Back in April we asked ORG supporters to write to their MEPs to help campaign against a Directive that would extend the term of copyright protection in sound recordings (for the reasons why, see our previous posts and the campaign site 'Sound Copyright'). We had a fantastic response, with thousands of letters sent to MEPs across Europe.

Since then the trail has run a little cold. The European Parliament did not get a new vote. The Directive remained in play, on the verge of being passed.*

It now seems that the proposal will go before the 'Coreper' meeting on 7th September. The small group of nations that were blocking the proposal have changed their position, so it is likely to be waved through and become EU law. (See Martin Kretschmer's blog for more).

This comes only a couple of months after Professor Ian Hargreaves' review 'Digital Opportunity' recommended evidence-based IP policy and picked out 'term extension' as one of the clearest examples of where IP policy has ignored the available economic evidence.

In July, the Minister for Culture, Communications and the Creative Industries Ed Vaizey MP told the industry group BPI AGM that the Government will 'continue to support moves in Europe to extend copyright in sound recordings.'

This was only a month or so after the publication of Professor Hargreaves' report. The review highlights that 'the UK Government's own economic impact assessment...estimated that extension would cost the UK economy up to ￡100m over the extended term'. The Government recently set out their response to Professor Hargreaves' findings, suggesting that they accepted his recommendations. So it is a peculiar decision to support the Directive's passing. It's also a little peculiar that to establish the UK Government's policy on this term extension decision one has to look in the depths of a speech given to an industry representative body.

We have written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Business to set out our concerns, and to request that the UK opposes the Directive. We'll keep you posted on developments this week.

* As with EU policy making, there's a complicated story behind this. The MEP Christian Engström tried to get the European Council to give the European Parliament another vote on the Directive. He argued, under a slightly obscure rule of EU procedures, that this was required as a new Parliament was voted in after the original vote in 2009. Whilst he managed to get the requisite number of signatures, he did not manage to secure a new vote. Trying to understand the machinations of the European Union's democratic institutions can be quite a slog. We blogged about this in April here.

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Yesterday Open Rights Group and 9 other human rights groups wrote to the Home Secretary. This coincided with a meeting that took place at lunchtime yesterday between the Home Secretary, law enforcement representatives and Twitter, Facebook and Research in Motion, to discuss the aftermath of the recent civil unrest.

Following the meeting, the Home Office said in a statement that ''the discussions looked at how law enforcement and the networks can build on the existing relationships and cooperation to crack down on the networks being used for criminal behaviour.' It looked like the Home Office were backing away from suggestions that they are seeking powers to cut off access to communications networks.

The absence of any talk about blocking access to social networks is of course a victory.  In principle giving the state greater powers to prevent people using the means to communicate with each other is worrying. And in practice, there's little evidence that simply cutting access would have prevented some of the unrest.

But there is a longer privacy game at play in these discussions. The previous Government's plans to update interception and surveillance powers, under the name of the Intercept Modernisation Programme, disappeared but never died. There were some serious concerns at the time about how the police would be able to access Internet communications, and the requirements for service providers to store such information.  There's more background on IMP on our wiki here.

In this coalition Government, which promised to row back on what many saw as intrusions into our liberties, the plans have resurfaced under the name Communications Capabilities Development programme. The meeting yesterday can be seen through that frame - of the process of updating how interception laws work, either through informal relationships between communications providers or social networks and police, or through formal updates of the law.

The New York Times reported comments from Gordon Scobbie, 'a senior police officer who leads efforts to sharpen the force’s social media presence'. He told the NYT that 'the group had discussed how far the networks might be willing to bend privacy rules to assist the police in pursuing online criminal activity.' A greater willingness from communications providers to bend privacy rules, at the encouragement of the Government or police, would be somewhat worrying.

The Home Office website for the programme suggests that the programme is about 'maintaining existing capabilities...not about developing new, more intrusive powers'. We hope that is the case, and that through an open and public debate we can play a role in keeping them to their word.

