DEB - Unintended Consequences

As mentioned in my last posting on the Digital Economy Bill, the root cause of its problems for universities, colleges, schools, businesses and rightsholders is the very wide definition of "subscriber" that the Bill uses to assign roles in dealing with copyright breach. In effect, any individual or organisation that isn't itself an ISP could be caught within the definition of subscriber.

I've now managed to track down the Government's formal Impact Assessment for the Bill, and discovered that the only business sectors that this mentions are "Internet Service Providers and Mobile Network Operators", "creative content industries (right holders)" and "the publishing industry". "Consumers" are mentioned as customers of ISPs and possible infringers of copyright. There's no mention of business or other organisational customers of ISPs. Replacing the word "consumer" in the Impact Assessment by "subscriber" in the Bill looks harmless but may have accidentally increased the scope of the definition and damaged the effectiveness of the Bill. As we are often reminded, in legal matters the small print can be really important :-(