Online rights group savage OECD's copyright plans

Warnings that OECD plans would force search engines and ISPs to become copyright police

More than 80 campaign groups have expressed disappointment with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) proposed online copyright protection plan.

Groups including La Quadrature du Net and the Electronic Frontier Foundation said they could not endorse the plan because it calls for private policing of the internet and would lead to censorship in the name of copyright protection.

“Under the pressure of the entertainment industries, the OECD is undermining the good principles laid in its framework for Internet policy-making,” said Jérémie Zimmermann, co-founder of the La Quadrature du Net.

The OECD plan – which is intended to provide a framework for the continued growth and innovation within the internet economy – was presented at the OECD’s high-level meeting on the internet economy in Paris.

The OECD draft Communiqué on Principles for Internet Policy-Making would make search engines and internet service providers play a more active role in monitoring copyright abuse, potentially becoming responsible for filtering and blocking access to websites that house copyright-infringing material.

The plans would in effect turn these internet companies in to “private copyright police”, said Zimmermann.

The final communique is scheduled to be released today.