Biggart Baillie Solicitors

Digital Economy Act Now Law

The Proposals by the government for a new “Digital Britain” are now law.  The Digital Economy Act has been rushed through parliament in the run-up to the General Election although the government had to abandon a number of controversial proposals in order to ensure that the Bill was made law before the election.

New measures are introduced to tackle the ongoing abuses of web piracy.  This includes the right for the Secretary of State to impose orders on an ISP to take “technical measures” against web piracy.  These measures include limiting or suspending internet access against subscribers.  Some concessions were made here to address human rights arguments that no individual should be suspended without the right of a fair hearing.  As a result subscribers do have the right to appeal against a decision and there must be a 60 day consultation period before the Secretary of State can make such an order.

Similarly the courts can now grant an order compelling an ISP to prevent access to websites.  However this cannot be done unless the Secretary of State is satisfied that the infringer's activities are having a serious adverse effect on businesses or consumers.

There are also new powers for the Secretary of State to intervene in the operation of domain name registries if he considers the provisions for dealing with misuse of internet domain names are inadequate.  One proposal which was abandoned related to so-called “Orphan Works”.  The proposal would have enabled publishers to copy books whose authors could not be identified or found.  This has created uncertainty for publishers (particularly those involved  in digitising books) as to whether they are infringing copyright because they will not know whether the author’s copyright has expired.

For more information, please contact:

Glasgow:  Colin Miller or Douglas McLachlan - tel:  0141 228 8000