Anger over amendment to Digital Economy Bill

Internet Service Providers and other groups have expressed anger over a recent amendment to the Digital Economy Bill that aims to block illegal downloading sites.

A lot of proposals have been banded around over the past year with regards to trying to curb the level of illegal downloading in the UK, and one of the things that has been created to try and combat this problem is the Digital Economy Bill, which has looked at a number of options to try and tackle this rising problem.

However, a recent amendment made to the Bill by Lords has caused outrage amongst groups such as Internet providers, rights groups, and the Internet Service Providers’ Association. Broadband providers are concerned because the amendment could mean that ISPs would have to block illegal filesharing websites.

Liberal Democrat peer Lord Clement-Jones tabled in the amendment, and he said: “There are websites which consistently infringe copyright, many of them based outside the UK in countries such as Russia and beyond the jurisdiction of the UK courts. Many of these websites refuse to stop supplying access to illegal content.”

However, ISPs are not happy, and an official from Talk Talk stated: “We are concerned that this new amendment is being put through at the last minute without any proper debate or scrutiny. Given the potentially profound impact it would have, we think this is unacceptable. Making the restriction of websites a more widespread policy would be dangerous given its major impact on internet users’ human rights, freedom of expression and privacy. We fear it could also be a backdoor to censorship of the internet. At any rate, efforts to restrict websites on a mass scale would be utterly futile. Rightsholders can close down as many sites as they like but ultimately they will always survive in new or different guises. Unless you pull the plug on the whole internet, it’s a pointless pursuit.”