One of the reasons the Bill has been tabled is that it introduces a "three strikes and you're out" policy for Internet use.  This means that any copyright holder (whether they be an individual, a company, or a conglomerate) can accuse an Internet user of infringing their copyright a few times, and they are either disconnected from the Internet, or their connection speeds are crippled.

To use up a strike, all the copyright owner has to do is email an Internet Service Provider (ISP) with an IP address (the number that uniquely identifies a computer connected to the Internet) and say that they believe that IP address has infringed copyright.  After a few strikes, the ISP is obliged to start disrupting or disconnecting that user.  If they don't, they face a fine of up to a quarter of a million pounds.

There are many many reasons why this is fundamentally wrong.  We have what is called "presumption of innocence"; that we assume people are innocent of accusations unless there is substantial proof otherwise.  Our entire legal system revolves around this, in fact.  But Mandelson's Bill routes entirely around the legal system, preferring to invent a new system where rightsholders can summarily and arbitrarily accuse people of illegal activity and have those accusations acted on summarily with appeal after, rather than before, action is taken.

This raises many issues, not the least of which is just how essential the Internet is to everyday life for many people in the UK.  Removing it for being accused of infringing copyright I think can reasonably be compared to being put under lengthy house arrest for being accused of shoplifting.  The mischievous kid inside me is already making plans to find out Mandelson's home IP address and send spurious copyright infringement notices to get him kicked off.

Even if you agree in principle that people who downloading illegal content on the Internet should have their connections summarily removed, then there are practical issues that must be dealt with.  People share Internet connections; the plans propose disconnecting entire households for one person's misdeeds.  Some people don't have the technical savvy to secure their wireless Internet connections, or don’t want to; if other people use those connections to download music, should they really be disconnected?  (The analogy here stretches, just about, to being put under house arrest because someone in your house was accused of shoplifting.)  And as mentioned above, how do you stop mischievous or malevolent accusations just to screw someone over?

I'm afraid that the issues above are just the tip of the iceberg.  I mentioned earlier that the Bill also subverts democracy when it comes to copyright, and it does: it proposes to put control of copyright law in the hands of the Secretary of State (currently Mandelson) rather than Parliament.

Backing up a bit, I'd like to elaborate on just why this is important.  Copyright law was originally created in 1709 as a way to make sure that publishers did not rip off authors and leave them without financial recompense for their work.  Everything written or recorded since then has been under copyright, including music, books, essays, computer programs, photographs, and even fonts.  Really, in one way or another, a truly astounding amount of human endeavour is covered under copyright laws around the globe, and as a result, changes should be made with intelligence and care.

Sadly, this looks set not to be the case.  Mandelson's proposed Bill amends existing copyright legislation so that it can be modified with Statutory Instruments (bear with me).  Statutory Instruments are legal tools that allow ministers to alter existing laws without having to pass entirely new laws; a way to issue amendments, if you like.  Ministers issue new Instruments by putting them before Parliament, and if a majority of MPs do not object to them within 40 days, they become law.  The last time the Commons said no to an Instrument was in 1979, so in effect they are a free pass for ministers to adjust existing laws without scrutiny.

What does Mandelson propose that he should be able to change without the (limited) scrutiny of Paliament, you ask?  Well, it includes but is not limited to what is copyrightable and what is not, how long it is in copyright for, what educational use of copyrighted works is allowed (ever photocopied a library book?), the penalties for infringing copyright and who is allowed to issue search warrants for suspected infringement.

That's not a short list, and the power afforded by such a change would be immense.  It would require only one crooked minister to fundamentally alter the balance of copyright law so it benefitted the public even less than it does now, to allow the movie industry to issue search warrants, or to increase the amount of time things are in copyright for to "forever", which benefits only the media industry, or to increase the penalties for infringing copyright to ridiculously large sums.  That power is too great for one minister to hold, and that is how the current Bill subverts our democracy.

Why does this matter?  If you've ever listened to music, read a Penguin Classics book, if you've ever lived in a house where a person has downloaded music illegally, if you care about fairness, if you think that the burden of proof should be on the person accusing and not on the accused, if you think justice is something that should be dealt with in the courts and not by the music and movie industry, if you think that our laws should not be modifiable by one person with little oversight, then you should care.  And if reading this has made you hungry for more information, I recommend you check out the Open Rights Group, who are campaigning on this issue, and ask your MP to vote against the Digital Economy bill until the issues above have been fixed.