PT Journal
AU Horten, M
TI The Digital Economy Act in the dock: a proportionate ruling
SO JIPITEC
PY 2012
BP 81
EP 87
VL 3
IS 1
DE BT; Digital Economy Act; Judicial Review; Talk Talk; copyright enforcement; copyright infringement
AB The UK’s Digital Economy Act 2010 contains measures to enforce copyright on the Internet, specifically a two-tiered form of a graduated response.The Act was challenged in the High Court by two of the UK’s biggest Internet Service Providers (ISP), who obtained a Judicial Review of the copyright enforce-ment provisions. This paper is an overview of the case, based on the hearing of March 2011 and theensuing judgement. It focuses on the two most hotly contested grounds for the challenge, namely an al-leged failure to notify the European Commission under the Technical Standards Directive, and the pro-portionality or otherwise of the contested provisions. It observes how the judgement accepted the defenceargumentation of the government and the copyright owners as interested parties, and how the ISPs appeared to be put on the back foot.
ER