Targeting communications networks in the aftermath of this civil unrest was simply the wrong target.  Through the joint letter, and the Open Rights Group petition that has so far gather over 3,500 signatures (you can add to that number by signing up here), hopefully we have helped demonstrate it is also not an easy target.

Update: The Global Network Initiative have written an excellent letter to the Home Secretary setting this in a global context. In it, they say:

"Communications companies face increased requests from governments around the world to comply with surveillance and censorship requests that could infringe the rights of users.  We ask that the Government consider this global context when formulating its response so that specific pressures of the moment do not lead to unintended consequences and undermine the Government’s ability to support and further free speech values internationally."

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Today a group of leading human rights and civil liberties groups, including Open Rights Group, have written to the Home Secretary, Rt Hon Theresa May MP. You can read the full letter, with the list of signatories, below.

Together we have expressed concerns about the Prime Minister's comments that the Government will “look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality”. The letter coincides with a meeting taking place at lunchtime today between the Home Secretary and Twitter, Facebook and Research in Motion in which this issue will be discussed.

In it we say three simple things. First, we express serious concern about any such review of powers made in haste without proper consideration of the effects on legitimate communication, freedom of expression and privacy. Second, that such reviews must take place transparently with details of the meetings with communications providers made public as soon as possible. Third, that any such review must proceed through a genuine multi-stakeholder process, involving not only communications providers but groups such as those representing citizens' rights such as freedom of expression and privacy.

We await the outcome of the Government's meeting with great interest. It is useful to note the Guardian's analysis this morning of tweets posted during the riots. It seems to show that tweets were mainly reacting to events, rather than playing a role inciting or organising further trouble.

Open Rights Group believes that the Government is focusing on entirely the wrong problem. Laws made in haste, with limited analysis and information, to deal with an exceptional problem is likely to create unbalanced laws and abuses of our rights.

Currently 3.5k people have signed our petition on this issue. You can join them here.

We will of course keep you posted on any response to the letter.

Update (16:00): The Home Office have said they held a 'constructive' meeting with Twitter, Facebook and RIM, 'discussing cooperation with law enforcement agencies in situations where networks are being used for criminal behaviour.'

--

Rt Hon Theresa May MP
Home Secretary
Home Office
2 Marsham Street,
London, SW1P 4DF



24th August 2011


Dear Home Secretary,

We are writing to you regarding discussions scheduled to take place between the Government and some social network and communications providers following the recent civil unrest.

We noted the Prime Minister's suggestion that the Government will “look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality”.  We believe that Twitter, Research in Motion and Facebook have been invited to meet you to discuss this issue.

As you know, there is existing legislation regulating the interception and disclosure of communications information, the use of communications evidence by law enforcement and restrictions on people's use of communications technology.

It is reasonable to review the existing legal regime to ensure that it appropriately fits new technologies.  However, turning off, restricting or monitoring people's communications networks are matters that require extreme care and open, detailed deliberation.

We are very concerned that new measures, made in good faith but in a heated political environment, will overextend powers in ways that would be susceptible to abuse, restrict legitimate, free communication and expression and undermine people's privacy.  This is especially so if proposals involve unaccountable voluntary arrangements between law enforcement and communications providers. 

It is essential that any review of regulations covering communications networks happens through a public consultation, with full details of meetings between the Government and social network platforms made public as soon as possible.  This should involve a genuine multi-stakeholder process that includes not only the communications providers but groups representing broader citizens' rights such as freedom of expression and privacy. 

We would like to request a meeting to discuss these issues, and look forward to engaging with you further.


