Our Common Position

The Creative Coalition Campaign believes that policy choices should be made with a view to facilitating the creation of a thriving market for digital content.  It is also aware that the scale of the problem of illegal file-sharing is huge.  For this reason the Coalition welcomed the Digital Economic Act and its assertion that ISPs have a major role to play in working with rights holders to tackle the illegal distribution of content over their networks.  The Coalition believes that, if implemented properly, the Digital Economy Act will make a real difference.

The Creative Coalition has made the following specific points in relation to the Digital Economy Act: 

Notice sending and data collection

The Coalition supports the requirement in the Act that ISPs send warning notices to infringers and that they collect and process anonymised data relating to repeat infringers. Technical measuresThe minimum commitment towards achieving the Government’s aim of reducing illegal file-sharing by 70-80% by July 2011 requires a combination of the notification process outlined in the Act and (taking into account the need for a fair, fast and effective appeals process) the introduction of technical measures by ISPs for repeat infringers at the earliest feasible stage.  We believe that this could include a reduction in bandwidth, the blocking of specific website content or, as a last resort for egregious offenders who ignore repeated warnings and the implementation of other technical measures, temporary suspension of internet access. 

Litigation 

The Coalition believes litigation against individual consumers should be considered only after other options, including technical measures, are exhausted.  

Costs

In implementing the measures contained within the Digital Economy Act, the Coalition accepts that the burden of costs should be shared between ISPs and rights holders, and our members are fully prepared to play their part in this process.  However, we are concerned by the government’s current proposals to put a greater burden of the costs on rights holders than on ISPs in financing the provisions.  It is clear to our members that, given the enormous scale of illegal file-sharing, it will be necessary for a large number of notices to be sent to suspected infringers if the policy objectives set out in the process leading to the Digital Economy Act are to be met.  It is also clear that the number of notices, which rights holders will be able to issue will be directly related to the cost attached to each notice.  The CCC believes that for this reason, there is a strong argument to say that if a large enough number of notices is to be sent out, then ways needs to be devised to minimise the costs to rights holders. We believe that there are clear principles for why the burden of costs should not fall entirely to rights holders.  Firstly, the Coalition strongly believes that maintaining a clean network is one part of the costs of doing business which all ISPs must be prepared to accept.  For this reason there is a moral obligation for ISPs to ensure that their networks are not facilitating illegal activity.   Secondly, it is also clear that ISPs will benefit from this system. ISPs will benefit from both a reduction in costs from the removal of illegal traffic from their networks.  As a result this will free up ISPs’ bandwidth, as well as encouraging new customers to use the legitimate offerings ISPs have.   

Protecting smaller rights holders

Another key concern for the Coalition is also to ensure that smaller rights holders are not priced out of the market if the costs they are required to pay are too high.  Many of our members fall into the category of smaller rights holders and they have serious concerns about the proposals as they currently stand. Central to this is the fact that if smaller rights holders are unable to enforce the new system this will result in a loss of jobs in the sector and will prevent future investment in content – the very issue which the Bill is attempting to deal with.