Complaints that the Bill is far too important to be passed through the “wash-up” period were ignored and after just two hours of debate in the Commons, it will now almost certainly become law.

The anti-piracy measures in this Bill have been essentially written by the music industry but despite opposition from just about everyone, it was approved by 189 MPs with just 47 against.

Former Cabinet Office minister Tom Watson, who was one of the few who voted against, was clearly upset as he wrote on Twitter: “First time I’ve ever broken the whip in the chamber. I feel physically sick.”

A total of 650 MPs could have been present but only 236 bothered to turn up and many of those that did were still in for criticism.

“It was painfully obvious to anyone watching the broadcast from Parliament this evening that any MP that only turned up for the divisions and not the debate does not care about the views of their constituents, does not care about democracy and does not care about the future of Britain’s digital economy,” said Graeme Lambert, the Pirate Party UK candidate for Bury North.

The Bill will pass without the hugely controversial site-blocking clause 18, but in its place will be a convenient and even more worrying amendment to clause 8. This will allow the Secretary of State for Business to block “a location on the internet which the court is satisfied has been, is being or is likely to be used for or in connection with an activity that infringes copyright”.

The scope of this amendment simply boggles the mind. Labour MP John Hemming cited the more-often-than-not copyright infringing WikiLeaks as an example.

“A recent example is the US air force video, which it published,” noted Hemming. “Copyright exists with the US Government, who under the Bill could, and would want to, apply to ban WikiLeaks from the UK. That provision is clearly in the Bill.”

Finance secretary Stephen Timms, who insisted that since the creative industries are losing £1 billion a year to online file-sharing all these measures were absolutely necessary, was also in for criticism.

Mark Sims, Pirate Party UK candidate for East Ham noted that Timms spent “much of his time on the floor delaying debate, and refusing to answer questions put to him, instead relying on the party whips to force the vote through, essentially ignoring the concerns raised by voters in their questions put to ministers.”

So there we have it. We’re nearly at the end of the process that will save the music and movie industries, generating hundreds of millions in extra revenue, create countless jobs, stop all file-sharing sites, mechanisms and the general public from sharing files.

That’s it, it’s finished. The war is lost and the best part is the whole thing was pushed through in the highest spirit of democracy and with the full support of the people.

We’re shutting down TorrentFreak now and we’ll be reporting on events outside an HMV near you soon instead. We just hope they have enough stock to keep up with demand. Exciting times ahead.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Championed by Baron Mandelson after an entirely coincidental holiday meeting with Dreamworks co-founder David Geffin, the Bill has now taken another step in its rush to become law before the end of Parliament, despite all the protests and criticisms.

The Bill, which the UK Pirate Party say “will shape the future of technological and artistic progress” was not important to most MPs. Through the 5 hours of debates, only around 20 MPs were present, including just one from the Liberal Democrat party  - Don Foster (Lib-Dem, Bath) – who had pledged not to vote for the Bill.

Debate was mostly back and forth over the contentious issue of disconnections, but industry figures and unverified estimates were again quoted as fact. Many (including Labour MPs) were outraged at the Government for having left it so late to try and rush through a Bill as complex and controversial as this. It did, however, get passed at this second reading and will be taken to a third tomorrow.

The low turnout didn’t stop the invective, however, or the silly comments, lies, inaccuracies and other miscellaneous statements, all of which were picked up on Twitter (over 16,000 tweets under the #DEB and #DEBill tags), and analyzed a great deal more thoroughly than by these MPs that had apparently read the Bill. Some of the most memorable points include:

• “The creative industries have grown at twice the rate of the economy as a whole over the past 10 years, and they should do so again over the next 10″. Ben Bradshaw MP
• [on Clause 43 - Orphan works] “Let me provide an example of where this is already going wrong. An image of none other than the great Lord Mandelson himself is apparently being used to market a Russian vodka, with the caption, “When only the best is good enough”. If ever we needed proof that captions to pirated images can be misleading, surely that is it.” Jeremy Hunt MP
• “The Government could have brought this Bill before Parliament ages ago, because these issues have been in the public domain for years. The Gowers review of intellectual property is so old it is practically out of copyright.” Jeremy Hunt MP
• “I cannot see how the Bill takes on India or China; I simply cannot see a single provision that does so. They are not going to settle for 2 megabytes; they are going to settle for 100 — and much, much more.” Derek Wyatt MP
• “Listen, if we want the smartest, most creative industry, we have to tackle intellectual property and copyright together. They cannot just be shunted in as a couple of paragraphs; they are so fundamental to the reason why people write music, sing or create whatever they do.” Derek Wyatt MP

And most amusingly:

• “People are not talking about co-operating and sharing their own thoughts and content, but are stealing someone else’s content and sharing that. There is an Armageddon, which has partially arrived in Sweden, where the Pirate Party, whose leader is in jail, won seats in the European Parliament on the basis that everybody’s work—including MP4’s—should be free.” Michael Connarty MP. Rick Falkvinge was quick to point out that he remains a free man.”Despite rumors to the contrary, it is still not illegal in Sweden to hold political opinions that would bring the country into the digital age,” he told TorrentFreak. “Such a  society would be atrocious and far out of line from all Human Rights Conventions. One might also wonder what other facts proponents of the Digital Economy Bill have gotten entirely wrong.”

The Bill passed despite extensive opposition from many MPs present, who had concerns over specific amendments and the breakneck pace the Bill is being forced through with virtually no debate. The sensible suggestion that it be left for the next Government to reintroduce was derided as it is “needed now”, despite the fact that those industries have not only survived, put prospered without the Bill for the last 10 years.

Meanwhile, the MPs were not so much concerned with the public outcry, as the sartorial comments on Twitter. The Bill now gets a total of two hours for Committee, Reports and its third reading later today, after which it will be (probably) passed.

The first two hours of debate can be watched on the BBC website and the transcripts are here. The third reading of the DEB is scheduled for tonight and if the bill passes it will head over to the Lords where it will be signed into law.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

This week the House of Lords approved the Bill and handed it over to the House of Commons who will deal with the most controversial elements – disconnections and site-blocking – without proper scrutiny during the so-called “wash-up” period.

This and other controversies have absolutely enraged those who oppose the Bill and has led more than 10,000 voters in the last few days to write to their MPs to demand a full debate.

Last night, musician Billy Bragg, TalkTalk’s Andrew Heaney, Jim Killock from the Open Rights Group and Anthony Barnett from openDemocracy were joined by human rights activist Peter Tatchell, politicians from three political parties and numerous others to add their voices to the growing chorus of objection.

In an open letter they are demanding that the disconnections/throttling (aka technical measures) and site-blocking clauses are either properly debated or taken out of the Bill and “subjected to genuine democratic scrutiny in a new parliament.”

They emphasize that not only does the Bill threaten to breach human rights, suppress free speech and hamper legitimate activities on the web, but also poses a threat to the economy.

“Democracy and accountability will be sidestepped if this bill is rushed through and amended without debate during the so-called ‘wash-up’ process,” notes the letter, adding: “The thousands of people we know to be contacting their MPs with concerns will find their faith in politicians even further undermined.”

Indeed, the way this Bill has been handled from start to finish has proven deeply worrying but even if the Government ignores all dissent and presses ahead with its implementation, along with the suspensions, disconnections, site-blocking and all, one thing remains absolutely certain.

The main aim of propping up the “creative industries” (read: the BPI and its members) with this legislation will fail. People will not be heading back to music stores in their millions, they will feel bullied, intimidated and absolutely dedicated to finding new ways to carry on regardless, just as they are in France.

And there will be half a dozen ways to do just that and rest assured there will soon be plenty more – because people will create them. Welcome to the arms race.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

To the absolute dismay of most outside the music and movie industries, some of the most controversial elements of the Bill are unlikely to receive any major scrutiny and will be dealt with quickly under the so-called “wash-up”, a short period between the announcement of an election and parliament being closed down.