Yours sincerely,
 
Brett Soloman, Executive Director, Access
Mike Blakemore, Media Director, Amnesty UK
Dr Agnes Callamard, Executive Director, Article 19
Gillian Slovo, President, English PEN
Andrew Puddephat, Director, Global Partners
Jo Glanville, Editor, Index on Censorship
Isabella Sankey, Policy Director, Liberty
Tony Curzon Price, Editor-in-Chief, OpenDemocracy
Jim Killock, Executive Director, Open Rights Group
Simon Davies, Director, Privacy International

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Access to the Agreement between Google Books and the British Library

The Google Books project has been the subject of protracted legal battles, generating a huge debate as to whether it will help authors distribute their work or turn them into low paid employees of the corporation. Most of these debates have focused on books under intellectual property restrictions, with less debate covering the inclusion of out-of-copyright works.
The British Library recently announced to much fanfare a deal with Google to make available online a quarter of a million books no longer restricted by copyright, thus in the public domain.

The deal is presented as a win-win situation, where Google pays for the costs of scanning the books, which will be available on both Google and BL’s websites. This sounds very philanthropic from Google, however the catch is in the detail:

“Once digitised, these unique items will be available for full text search, download and reading through Google Books, as well as being searchable through the Library’s website and stored in perpetuity within the Library’s digital archive.”

In order to find out what this really means we asked the British Library for a copy of the agreement with Google, which was not uploaded to their transparency website with other similar contracts, as it didn’t involve monetary exchange. This may be a loophole transparency activists want to look at. After some toing and froing with the Freedom of Information Act we got a copy, which can be downloaded here:

British Library Google Books Agreement 

Notice: Google has kindly agreed to the publication of the agreement, while asserting their copyright over it and wishing to restrict further re-distribution.

The document seems to follow similar agreements with US libraries, but please let us know in the comments or by email what you think. Our preliminary views are below.

Restrictions

The agreement has clauses that in a nutshell mean that only Google will be able to do anything they want with the scanned books, while BL will have restrictions on what they can or cannot do with their digital copy of the scans. BL will be able to display the books in their website, but must prevent commercial use (e.g. print on demand), redistribution of the copies or automated downloads. Google will primarily index the books, but will also be able to license or sell copies and make them available for printing.

This is understandable, as despite its laudable motto to “don't be evil” Google is not a charity, but a very successful business that is investing hard cash on scanning books in order to make a profit elsewhere. It must restrict access to the books to competitors. But, however natural it may be, is this a satisfactory state of affairs for the public interest and the protection of the public domain?

Free as in beer

Google already has digitised and made freely available over 15 million books in the public domain. This is a good thing in principle, but is it wise to base national policy for the digitisation of literary works on the good will of a corporation? There is a clause (4.3.1) in the Agreement that would lift restrictions on the Library if Google fails to provide free online access to the public domain works for a certain period of time.

While this provides some safeguards, public institutions should look for a mixed model that avoids relying excessively on one single partner. There are other initiatives promoting open access -such as The Internet Archive - which should be given consideration.

Copyright Year Zero

An issue with public private partnerships for digitisation is the creation of new intellectual property. This is not generally a problem in the USA, but in UK digital copies may attract a new copyright, although this is unclear. When combined with restrictions on access to original works, this could create a de facto “copyright reset” on materials that have long entered the public domain. This would place restrictions on redistribution and reuse of the digitized books, making derivative works very difficult and expensive.

The agreement clearly claims all rights on Google’s digital copy in clause 4.2. In the case of Google fortunately this seems less of an issue in practice, as their business model is not based on selling access to the public domain. There is an intractable conflict between open access and placing restrictions on public domain works via digitisation contracts –mass downloading, text mining, redistribution, etc. -- instead of copyright, which remains an issue here and elsewhere.

Monopoly concerns

Concerns have been raised with this concentration of digital works under one company, although in theory anyone else can step forward and scan those books again as the Agreement is not exclusive.

This sounds reasonable until you have a look at the wider picture of the digitisation of culture in Europe. Nick Poole, from the Collections Trust estimates the costs of digitising the contents of Europe’s museums, archives and libraries, including the audiovisual material they hold at €100 billion over ten years, with another €10-25 billion over the following ten years to maintain it and make it available.

