Is the government response to the p2p consultation a whitewash?
Posted by on Saturday, November 21, 2009
We'd like to thank all the members of our community who took the time to respond to the government consultation on legislation to address illegal p2p filesharing. You can read the responses and the government response to the consultation here. Unfortunately, the concerns raised by our community seem to have been largely ignored.
We are extremely dissatisfied with the consultation process undertaken on the problem of illicit filesharing. The summary published alongside the government consultation response, and indeed many of the responses from individuals, consumer groups and internet service providers show clear concerns with regards to many of the initial proposals.
Many of the individual responses and several of the consumer group replies, including our own, point out the damage caused by mistaken or poorly evidenced allegations.
The government response however 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. Additionally, there is no obligation for a rights holder to even follow the new process.
We are concerned that the actions of law firms such as ACS:Law will only continue, and may even escalate given that the additional legal burden of the new act will make defence more difficult. A key area of concern regards the information which the ISPs are being compelled to collect. Unless this information is extremely carefully handled, unscrupulous law firms may use it as additional ammunition to bolster their current tactics rather than follow the new statutory method for dispute resolution.
What is most disappointing to our group is that the substance of the government response appears almost entirely unedited from previous options mooted in public, the leaked draft of the legislation and the position of Peter Mandelson reported in the press. Despite the weighting of responses being against some of the more controversial options in the act, it is clear much of the consultation has been entirely ignored. Instead the government has used the minority of reports from rights holders and umbrella organisations (incidentally responding on behalf of many groups which also responded individually) to justify their previous policy.
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.
We call on the consultation team to pass these views on to the appropriate government departments, and Peter Mandelson personally. Furthermore, we expect the government to formally respond to the top five points in the summary document, with appropriate legislative amendments made to address these points. This is the only way to countermand the likely feeling of many respondents that the previous government response is nothing but a whitewash brought about by creative industry lobbying with no regard for the rights of the individual.
We are extremely dissatisfied with the consultation process undertaken on the problem of illicit filesharing. The summary published alongside the government consultation response, and indeed many of the responses from individuals, consumer groups and internet service providers show clear concerns with regards to many of the initial proposals.
Many of the individual responses and several of the consumer group replies, including our own, point out the damage caused by mistaken or poorly evidenced allegations.
The government response however 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. Additionally, there is no obligation for a rights holder to even follow the new process.
We are concerned that the actions of law firms such as ACS:Law will only continue, and may even escalate given that the additional legal burden of the new act will make defence more difficult. A key area of concern regards the information which the ISPs are being compelled to collect. Unless this information is extremely carefully handled, unscrupulous law firms may use it as additional ammunition to bolster their current tactics rather than follow the new statutory method for dispute resolution.
What is most disappointing to our group is that the substance of the government response appears almost entirely unedited from previous options mooted in public, the leaked draft of the legislation and the position of Peter Mandelson reported in the press. Despite the weighting of responses being against some of the more controversial options in the act, it is clear much of the consultation has been entirely ignored. Instead the government has used the minority of reports from rights holders and umbrella organisations (incidentally responding on behalf of many groups which also responded individually) to justify their previous policy.
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.
We call on the consultation team to pass these views on to the appropriate government departments, and Peter Mandelson personally. Furthermore, we expect the government to formally respond to the top five points in the summary document, with appropriate legislative amendments made to address these points. This is the only way to countermand the likely feeling of many respondents that the previous government response is nothing but a whitewash brought about by creative industry lobbying with no regard for the rights of the individual.
Tags: consultation filesharing
