Campaigners Call For Digital Bill To Get Fair Reading

Opponents of the government’s Digital Economy Bill are calling for the proposed legislation to be thoroughly debated in Parliament, rather than being rushed through ahead of the election.

The Bill is due to receive its second reading in the House of Commons at around 3.30pm on Tuesday with further debates on the Bill expected on Wednesday and Thursday this week. The debates mean the bill will progress in the so-called “wash-up” process, where legislation is pushed through quickly before the election, which has been set for 6 May.

However opponents of the legislation – which could see individuals suspected of illegal file-sharing cut off from the Internet – have claimed that the time allotted to the bill is not sufficient to deal with its complexity.

Opponents rally against Digital Bill

Opponents of the bill including the Open Rights Group (ORG) and campaigning organisation 38 Degrees claimed to have raised around £200,000 to pay for adverts in Tuesday’s Guardian and Times objecting to how the bill is being debated.

“Rather than subjecting it to the normal weeks of line-by-line scrutiny, politicians are planning to fast-track it into law before the general election, sidestepping debate and opposition,” the newspaper add states.

The ad claims that over 20,000 people have objected to the Bill, which could end up exacerbating file-sharing rather than eradicating it, as the music industry and government supporters hope. “There is no doubt that protecting copyright is an important and complicated issue but making new laws in a hurry is likely to make the situation worse not better,” the 38 Degrees ad states.

Ongoing public debate

But while opponents claim the Bill is being rushed through, supporters of the plan are obviously keen to see it pass through Parliament as quickly as possible. Speaking on the Today Programme on Tuesday morning, Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) said that the Bill had already been discussed at length before reaching the final stages this week. “There has been a great deal of debate around this bill,” he said. “There have been several public consultations and, I think, seven days of committee debate in the House of Lords and three days in report stage in the House of Lords.”

Taylor added that the bill would have benefits for the wider economy.”The reason why all the main political parties have supported this bill is that they realise that the creative economy is fundamental to our success as an economy over all as business increasingly moves onto the Internet.”

Digital rights activists, including the Open Rights Group and the UK Pirate Party, have been demonstrating outside Parliament over the last week against the Digital Economy Bill and encouraging people to write to their MPs in protest.

Last week it was reported that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was forced to drop its charges against a teenage boy, who was charged in 2007 with illegally distributing copyrighted material. The charge was dropped due to lack of evidence.