Mandelson seeks to amend copyright law in new crackdown on filesharing – The Guardian — Could he make it any more clear that he’s in bed with Big Content? Is this sneaky crooked amendment aimed at creating the office of Pirate Finder General?
Lord Mandelson is seeking to amend the laws on copyright to give the government sweeping new powers against people accused of illegal downloading.
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The proposed alteration to the Copyright Act would create a new offence of downloading material that infringes copyright laws, as well as giving new powers or rights to “protect” rights holders such as record companies and movie studios – and, controversially, conferring powers on “any person as may be specified” to help cut down online infringement of copyright.The changes proposed seem small – but are enormously wideranging, given both the breadth of even minor copyright infringement online, where photographs and text are copied with little regard to ownership, and the complexity of ownership.
Mandelson says in his letter that he is concerned about “cyberlockers” – websites that offer users private storage spaces whose contents can be shared by passing a web link via email.
“These can be used entirely legitimately, but recently rights holders have pointed to them as being used for illegal use,” Mandelson writes in the letter.
But the proposal to alter the Copyright Act in this way has caused alarm within government, where some fear that an incoming Tory administration could use it to curry favour with Murdoch, head of the News International publishing group.
