The digital divide

COMMENT

THESE are dark times. Most people reading this will have been affected in some way by either rising unemployment, a decreasing salary, redundancy or reduced Government services. It is hardly surprising therefore, that a secondary piece of legislation being quietly prepared by the Government will not be to the forefront of people’s minds.

Most regular users of the internet will have been aware in the last few weeks that a number of the world’s most popular websites namely, Wikipedia, Reddit and the blog, Boing Boing, closed down for 24 hours in protest at the Stop Online Piracy Act which had been introduced to the United States House of Representatives.
The bill had the stated aims of cracking down on the trafficking of intellectual property and illicit goods on the internet. In theory, of course, this seems like a fine idea. Unfortunately the bill, as it was introduced, was a serious threat to freedom on the internet. It was this that led Wikipedia and other websites to mount their protest. Although Google stayed live, it supported the protest. This is hardly surprising given that the search engine was one of the main targets of the bill; standing accused as it was, of facilitating people in their efforts to find sites hosting illegal downloads.
In practice, legislation of this kind could facilitate one government in imposing its will on the web. In theory, the British courts could block access to all American newspapers because of their celebrity culture coverage and the fact that the difference in libel laws between the two countries means the US publications are in breach of British law. This is just one example of how the proposed law, if introduced, would be a case of using a sledgehammer to crack a pine nut.
As a result of the waves of protest against the legislation, the White House issued a statement on January 12 stating it would not support a bill, which could lead to internet censorship or reduced internet security. On November 18, the European Parliament added its voice to the protest stating the need to “protect the integrity of the global internet and freedom of communication”. Similarly, the vice-president of the European Commission said that while speeding is illegal we “do not put speed bumps on the motorway”. At the time of writing, changes have been made to the bill and it will not appear before the American house for a vote until consensus has been reached.
While this international clamour has been raging, something quiet has been happening in Ireland. Junior Minister Sean Sherlock had quietly been preparing a secondary piece of legislation, which would grant judges the power to grant injunctions to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in illegal download cases. The secondary nature of the legislation meant it would not come before the Dáil to be debated. It would be introduced by the means of the minister’s signature. This is happening at a time of great difficulty in people’s lives as they struggle to cope with the everyday reality they find themselves in. Possibly the last thing on everybody’s mind is some piece of new law relating to the internet.
So were it not for a group of campaigners in Ireland, the bill might have been passed quietly into law and people may not have been aware of it until their teenager ended up in court and they found themselves being sued by the music industry.
At the time of writing, the minister has bowed to the pressure from these campaigners and the thousands of people who have signed a petition and has agreed to allow the proposed law to be debated in the Dáil. 
Given the Government’s massive majority, they are in a position to pass pretty much anything they want so how much use the debate will be remains to be seen. The real question is why is the Irish Government is in such a hurry to quietly rush through this extremely volatile piece of legislation with such far-reaching consequences at a time like this?
Perhaps it is something to do with the fact that the Irish Government is being sued by the music industry. The Irish Government; broke, subservient to Europe and failing the people has now been bullied into the Draconian crushing of freedom of speech and the free use of the internet by a group of music industry companies who are angry their profits are falling. It is ironic it is the music industry that is suing the Government given the history of the industry in exploiting artists and their work. There are countless stories of young, naïve artists and bands being signed into exploitative contracts by the music industry and bled for every penny they make before being cast aside drained and broken.
In his 1962 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the physicist and science historian Thomas Kuhn coined the phrase “Paradigm shift”. He brought it into existence to describe the periods of accepted science, “the paradigm” in which certain things are taken to be true by all. When a new discovery or piece of information comes to light, which changes everything, the paradigm shifts and there is a new order or status quo.
For many decades, the music industry has been wallowing in the troughs of money they made off the back of other people’s creativity. Since the internet came to be the force it is, the way people share and experience music has changed but the music industry has not changed with the times. It still holds on to the halcyon days of massive profits and easily controlled distribution of music. Those days are gone but the industry will not accept it.
The Irish Government must not kowtow to this greedy industry by introducing law at their behest for the sake of their profits and to the detriment of everybody else’s freedom. I am not defending the theft of music but a more considered and careful approach must be taken to deal with the issue. A minister’s signature, without debate and extremely careful consideration, is not the way forward on this issue and we can say for certain that Ireland will blaze a trail internationally in all the wrong ways if this piece of legislation is passed in its current form.