General Whitebunnywabbit is Watching you

Once again the digital economy bill is rearing its ugly head. This time, ISPs are facing the ugly prospect of on behalf of rights holders.

Quite why an ISP should be forced to pay for some one else to take legal action against their own customers is beyond me. The government should voluntarily provide the money to pay for these actions – it was their fault this bill past after all. Whilst they are at it , they could save money by not doing it and scrapping the Digital Economy Bill instead.

The rights holders are the ones whom lobbied parliament to bring this into action. Surely when all other plaintiffs of the courts have to fund their own activities in the legal system they should bear the brunt of the draconian tactics.

Consumers can appeal against any threats made by the rights holders via the isp at no cost. For now at least, when there begins to be “too many” claims under the scheme the government will step in and start making profit on the defense claims. Shame on parliament!

Sebastien Lahtinen, co-founder of thinkbroadband.com has concerns over the technical knowledge needed to mount a legal defense against the claims of downloads. The standard of proof should be set that the Right holder must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant sat in front of his computer and deliberately downloaded the alleged content. Thus the legal defense would be “proof I used the computer” which may not be easy to achieve.

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PCPro