Did you survive without Wikipedia yesterday? English Wikipedia, and perhaps as many as 7,000 other websites, was blacked out for 24 hours in protest at the passage of two internet piracy bills through the US Congress. Simple souls merely dusted off their battered encyclopaedia, but the technically astute lifted the blackout with a host of sharp ruses and delicate subterfuge. This asks the question: can the internet be policed effectively when the intrepid will always bypass the impediments?
The question has been exercising European governments and law courts for a number of years. In Britain, the Digital Economy Act (DEA) was given Royal Assent in the ‘wash up’ prior to the 2010 election. The Act is yet to be implemented and looks increasingly unworkable. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have been challenged the government in court over its insistence that they bear a substantial portion of the costs of regulating their users. The government is also split on the issue. The Department for Media, Culture and Sport apparently takes the view that government should regulate the internet, with the close assistance of ISPs. While some ministers (such as Ed Vaizey) believe that government regulation should be loose and that ISPs, web users and copyright holders co-operate to find an equitable solution to internet policing. Serial offenders might then be pursued in the civil courts by copyright holders and service providers.
Vaizey’s position is what one might expect from a small state Conservative; but he may also have been influenced by the French government’s disastrous attempt to tackle internet piracy. Last January, President Sarkozy’s government created the HADOPI agency to oversee policing. The agency was repeatedly hacked and its data spread across the web. Its operations were ineffective: official research found that it detected only 7 per cent of those who made illegal downloads. Its coercive powers were therefore blunted and pirates remained at liberty. The French government is rethinking its approach, having conceded that it made an ‘error’.
The DEA originally envisaged that Ofcom play a similar role to HADOPI in this country, which caused disquiet. Last August, the independent Hargreaves report into the DEA concluded that coercive measures, such as web-blocking (the practice whereby copyright infringers are barred from internet access by their ISPs), were impractical. The government has since dropped the plan. But how, then, are copyright infringers to be deterred and pursued if necessary? The government is yet to find an answer; and experts privately concede that the DEA is unlikely to be implemented this year, which is extraordinary considering the Act has been law for nearly two years already.
Facebook’s co-creator Mark Zuckerberg joined yesterday’s protest. He wrote on his Facebook page:
‘The internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world. We can’t let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet’s development. Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA [the acronyms for the two Congress bills], and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet.’
Zuckerberg has been working with legislators to find a more practicable solution; but human ingenuity might be the best guard against the threat he perceives.
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