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Things still aren’t going as planned for Hollywood and the Big 4 record labels in the UK Digital Economy bill.

It went to the Lords on January 6 and now the government has “backtracked on one set of proposals — Clause 17, which would give the Secretary Of State the ability to alter copyright completely without consulting parliament,” says Pocket Lint.

In a major salvage operation, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s BPI (British Phornographic Industry) is demanding a DMCA-like amendment.

Followers of the debacle will recall Peter ‘Mandy’ Mandelson, who’s handling things in the UK for Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music, and Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom, NBC Universal and Sony Pictures, introduced Clause 17 to huge outrage on- and offline.

However, Mandelson’s department for business said it isn’t “backing away”, says the BBC. “The Government remains squarely behind the aims of clause 17,” it has a spokesman stating.

“We have tabled a series of amendments which aim to clarify the breadth and scope of the clause and further reinforce the transparency of the process and the scrutiny of Parliament.”

Now the BPI wants “an entirely new Section 97B of the 1988 Copyright Design and Patent Act,” says The Register, going on >>>

The amendments would grant copyright holders injunctions against websites and service providers similar to the US DMCA act – but with no ’safe harbour’ provision to verify whether the claim is merited …

As it stands , “the Digital Britain bill would compel rightsholders to identify and notify infringers, in a “graduated” response, ultimately ending in temporary suspension of Internet access,” says the story. “The revised Section 97B, if passed, would dramatically switch the burden from rights holder to publisher.”

Not only but also, lord Ralph Lucas wants what paidContent UK describes as a “remarkable amendment” which would rewrite the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

“Every provider of a publicly accessible website shall be presumed to give a standing and non-exclusive license to providers of search engine services to make a copy of some or all of the content of that website, for the purpose only of providing said search engine services,” says his proposal.

A “provider of search engine services who acts in accordance with this section shall not be liable for any breach of copyright,” he suggests.

Under the amendment, “Google would be free to copy everything — but a publisher blocking search spiders with a robots.txt file would be taken as withholding that right,” says the story, adding:

“An explicit ‘fair use’ provision, which Google often cites against copyright-abuse claims, does not exist in UK law.”

Stay tuned.

Jon Newton