software companies and small businesses like his? His view was that the deact was all about recreational uses of the internet, large companies and mass p2p; it was not so useful for small companies. Frank Jennings(@frjennings) talked about the Limewire case: corporate and personal liability (slides hear) (video here). Simon Malynicz described more corporate copyright theft: the interesting case of how software manuals were used to steal software copyright without taking the actual code (slides here).
We are looking forward to working with FAST again in the near future. Keep an eye on our events page and bulletins for next events.