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Digital Economy Bill: Concerns for UK Hoteliers
New legislation is set to unleash a bureaucratic nightmare for all UK hoteliers providing internet services in their properties.
The Digital Economy Bill will require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to identify individuals making illegal downloads. The ISP would then be required to issue a report which would evidence the copyright infringements. While liability rests with the ISPs to identify rooms where an infringement had taken place, hotels would be required to provide guest details and then issue the guest with the copyright report.
UK hoteliers have raised concerns over the practicability of such a bill and the British Hospitality Association (BHA) is in the process of representing the industry to Government.
“The difficulties of applying this Bill to the hospitality industry, with its transient profile, appear not to have been considered,” explained deputy chief executive, Martin Couchman. “We are making representations to Government to highlight our concerns.”
Industry Concerns
The BHA’s first concern is that whilst it is relatively easy to identify wired users, wireless users can be significantly more difficult and those using a prepaid card will be impossible to identify.
In addition, the copyright infringement notices will usually be received about two or three days after the alleged incident occurs. In a hotel environment this means the guest is highly likely to have checked out by the time the notification is received.
Secondly, if the broadband connection continues to ‘offend’ over an as-yet unspecified period of time, then the ISP is obliged to take ‘technical measures’, which include disconnection – even though it will be almost impossible for those providing public Internet access to identify whether the user is someone who has previously offended or not.
Disconnection would endanger a hotel’s business which would be a grossly unfair consequence of a guest’s action for responsible hoteliers.
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