The UK's Digital Economy Bill

The UK’s Digital Economy Bill received Royal Assent on April 8 and it is now an Act of Parliament. The UK Government managed to get it through Parliament prior to the May election. 

The Act covers a Ministerial power to order internet service providers (ISPs) to take technical measures against subscribers – the most obvious being suspension of online access – in order to tackle online copyright infringement. The Minister is also empowered to make regulations giving the courts the power to order blocking injunctions on specific websites. Maximum fines for copyright infringements are standardised and increased.

The Act gives ISPs the responsibility of notifying subscribers of any copyright infringement, initially identified by copyright owners.  ISPs will be obliged to react to copyright infringement reports from copyright owners  – containing evidence that a user has engaged in some form of copyright infringement  – by notifying the relevant users of these reports. 

ISPs are required to maintain anonymous user-specific records of their notifications, so as to assist copyright owners in identifying the serial offenders, against which the copyright owners can take further action (once they have obtained a court order for a particular user’s identity). 

Users will have the usual rights of appeal to a tribunal against both copyright infringement reports and any technical measures imposed upon them. Should an ISP fail to comply with a technical measure, it could be fined up to £250,000. ISPs are not happy about this, to say the least.

Blocking injunctions are a further possibility. These uncertain and significantly opposed provisions in the Act give the Minister powers to request a court to issue a blocking injunction, which would require ISPs to block access to websites used in connection with the infringement of copyright. 

Although any provision will require approval of Parliament and a 60 day review period before it comes into force, a full scrutiny of such provision (as is usually the case with primary legislation) will not be required. This appears a move away from traditional law making and again towards the use of executive powers.