BT and Talk Talk have own the right to take the Digital Economy Act to court.
High court judge Mr Justice Hickinbottom granted the two ISPs a judicial review of the legislation, which the Labour government pushed through Parliament shortly before this year’s general election.
The review will determine whether the act conflicts with EU legislation on data protection and privacy, e-commerce and “proportionality”. Hickinbottom is expected to give his ruling in February.
The ISPs argue that the bill was rushed through parliament without proper scrutiny and as a results has serious flaws.
“The provisions to try to reduce illegal filesharing are unfair, won’t work and will potentially result in millions of innocent customers who have broken no law suffering and having their privacy invaded,” said Andrew Heaney, TalkTalk’s executive director of strategy and regulation.
Despite a pre-election promise from the Liberal Democrats that they would appeal or amend the act, the new government has stood by it, describing its provisions as “fair and robust”.
The law requires ISPs to send a letter any internet user that rights holders accuse of sharing copyright material. The first letters are likely to go out early next year. In the event that this doesn’t have a significant impact on levels of unauthorised sharing, the act makes provision for “technical measures” to be taken against alleged offenders. These could include bandwidth throttling or disconnection from the internet.
The drafting of the legislation followed a Gordon Brown-sponsored review of copyright laws chaired by former Financial Times journalist Andrew Gowers. Now Brown’s successor as prime minister, David Cameron, has commissioned another report from Ian Hargreaves, professor of journalism at Cardiff University.
Cameron said the laws need to be reviewed to “make them fit for the internet age” and changes could include a relaxation of restrictions on copying.
