“3 steps and you’re terminated”

Last week’s Social Market Foundation event – ‘Intellectual Property Rights and Consumer Rights’ – despite the title’s implied concern for balance, showed disregard for consumers and promoted rights holders’ interests. The minister responsible for UK-IPO spoke of the need for balance in reforming Britain intellectual property regulation but Government’s actions do not yet evidence this commitment. The BPI’s trail for a UK version of France’s ‘3 strikes’ approach to p2p infringement also gave cause for concern.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills’, Lord Triesman, broad-ranging speech (link to PDF download) took in the usual policy concerns of technological developments, new business models, traffic in infringing content and consumer awareness of IPR. However, a year on from the Gowers Review recommendations for flexible copyright regulation, including a ‘format-shifting’ exception to legalise the near-universal practice of transferring CD recordings to mp3 players, seem no closer despite the rapid allocation of funding to ‘anti-piracy’ enforcement. Ian Brown, billed as the event’s agent provocateur, slammed the speech for its anti-competition and anti-consumer stance. For a more balanced approach to these issues, Ian’s slides are available for download.

In the panel discussion that followed, Richard Mollett flagged moves towards a voluntary agreement between the BPI and ISPs to reduce copyright-infringing traffic, similar to France’s ‘3 strikes’ model. He expects an initial warning from the ISP that infringing traffic is associated with a particular account will halt 75% of infringers. If suspicious activity continues then account suspension is the next step, before the final sanction of account termination. Even assuming there will be adequate appeal procedures, although no assurances were given, this mechanism will harm consumer interests unless systems for identifying protected content operate perfectly. Regardless, and fortunately this point was recognised by all parties to the discussion, cutting off internet access is very much the ‘nuclear option’. The proportionality of this approach still requires broader public discussion given internet access may soon become a basic need, comparable to utilities like water and electricity.