Thank you for helping fight for our rights

We just wanted to give everyone who came to our workshops, and who will be writing or talking to their MPs about the Bill. 

We had some pretty useful discussions, highlighting the need to be concise, talk from personal experience, and be clear about what you want your MP to do. We also found that for most of us, copyright infringement is not the issue – due process and safeguarding our rights is.

We’ll be putting up some video based on the events, hopefully next week.

Last week, the debates in the Lords revealed that people who are innocent, but wish to prove it, will have to pay in order to access justice. We also know they will not be eligible for legal aid, and that innocence may not even be a defence. If someone else used your internet account to infringe copyright, tribunals will be instructed that you are responsible.

This puts many businesses and educational institutions in an impossible position. They will be liable for the activities of their customers and students. The Federation of Small Businesses, libraries and JANET have asked the government what they will be doing about this. The government’s answer, so far, seems to be that they can block infringers, so they can simply accept the liability and hope for the best.

The only answer for many will be shut down their open wifi networks, depriving many people of easy access to the net on the move, or in social centres, or during their education.

This is an unacceptable burden to put on the economy. It is disproportionate to the right of copyright holders to reduce infringement. The social and economic costs have not yet been calculated, and were not even part of BIS’ initial assessment.

The Bill, as it stands, risks bringing the law into disrepute, as it undermines the rights of the innocent and would place extraordinary burdens on everyday businesses. We hope people like you will, over the next few weeks, highlight these problems to individual MPs.