Dutch Parliament declares copyright debate “controversial”

The Dutch Parliament has stated that the copyright debate is controversial. Until a new administration has been elected, the actions proposed by the Parliamentary working group chaired by Arda Gerkens of the socialist party, will not be further developed into policy.

The most debated conclusion of the working group was that downloading from illegal sources should become a criminal offence. The ban on downloading would replace the home copy exception that now allows downloading for private use.

After the government fell, all permanent committees in Parliament have created a list with subjects that they deem too hot to handle for the administration under resignation. Yesterday, the list was adopted in Parliament.

This means that plans to declare downloading a criminal offence will not be carried out anytime soon. However, this was never the plan of the committee Gerkens. First, the entertainment industries would get three years to come up with good alternative new business models.

ISP XS4All is glad (link in Dutch) that downloading will not be banned soon. The ISP states that enforcing such regulation is technically nearly unfeasible and would be a severe breach of Internet user privacy. This, says XS4All, makes the cure worse than the disease. XS4All deems the development of new business models as the best way forward.

In doing so, XS4All is quick to step over the fact that these new business models would face very severe competition. People have been downloading for free for over a decade now. When government sends a clear signal that file-sharing is not allowed, these business models have a better chance of succeeding.

12 March 2010