Big tech accountability? Read how we got here in  The Closing of the Net 

Digital Britain

Britain was traditionally  influential in European policy for telecoms policy. It was a  British Commissioner, Lord Cockfield,  who established the Single European Market.  Britain led the way in the establishment of a competitive European  telecoms market.  However, in leaving the EU, Britain has  lost the ability to influence  European policy in the future, and in 2022, Britain sadly finds itself no longer a major power, but instead has become an embarrassment for  British representatives in international fora.  The government is sunk deep in corruption,  it blatantly lies, its law-breaking has led to mistrust among former allies.  There are multiple posts, articles, and tweets to support this claim. 

It's in this context that the British government is preparing a law to address regulation of the Internet. It's a law that will have far-reaching implications  for the way the Internet will function in Britain, and will impact on web platforms overseas. I am referring of course, to the Online Safety Bill. As I write this, at the beginning of 2022, the Bill is only in draft form. How will it end up? Interestingly, in going through my old posts, I note that wrote in 2015 about a similarly -named Bill. It was the predecessor to this one. It never became law, but many of the provisions in it appear to have been taken forward into the 2022 version. 

A number of the articles in this section discuss a previous policy, called   the Digital Economy Act 2010.  This was a law that mandated broadband providers to work with the music and film industries, in order to enforce copyright on the Internet. It was forced through in the dying hours of the Parliament before the General Election of  May 2010.  The measures  involved the use of network technology to sanction  users, with  implications for the neutrality of the network, and the  ‘mere conduit’ status of the network provider. The law was deemed unworkable and never implemented. That is a lesson that needs to be taken on board by all policy-makers in this field.

If you like the articles in this section, you may like my book The Closing of the Net.

If you are interested in the Digital Economy Act and copyright enforcement policy, you may like my previous books A Copyright Masquerade: How Corporate Lobbying Threatens Online Freedoms and The Copyright Enforcement Enigma - Internet Politics and the ‘Telecoms Package’

The UK is to cut users off the Internet for file-sharing, in a new move directed by the Minister, Lord Peter Mandelson. The move appears to follow a dinner with Hollywood media mogul, David Geffen, who has a personal fortune worth $600 million.

 

According to an article in The SundayTimes today, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills,  Lord Peter Mandelson, has personally intervened in the policy-making process on peer-to-peer

Read more: UK anti-filesharing plans get the Mandelson touch

Should the Secretary of State  have the power to determine whether websites and Internet services can be blocked?  Behind closed doors,  proposals are being floated which would  enable Industry and Culture Ministers  to give the go-ahead for ‘technical measures' against file-sharers, without any referral to Ofcom or due process  for the user.

 

The music and entertainment industries in the UK are putting pressure on the government to bring in ‘technical measures'  - that is, the use of deep packet inspection and other network-based techniques for  Internet

Read more: Copyright industries pressure UK to filter the Net

A small UK ISP thinks that 3-strikes is an  ‘industry standard' approach. Since when?  Given that the French Constitutional Court has declared it to be a breach of fundamental rights for private companies  to cut people off the Internet, we seem to be getting a raw deal here in the UK.

 

The UK Internet Service Provider Karoo  is under the mistaken impression that 3-strikes is an industry standard' approach. It has recently been revealed that this small ISP serving the city of Hull has been terminating the Internet access of its customers on the orders of the copyright industries.

 In the first reports,  Karoo  was taking this action without warning customers first.  Following the bad publicity, it  has changed its policy to sending warnings, followed by suspension. A statement on its website now says that this is ‘more in line with the industry standard approach'.

 This statement gives cause for concern.  3-strikes  is NOT  an industry standard. Nor is it the law in the UK. Under current UK

Read more: Karoo - since when is 3-strikes an ‘industry standard’ ?

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Iptegrity in brief

 

Iptegrity.com is the website of Dr Monica Horten. I’ve been analysing analysing digital policy since 2008. Way back then, I identified how issues around rights can influence Internet policy, and that has been a thread throughout all of my research. I hold a PhD in EU Communications Policy from the University of Westminster (2010), and a Post-graduate diploma in marketing.   I’ve served as an independent expert on the Council of Europe  Committee on Internet Freedoms, and was involved in a capacity building project in Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine. I am currently (from June 2022)  Policy Manager - Freedom of Expression, with the Open Rights Group. For more, see About Iptegrity

Iptegrity.com is made available free of charge for  non-commercial use, Please link-back & attribute Monica Horten. Thank you for respecting this.

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States v the 'Net? 

Read The Closing of the Net, by me, Monica Horten.

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Copyright Enforcement Enigma launch, March 2012

In 2012, I presented my PhD research in the European Parliament.

The politics of copyright

A Copyright Masquerade - How corporate lobbying threatens online freedoms

'timely and provocative' Entertainment Law Review


 

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