DE Act court ruling - a twisted balance
- Author: Monica Horten
- Published: 21 April 2011
A judgement in the UK High Court yesterday squashed the legal challenge to the Digital Economy Act by BT and TalkTalk. It rejected a series of legal claims concerning notification to the European Union, incompatibility with European Internet and privacy law, and dis-proportionality, allowing only one very minor claim regarding costs.
It is astonishing that the judge has come up with a judgement on this complex matter in such a very short time. He has taken less than a month. Compare it for example, the ECJ, where the Advocate General took 3 months before he delivered an opinion on the Sabam v Scarlet case, another major European case on copyright enforcement.
The judge, Mr Justice Parker, is somewhat dismissive of BT and TalkTalk's arguments, and critical of them for delivering a substantial economic analysis ( the content of which is not public, but the judgement complains of the volume of it).
He instead comes down firmly on the side of the government - which de facto, is also the rights-holders. It was notable that the government and the rights-holders sat together - and laughed together - in the court-room.
Overall, the judgement does not
seem to grasp the point of the legal challenge which was the impact of the DE Act on the ISPs. It dismisses arguments concerning the processing of traffic data and user's IP addresses. I felt it does so felt rather lightly, suggesting for example, that ISPs do no more than identify Internet subscribers. BT's arguments were strong on the privacy issues, and I wonder if it could be challenged again.
The judgement agrees with the government's argument that the DE Act obligations do not yet have legal effect.
The judgement dismisses the claim that the DE Act should have been notified to the European Commission. The comments are a little strange. It says that we don't know whether the Commission would have been able to comment on the DE Act if it had been notified before being put Parliament, or whether the Commission would have been ‘left in the dark' as the government contends. Since ‘this debate cannot be decisively resolved either way' the judge dismissed it. Surely, it was his job to make a decision on this point?
I find it odd that the judgement states that government figures supporting proposed legislation do not need to be correct. All that has to be shown is that there is a substantial problem - in this case, that P2P file-sharing is substantially displacing ‘lawful sales' of music, without any qualification of what such ‘lawful sales' would be. Figures are then cited from government evidence, which reveal displacement of between 0-9% from studies between 2006-2009, and in one case, from 2004, up to 20%. On this basis, it seems the judgement buys into the assumption that copyright needs these measures in the DE Act for protection and that the measures are proportionate.
The judge was trying to achieve a balance and it was notable that throughout the hearing he asked the respective barristers for help with what the balancing factors should be. Should he balance, for example, the right to property against the right of freedom to trade? However, the judgement is lacking in clarity on what exactly he is balancing.
This balancing question relates to the proportionality challenge, which is the hardest one to argue. The judgement does appear to have bought into the rights-holder position that copyright is a property right, and the "protection" of property is an entitlement under that right.
The judgement agrees with the government's position regarding a chilling effect. The rationale is interesting. It seems to be saying that we don't know how to measure a chilling effect, or the economic impact of it, but, irrespective of that, it is unlikely to outweigh the benefit of protecting copyright.
However, I think it is here where the judgement comes unstuck. It then says that copyright has non-economic elements, such as moral rights, which can be self-justified without evaluation. But, it also says that a model which attempts to quantify the ‘social welfare' costs in relation to the proposed copyright enforcment measures is purely an economic argument and therefore must be secondary to the non-economic benefits of copyright.
This particular line of argument does not make sense to me, and I do question the logic. It seems to me that the judgement is not clear what is being balanced. Is it the property right of copyright versus social welfare costs of enforcement? Or is is a self-evident, non-economic benefit of copyright, against some other right? Or some other conflict of rights?
It does seem to me that the scales of justice in this instance have become somewhat twisted and merit some unravelling.
---
My book The Copyright Enforcement Enigma - Internet politics & the 'Telecoms Package'
addresses the underlying issues in the Digital Economy Act, especially the connection between copyright and telecoms. It will be published by Palgrave Macmillan on 15 October.
The correct attribution for this article is: Monica Horten (2011) DE Act court ruling - a Twisted Balance http://www.iptegrity.com 21 April 2011
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial-Share Alike 2.5 UK:England and Wales License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/ It may be used for non-commercial purposes only, and the author's name should be attributed.
- Article Views: 10642
IPtegrity politics
- EU at loggerheads over chat control
- Why the Online Safety Act is not fit for purpose
- Fixing the human rights failings in the Online Safety Act
- Whatever happened to the AI Bill?
- Hidden effects of the UK Online Safety Act
- EU puts chat control on back burner
- Why did X lock my account for not providing my birthday?
- Creation of deep fakes to be criminal offence under new law
- AI and tech: Asks for the new government
- How WhatsApp holds structural power
- Meta rolls out encryption as political headwinds ease
- EU law set for new course on child online safety
- Online Safety Act: Ofcom’s 1700-pages of tech platform rules
- MEPs reach political agreement to protect children and privacy
- Online Safety - a non-consensual Act
- Not a blank cheque: European Parliament consents to EU-UK Agreement
- UK border safety alert - mind the capability gap
About Iptegrity
Iptegrity.com is the website of Dr Monica Horten, independent policy advisor: online safety, technology and human rights. Advocating to protect the rights of the majority of law abiding citizens online. Independent expert on the Council of Europe Committee of Experts on online safety and empowerment of content creators and users. Published author, and post-doctoral scholar, with a PhD from the University of Westminster, and a DipM from the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Former telecoms journalist, experienced panelist and Chair, cited in the media eg BBC, iNews, Times, Guardian and Politico.
Politics & copyright
A Copyright Masquerade: How Corporate Lobbying Threatens Online Freedoms
'timely and provocative' Entertainment Law Review
Online Safety
- Why the Online Safety Act is not fit for purpose
- Fixing the human rights failings in the Online Safety Act
- Hidden effects of the UK Online Safety Act
- Why did X lock my account for not providing my birthday?
- Online Safety Act: Ofcom’s 1700-pages of tech platform rules
- Online Safety - a non-consensual Act
- Online Safety Bill passes as US court blocks age-checks law
- Online Safety Bill: ray of hope for free speech
- National Crime Agency to run new small boats social media centre
- Online Safety Bill: does government want to snoop on your WhatsApps?
- What is content of democratic importance?
- Online Safety Bill: One rule for them and another for us
- Online Safety Bill - Freedom to interfere?
- Copyright-style website blocking orders slipped into Online Safety Bill
- 2 billion cost to British businesses for Online Safety Bill