With such a need for investment, it would be reasonable to expect that works be digitised only once, with a common strategy for ensuring the eventual incorporation of all works to an unrestricted public domain digital network run for the public interest in the same way as physical national libraries.

Length of restrictions

If Google and other companies are to invest in digitisation they will expect a profit, which will come from some restrictions. The Agreement establishes such restrictions for a period of 15 years.

A recent EU report on the digitisation of culture called The New Renaissance defines optimal arrangements for public private partnerships, and sets a maximum of seven years for preferential terms. This is perceived to strike a balance between the interests of businesses and public institutions.

Most digitisation agreements of this kind by The National Archives and British Library are set to last ten years. We believe that a transparent cost recovery should inform the length of restrictions, with a cap of seven years as recommended at European level.

Open Data and the Strategy for Growth

Google does not make any money selling public domain books, but it uses them for text mining, for its search engine and translation software, which is seen as the main business objective of the whole operation, including the digitisation of in-copyright books.

The Agreement contains provisions for non-commercial access to the material by non-profit institutions for academic and research purposes, although the latter will have to sign a separate contract with Google. There is also a welcome clause explicitly allowing for metadata to be included in the Europeana database (4.9).

The Hargreaves Review of copyright in UK proposed a “wide non-commercial research exception covering text and data mining” because this area is perceived as critically important. Separately, the recent consultation paper on Open Data envisions that public data will be one of the engines of innovation to overcome the economic crisis, deserving a section in the forthcoming Strategy for Growth.

If we look at the Agreement from this perspective we see that allowing non-commercial research is laudable, but many opportunities for innovation will require commercial input and it will be up to Google to determine what counts as commercial in the research access contracts. Economic growth will be lost if start-up companies are denied the chance to innovate by incumbent businesses such as Google.

Public funding

If the government wants to stimulate growth through open data it needs to put its money where its mouth is and provide adequate funding. Besides, the digitisation of cultural and archival materials, into datasets, media, texts and metadata, should be a natural extension of the mission of public institutions. However, in our conversations with the British Library, the response is always the same: there is simply no money being provided for digital activities.

In addition, this process distorts the values of cultural institutions, which increasingly perceive digital activities as a source of revenue similar to the ubiquitous gift shop. Thus, libraries and museums attempt to claim and enforce copyright over digital copies of public domain works themselves.

The British Library already has a digital collection of public domain works which are not open and freely accessible, in part due to the perceived loss of potential revenue. We would like to see a commitment form the British Library to make public domain books fully available once they are free from contractual restrictions. However, we understand this entails some funding, which is not generally available.

A recent report on Funding of the arts and heritage from the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee contains one single passing reference to supporting the “challenging transition to the digital age”, and some praise for the efforts of the Arts Council Collection to digitize and put their works online. There is no vision for the internet age.

Without a national strategy for the digitisation of culture, supported by an adequate mix of government and private funding, public institutions will be at the mercy of a handful of businesses, which is not beneficial for the public interest. This should be seen as money well invested in the future.

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Prime Minister David Cameron stated today that:

Mr Speaker, everyone watching these horrific actions will be stuck by how they were organised via social media.

Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill.

And when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them.

So we are working with the Police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.

I have also asked the police if they need any other new powers.

ORG has four broad concerns with attempts to create new powers to regulate social media and private communications.

One: Suspension of services

Some people have called for temporary suspension of services; David Cameron appeared to suggest suspension of Facebook and Twitter in some circumstances (TBC). We do not believe this should be given any serious consideration. Clearly, a service will be used by people for legitimate activities, some of which will in fact be to mitigate or deal with the problem encountered. In any case, innocent people should not be punished for the actions of others.

Two: suspension of user accounts

Telegraph blog today asks if the “tweets must flow” and concludes they should, as they lead to good results much more than bad.

We agree. It may be that, in exceptional circumstances, a court may order an account to be suspended, because it is being used for criminal activity, or to harass someone. However, the UK tends to prefer private arrangements between the police and private bodies. 

