ORG will intervene in DEA Judicial Review

Some excellent news: ORG has been given permission to intervene in the Judicial Review of the Digital Economy Act. The review was granted to BT and Talk Talk late last year on four specific points (there’s a good roundup of the background here). Having permission to intervene means that we’ll be able to put forward our case, in court, in clear terms, to outline why we think the Act is so badly flawed. Across all four points we will be making arguments that the Act threatens to curtail people’s rights to freedom of expression, endangers their privacy, and will have a disproportionate impact not only only the public but on businesses too.

The reason ORG continues to campaign against policy such as the DEA is that we believe more flexible copyright can support freedom of expression, creativity and innovation. And, likewise, we believe that aggressive enforcement of copyright, like the measures included in the Digital Economy Act, will mean our freedom of expression and privacy will be undermined.

The DEA is a manifestation of a mistaken approach to copyright that just won’t allow people to take advantage of incredible new opportunities for creation, discussion and debate. So it’s great from this wider perspective that the Judicial Review could deal a blow to the Act, which would at the very least be severely delayed. With two other related reviews ongoing in the UK – the Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property and the Culture, Media and Sport Committee Intellectual Property Rights Inquiry –  it would start to look like a chance for significant reform.

We’ll be putting together our submission over the next week or two. Let us know if you have suggestions about what we should include. And stay in touch, as we’ll be keeping you up to date as we go.