May 09, 2011
The High Court has settled the on-going dispute about the legality of certain provisions of the Government’s new Digital Economy Act.
The provisions in question were those requiring internet service providers (ISP’s) to suspend the accounts and reveal details of customers that are found to be illegally downloading copyrighted content from the web. The ISP’s argued that such provisions were contrary to European Human Rights law as they would infringe their customers’ rights to privacy.
However, the Judges ruled that the Act was consistent with European law and that Parliament had a wide discretion to implement such measures as it considered appropriate to protect copyright owners, provided that it had taken account of the interests of internet users and ISP’s. It was stated that the Act contains sufficient safeguards to protect the latter two groups’ rights and so is proportionate to the legitimate aim behind it.
However, the ISP’s did succeed in one respect as the Judge ruled that they will not have to bear the brunt of the costs incurred in monitoring their customers’ actions.
The Act will now be implemented in a manner to be determined by the Government.
