Digital Top Stories

Sharkey defends three-strikes at SxSW

By | Published on Monday 22 March 2010

UK Music top dog Feargal Sharkey told an audience at last week’s South By Southwest that be believes Britain’s Digital Economy Bill will become law before May’s General Election.

An increasing number of commentators seem to think the controversial Bill, which includes the UK version of three-strikes plus increased powers for the High Court to shut down copyright infringing websites, will be sped through the House Of Commons so it can be passed before parliament shuts down for the big vote; this despite some of the more controversial elements of the proposed legislation not really be resolved in the House Of Lords, even though the upper house has passed the Bill.

Some cynics reckon that the Tories will help the government get the Bill through quickly, mainly because they support many of its more controversial elements, but recognise how unpopular the new laws will be in some circles, and would rather that unpopularity be attached to a dying Labour government rather than the young Conservative government which may well be in power by late May.

If the Tories blocked this Bill now they’d have to resurrect it in some form themselves once in government, meaning all the opposition to the proposals that is thrown around by the likes of Talk Talk and Google and Stephen Fry would start to be aimed in their direction. Which is probably why Labour and Conservative MPs are busy compromising on those areas of the Bill where they disagree, in particular dealing with public service broadcasting, rather than the controversial copyright section.

As well as expressing some confidence the Bill would become law before May, Sharkey also used his SxSW spot last Thursday to defend the proposed legislation, and accuse its opponents of “scaremongering”. According to the Telegraph, Sharkey objected to the use of words like “criminalise” and “disconnection” by those who oppose the Bill, stressing that the highest sanction to be used against persistent file-sharers under the British three-strikes systems is temporary net suspension.

As previously reported, that has always been the case in the UK – it’s the French government who advocate all out disconnection – but when that point was clarified in the Lords some reported the government had done a u-turn by rejecting full disconnection as a penalty. Sharkey: “I think it’s astonishing that anybody is still using the word ‘disconnecting’. One national newspaper was running a headline saying ‘government does u-turn’ but the government had never used the word in the first place”.

Sharkey went on to call on US legislators to also consider some sort of three-strikes system that puts liabilities on internet service providers to take action against persistent illegal file-sharers. Of course, having ended their ‘sue-the-fans’ strategy, the Recording Industry Association Of America have been courting ISPs in the US regarding them voluntarily signing up to some sort of three-strikes system, albeit with limited success. However, there has been a lot less lobbying of political types to help in this regard in the US, whereas in the UK such lobbying has been going on for years.

According to Music Week, Sharkey told SxSW: “In a globalised, networked economy, the UK has never been so impacted or affected by the decisions of corporate America. In the UK, we are on the verge of new legislation and government support that, I believe, could transform the digital market. And I am heartened that there seems to be a growing recognition in the US that the UK’s cooperative approach is the right one”.

In a final rallying cry for those web firms opposing three-strikes and other DEB measures in the UK to start collaborating with the music industry, he added: “To win the hearts and minds of music fans, not only do you have to make the best music possible – that’s a given – you have to deliver it how those fans want it and on whatever platform that they want it. The UK Government is clear on that. Their support comes with the tacit condition that everyone adapts: creative companies, tech companies, ISPs and fans”.

Sharkey concluded by announcing that UK Music will launch a strategy document predicting the future of the music industry later this month. ‘Liberating Creativity’ is set to be launched at the Houses Of Parliament on 29 Mar.



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