There has been a great deal of concern recently over proposed legislation and treaties — such as SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, and TPP — that would hand the copyright industries what are widely seen as unwarranted powers to go after allegedly infringing websites.
According to TechDirt’s Glyn Moody, however, informal deals struck between governments and corporations could be just as harmful — and the British government is currently engaged in just such an effort.
Moody, the author of Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution, writes that “with the implicit threat that tough legislation will be brought in if voluntary agreements aren’t drawn up promptly enough, governments are using this technique to avoid even the minimal scrutiny that consultations on proposed new laws would permit.”
He points to a post by James Firth which reveals that “the UK government and in particular Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and the Creative Industries, is pressurising search engines to police search results in a way that goes well beyond notice and take-down.”
What the British government is after amounts to the artificial promotion of “approved” online music and film services, combined with a blacklist of websites accused of infringement which would be completely excluded from search results.
