Yesterday Infosecurity reported on one of them: Prepare for offensive cyberwar, say MPs. Also worth considering is the report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee which has criticised a Statutory Instrument introduced by the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) on who pays for the most controversial part of the Digital Economy Act – the so-called graduated response element.
Statutory Instruments are ‘orders’ introduced by Ministers to amend existing Acts; they require no parliamentary debate and often go through unnoticed. In this case, however, just before the summer recess, the secondary legislation committee highlights and criticizes the order.
This order states that 75% of the costs will be covered by the rightsholders, and 25% by the ISPs. It also introduces a £20 fee for appeals, which is apparently set at that amount to deter ‘vexatious’ appeals while not inhibiting genuine appeals. However, it seems that much of the committee’s concern is more about procedure than content. “We were also concerned about the unusual situation where DCMS have laid before Parliament an Order that is the subject of an ongoing consultation [by Ofcom].”
Monica Horten, in her IPtegrity blog, puts it more bluntly. “In this case, where the consultation was published simultaneously, it looks a little too obviously like an attempt to manipulate the legislative process.” Arguably, she adds, “it is an attempt to pre-empt the consultation outcome, and fast-track the legislation without listening to stakeholder concerns.”
However, the most confusing part of the report is its final conclusion. “What concerns us most is that the copyright owners, for whose benefit this scheme is being set up, have set strict budgetary limits on their use of it... So it is not yet clear to what extent the copyright holders will operate the scheme... and we draw the Order to the attention of the House on the grounds that it may imperfectly achieve its policy objective.”
It seems a strange conclusion that the purpose of the Act may fail because the rightsholders, who fought long and hard to get it, might not use it.