Micro-Exemptions…The Government proposes to exempt micro-companies (less than 10 employees) from having to sign up to the planned news censor

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See article from gov.uk

The Government writes about the need for bloggers and small media companies having to sign up to the proposed news censor: Following the initial debate in Parliament, we have refined the clauses to make it absolutely clear that small blogs are outside of the scheme. The amendments, which have cross-party agreement, make clear that small blogs will not be classed as relevant publishers , and be considered by the House of Commons on Monday April 22. The provisions in the Crime and Courts Bill clauses detail the four tests that must be met to be considered a relevant publisher, which are: publish news-related material publish in the course of a business written by different authors subject to editorial controls Micro-business blogs The amendments clarify the government’s position on small blogs by further defining the exemption for blogs that are classed as micro-businesses - business with fewer than 10 employees and an annual turnover below ฃ 2 million. This is the definition used by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Despite not falling under the definition of relevant publisher, any publication that is exempt as a micro-business as a result of these amendments could still choose to join a regulator and receive the legal benefits otherwise only available to relevant publishers in the regulator. That means protection from exemplary damages. It also means that use of the arbitral arm in the regulator will be taken into account by the court when awarding costs. Additional exemptions The clauses also list certain categories of publications which are exempt, even when those tests are met. These exemptions include special interest titles, scientific or academic journals, broadcasters and book publishers as as well as a public body, charity or company that publishes news about their activities.

Government chooses business interests over citizens…How can it be right that companies delivering public services can’t be criticised by citizens?

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See article from libelreform.org

At a debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday 16 April 2013 the Government rejected attempts to reform the libel laws to limit companies’ ability to use sue individuals. The reform would have asked companies to show they had been harmed before they would be allowed to take it case. It would also have put the Derbyshire principle, which prevents public bodies from suing individuals for libel into law, and would have extended this principle to private companies performing public functions. Labour pushed the Government on this clause and forced a vote which the Government won 298 to 230. But Minister for Justice Helen Grant MP said the Government would “actively consider” amendments to the Defamation Bill that would require corporations to show financial loss before they can sue for libel, following pressure from Shadow Minister for Justice Sadiq Khan MP. The Defamation Bill will be debated in the House of Lords on Tuesday 23 April. Tracey Brown, Sense About Science: We are pleased that so many MPs recognise the need for corporations to show actual financial harm and grateful to the MPs who worked for this. While it is deeply disappointing that the corporations’ clause has been removed, their efforts have at least led the Government to concede that this should be revisited in the Lords. It cannot be right that the court is not asked to consider whether companies have faced loss, or are likely to, before a case can go ahead. It cannot be right that citizens can’t criticise delivery of public services whether by private companies or by the Government. Kirsty Hughes, Chief Executive, Index on Censorship: It is a very unwelcome blot on an important bill that the Government voted to allow corporations to continue to pressurise and sue in ways that chill free speech Jo Glanville, Director, English PEN : The Government needs to do more than “actively consider” amendments.  Ministers in the House of Lords should now table an early amendment, requiring corporations to show financial loss before they sue.  We’re depending on the Lords now to deliver the reform that all the parties signed up to. It’s essential that companies are no longer allowed to exploit libel law to bully whistleblowers into silence. This has always been a key demand for the campaign. Simon Singh, defendant in British Chiropractic Association v Singh: The majority of the cases that galvanized public support for libel reform involved corporations, so the final Defamation Bill must include a clause that limits the powers for corporations to bully their critics into silence. The proposal on the table is reasonable, modest and fair. Ignoring this proposal on corporations would leave the door open to further abuses of libel law by those who want to block the public’s access to information concerning everything from consumer issues to medical treatments.