The coalition should resist calls for police powers or private arrangements for account suspensions. They represent the worst type of so-called “self-regulation” and could quickly lead to abuses. Courts protect us from this.

Three: security and privacy for users

MobileActive explains, in the context of the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere, the security that Blackberry’s offer, and why oppressive governments are worried by it.

Blackberry and RIM offer some protection for most users, by scrambling communications in transit. Sometimes, they also allow end users to encrypt communications.

Governments have powers to request information from companies. Again, such powers need to be proportionate. Serious criminality should be suspected and requests should be made through courts. Currently RIPA has a purely administrative procedure, which does not require any judicial supervision, for traffic data. This is in our view open to abuse.

The content, however, may be regulated by Data Protection Act. This provides much weaker protection for end users, whose data is in any case governed by terms and conditions.

Perhaps even more dangerous would be any proposals that would seek to undermine our right to use personal encryption keys. Personal encryption keys can prevent companies and governments from decrypting and viewing the messages.

In the UK, it is an offence under RIPA to withhold your keys if they are needed to view material in a police investigation. Court orders are not required, and there are insufficient defences, which for example have led to mentally ill defendants being convicted for withholding keys.

Business, politics and free speech relies on security and privacy. David Cameron must be careful not to attack these fundamental needs because of concerns about the actions of a small minority.

Four: setting a bad example

The Telegraph reports the Chinese People’s Daily as saying:

The West have been talking about supporting internet freedom, and oppose other countries' government to control this kind of websites, now we can say they are tasting the bitter fruit [of their complacency] and they can't complain about it.

New measures to remove web freedoms of any sort will quickly be seized upon by oppressive governments to justify their own actions. The UK should not be using the same methods as governments in China, Bahrain or Saudi Arabia.

Making laws in haste, with limited analysis and information, to deal with an exceptional problem is likely to create unbalanced laws and abuses of our rights.

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This morning brought a wave of very welcome good news. Ever since Professor Ian Hargreaves published his independent review of IP and growth in May, we've all been second guessing, praying about and trying to get inside news on the Government's likely response.

This morning the Minister Vince Cable revealed that the Government is supporting the 10 recommendations that Professor Hargreaves made in his review, accepting the need for significant but sensible copyright reforms to allow a huge range of creatively and economically useful activity to take place. This is the kind of evidence-based, sensible policy making that has been lacking in copyright laws, and the Government deserves a lot of credit for supporting the findings.

The response includes support for new exceptions to copyright for format shifting and parody, amongst others. Moves to legalise parody are really welcome; providing people legal certainty for satirising and spoofing music, films and adverts is an increasingly important tool for creators and campaigners. We'll be posting more on parody and exceptions soon, but for now you can read Consumer Focus' parody briefing here. As I wrote when the report was published, these new exceptions will allow many socially and economically useful things to happen that will have little or no deterimental effects on the livelihoods of creators.

You can read the Government's full response here. Alongside this there are new strategies from the IPO covering their international work and IP crime strategies. Again these look on first reading to be well balanced strategies, starting with a desire to work from the evidence. What a breath of fresh air for IP policy. For example, page 7 of the IP crime strategy sets out how a lack of evidence has restricted Government's ability to make robust IP policy:

'We agree with the US (report) that the lack of clear and credible data is a problem which needs to be urgently addressed. The lack of a clear picture on the scope and scale of IP crime and its impact poses a real problem for policy makers and for operational decision makers who must decide how to prioritise IP crime alongside other issues. We recognise that there are difficulties in quantifying criminal activity given that much of the trade takes place within the informal economy. However, even where figures are available it is impossible to compare sectors or aggregate impacts because of the range of methodologies.'

So lots of really good stuff in the responses from BIS and the IPO.

