On April 7th (in a House of Commons that resembled a ghost town in all but tumbleweeds) the government passed the controversial Digital Economy Bill. This period of time, after an election is announced and before the new Prime Minister puts his toothbrush in the bathroom of Number 10, is known as wash-up. For all those readers, like me, who are about as politically aware as a potato, wash-up is the Parliamentary equivalent of the last few weeks of your third year at uni. Or in the government’s own words: “All the unfinished business of the session must be dealt with swiftly and the government seeks the co-operation of the opposition in passing legislation that is still in progress. Some Bills might be lost completely; others might be progressed quickly but in a much-shortened form.”
So the Digital Economy Bill, let’s call it the DEB for ink’s sake, is a piece of legislation that was deemed important enough to be dealt with swiftly, yet it was not important enough to take up more than two hours of debate in the House of Commons. Many MPs who opposed the bill, like Jeremy Corbyn, agreed that such complex issues would normally require weeks of discussion and debate.
So what is the Bill and how will it impact us? Among many other things the DEB goes a long way to ending the fight between music and film industry giants and the illegal downloader before it ever has a chance to get started. There is no chance of making the entertainment bigwigs admit that a compromise needs to be reached between the downloader and the way in which entertainment is distributed in an ever more digital world. The new laws mean that internet service providers are obliged to cut the connection of illegal downloaders. The problem with this, regardless of how you feel about illegal downloading, is that it would mean everyone using the same internet connection would also be booted off. So, free public Wi-Fi spots, student houses and libraries would all suffer. Even universities themselves will not be exempt from the copyright crack down, leaving them open to the same penalisation as individuals. So one diehard Cliff Richard fan, too ashamed to go out and buy the album, has a sneaky Limewire session in the 24-hour Centre and everyone else using the connection suffers too.
There was one section that thankfully didn’t make the cut. Had clause 18 also been passed, the government would have had the power to ban websites thought to be infringing copyright outright. In my opinion banning such websites would have had about as much effect as a parental-lock on a horny fourteen year old boy in his quest for porn, but isn’t it nice that we’ve been granted with the power to look at a website and decide for ourselves whether we want to download its content.
If this Bill sounds like something worthy of your opposition on election day, love ‘em or hate ‘em it’s Nick Clegg and the boys in yellow who’ve got your back come May 6th. The Lib-Dems are promising to repeal the Bill if they get into power.
It seems to me that such contentious issues as the Digital Economy Bill should be dealt with, and voted on, at a time when the majority of Parliament is not out kissing babies in their own constituencies.
Ruth Wallbank
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