“It’s a deeply unsatisfactory and very worrying development,” a senior executive from an ISP told The Guardian. “The fear is that no one will know what is being cooked-up before it becomes law. It’s legislation on the hoof.”

But this situation suits the BPI just fine. This week a leaked memo from the BPI fell into the hands of Cory Doctorow which showed that the “LibDem amendment” – a proposal under the DEB which would allow for websites to be blocked if, essentially, the BPI didn’t like their activities – was in fact written by the BPI. Very cosy.

But the controversies don’t end there. Doctorow also received an internal document prepared by the BPI’s Director of Public Affairs and prospective Labour parliamentary candidate, Richard Mollet. In the document he admitted that the only reason the DEB had a chance of passing is because MP’s are resigned to voting on it without debate.

“Translation: if MPs got to debate the Bill, they would tear it to unrecognizable pieces as they realized what terrible rubbish it really is,” wrote Doctorow. The scandals go on and on, but we have to stop somewhere.

Nevertheless, UK Music head Feargal Sharkey says that he is confident that the DEB will be passed before the general election, although others are not so sure.

“It will still be nip and tuck to get the Digital Economy Bill onto the statute book before the election so the battle is not won yet,” wrote Shadow Culture Minister, Jeremy Hunt, on his blog this week.

According to Jim Killock at the Open Rights Group, UK citizens aren’t leaving anything to chance with 10,000 of them having written to their MPs in the last three days to demand a debate on the Digital Economy Bill.

“It is outrageous for corporate lobbyists including the BPI, FAST and UK Music to demand that MPs curtail democracy and ram this Bill through Parliament without debate,” says Killock, adding: “The British people did not elect UK Music and the BPI to write our laws.”

Killock says that what is making the 10,000 so angry is the pushing through of the DEB without debate, an act he describes as “undemocratic and dangerous”.

If you’d like to add your dissenting voice, please email your MP, write to your local newspaper, and attend the planned demonstrations.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Part of the proposals indicated that Internet users would face being monitored by the music and movie industries. Their ISPs would then be required to pass on copyright infringement notices based on evidence supplied by anti-piracy tracking companies.

If file-sharing wasn’t reduced by 70% in 2 years using these ‘educational’ measures, alleged persistent infringers faced the ultimate sanction of being disconnected from the Internet.

The proposals were met with massive opposition, with ISP TalkTalk going as far as threatening legal action over what it says amounts to a breach of human rights.

Adding to the pressure, a petition against the proposals was launched on the Number 10 website demanding;

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to abandon Lord Mandelson’s plans to ban individuals from the internet based on their use of ‘peer to peer’ file sharing.”

The Government has now responded, and for TalkTalk and the countless others who share their views, on the surface it seems like good news, but a closer look reveals a somewhat disappointing result.

In its response the Government says that it wants as many citizens as possible to enjoy the benefits of the Internet and recognizes that technology has changed the way people access media content, in some cases “faster than products and services commercially on offer have developed” – an apparent reference to the superior accessibility of unauthorized downloads.

The Government goes on to say that they take the interests of artists and creators very seriously and have been working hard to find solutions to online copyright infringement. Nevertheless, they will not require ISPs to monitor their users to detect infringements and downloaders will be pretty safe, as is the case now, with detection being focused on those who upload material without permission.

On potential disconnections for persistent file-sharers – the key issue for many – the Government goes on to say:

“We will not terminate the accounts of infringers – it is very hard to see how this could be deemed proportionate except in the most extreme – and therefore probably criminal – cases.”

What categorizes an infringement as ‘criminal’ is open to interpretation, but is likely to mean very large-scale infringement, infringement for profit, or both. So good news then? Well, not quite.

Despite throwing out absolute permanent disconnections as a measure against file-sharers, the Government is still considering other ‘technical’ solutions if the ISP warnings aren’t effective including “band width restriction, a daily downloading limit or, as a last resort, temporary account suspension.”

