Peter Mandelson has been voted 'internet villain' of the year, according to UK ISPs, who voted for Digital Economy Act opponent Tom Watson MP as 'internet hero' of the year.
Mandelson, the progenitor of the copyright crackdown legislation, was "unable to pick up his award so the award will be forwarded on to him", the ISP Association (ISPA) said in a statement recording the results of its annual awards ceremony, held on Thursday night.
Labour MP Watson was a vocal opponent of what was at the time the Digital Economy Bill, criticising the fast-tracking of the legislation in the dying days of the last parliament. When it came to the final Commons vote on the act, he defied the Labour whip for the first time in his parliamentary career, tweeting afterwards that doing so had made him feel "physically sick".
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The UK's largest ISP will fight in court any attempt to force it to disconnect customers for suspected unlawful file-sharing, as outlined in the Digital Economy Act
The act established a framework that could see people disconnected from the internet for repeatedly, unlawfully sharing copyright material online. The legislation also forced ISPs to set up complex systems for notifying and identifying suspected infringers. In the brief Commons debate that preceded the law being passed, the Labour MP John Grogan suggested that Mandelson had only decided to crack down on unlawful file-sharers after "one of his meetings in Corfu with some people [who] were very prominent in the Hollywood industry".
"The ISPA Council decided that Lord Mandelson was a deserved winner of the villain award for ignoring principles of better regulation to amend an open consultation following lobbying from an interest group — no prizes for guessing which one," ISPA said in its statement.
On Thursday, BT and TalkTalk announced their application for a judicial review of the Digital Economy Act, arguing that it did not comply with European legislation on privacy and the responsibilities of ISPs.
The ISPA Awards 2010 also honoured internet service providers in a variety of categories, including Namesco for shared hosting, NewNet for dedicated hosting, Gradwell for internet telephony, Freedom4 WiFi for mobile broadband, Claranet for business customer service and business fixed broadband, PlusNet for consumer customer service, Cybermoor for access innovation, Childnet for internet safety, Bolton Literacy Trust for digital inclusion, Orange for corporate social responsibility and Be Broadband for consumer fixed broadband.
Talkback
"Lord" Mandelson is, like many of his ilk, ignorant about a great many things to do with so-called "illegal" downloading. He bowed to pressure put on him by media executives, themselves just as ignorant about "illegal" downloading.
People download stuff they don't want to buy. If it wasn't available for downloading, they still wouldn't buy it. The majority of people who genuinely like the stuff go out and buy the originals anyway. It's not the fault of internet users that most of the media produced these days is crap and overpriced.
"Lord" Mandelson is, to put it bluntly, a wanker.
UK royalties collector PRS For Music has resurrected the idea ISPs should pay for copyrighted content that their networks transfer without authorisation.
“With the introduction of the Digital Economy Act, the harm caused by the problem of piracy has to be measured, and if a problem can be measured it can be priced”
http://www.themusicvoid.com/2010/07/isp-music-levy-legal-p2p-back-on-royalty-agenda/