Friday, March 05, 2010:
All changes happen for the good, they say. But this one spells trouble with a capital t for websites who thrive by hosting copyrighted material from other sites! Changes have been proposed to the Digital Economy Bill by the Liberal Democrats, which will empower the High Court to issue injunctions against websites who host "substantial" amounts of copyright-infringing material, says The Telegraph. This is bad news for websites like YouTube, which has been flayed by record labels in the past for featuring videos of their artists-without their explicit permission.
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Many Internet freedom campaigners are outraged by these changes to the Bill, which was passed by the House of Lords by 165 votes to 140. Jim Killock, executive director, Open Rights Group, opined several sites could simply shut shop for fear of expensive legal action. This would tilt the balance of scales in favour of large copyright holding companies, he hazarded. "Individuals and small businesses would be open to massive 'copyright attacks' that could shut them down, just by the threat of action", he said.
The ISP body, the internet Service Providers Association, expressed its profound disappointment at the news. "This amendment is misjudged and disproportionate, and this Bill is a wholly inappropriate place to introduce this debate," said Nicholas Lansman, secretary-general, ISPA. "We have been a long term advocate against any form of network-level blocking, as it is ineffective when applied to content that people are actively searching for".
Others in the line of fire from the Bill include cafés, pubs and airports that offer Wi-Fi access. The Bill applies equally to them, which means that Wi-Fi hot spots could find themselves shut down, and businesses prosecuted, if it emerges that customers have downloaded or shared illegal or copyrighted material from their premises.
Ashish Joshi, EFYTIMES News Network
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