Consultation for bloggers on the new Crime and Courts Bill…The Media Reform Coalition are surveying opinions on how to exclude bloggers and small entities from UK news censorship

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See article from mediareform.org.uk

The Media Reform Coalition has launched a consultation for small publishers, online bloggers and journalists to speak up on the new press regulation deal. On April 15 the House of Commons will return from Easter recess, and soon after that will consider the Crime and Courts Bill — a crucial part of the statutory backing to the new Royal Charter which provides for independent media self-regulation. But the Bill as currently drafted has some big problems : it doesn’t adequately protect small publishers from punishments intended for media moguls and it doesn’t provide the legal backing for them to join or form a regulator further down the line. Click here to take our survey without further ado! The House of Lords has shown clear intention to solve these issues by adding a holding amendment excluding “small-scale bloggers”, but we need to lobby the Commons to transform this into something clear, versatile and workable. That’s why we want your input. Maria Miller, the relevant Secretary of State, has made noises about consulting with the ‘newspaper industry’ over the Easter recess. She has said nothing about engaging with other kinds of news organisations — hence this consultation. We hope to rally small publishers, online news sites and bloggers behind a set of proposal so that we can collectively lobby all three parties to make sure the C&C Bill does the job it should. The consultation comes in three parts: An online survey which you can access by clicking here . Your answers can be submitted anonymously but we ask you to identify the type of publication on whose behalf you’re responding. A comprehensive briefing document which clarifies the current legal situation, entitled Small publishers, online journalism and the new system of press regulation [pdf].  We know the Royal Charter and its associated laws have been the subject of serious misreporting by the mainstream press, and our document provides a clear, detailed summary. Supporting information for your reference, including extracts from the Bill’s current drafting. The survey focuses primarily on who you think should be liable for exemplary damages and cost penalties, and who you think should get the benefits It lists several options for the protection of small publishers, such as excluding non-profit organisations or setting an income threshold for inclusion as a “relevant publisher”. It also asks whether the costs benefits of joining a recognised self-regulator should be available to anyone who joins, regardless of whether they are a “relevant publisher” — and whether respondents would join an affordable regulator if it made costs protection available to them. The responses to the consultation will be used to provide the political parties with input on the clauses going through Parliament after the Easter recess that will affect small news organisations. If you are a small publisher, online writer, or blogger of any kind, we want to hear from you. Please do look over our documents and take our survey — and spread it around to as many people as you can!

How Small is Smallish…Mini-consultation on small publisher exemption from news censorship

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See article from liberalconspiracy.org

Bloggers will be offered a three-week mini-consultation period, a senior source from the Labour party has told Liberal Conspiracy, to help draft the legislation on web regulation. The controversial legislation on press and web regulation is likely to be finalised in mid-April. The currently drafted rules exclude various types of publishers including the BBC and other broadcasters, special interest magazines and political parties. A senior source from the shadow media team said the three political parties were looking for the right definition of a small blog. This [definition] has to steer a path between exempting blogs that are really small and not providing a legal loophole so that newspapers get exemption on all their online activity or are encouraged to avoid the law by restructuring themselves into a series of small bodies. We also need to future-proof the law so that as papers gradually move online, we don’t see a slide back into the old world. The aim of the consultation is to determine how to measure size: whether by company turnover, readership, number of staff or some combination. Comment: Letter to the Guardian See article from openrightsgroup.org Dear Editor, The Leveson Inquiry was set up to address the culture, practices and ethics of the press, including contacts between the press and politicians and the press and the police . Our views diverge on whether the outcome of the Leveson process — and the plans for a new regulator — are the best way forward. But where we all agree is that current attempts at regulating blogs and other small independent news websites are critically flawed. The government has defined a relevant publisher for the purposes of press regulation in a way that seeks to draft campaign groups and community-run websites covering neighbourhood planning applications and local council affairs into a regulator designed for the Guardian, Sun and Daily Mail. Even the smallest of websites will be threatened with the stick of punitive exemplary damages if they fall foul of a broad range of torts, encompassing everything from libel to breach of confidence . The authors of these proposals should reflect on their remarkable achievement of uniting both Tom Watson and Rupert Murdoch in opposition. This appears to be the outcome of a botched late-night drafting process and complete lack of consultation with bloggers, online journalists and social media users, who may now be caught in regulations which trample on grassroots democratic activity and Britain’s emerging digital economy. Leveson was meant to be focused on the impact of big media . In the end it may come to be seen as a damaging attack on Britain’s blogosphere, which rather than being a weakness in British politics, has proved time and time again that it is a real strength. We will all continue to write, campaign, cajole, amuse and irritate online. But we consider the current proposals a fundamental threat to doing just that.