Alongside the announcement about the Hargreaves review was some news about the Digital Economy Act from DCMS. From a first glance this looks less impressive. For example it's very disappointing to see a likely £20 fee for people appealing against allegations of infringement. Given how unreliable the evidence against infringers is likely to be (IP address evidence is shaky at identifying precisely who downloaded what, when), this is likely to be an unfair barrier to due process. It's also disappointing that within the first page of their response, DCMS cite the kind of evidence that the Hargreaves Review and the IPO's new strategies want to see the back of - what Hargreaves called 'lobbynomics'.

DCMS have also published Ofcom's report on the efficacy of the website blocking provisions of the Digital Economy Act. It finds that sections 17 and 18 of the DEAct are unworkable. The Government seem a little conflicted about the significance of this. The Ofcom report itself identifies speed and predictability as key factors in any effective blocking process. But they also identify technical deficiencies and the need for transparent and clear legal process for any blocking scheme to be considered fair.

The DEAct provisions don't satisfy these criteria. Any voluntary scheme would certainly lack the appropriate due process. And it's unclear whether the court processes under section 97A, the process used last week to order BT to block Newzbin, might be seen by rights-holders as too slow. So how blocking policy can square that circle is unclear.

At the same time, website blocking brings with it significant technological risks of over-blocking and of people actively route around blocking and doing some damage to existing measures preventing accidental access to child abuse images. Vince Cable today said enforcement has to be 'proportionate to needs and based on evidence', which is absolutely correct. Website blocking is neither.

So overall there's a whole lot of good news today, which the Government and the IPO should be applauded for, with one or two sour notes. The evidence continues to stack up that the Digital Economy Act is policy made blind, and whilst sections 17 and 18 look likely to disappear, the remaining sections 3-16 remain on an albeit delayed course. The Government should follow the IPO's new IP crime strategy and rebuild its copyright enforcement policy from scratch, driven by evidence and a proper, public consultation.

There are a lot of pages to go through and these are only first-look thoughts. If you can help us analyse what's in the various reports, please let us know below. Help us emphasise the good news, sniff out the discordant notes, and highlight the most important bits!

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Last week copyright court rulings were like London buses. There were loads of them, but not ones that we really wanted. On Wednesday and Thursday there were three big decisions covering three very different issues. Lots to pick over for copyright geeks, law experts and anybody who cares about how the Internet is regulated. Here's a quick run down of what's going on.

1. The 'Newzbin' judgement

Last Thursday the High Court handed down it's judgement in the case between BT and various movie studios. The court was being asked by the studios to serve an injunction that would force BT to try to block access to the site 'Newzbin' (which searches Usenet and offers links to lots of films, books and music - most of which infringe copyright). The judgement was released at 10am, and found resoundingly in favour of the movie studios.

This seems like a blow for those of us hoping not to see website blocking used as a means of policing the Internet. Open Rights Group took the airwaves to explain why we thought website blocking was a bad idea. We covering the Today programme, BBC Breakfast, World Service and News, Channel 4 News and Sky News. We were explaining that we saw website blocking as pointless and dangerous. Pointless because it most likely won't work, will be trivial to avoid, won't stop infringement and won't bring returns for the creative industries. Blocking is also dangerous because of the significant risks of accidental 'over-blocking', the possible slowing of Internet service, and because it will likely lead to the wider, everyday use of encryption and avoidance measures.

Perhaps more significantly, we are concerned about the precedent this might set for future blocking injunctions. We're very concerned about read across from this judgement to less 'clear-cut' cases, and whether this represents, to coin a phrase, the thin end of the wedge. For example, this ruling should see off the demands for a 'voluntary' blocking scheme advocated by rights-holders and discussed in roundtables hosted by Ed Vaizey - there is a clear legal process available to rights holders. However, there is a danger that the costs to ISPs of challenging the injunctions will lead to an acquiescence to rights-holders' demands for blocking. There should be no such short-cuts simply because the demands of fair due process seem cumbersome.

Open Rights Group is going to be campaigning vociferously about website blocking, taking the message to policy makers that blocking should not be seen as an easy fix for complex social problems. You can read more on our position on blocking in our briefing to the Minister Ed Vaizey here.

