The Digital Economy Bill will shortly be rushed through parliament and bring into force powers that would allow the government (or certain appointed non-government agencies) to cut off internet access to millions of upstanding citizens. The burden of proof would be shifted to a guilty until proved innocent approach and all this at the request of the large record lables and film studios. Ordinary people are to suffer. The worst part though is that despite restricting the freedoms and human rights of millions this law will not actually achieve what the companies who are pushing for it want…. to continue their ability to extort unreasonable amounts of cash from us consumers under an outdated and economically unsound model.

How long before our right to criticise government on line is removed. Have lessons in Iran and certain other dictatorships taught us how dangerous this road can be? The Guardian summed it up as follows.

“The High Court (in Scotland, the Court of Session) shall have power to grant an injunction against a service provider, requiring it to prevent access to online locations specified in the order of the Court for the prevention of online copyright infringement” – could be used to block sites like Wikileaks (which after all exists for the reposting of material from organisations – which those organisations could argue is copyrighted). My reading is that it could – and it’s no use government saying “oh, but we wouldn’t”. Bad law isn’t made good law by not being used badly; it’s made good by actually being well-drafted.”

A campaign has been set up to try and stop the law from being rushed through. Rushed because the corporate sponsors know that this is the only way for them to sneak through a deeply unpopular bill that seeks only to benefit their outdated corporate kingdoms.

“There’s plenty to oppose in the Digital Economy Bill, it gives the government the ability to disconnect millions. Schools, libraries and businesses could see their connection cut if their pupils, readers of customers infringe any copyright. But one group likes it, the music industry. In a leaked memo a few days ago they admitted the only way to get the bill through would be to rush it through without a real parliamentary debate. Let’s stop that happening”

To assess this law we must consider a number of points. 1 – Is this law needed. 2 – Does the law benefit society. 3 – Will the law work. 4. Is there an alternative? Let me address these points.

1. The justification for this law is that billions of pounds worth of copyrighted material is being pirated and therefore billions of pounds of revenue is being lost to the major entertainment companies and that this is indeed terrible for the UK economy. Let’s analyse this. First, the kind of figures circulating are based on the value of the pirated material should the downloader have paid the full retail price for that item. I’m sure it doesn’t take a genius to realise that the average 14 year old who downloads 1000 mp3s a year and 30 films would not otherwise have spent well over £1000 on media. They do not have this money, they’ve never had it, this is not money lost. Implementing the bill will not create this income from nowhere.

Falling CD sales are all very well and recent evidence has even suggested that downloaders actually spend 20% more on music than people who don’t illegally download, but if you look at the total amount spent on entertainment, it is a different picture. We now spend a higher proportion of our income on entertainment than we did 20 years ago. The pattern of spending has just shifted. Sure people don’t spend as much money on CDs, but we buy other things. The computer games industry for example has exploded into a multi-billion pound industry over the last 10 years. Despite the internet. We spend more on live music than we ever did and a 14 year old’s pocket money is increasingly spent on mp3 players and mobile phones. This is not money lost from the economy, simply redirected to what’s popular at the moment. Times change and the laws of economics direct revenues to those companies that competitively provide popular products. We don’t need laws to protect outdated models. We need laws to facilitate efficient markets that reward innovation.

2. Does the law benefit society? Clearly not. If it did, then why could it not be debated properly supported by the people. Why does it have to be rushed through by a few companies who seek to protect vast profit empires? Why are they spending large amounts of money lobbying the government and courting Peter Mandleson on private yachts?

If this law was introduced, the average person (63% of the population use the same internet connection as an illegal downloader according to the BBC. I suspect higher) would potentially put themselves at risk of having their internet connection terminated or crippled. Many of these people rely on the internet for studying, banking, accessing public services, communicating and some for almost all social interaction. Is cutting off a connection to all these things proportional a response to someone who has downloaded and enjoyed a music track they would never have originally paid for or in many cases will go out and buy anyway precisely as a result of having downloaded it? Will a small amount of extra revenue for the record labels really compensate our society for this?

