Big Music wants DMCA-like rule in UK
p2pnet news view P2P | Politics:- Things still aren’t going as planned for Hollywood and the Big 4 record labels in the UK Digital Economy bill.
It went to the Lords on January 6 and now the government has “backtracked on one set of proposals — Clause 17, which would give the Secretary Of State the ability to alter copyright completely without consulting parliament,” says Pocket Lint.
In a major salvage operation, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s BPI (British Phornographic Industry) is demanding a DMCA-like amendment.
Followers of the debacle will recall Peter ‘Mandy’ Mandelson (right), who’s handling things in the UK for Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music, and Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom, NBC Universal and Sony Pictures, introduced Clause 17 to huge outrage on- and offline.
However, Mandelson’s department for business said it isn’t “backing away”, says the BBC. “The Government remains squarely behind the aims of clause 17,” it has a spokesman stating.
“We have tabled a series of amendments which aim to clarify the breadth and scope of the clause and further reinforce the transparency of the process and the scrutiny of Parliament.”
Now the BPI wants “an entirely new Section 97B of the 1988 Copyright Design and Patent Act,” says The Register, going on >>>
The amendments would grant copyright holders injunctions against websites and service providers similar to the US DMCA act – but with no ’safe harbour’ provision to verify whether the claim is merited …
As it stands , “the Digital Britain bill would compel rightsholders to identify and notify infringers, in a “graduated” response, ultimately ending in temporary suspension of Internet access,” says the story. “The revised Section 97B, if passed, would dramatically switch the burden from rights holder to publisher.”
Not only but also, lord Ralph Lucas wants what paidContent UK describes as a “remarkable amendment” which would rewrite the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
“Every provider of a publicly accessible website shall be presumed to give a standing and non-exclusive license to providers of search engine services to make a copy of some or all of the content of that website, for the purpose only of providing said search engine services,” says his proposal.
A “provider of search engine services who acts in accordance with this section shall not be liable for any breach of copyright,” he suggests.
Under the amendment, “Google would be free to copy everything — but a publisher blocking search spiders with a robots.txt file would be taken as withholding that right,” says the story, adding:
“An explicit ‘fair use’ provision, which Google often cites against copyright-abuse claims, does not exist in UK law.”
Stay tuned.
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
huge outrage – Biggest copyright sting in history, November 19, 2009
The Register – Record labels seek DMCA-style UK takedowns, January 12, 2010
BBC – Ministers offer concessions on copyright changes, January 13, 2010
Pocket Lint – UK Gov backtracks on Digital Economy bill, January 13, 2010
paidContent UK – Google Could Be Granted Copyright Immunity In UK Law, January 13, 2010
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January 13th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Blasphemy!… That goof doesn’t deserve to wear those devil horns!
January 13th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
This may actually be a good thing. The uglier this bill gets, the less likely it is to pass.
January 14th, 2010 at 1:54 am
If Search Engines are permitted to violate copyright, well, aren’t Torrent indexing sites another form of Search Engine?
If I type Michael Jackson into the search box on Demonoid, I get a list of Micheal Jackson Torrents.
So I guess Illegal Downloading is OK after all, as long as you use a Search Engine to do it.
Yet another plan our Government haven’t thought through.
January 14th, 2010 at 4:33 am
Would this new law penalize copyright claimants who file false charges? Like bot-searches spitting out thousands of infringement claims based on nothing more than keyword matches? Lets hope that at the very least that human verification will be required before a claim can be submitted, as the DMCA has long been abused by the routine spamming of automated computer-generated notices.
January 14th, 2010 at 6:43 am
I,m not going to let the despots have all the fun, during the lifetime of this debate tools have been engineered to spoof thousands of packets to those companies (yes I know what ips you operate from : ) ) who log search results to find prey and we will see if they act on taking down the false IPs that are injected into the network strategically to appear to be sharing copyrighted content, at the least this will discredit the method and cause a crap storm, bring on these innane laws, I will fight fire with fire.
January 14th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
The Pirate Bay’s tracker has been mixing fake IP addresses with valid ones since at least 2008, but that has not forced the copyright thugs to change their methods, since they really have nothing to lose (at least in the short term) by making false accusations, because the law is 100% on the side of the accuser. Carpet-bombing is still their preferred method.