...to the ISP. The peers want the report to exclude details of the suspected subscriber's IP address and of the time the evidence was gathered.
Lords Howard of Rising and de Mauley also want the notifications to explicitly tell suspected infringers that their service could be cut off, or other technical measures imposed, and to include information about protection against malware.
Clause 11 of the bill would let the business secretary impose technical measures that he considers appropriate, based on "an assessment carried out or steps taken by Ofcom... or any other consideration". The two Tory peers have proposed amending this to require both an assessment and Ofcom action to be carried out before technical measures are imposed. They also propose striking out the phrase "any other consideration" completely.
According to the bill, ISPs will only be forced to participate in a copyright crackdown on customers if a certain threshold of unlawful activity on their network is reached. Liberal Democrat peers Razzall and Lord Clement-Jones want to remove a provision in the bill that would make the resulting sanctions retrospective to a time before the threshold was reached.
The Conservative peers also want to remove a section that would amend the Communications Act 2003 to allow the establishment of a self-governing organisation, outside Ofcom, that would oversee the penalty process for copyright infringement.
In addition, they have proposed limiting the time ISPs are required to keep information on their subscribers to a year or less; the bill does not specify a term.
Another amendment from the Tory peers would mean the business secretary would not be able to decide how costs of the copyright crackdown are shared between rights holders and ISPs. The lords also want a provision inserted to make sure the costs are not "passed onto subscribers in the form of higher subscriptions".
Lords Howard of Rising and de Mauley also want an addition to the bill to indemnify subscribers "for any loss or damage resulting from the [rights] owner or [internet service] provider's failure to comply with the code, the copyright infringement provisions, or the Data Protection Act 1998".
According to the bill, Ofcom will have to provide annual reports to the business secretary that would show the level of copyright infringement. The two Conservative peers want the reports to indicate the levels of lawful access to copyrighted content, and for the reports to be laid before parliament, not just passed from Ofcom to the business secretary.
The next stage in the bill's progress will be a House of Lords committee debate on 6 January, 2010. If there is still opposition to the bill in the Lords following that debate, a vote will be held on the amendments.
De Mauley told ZDNet UK amendments are often proposed "to allow us to probe the government's detailed proposals and to get their responses onto the public record".
"Others are an attempt to nudge the government in the direction of better ways of drafting the legislation," he said. "We are still at a relatively early stage on all of this, and of course we are keen to listen to those directly affected and those involved in the industry about their specific concerns."
