BT and Talk Talk have lost their appeal against the result of a judicial review into the Digital Economy Act.
The ISPs had argued that the Act, rushed through Parliament in the final days of the last government, was inconsistent with EU law.
The most controversial provision in the Act is the requirement for ISPs to send warning letters to customers suspected of downloading content which infringes copyright, threatening them with being cut off.
The Act also has provisions for blocking copyright-infringing sites, but Business Secretary, Vince Cable said last year that the Government is ‘looking at other ways of achieving the same objective.’
Talk Talk said that it was ‘disappointed’ that it had lost the appeal and that it would ‘continue fighting to defend our customers’ rights against this ill-judged legislation.’
Christine Payne, general secretary of the Actors’ union Equity claimed that the court had sided with two million workers in the creative industries ‘whose livelihoods are put at risk because creative content is stolen on a daily basis.’
Peter Bradwell of the Open Rights Group claimed that the Act was based on ‘hearsay and assumptions, not proper facts or analysis,’ and called for an evidence-based review of the law.
‘Publicly available wifi will be put at risk. Weak evidence could be used to penalise people accused of copyright infringement. And people will have to pay £20 for the privilege of defending themselves against these accusations,’ said Bradwell.
