Not long ago it was hard to move without someone telling you the world was about to descend into jackbooted authoritarian dystopia. Why? The last Labour government was passing something called the Digital Economy Act, and it would turn ISPs into snoopers and send masked men out into the night, breaking down doors and smashing the iPads of fearful 'filesharers' who had transgressed the copyright laws.

<a href="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/freetard_demo_stop_this_sort_of_thing.jpeg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-8214" title="freetard_demo_stop_this_sort_of_thing" src="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/freetard_demo_stop_this_sort_of_thing-203x300.jpg" alt="" width="203" height="300" /></a>The anti-DEA propaganda was a fad wonderfully prosecuted by Twitter with all the logic and rational argument 140 characters can muster. I never looked at it very closely to be honest. Something about the whole thing stunk. The apex -- or apogee depending who to believe -- <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/25/org_demo_photo_album/" target="_blank">happened on March 25 last year</a> with a small protest outside Westminster attended by fellows wearing black tape over their mouths or masks like this chap on the right.

Oh, and inevitably Mr Cory Doctorow turned up to deliver one of this customary apocalyptic warnings, urging that the DEA be voted with the words (no, I am not making this up), '<strong>Tell your friends. It's our last chance for a free and open society going forward</strong>.'

As Orlowski noted at the time, 'I particularly liked the going forward.'

The DEA did go through Parliament. When the new coalition government came in theyannounced they still thought it was reasonable legislation too, er, 'going forward'.

So BT and TalkTalk, two companies notorious for the rotten way they treat their customers, went to law to try to defeat it here. Yesterday they lost. If you followed the original campaign and thought, 'Hmm... there must be something in all these dire predictions' I suggest you take a look at Orlowski's <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/21/digital_economy_act_high_court/" target="_blank">revealing analysis of the facts that emerged in the ruling.</a>

Quoting from the article, 'High Court Judge Kenneth Parker summarised the DEA as "a more efficient, focussed and fair system than the current arrangements". Over and over, he pointed out that the Act didn't actually say what the objecting ISPs thought it said.'

Now for a cracking quote from Judge Parker himself, 'The DEA proceeds on the premise, first, that a significant number of infringers <strong>do not at the moment fully appreciate that what they are doing seriously infringes the legal and moral rights of others</strong> and that, although individual behaviour of this kind may seem <strong>trivial and excusable</strong>, the general effect may well be very damaging to the creative industries, a notorious example of what is sometimes called the tyranny of small decisions that have <strong>ruinous economic consequences.'</strong>

'The recipient [of a warning] will be better informed about the nature of his conduct and of the likely consequences for others, and he may be disposed to cease, or at least to modify, such conduct. He may be persuaded to do so, even if it is contrary to his immediate interests: the days when it was assumed that consumers act only out of the pursuit of economic self interest, and do not, quite rationally, respond to moral, altruistic or longer term considerations, are long gone.'

Those are Orlowski's emphases and I'm happy to leave them in.

So the scare stories were just that -- scare stories. The truth is the DEA is a mild piece of legislation that will probably end up in nothing more than a bunch of warning letters to persistent offenders, telling them not to be so naughty in future. After which the tech-savvy ones will find a way to cruise the torrents without being caught. A few pirates will object, fight the thing all the way until they turn into digital martyrs, one assumes. But the world is never short of nutters, especially when it comes to matters of the interwebs.

So much for lurid and utterly ludicrous stories like this...

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-8217" title="Screen shot 2011-04-21 at 15.11.22" src="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Screen-shot-2011-04-21-at-15.11.22.png" alt="" width="415" height="476" />

I do wonder though... will all the trendy media rags that gave the anti-DEA campaign such free publicity finally get around to telling their readers the modest and unalarming truth?