Digital Economy Bill amendment slammed
A controversial clause has been removed from the government's Digital Economy Bill and replaced by one that could prove even more contententious.
Clause 17 of the bill would, in its original form, have enabled the government to make changes to copyright law to deal with new services on the web without having to seek parliament's approval.
The amendments, tabled by Liberal Democrat peer Lord Clement-Jones and supported by the Conservatives, scrapped Clause 17 but replaced it with a clause that critics say could have a negative effect on sites with a large proportion of user-generated content.
The bill, which passed through the Lords by 165 votes to 140, now enables the High Court to issue an injunction against sites suspected of hosting large amounts of material that infringes copyright and effectively force them offline.
The Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA), a body that represents the interests of ISPs in the UK, urged the Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers that supported the amendment "to urgently reconsider their position".
"We regret that this amendment has been hastily constructed and rushed through at report stage without due consideration of the implications or consultation with the interested parties that would be affected," ISPA said in a statement.
"The suggestion that a framework developed to fight against the distribution of criminal images of child sexual abuse is appropriate to tackle allegations of civil copyright infringement is incomprehensible," it continued.
Another argument against the amendments is that it could lead to the blocking of sites such as YouTube, where content is uploaded by users and could infringe copyright without Google, YouTube's owner, even being aware that it was there.
"We are faced with an appalling sight," said Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group, an organisation that campaigns for the rights of individual surfers.
"On the one hand, Labour, pushing Clause 17 as a means to ‘future proof' copyright against new infringement, and on the other, the Lib Dems and Tories, pushing an approach likely to produce straightforward threats, bans and withdrawals of sites with user-generated content," Killock continued.
