copyright

6 June 2012 at 9:56am

DEB - Where Are We?

Andrew Cormack
Digital Economy Act
copyright
I've been asked by a number of people to set out the current problems that the Digital Economy Bill is likely to create specifically for universities and colleges, so here's a summary. This reflects the state of the Bill at the end of the Lords' Report stage, and doesn't cover more general problems around liability, reporting, disconnection and blocking that have been widely discussed elsewhere.
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6 June 2012 at 9:55am

DEB - New Amendment Demands the Impossible

Andrew Cormack
Digital Economy Act
Role of ISPs
copyright
Even worse news on the Digital Economy Bill, I'm afraid. A successful amendment (amendment 120A) to the Bill last night has given courts the power to order ISPs to block access to any website where a "substantial proportion of the content" infringes copyright.
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6 June 2012 at 9:55am

DEB - One Size Doesn't Fit All

Andrew Cormack
Digital Economy Act
copyright
The Digital Economy Bill was back on the Agenda in the House of Lords yesterday, this time at the report stage where the Government and other parties propose amendments based on the discussion in the Committee Stage. There is some good news in that the Government now recognise that a single set of anti-infringement measures cannot be applied to everything from a house to a university and that advice on measures must
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6 June 2012 at 9:54am

DEB - Government confused, let's help

Andrew Cormack
Digital Economy Act
copyright
The Government has published a factsheet on the position of universities, libraries and others under the Digital Economy Bill. On how these organisations fit the Bill's definitions, they conclude:
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6 June 2012 at 9:53am

DEB - Government amends but doesn't fix

Andrew Cormack
Digital Economy Act
copyright
The Government has published the two lists of amendments that it will be be proposing in the Lords report stage next week - there are separate amendments on copyright and other matters. These amend the Bill text as it finished the committee stage.
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6 June 2012 at 9:52am

DEB - Unintended Consequences

Andrew Cormack
Digital Economy Act
copyright
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.
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6 June 2012 at 9:51am

Access Management can replace walls :-)

Andrew Cormack
Access Management
copyright
I was interested to see both "Shibboleth" and "Athens" being mentioned in a consultation on extending the educational use exemption for re-playing recordings of broadcast programmes, sound recordings and films. At the moment sections 35 & 36 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 permit recordings to be re-played as part of teaching in an educational establishment provided they “cannot be received by any person situated outside the premises of that establishment”.
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6 June 2012 at 9:50am

Digital Economy Bill - Bill team meeting

Andrew Cormack
Digital Economy Act
copyright
John Shemilt (Imperial College) and I had an interesting and, I think, productive informal meeting with the Digital Economy Bill Team yesterday. We were able to provide them with a lot of evidence of the scale of the JANET and the policies and measures that we and connected sites take to deal seriously and effectively with copyright infringement. I think they were impressed.
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6 June 2012 at 9:46am

Digital Economy Bill - Second Reading

Andrew Cormack
Digital Economy Act
Role of ISPs
copyright
At the second reading debate of the Digital Economy Bill in the House of Lords last week, general support was expressed for the idea of imposing duties on ISPs to improve the enforcement of online copyright.
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6 June 2012 at 9:44am

Digital Economy Bill

Andrew Cormack
Digital Economy Act
Privacy
copyright
The draft Digital Economy Bill has been published and will now begin to be debated by the Houses of Parliament. Most of the Bill is as expected from the various ministerial statements over the summer. Two measures to reduce copyright infringement will be introduced immediately:
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