So we’re back to disconnections again. In terms of time, ‘temporary’ is not defined. Of course, anything less than ‘permanent’ fits the wording. A day? A month? A year?

Another part of the response which has been mentioned several times before and still remains puzzling is this section:

“In the cases of the most serious infringers, if a rights holder obtains a court order, the ISP would have to provide information so that the rights holder can take targeted court action.”

As anyone who has followed the activities of Davenport Lyons and ACS:Law will tell you, the personal details of anyone alleged to have shared a single file can easily be obtained by rightsholders.

Sadly, despite the headline-grabbing statements, it seems that little has changed with this response from the Government.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

There are 74 proposed amendments to the Bill.

In terms of file-sharing, amendments are suggested to the section which obliges ISPs to inform their customers that an infringement has taken place via their account.

In addition to informing subscribers who have allegedly infringed themselves or subscribers who allow another individual to use their account to infringe, the following category is proposed:

“..infringement of the owner’s copyright appears to have taken place through peer-to-peer filesharing networks on a subscriber’s IP address;”

This means that all copyright infringements that occur on an IP-address will be attributed to the person who pays for the account.

As pointed out by PaidContent, this addition is “sure to rile campaigners who protest that IP numbers do not correspond to identity.”

However, another amendment asks for the removal of the clause which allows action to be taken against subscribers whose connection was used to infringe copyright by someone other than the subscriber.

Amendment 52, proposed by Lord Lucas, states that the copyright infringement reports sent to ISPs by rights holders should also set out “the value of the infringement on the basis described in the initial obligations.”

This is an interesting one. When an anti-piracy company working on behalf of the music and movie industries track an infringement, it is only possible for them to track a single infringement, for example, the uploading of one track, movie, or part thereof. It is impossible for them to prove any additional infringement took place, i.e uploading the same to others.

This means that not only will the reported loss per infringement be very low, but it could also force the rightsholders to claim that an upload to the anti-piracy company equates to a lost sale.

Amendment 71 from Lord Whitty asks for the section below to be completely removed;

…the number and nature of copyright infringement reports relating to the subscriber may be taken into account for the purposes of any technical measures.

Should the amendment be accepted, this suggests that taking technical measures (3 strikes, throttling) on the basis that a subscriber has been ‘caught’ multiple times, will be disallowed.

There are also amendments tabled to change a number of instances where the term “infringement” should be changed to read “infringement allegations”.

The next sitting of the committee stage will be heard January 12th.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Lord Mandelson, or ‘Mandy’ to those speaking of him affectionately, has truly set the cat among the pigeons with his Digital Economy Bill, pleasing almost no-one apart from Big Music and Big Movies, and alienating everyone from most of the ISPs in the country through to millions of Internet users.

In protest, ISP TalkTalk is running the Don’t Disconnect Us campaign, which is gathering great momentum after being endorsed by Stephen Fry earlier this week, and hopefully will receive yet another boost with the help of some catchy music and cutting lyrics.

Yes, just when you thought it was safe after ‘Dear Lily’ – musician Dan Bull is back, this time with a new track – ‘Dear Mandy’.

“I’ve just recorded and uploaded a new video, aimed at Peter Mandelson, and getting people to sign the petition against his three strikes bill,” Dan told TorrentFreak.

“The most worrying part of the Bill is that Mandy has given himself the power to create new legislation as he pleases, meaning he can pretty much do whatever he wants to people he suspects of copyright infringement,” added Dan, echoing the autocracy fears outlined by the Liberal Democrats last week.

“This is one of the most serious threats to privacy and presumption of innocence in the UK for a long time. I would urge people who are concerned about this to contact their MPs, and sign the petition, Dan concluded.

Here is Dan’s great new track – ‘Dear Mandy’ – and UK citizens, don’t forget to sign the petition!