The argument is sometimes posed that the music industry is declining. Panorama, though slightly one sided in their approach did produce a particularly interesting quote. “It’s not the music industry that is in decline, it’s the record labels.” Are artists really suffering. While there are examples of labels cutting back on the money they invest, there are also numerous artists who’s careers have been created precisely because of the internet and filesharing. What we are seeing is simply a shift from one model to another. Is it really fair that a few artists should become millionaires? Would it not be more sensible for large record labels to be removed from the equation and a larger number of artists be able to interface more directly with their fans? Will implementing this bill really improve the life of most musicians to a greater extent than it will inconvenience the general population?

3. This brings us to the next question. Will the laws work? We have already seen a shift widespread encryption over bittorrent (most people are unaware when they just upgrade their software). There are a number of cheap or free services available that can potentially mask an IP address or show the downloader as located outside the jurisdiction of this government. The internet has no boundaries and attempting to impose laws which do will only drive people to safe havens where they cannot be touched. Sure some site may be taken down, but we have seen time and again that every time one disappears, 10 rise up in it’s place. History teaches us that before digital restrictions have effectively been put in place, clever software designers have already rendered them useless. Why bother spending money on something that is essentially in vain.

Then there is the matter of using the law to restrict internet access. As it has proved impossible to restrict downloading of copyright material alone, we must have our very connection to the outside world crippled, or worse that of our family or people who live in the same house affected. Imagine being told that you could not use your car to drive to work because someone else in the house had been caught speeding on a road that had no signposts and that there was no conclusive evidence that they were speeding in the first place.

Would a letter through the post telling you your son had downloaded 1000 mp3s from pirate bay cause you to go out and spend the £800 on music CDs that these tracks would have cost? That is the suggestion! How can any sane person really believe that this system will save the record industry?

Do you really think that if you give a court (or worse an agency) the power to have a meeting and block a web address that it will stop internet piracy? Given the obvious answer of no, is it really a good idea to write a blank cheque allowing the powers that be the facility to restrict our freedom of information when the reason behind this power is simply to stop the unstoppable?

4. What are the alternatives? The head of the recording industry association would have you believe that this is the ‘last rung’. As if without forcibly cutting people off from their internet access music and film is doomed and that nobody would consider paying for entertainment any more. In my mind this is the biggest lie that has been peddled to the government.

Look at Sky’s satellite TC. You pay per month, you can watch as much as you want. You wouldn’t bother copying it and sending the video to your friend because very few people would bother with the hassle when it is cheap enough and easy enough for them to have sky too. Content creators who create popular content are rewarded very well. Revenue is also generated through advertising. This is a very successful enterprise providing large sums of money to the industry for the last 2 decades or so and proof that there’s a perfectly viable alternative.

People are willing to spend a certain proportion of their income on music and film. They just want a reasonably way of doing it. There is an industry that can be supported and it doesn’t need letters, accusations and access to the outside world and basic services cut to enforce it. What’s wrong with a system where people pay a reasonable amount monthly and can access what they want with the more popular content rewarded with proportionately higher slices of the profit. This leads artists to create what people want. Money isn’t wasted in a futile attempt to restrict consumers and innovative companies can compete for the best platform to make a profit from. People would pay for this type of service because they already do, just in other forms.

People are still willing to pay for live music and though cinema is in decline, large screen TV buying with subscription channels are becoming more and more popular. I pay a fixed fee for unlimited text messages on my mobile, a fixed fee for my television licence, I can sign up to a fixed fee for unlimited DVD rental. I don’t see TV production companies going out of business. The electronic games industry is flourishing. Our creative economy is not on the brink of collapse. I’m not the only one who thinks this. Big businesses like Virgin, BT, Sky, TalkTalk are all against the bill. So what some record labels go out of business? What other company who refuses to accept reality wouldn’t.

Please visit http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/speakout/extremeinternetl and register your opposition to this bill!

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