http://torrentfreak.com/uk-govt-cens...ations-110804/


Yesterday the UK government announced that following a report from regulator
OFCOM, plans to block alleged copyright-infringing websites would be dropped.
However, there was a second report where OFCOM detailed ways of keeping the
costs of Digital Economy Act infringement appeals down. The document carried the
usual redactions but TorrentFreak has put on its X-ray vision for your viewing
pleasure.

Yesterday, detailing the government’s response to the Hargreaves
report, business secretary Vince Cable confirmed that the website blocking
provisions put in place under the controversial Digital Economy Act will be
discontinued. The decision coincided with an OFCOM report which noted that
website blocking would not be effective.

OFCOM also released a second report titled Digital Economy Act, Online
Copyright Infringement Appeals Process: Options for reducing costs.

On the front page of the report there is a note that redactions have taken
place to censor sections relating to “on-going policy development” of the
Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

The DCMS did a better job of hiding the blacked-out text than earlier
in the week but not so good as to keep out TorrentFreak and our X-ray
specs.

The first redaction on Page 3 says simply “Revisit the grounds for appeal set
out in Ofcom’s draft Initial Obligations Code” but two pages later things start
to get much more interesting. It seems the government (or more likely their
friends in the copyright lobby) doesn’t want talk of an error-prone system
becoming public.

Page 5 – OFCOM wants rights holders’ accusations to be ‘quality
assured’


Ofcom has also sought to ensure efficiency by introducing into the Code a
requirement that Copyright Owners take part in a quality assurance process with
the aim of minimising errors. This should help to reduce the number of wrongly
identified infringements and subscribers. (ISPs can also have some impact here
by ensuring that the letters they send to subscribers make clear the
implications of receiving a notification).



A “quality assurance process” sounds like a great idea, but who could be
trusted to implement such a regime and ensure independent scrutiny? Anti-piracy
tracking companies are notoriously secretive and unlikely to be open about the
short-comings of their “proprietary systems”.

Page 11 – Government rejects OFCOM suggestion of subscriber appeal
“on any reasonable grounds”


The grounds set out in the Act are non-exhaustive and we reflected this in
our drafted Code by including an option to appeal on “any other reasonable
ground”. This was intended to provide an efficient mechanism through which to
avoid a lengthy revision of the Code should subscribers find additional, but
reasonable, grounds for appeal as technologies and consumer behaviours
evolve.

We understand that Government believes we should not include this mechanism
in the final Code
It is far from clear why the government wishes to remove the right for a
citizen to appeal a wrongful accusation on “any reasonable ground”. What is
clear, however, is why the government might wish to redact this statement from
the report – it looks very bad indeed.

Page 11 – ISP IP address matching to be “quality
assured”


We have also introduced into the Code a requirement that Copyright Owners
take part in a quality assurance process with the aim of minimising errors. We
are proposing to sponsor a similar standard for the IP address matching
processes of the ISPs, although participation will be voluntary. This should
help to reduce the number of wrongly identified infringements and subscribers
(appeal grounds (a) and (b)). We anticipate that the majority of appeals will
rely on ground (c) in the absence of systematic failures by a Copyright Owner or
ISP under the Code.
When it comes to copyright infringement cases ISPs make errors so it is good
they will be required to adopt similar “quality assurance” processes as rights
holders. However, how many will choose to do so when participation is voluntary
remains to be seen.



Redactions on page 17 merely repeat details covered in earlier redactions.
Redactions on page 19 likewise, save a comment that a rightsholder “quality
assurance” process


….does not create a rebuttable presumption in favour of the rights holder but
should help bring down the proportion of incorrect CIRs [Copyright Infringement
Reports] and therefore appeals costs since there are likely to be fewer
meritorious appeals in this respect. This quality assurance is also intended to
make sure that the number of CIRs rejected by ISPs for process reasons is
minimised
The full but redacted document can be downloaded
here.