Readers interested in hearing more about Dan can jump over to our side-blog over at FreakBits where we have published an interview.

Dan’s MySpace page can be found here and his album ‘Safe’ is available from FreshNut but can also be downloaded digitally from iTunes, Amazon, Napster and all good file-sharing networks.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Internet users will face being monitored by the music and movie industries, and their ISPs forced to pass on infringement notices based on rights holder supplied evidence alone. ISPs will also have to keep records of who gets warnings and share this information with the rights holders.

If reduction targets aren’t met, file-sharers could have action taken against them by their own ISP, including the ultimate sanction of disconnection, all this without setting foot in a court. Also on the cards is allowing changes to UK copyright law without Parliamentary oversight, which means whatever the government decides to do, it can, with no threat of being blocked. Under the influence of the music and movie industries as it is, this can only go one way.

One of the benefits of living in a democracy is that entities like the Digital Economy Bill are preceded by everyone having their say. Rights holders, Internet service providers, consumer groups and, of course, the lowly individual, were allowed to participate via the BERR consultation.

While rights holders achieved almost everything they asked for and will undoubtedly be very happy with the outcome, the government insisted last week that ISPs were also widely supporting the Digital Economy Bill. But that claim turned out to be false, with the Internet Service Providers Association saying that it was “extremely disappointed” with aspects of the proposals aimed at illicit file-sharing.

Consumer groups also submitted to the consultation, including those from Which? and BeingThreatened, a portal created to provide help and support to ISP account holders who have been wrongfully accused of infringement by copyright holders.

“We are extremely disappointed, though not at all surprised with the nature of the response the government have given. Despite the 13 page response consisting of 11 pages of summary, much of which relates to the concern over the evidential collection, due process and appropriate appeal, the government makes absolutely no mention of this in the response,” they told TorrentFreak.

Indeed, as they quite rightly point out, the only items that remain in focus are those relating to protecting the entertainment industries by the introduction of technological solutions and a 3 strikes-style regime.

“The government response fails completely to put any provisions in place to deal with mistaken allegations. Whilst there is a right for appeal, there is no consequence to a rights holder for making vexatious and false claims,” they added.

Also of concern is that the new system being put forward by the government does not trump the old system, indeed they will remain in operation together. If rights holders and lawyers such as ACS:Law wish to continue with their campaigns of sending letters and demanding huge sums of money instead, they will be perfectly entitled to do so, perhaps with the added assistance of the new information ISPs will be compelled to store.

However, what BeingThreatened find most disappointing is that despite a large opposition to the plans to deal with file-sharing, many of the dissenting voices have simply been ignored, with the government giving submissions from rights holders and their umbrella groups absolute priority.

“This does not give the majority of respondents from our community a feeling that democracy has been observed. It is clear that the consultation, at least from the government’s point of view, was nothing more than a box-ticking exercise. It looks suspiciously like there was never any intent to engage in a transparent democratic process. I am certain that our group will not be alone in these views,” they added.

The full statement BeingThreatened can be found here and all the (corporate and individual) responses to the consultation are available on the BERR website.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

If this isn’t draconian enough, Mandelson includes giving the Secretary of State the power to introduce major new rules without Parliamentary oversight – this from a twice-fired, unelected politician.

Commenting on Mandelson’s attempt to fast-track proposals to amend the 1988 Copyright Act, and adding fuel to the fire this morning are the Liberal Democrats.

“This is an outrageous attempt to slip through sweeping changes with the minimum of scrutiny,” said Don Foster the Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary.

“We do not live in an autocracy, where major rules can be introduced on the whim of an unelected politician.”

Foster notes that his party does wish to address illegal file-sharing, but rightly adds that a workable solution is only possible through co-operation.

Although there will be many who support a crackdown on rampant piracy, many supporters of democracy on both sides are very concerned at Mandelson’s moves.

“For Lord Mandelson to attempt to create new offenses without proper assessment by the Commons is utterly shameless,” concludes Foster.

Hear, hear.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.