Once upon a time, Britain had a working draft of a new bill that was primarily meant to help improve the country’s broadband infrastructure. It was being spearheaded by the British Business Secretary Lord Mandelson, and many in the media though it sounded pretty good.

But then something odd happened. Entertainment industry kingpin David Geffen invited Mandelson down to the Greek island of Corfu for a little all-expenses-paid mixer. They presumably ate some moussaka, drank a little retsina and talked. And soon after that meeting, the Digital Economy Bill underwent a few minor tweaks. News of those tweaks recently leaked to the media, and have provoked a growing storm of reaction. Mostly because the bill now has nothing to do with broadband infrastructure improvement, and everything to do with giving the entertainment industry free rein to investigate and punish illegal file sharers by cutting off their internet access, fining them enormous sums of money and possibly even throwing them in jail.

Some of the highlights of the new bill include:

• Fines of 50,000 pounds if someone in your household is accused of illegal file sharing.
• A requirement by internet service providers to spy on their customers in order to look for evidence the entertainment industry can use to sue illegal file sharers.
• Fines of 250,000 pounds for ISPs who refuse to take part in this spying.
• “Deputizing” entertainment industry groups with the power to investigate and impose punishments.
• And, best of all, the ability for the British Business Secretary to just make up new punishments and enforcement systems whenever he wants. And yes, that ability is actually written into the bill. There’s no review or oversight built into the bill for these new punishments.

For those who believe in a free internet, it certainly raises some ugly questions around freedom and privacy issues. And the bill’s seeming disregard for due legal process and that whole innocent-until-proven-guilty thing raises some red flags. But at least David Geffen’s happy with it…

Related posts:

1. Is the RIAA’s Latest Attack on Piracy Already Sunk?
2. Wild and wooly tales from the frontier of tech and the law
3. Bill Gates: No Time for Golf

Tags: David Geffen, Digital Economy Bill, Mandelson, privacy, Technology

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 at 2:44 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.