The UK government has been foiled by the House of Lords after plans to introduce a “blanket” law in respect to online piracy was voted against. Whilst a bill for piracy legislation is still due to go ahead, a proposal to allow changes over how to govern online copyright without the need to take the matter back to the parliament has been rejected after ministers expressed that it could stymie future digital innovation.
The government had originally been seeking to incorporate legislation to allow them to alter methods of cracking down on online piracy whenever they chose. Causing widespread controversy, this bid was quickly denied, whilst the alternative addition to a proposal, which would allow the court system to block internet websites which shared copyright material, was criticised. Both Facebook and Google expressed “grave concerns” over the late proposal.
The denied clause which was described as “objectionable” could be replaced by legislation that could allow courts to force ISP’s to block specific websites. Lord Clement-Jones of the Liberal Democrats explained “There are several sites out there on the web, many of which are based outside the UK, which refuse to stop supplying access to illegal content – indeed whose business plan depends on supplying illegal content. At the moment it is not explicit what could be done about such sites. This site-blocking remedy would give rights holders an explicit, swift recourse to courts to block access to those sites. I believe this is going to send a powerful message… that we do not believe in censoring the internet, but we are responding to genuine concerns from the creative industries about providing a process whereby their material can be satisfactorily accessed legally.”
