April 8th, 2010 
Cliff Riseborough 
In a session that was attended about as well as your average Tripe Fair would be (actually, we are talking about the British here…hmmm…), the House of Commons has passed the Digital Economy Bill.
It was passed in a session that could be politely described as ‘not well attended’ late Wednesday night, passing two votes on its content and receiving a third reading that is required to gain royal assent and become law.
Removed during the debate on the bill was clause 18, which would have granted the High Court extensive powers to force ISPs to block access to any online location if a ‘substantial portion’ of the location infringed on copyright (with ISPs also forced to pay all court fees accrued in bringing the case to court in the first place). It was somewhat replaced by an earlier, reworded clause :
The new clause allows the secretary of state for business to order the blocking of "a location on the internet which the court is satisfied has been, is being or is likely to be used for or in connection with an activity that infringes copyright".
The problem with that as it’s worded is that it could impact the ability of whistleblowers to release suppressed information, since whatever government body or corporation that was suppressing it in the first place could claim that its release infringed on their copyright. The entire whistleblower website could then technically be ordered blocked by the government, regardless of whether or not the information released was beneficial to the public.
As well, copyright holders can still send ‘copyright infringement reports’ to an ISP, with that ISP then required to pass it along to the accused. ISPs are also required to pass along lists of all suspected infringement to copyright holders on request. There is also a clause allowing for speed blocks, site blocking, account suspensions and bandwidth shaping against individual users suspected of illegal downloading. ISPs failing to go along with these rulings can be fined up to 250,000 pounds per incident.
Among many other clauses (which are listed on The Guardian’s site here), the PEGI game ratings system is now officially recognized as the UK’s lone rating system for games.
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