ORG meets Lib Dems

Yesterday ORG met with Liberal Democrats about their new Clause 17, proposing web blocking. We are grateful for the meeting, and for their contribution to the Lords debate, which had been generally very positive. Today, more of their own candidates and bloggers, including Cory Doctorow, who is both on ORG’s Advisory Council, and a Liberal Democrat, met with them as well.

ORG made it clear what the problems with take down processes were: that they can easily be abused, and compliance is the easiest route, especially for ISPs. The result could be that copyright take down is used for anti-competitive attacks and attempts to stifle freedom of speech. While courts may be more lenient than cautious ISPs, people are not always able or prepared to protect their rights in courts.

There are partial remedies to some of these problems, but abuse will always be a feature of any system like this, which is why we were disappointed to see it proposed at such a late stage.

Meanwhile, the Lib Dems themselves, may be debating an emergency motion at the weekend on the subject of web blocking and disconnection.

It is a very forward-thinking, liberal-minded motion, that very few people in ORG could disagree with. And the fact that open democratic debate is happening from within the Liberal Democrats does them all much credit, whatever position they eventually take.

The substance of our meeting with Don Foster and Clement Jones left us with one other significant worry: that the Lib Dems are currently implying that they accept disconnection as a punishment, and that their primary concern in this legislation is to protect copyright holders.

We think the national debate would be well served by a strong line against disconnection from the Liberal Democrats, as a voice naturally concerned with human rights and justice.

We understood Don Foster and Clement Jones to be sympathetic to this position when the debate started, and would welcome stronger clarification and contribution to the debate from Liberal Democrat MPs, as well as Labour and other parties.