Such Serious Issues Debated at Such Irresponsible Speed…Realisation that a whole host of tiny websites, including Big Brother Watch, would be covered by the provisions of the new press regulator

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See article from bigbrotherwatch.org.uk

Big Brother Watch writes: As the bell tolls for press freedom, the realisation that a whole host of tiny websites, including Big Brother Watch, would be covered by the provisions of the new press regulator is dawning on Westminster. On Monday, the Lords will vote on the legislation underpinning the Royal Charter on press-self regulation. They will determine who is to be a relevant publisher and at present risks catching broadly any site that is has more than one author, carries news or information about current affairs, or gossip about celebrities, and has some kind of editorial control. We are urgently trying to garner support for the below amendment to exclude small organisations from the provisions of what is already becoming an unwieldy and unpredictable piece of legislative horse trading. This is not an ideal situation — as with most things formulated in meetings at 2am — and it would make much more sense for this to be handled rationally and thought through properly. This amendment protects a few, but the principle has already gone. We are still looking for a peer to table this amendment — any help is appreciated — please call the office on 0207 3406030. – Insert into New Schedule 5 of the Crime and Courts Bill Exclusions from definition of “relevant publisher” 9) “A publisher who does not exceed the definition of a small or medium-sized enterprise as defined in Section 382 and 465 Companies Act 2006.” Let us be clear The manner in which this has been brought to bear, in 2am meetings with lobbyists, no civil society input, rushed drafting and ill-considered consequences should not be the way to make law. Indeed, we cannot think of a worse way to make law. See article from bigbrotherwatch.org.uk Meeting Hacked Off The explosive revelations that websites will be included in the post-Leveson press regulation arrangements this weekend led to a flurry of analysis — and a meeting between Hacked Off, bloggers and free speech groups yesterday. See article from openrightsgroup.org

Not the ‘Legacy’ she was Hoping for…Liz Longhurst bemoans lack of prosecutions under the Dangerous Pictures Act

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See article from theargus.co.uk

Campaigner Liz Longhurst has said she is disappointed that the Dangerous Pictures Act banning extreme porn has not been implemented as well as it could have been. Longhurst, who campaigner alongside former Brighton Kemptown MP David Lepper for the law, part of the 2008 Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, to be implemented, spoke on the tenth anniversary of her daughter Jane’s death. She wanted watching extreme porn to be outlawed because her daughter Jane’s killer, Graham Coutts, looked at such pornographic images before killing her. Woefully uninformed, Longhurst said: I am very disappointed that the law has not been used more. As far as I am aware it has only been used on a handful of occasions. However, I am very glad there is such a law, even if I am disappointed it is not used as often as it could be. In fact the Dangerous Pictures Act has been used countless times. It is used by police to persecute those being investigated on other charges who have had to submit their computers for police search. It is also used to add to the charge list for those prosecuted on more serious charges. However Longhurst is right in one respect, it has been used very few times for the purpose that it was originally envisaged by Longhurst and co.

Ed’s Programme Guide…The Government looks set to extend broadcast levels of TV censorship to all internet TV channels that present themselves in a TV’s EPG

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See article from parliamentlive.tv

On 12th February 2013, the government minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, Ed Vaizey, appeared before the House of Lords Communications Select Committee to give his opinions about media convergence. One interesting point was that the government intends to extend internet censorship in the upcoming Communications white paper. The government looks set to extend the onerous TV censorship regime administered by Ofcom to all channels appearing on a TV’s Electronic Programme Guide. At the moment, internet TV channels are not subject to Ofcom’s suffocating TV censorship. Vaizey feels that ‘viewers expect’ anything that looks like a TV channel which presents itself for channel hopping in the EPG to be subject to the same strict censorship as broadcast TV. However channels presenting themselves via an app interface, seem likely to be let off the hook and censored according to the less strict censorship of the Video on Demand censor, ATVOD. So anything featuring biased news such as Fox News, or else hardcore porn will have to stay off the EPG, and stick with being available only as an app. Vaizey’s thinking is that viewers will not expect the same strict censorship for a channel that is more obviously internet based.

