Appeals and Defence under the Digital Economy Bill

ORG has learnt that those wishing to appeal disconnection will have to pay for their trial, and as they are effectively guilty until proven innocent by the appeal, legal aid will not be available. In addition, innocence will not be a defence: if you hold an account for an Internet connection, you are responsible for any infringing activities occurring on that account, even if you didn’t do it yourself.

This means that as well as the everyday consumer, businesses and educational institutions will be responsible for activities of subscribers. Several official bodies, including the FSB and JANET (the network to which all educational and research institutions are connected), have asked the Government what they’re going to do about this but the response so far seems to be that as you can block copyright infringing activities, any subscriber neglecting to do so will be responsible for the actions of their users: in other words, “use a firewall”.

We still believe that this Bill fails to address the actual problem, and public confidence in the justice system will continue to fail. Please: write to your MP, and as ever, if you need any help with doing so, contact me.