UK ISPs challenge anti-piracy law

It was only a little over two years ago when Lord Mandelson made the announcement that the UK government was going to be setting up tougher laws when it came to file sharing and online piracy. Sure enough, the Digital Economy Bill was written up and passed by the House of Lords just a few months later in March 2010. It received Royal Assent a month later and was finally enforced in June of the same year.

Aside from the government, you can expect the main supporters of the Act to be media companies (including movie and music producers and distributors), who have had their content infringed upon and distributed illegally via file sharing networks.

The Digital Economy Act was, by all means, a controversial one and remains contested, even until this very day. I think the premise behind the act was a good one, but something more must be done in order to get users and citizens to abide by it. In June of 2010, a report by Wiggin LLP and Entertainment Media Research stated that 34% of respondents who also happened to be online pirates asserted that they would not be stopping their infringing activities despite the passage of the Digital Economy Act.

Aside from public statements, two ISPs have also taken their complaints and woes about the DEA to the court, and actually won a few rounds in the legal battle earlier this week. BT Broadband and TalkTalk, which are two of the UK’s largest service providers, have been given the go signal to file an appeal against a ruling that was made by the High Court, which had earlier dismissed the majority of their complaints against the Digital Economy Act.

Both ISPs asserted that the act is in contravention of the technical standards of the EU, as one of its requirements called on providers to contact users that were suspected of engaging in illegal file sharing. More than that, BT and TalkTalk also assert that the DEA goes against the EU’s e-commerce and privacy, authorisation, and electronic communications directives.

These EU directives were put into place to regulate how organisations and providers collect, process, and utilize information on the Internet. They also indicate the type of data that may be gathered from online communications and specifically state that providers are in no way responsible for whatever material its users are sending over its networks.

A BT spokesperson commented on the recent decision to allow the appeal, stating: “We’re pleased to have been granted permission to appeal the High Court judgement and we now expect the hearing will take place as soon as possible.”

Source – New Europe Online