“Exclusive Record label trade association the BPI wants sweeping changes to UK online copyright practice in 11th hour amendments to the Digital Britain bill.

The amendments would grant copyright holders injunctions against websites and service providers similar to the US DMCA act – but with no ‘safe harbour’ provision to verify whether the claim is merited, according to documents seen by The Register.
”

“In a statement, the BPI told us:

“Clause 17 is an essential component of the Bill since it provides a mechanism to deal with the increasing threat of illegal downloading from non-P2P sources and other future threats.

In light of the ongoing debate on the current draft of Clause 17, we thought it prudent to propose possible alternative approaches, including a straw-man s.97B.
However, Clause 17 remains our favoured approach to address forms of online infringement ,b.other than P2P filesharing. ”
”

“The amendment game
With the Lords due to debate the Digital Britain Bill today, the ISP trade association ISPA and major labels are both lobbying hard, tabling dozens of amendments.

One by Conservative peer Lord Lucas would put search engines above the law, making them immune to any copyright claims at all.

According to Paid Content, Google would be free to store and distribute anything it wanted, selectively abolishing copyright.
“

If they actually have to prove copyrights were infringed upon, and they do this by grabbing a copy from someone.

Now in case they have the rights to do so, then it isn’t an infringement.

But on the other hand, if they don’t, they are breaking the law themselves, which apparently is illegal…

That post, #32, by Reasoned Mind? That wasn’t the real Reasoned Mind. It was me, an anon poster who argues with RM and neo. I was posting like he does, but I was also ridiculing him with the extreme measure of my posting. I mean, work camps? Come on. I wouldn’t put it past him to honestly support that notion, though…

The point is that everyone here thought he was the real Reasoned Mind. I apologize for the deception, but it proves a point: Nobody here thought the post was too extreme for Reasoned Mind, proving that he’s either just a troll or is an extremist idiot.

I propose the adoption of a version of Poe’s Law (for fundamentalism) as applied to filesharing: “Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour, it is impossible to create a parody of antipiracy that someone won’t mistake for the real thing.” My suggestion for the name is neo’s law, in reference to the neostyles idiot who likes to troll this site. Or RM’s Law. Whichever.

The meetings are all aired on http://www.parliamentlive.tv – the next one will be here http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=5496 (I think). It will likely also be aired on the BBC’s “Democracy Live” on their House of Lords section. As with the last couple of sessions there will likely be a live discussion on the debate in the Pirate Party UK’s irc channel (http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/chat/).

More information on the Bill itself can be found here: http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2009-10/digitaleconomy.html

“Do you really want that on your conscience? What do you think Kurt Cobain would say if he was still alive?”

Much of the discussion was over the wording and the meaning behind specific words or phrases (such as “particular” on page 1, line 7, “appropriate” in lines 8 and 10, and “wherever possible” in line 12) and the possible interpretations these words could have – that should give some idea of the level of detail the Lords were going into.

Of course, the minister just stuck to blunt reassurance about everything so no real progress was made, but the fact that the entire first clause passed by 106 votes to 55 shows just how close this could get.

If anyone is particularly interested, a full transcript of the debate can be found here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200910/ldhansrd/index/100106.html#contents but there’s quite a lot of it.