British government fears increase of litigation as result of anti piracy act.

In the United Kingdom, section 17 of the so-called Digital Economy Act makes it possible for internet service providers to block access to webpages that contain footage that infringes intellectual property rights upon the request of the rights holder. As more and more copyright owners are interested in utilising this legal possibility to protect their rights, many ISPs fear that they will be confonted with lawsuits in case they follow up on a request for blocking a website.<o:p></o:p>

Currently, a government-led working group is formed to try to find a way to deal with the legal consequences of site blocking by ISPs. Their aim will be to  avoid an increase in litigation arising from the blocking of websites that supposedly host illegal filesharing. <o:p></o:p>The working group will comprise of rights holders, internet service providers and search engines. <o:p></o:p>

Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has called for a review of the Digital Economy Act's section 17 on website blocking, as he foresees many practical issues arising from it. The issue of site blocking has been one of the most contentious elements of the DEA and the new discussions on this section make some rights holders fear that this provision may not survive. <o:p></o:p>

Jeremy Hunt and Ed Vaizey, the secretary for communications and creative industries, held a roundtable bringing together parties including British Telecom, Universal Music, the BPI, Google and TalkTalk to "facilitate talks" on topics including site blocking.<o:p></o:p>

It was decided to form a working group to look at ways of making the proposed system more acceptable to all parties. Following a court order obtained by rights holders, ISPs can be asked to block a website, according to the DEA. The ISPs are concerned about possible legal action from the websites they block. A collective arrangement has to be made to deal with a situation where a copyright holder unduely requests for blocking a website, because in such case, an ISP can be said to cause damage to the website. For this, ISPs and IP right holders must cooperate.<o:p></o:p>

One idea is that rights holders indemnify ISPs against being sued by websites that take action over being blocked in order to give confidence that they will not face large payouts. The burden of proof would then be on the rights holders to prove that a site was illegal before getting ISPs to block them.<o:p></o:p>

"The nature of the internet means the creative industries, internet service providers and others such as Google and Yahoo are completely interlinked," said Vaizey earlier this week. "They need each other for sustainable future success."

Source: The Guardian

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