2. NLA / Meltwater

The Newspaper Licensing Agency took Meltwater to court because, most simply, they believed that users of Meltwaters media monitoring service needed a license to view material in addition to the license granted to Meltwater. The ruling handed down a complex judgement which handed the NLA a victory against Meltwater. The primary concern is that the ruling has very broad implications for whether 'browsing' and the act of visiting websites can be considered in some contexts - in this case 'work' or commercial contexts - infringement of copyright. There's some disagreement about whether this is limited to the special case of a media monitoring company or if these broader concerns apply. You can read a piece by Meltwater's CEO Jorn Lyseggen on ORGZine here, where he argues that there are indeed very broad and worrying implications.


3. The 'Stormtrooper helmet' case

Finally, last week saw judgement handed down in a case concerning the production of 'Stormtrooper' helmets. This had two main implications - the first good news and the second less good. First, the decision was that the helmets were not sculptures and so did not infringe copyright. Second, and perhaps most worrying, the court decided that cases involving copyright outside the European Union can be brought in English courts, if the claims are against someone resident in the UK. It is unclear the extent to which this opens UK residents to infringement cases brought from elsewhere. It might also have a bearing on cases similar to those of Richard O'Dwyer, who is threatened with extradition to the US for allegedly infringing copyright in the UK. You can read the piece by Emily Goodhand (aka @copyrightgirl) on ORGZine here, where she explains the background and what the case might mean in more detail.


The light at the end of the tunnel

If these rulings together are clouds over the current copyright debate, the silver lining is the Government's likely support for the findings of the Hargreaves Review of IP. It is likely that tomorrow Vince Cable MP will announce the Government's intention to implement Professor Hargreaves' recommendations, and put into law many new exceptions. That should include rights to format shift, parody and more rights for researchers and archivists. It adds up to common sense copyright reform, supported by evidence, through a series of sensible but significant reforms that would help everyone take advantage of what new technology offers. That's a refreshing change, and one that should be welcomed with open arms.

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DCMS have responded a Freedom of Information request from ORG, releasing the proposal from the “rights holders group”. They confirm that the leak to James Firth was genuine.

At Ed Vaizey’s discussions were the “rights holder group,” which includes the BPI, UK Music the Publishers’ Association and the Premier League; plus Google, Yahoo! BT, Virgin and TalkTalk.

The FOI release confirms that the ‘rights holders group” paper should not have been regarded as “confidential”. The public have had to wait a month before being able to know what rights holders are proposing. This is an opaque way of developing public policy.  It’s been noted elsewhere how unbalanced and dangerous these proposals are.

The Internet companies who are also attending are also being placed in a risky position. Sooner or later, they may be presented as being willing parties to closed door discussions of proposals that will potentially have adverse impacts on freedom of expression.

We can also observe the shifting and diverse interests of the Internet Service Providers:

Sky was positive about the opportunity to co-design a process, and in favour of beginning to discuss the issues, whilst awaiting the outcome of the 97A court case.

Virgin Media expressed in-principle support for the discussions, but was mindful of the important questions over costs and technicalities.

That gives us an insight into how these blocking proposals play into the issue of net neutrality. As ISPs themselves become content providers, this creates commercial imperatives to restrict and control the Internet in their own interests.

Most importantly, this closed process, with selected participants, removes the ability of other people to contribute, raise concerns, or to simply object.

We believe rights holders are redrafting their proposals. We again ask them to make them public so we can discuss them. We have established the principle that they must, within a month, be made public through freedom of information requests. They should have the courage of their convictions, take responsibility and defend their proposals in public.

109 MPs have now signed Julian Huppert MP's EDM 1913, which called for the Government to reconsider policies such as website blocking, in light of the recent UN Special Rapporteur Report that was expressly critical of blocking on freedom of expression grounds. More recently, the Organisation for Security an Cooperation in Europe released a report that reached similar conclusions about disconnection and website blocking jeopardising rights to freedom of expression. Over 8,600 people have written to their MPs about this issue.

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