Turning the Internet Off at Night…David Cameron appointed Claire Perry as his personal Mary Whitehouse. Now she gives a couple of clues about what she is working on

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See article from blogs.spectator.co.uk

One of Perry’s big themes is empowering parents to be able to take back control of a space she feels adults have largely ceded to our children . It’s clear that she sees leaving a child to their own devices in the online world as akin to leaving a child to wander through a city alone at night, and it’s time for parents to take back control. She said: People say it’s so difficult to keep our kids off the laptop. There is a router. You control the wifi. So put it in your bedroom, for example, and switch it off when you go to bed, and then the household is internet free all night. It’s common sense, people are like, wow, somehow they just don’t think. It’s like locking the doors, it’s like making sure the blind cords aren’t hanging into your child’s cot. This, I think, if it’s a problem for you, you’ve got the power to change it. Beyond reminding parents of their own responsibilities, Perry is working on a filter to keep children safe online. The plan is for a filter that checks the age of the child browsing, rather than her original call for all users to opt-in to accessing adult content on their computer, which a government consultation rejected. All public wifi will have an automatic block on adult material. …Read the full article

A Good Day for Free Speech…Insults set to be freed from prosecutions under the Public Order Act

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See article from bbc.co.uk

The crime of insulting someone through words or behaviour, which once led to the arrest of a student for asking a police officer whether his horse was gay, is to be dropped. Section 5 of the 1986 Public Order Act currently means that threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour might be deemed a criminal offence. It has been rightfully criticised by free-speech campaigners, and in December the House of Lords voted by 150 to 54, a majority of 96, to remove the word insulting. The move was championed in the upper chamber by former West Midlands chief constable Lord Dear. Home Secretary Theresa May confirmed to MPs that the government would not seek to overturn a Lords amendment scrapping the ban contained in Britain’s often abused catch-all laws of the Public Order Act. May told MPs: I respect the review taken by their Lordships. They had concerns which I know are shared by some in this House that Section 5 encroaches upon freedom of expression. On the other hand, the view expressed by many in the police is that Section 5 including the word insulting is a valuable tool in helping them keep the peace and maintain public order. Now there’s always a careful balance to be struck between protecting our proud tradition of free speech and taking action against those who cause widespread offence with their actions. She said the government had previously supported the retention of the word insulting to prevent people swearing at police officers, protesters burning poppies, or similar scenarios . The DPP Kier Starmer’s statement that he agrees: that the word ‘insulting’ could safely be removed without the risk of undermining the ability of the CPS to bring prosecutions. May said that in the light of Starmer’s comments, ministers were not minded to challenge the Lords amendment to the Crime and Courts Bill. Of course Labour are not the slightest impressed bit impressed by Britain allowing a little more freedom, and warned that it could remove protections for minority groups. Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper pressed the government to produce an assessment of the impact of Section 5 of the Public Order Act on different groups, particularly on minority groups . S he shamefully spouted: Many people have said that the existing Section 5 has formed some sort of protection. It is important to make sure we can protect freedom of speech …BUT… it is also very important to make sure we can protect vulnerable groups from unfair discrimination. Simon Calvert, campaign director for the Reform Section 5 group, said: This is a victory for free speech. People of all shades of opinion have suffered at the hands of Section 5. By accepting the Lords amendment to reform it, the government has managed to please the widest possible cross-section of society. They have done the right thing and we congratulate them.

Plotting Some Seriously Harmful Moralising?…DCMS and ATVOD plotting new laws on the subject of hardcore on internet VOD

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See article [pdf] from atvod.co.uk

There not’s much to go on but I wonder what the DCMS and ATVOD are plotting. The ATVOD minutes of its September board meeting reveal the following note: The Board NOTED the update on the Communications Review as provided in the paper. It was NOTED that ATVOD were cooperating with DCMS on the preparation of an impact assessment considering proposals in relation to hardcore porn on VOD services.