Without debate, without public consulation, without any form of mandate, Lord Mandelson - an unelected politician - is preparing to place the rights of powerful industrial concerns above those of Parliament and above ours.
The powers that he wants to create - by means of a statutory instrument, which bypasses Parliamentary debate and decision - will criminalise downloading of content without permission. They will give him or anyone he chooses the power to enforce by law any action he or his successor thinks fit, in the service of protecting copyright.
And they will give industry bodies, such as the BPI, FAST and so on, powers of investigation tantamount to those of the police force. The risk of copyright infringment would be enough to force any company to patrol its actions and offerings, closing down anything that might land them in the dock. The freedom of the Internet would be gone. It is placing the future of the Net, with the force of law, in the hands of those who depend on artificial scarcity. It is antithetical to everything that matters in the digital world.
By any measure, these are extraordinarily dangerous moves. That he is attempting them by an undemocratic process turns them into a profoundly mendacious power grab by forces who have never been reluctant to place their own interests above all else - often in the name of the law and of freedom.
Should these moves succeed, the Internet in the UK will be thrust back thirty years, when a state monopoly with commercial interests was the gatekeeper to all online information - and where that information was only held by other large organisations.
But Internet users would be thrown into another dimension, one where every action must be monitored, every access cleared, every file transfer a potential criminal act. A dimension policed and enforced, moreover, by those with a direct financial interest in preventing new models of distribution, of enforcing the idea that they and they alone can set the rules for information-driven commerce.
Nothing would be untouched. Everything on the Internet is a transfer of information, and all information may be copyright. Thus, every action on the Internet would be a potential criminal act, and everyone connected would have a duty to make sure it wasn't. Be sure that that duty will be imposed with eagerness.
It would be easy to use the metaphors of the police state, of corporate monopoly, of any society where the state turns on its own citizens. Easy, but wrong: what is being proposed is new, one where the very machinery that runs our lives is handed over to a special interest group with a history of saying and doing the maximum it can get away with for its own survival and prosperity.
No wonder he dare not go through Parliament. No wonder he has not published his proposals.
What Mandleson is trying to do is not far short of a coup, a power grab from Parliament and from us. It should be treated as such, and shut down with speed and permanence.
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He needs detaining this is treason!
Or rather all involved in this coupe need detaining.
the use of statutory instruments to detail how to apply a policy formalised in law is one thing; it's worrying to see something that seems so far from policy formalised by law being taken through this route (it's the point I made in the consultation about the file-sharing legislation - if Digital Britain is fundamental to our economic position and Internet access is a human right because of the recognised need for access, then this has to be seen as a far wider issue than just enforcing existing copyright laws).
The man needs to be arrested. That's not going to happen in a hurry though is it? It's not really Mandelson either as far as I can see.
He's just a front man for a power grab that's already happened, and I mean happened in the way of bail out candy for the criminaly run banks.
Sweet terminology for what really has been a theft of the wealth of nations, wealth we helped to create through paying tax.
The decisions have been made to clamp down and all we can hope for is a reasonable judge here and there to put the spanner in the works once in a while.
Not really good enough. I do hope one day that we'll be able to weed out criminals from the system and re-install some true democratic values into our society.
Take a step back though, this extreme is the result of the other extreme, where anybody (and pretty much) everybody downloads music (and to a growing extent films) without considering the need to pay someone for their work. Just saying technology has moved on and businesses need to find other ways of making money doesn't cut it, call it what it is, theft.
A "bricks and mortar" example, say there was suddenly a growing trend of people walking in to Tescos and helping themselves to all the cakes they wanted, but perhaps paying for some vegetables - Tesco, society has moved on, this is how we do it now, roll over and accept it. Not realistic is it.
Instead of just pure criticism suggest some solutions to combat the situation that copyright owners face.
Yes but with economy of scale Tesco reduces prices but the music & film industry use it to increase prices. Look at the hideous incomes of some of these artists, a lot of whom can't perform live but rely on technology to correct their bad performance to produce a recording.
Musicians wrested control of the phonograph/gramophone & have used it as a precedent to say they own it & all later variations.
A new means of rewarding artists needs to be found, not draconian measures, possibly based pro rata upon the number of live performances.
Attempting to be legal I was faced with three separate companies who collect royalties, what if I'd missed one I still don't know.
One collector only should be involved.
Quote by project10
"Instead of just pure criticism suggest some solutions to combat the situation that copyright owners face."
But in the absence of a working solution you can't force through rules that massively favour copyrights holders at the expense of everyone.
To use another "Bricks and Mortar" example, the post office aren't required to check every letter or parcel for possible evidence of copyright infringement, and they are not required to deny service to customers at the mere suggestion of possible wrongdoing by biased parties.
This issue is not about Copyright, it's about OUR rights. Protect the rights of copyright holders, but not by allowing them to squeeze laws past us by lobbying non-elected politicians because it's easier then fixing or finding a new business model.
Well said Rupert!
The proposals - so far as I have seen them reported in various media - would in effect render everyone guilty until proven innocent since virtually all content, unless expressly declared otherwise, could be copyright in some way shape or form.
As a somewhat detached observer who has casually watched the workings of the current UK Government since the turn of the century, this particular proposal, shepherded as it is by Lord Mandleson (how appropriate), contains little in the way of surprise. It is, in my opinion, fairly typical of the administration which produced it, and comes complete with the distinct (and by now rather familiar) aroma of social control.