MPs are poised to pass one of the most important bills in British history without even talking it over. Is the BPI happy with that? It's not saying

The dread digital economy bill is rushing towards its end-game now, with parliament insiders predicting its deciding moment sometime in the next two weeks. The bill is a sweeping, 24,000+ word piece of legislation that deals with everything from Gaelic broadcasting to Channel 4's future to classification of video games to, of course, copyright. It includes some very radical proposals in respect of copyright, including a requirement to disconnect whole households from the internet if a single member is accused – without proof – of breaching copyright.

You'd think that parliament would want to discuss this bill before they passed it, especially since the "digital economy" is the economy – whether you're running a coal-mine or a blog, you can't survive without IT, the net, and telecoms. Indeed, the internet is critical to every piece of life in Britain, from healthcare to education, from family to civic engagement, and anything that regulates the internet regulates every other aspect of British life.

One long-serving MP told me that under normal circumstances, "a bill of this size would probably have a one-day second reading debate and then about 60 to 80 hours in committee, where it would be scrutinised line by line, clause by clause". However, under the current accelerated schedule, "it will receive one day for second reading and at the very most, two hours in a committee of the whole house. The government will programme the debate so huge chunks of the bill might not receive any scrutiny at all."

Translation: MPs are planning to pass one of the most important bills in British history without even talking it over. Tens of thousands of Britons have written to their representatives in the past week, demanding that MPs show up for work and do their jobs, thoroughly discussing this legislation before they unload it over Britain.

Last Wednesday, at Manchester's Counter 2010 conference, the director of public affairs for the British Phonographic Institute, Richard Mollet (himself a prospective parliamentary candidate for Labour in the next election) passed some remarks on the sufficiency of the debate thus far. According to sources at the conference, Mollet said something like: "The Lords had scrutinised the digital economy bill enough, and there is no further need for debate."

I published this paraphrase on Wednesday afternoon. I pointed out that a leaked memo penned by Mollet identified parliamentary debate as potentially fatal to the bill (the same memo showed that the BPI had actually written one of the amendments introduced in the Lords). A few hours later, I got a vehement denial by email from Adam Liversage, director of communications for the BPI: "Richard Mollet categorically did not say 'there is no further need for debate' at the Counter 2010 conference … What he actually said was that the bill has received detailed scrutiny in the Lords, which has resulted in significant amendments being made to it. When asked about the prospects for the bill in the Commons, he said that this was a matter for the government's business managers."

I canvassed several Counter 2010 attendees, but no one could remember Mollet saying anything like this. But no one had a recording.

Fair enough.

So I emailed Mr Liversage the next morning and asked whether Mr Mollet, or the BPI, believed that the digital economy bill had received sufficient scrutiny by the peoples' elected representatives, or whether the bill should go to a full debate. I got a terse note back referring me to the earlier statement, which didn't answer my question.

So I asked again. And again. And again. I left messages on Mr Liversage's mobile and landline phones. Sent more email. Silence.

Let me take you through that again: the BPI really wants you to know that its representative didn't say that there was no need for debate on the digital economy bill. But they won't say whether there's a need for debate on the bill.

This isn't the first time I've seen this particular dirty trick from the record industry. In July 2005, I ran a story about the RIAA (the BPI's US counterpart) sending legal notices to YouTube over videos of kids singing pop songs. A few hours later, I had an email from RIAA director of communications Jenni Engebretsen, telling me that the legal notices were forgeries. Interested, I asked her some natural followups: have there been other forgeries? And, most importantly, does this mean that the RIAA doesn't believe that YouTube should take down the videos?

She promised to get right back to me. For the year that followed, I sent Engebretsen a stream of emails and left voicemails on her phones, asking about the promised followup. Eventually I reached her again – by calling from a different number – and she gave me a terse "no comment".

(Like Mr Mollet, Engebretsen moved from the record industry to politics, going to work for the Democratic National Committee in 2007).

So yes, this is an old wheeze: challenge a statement attributed to you, but refuse to clarify your actual position.

The BPI's member companies stand to gain enormous power and wealth from this Bill – including the power to decide which British families are allowed to participate in digital society. They've written sections of it. They produce a weekly, in-depth status report on the bill's progress (albeit these reports are somewhat loony: the leaked one suggested that the MI5 were behind the opposition!).

Are we to believe that they have no opinion on whether this bill has seen enough parliamentary debate?