Digital Economy Bill

this seems to me to be a very worrying attack on our rights...

On Monday, the House of Lords passed the Digital Economy Bill as amended onto the House of Commons, despite one Lord calling it "a spatchcock that does part of the work it was intended to do but not all of it". Now, it is likely to be rushed through the Commons without proper scrutiny.

Why Should I Care?

 

Consumers and companies (including Google, Facebook and Internet Service Providers themselves) alike are up in arms about the Bill, which proposes that an Internet connection could be cut off if there is suspicion that it is being used for the downloading of copyrighted content. This is very disturbing:

 

* Although proof is required before disconnection, the evidence does not have to relate to you: you can be punished for the actions of a friend or even a neighbour who has used your Internet connection.

* Rights holders could have the power to demand that sites they believe to contravene copyright law be blocked by ISPs. Right now, we don't know what the govrnment will propose, as they have yet to draft their new proposal

* As it is not the perpetrator that is punished, as you might expect, but the owner of the connection, and others using it, cafés and bars may have to stop providing wifi.

 

Regardless of what you do or don't do, you could be punished for the actions of others because of laws put in place by the Digital Economy Bill: if you have unsecured wifi in your home, you could be punished; if you use the Internet at your local coffee shop or library, you could lose access to that connection.

 

Justice would not be completely out of reach: you could appeal, but you would have to pay for the privilege, and you wouldn't be eligible for any legal aid. Reasons for appeal are limited, and unlike in a trial, the onus would not be on rights holders to prove your guilt: you would be responsible for proving your innocence.

 

This will be voted upon in the very near future by your MP, and we need to ensure that the Bill is properly debated, and that all MPs know how dangerous it is to individuals and small businesses. If we don't ensure that it is properly scrutinised, the Bill could pass and have severe effects on the freedom and rights of innocent people, educational establishments and small businesses alike.

 

Don't let this Bill get rushed through without a proper debate: write to your MP now!

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/disconnection/why-care

Will the LibDems live up to their rhetorhic and block this being passed or will they give in to appease the music industry and to allow more control over stuff that ends up on wikileaks?

I think it is one of the worst and most stupid bills ever created. It is almost impossible to police and will mean many isp's end up going tits up because of having to ban users regardless of whether they are downloading or not - based upon suspicion.

It has already been stated that the people who download music, for instance, spend more on buying originals than those who do not.

But there is a whole range of what is called shareware and freeware available on the net so it means the isp is going to have to check to make sure that the downloads are not either of these.

And what about those people who do not do either, but because of high bandwidth usage created by watching television programs online, are accused of illegal activities?

Remember that everything you see on the internet has to be downloaded to your computer in order for you to see it.

The whole thing is stupid. And I would like those people who are so set on this bill to hold their hands up if they have never taped a television program or recorded a song off the radio.

The bill is pathetic and should be scrapped.

It will help boost the virus industry as people try to get around state controlled firewalls to access sites like wiki leaks.

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/ourwork/reports/brief-on-digital-economy-bill

This bill makes me quite angry. What can be done to stop it? Putting our hope in the lib dems is a really depressing thought.

this seems to me to be a very worrying attack on our rights...

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/disconnection/why-care

 

Will the LibDems live up to their rhetorhic and block this being passed or will they give in to appease the music industry and to allow more control over stuff that ends up on wikileaks?

If it stops you and sibon posting links to Billy Bragg and Ska songs then im all for it

It has already been shown that legislating against illegal downloaders doesnt work. The DMCA in the US, and the "three strikes" law in France simply haven't had any effect.

The DMCA has some pretty draconian provisions, like the anti-circumvention provision, where doing something like bypassing the protection on a DVD can get you a $500,000 fine and up to five years in prison, yet it hasn't done anything to stop illegal file sharing in the US.

at least they took out the bit that gave the secretary of state the power to disconnect people for any reason they liked

I'm currently arguing the toss about this with my MP

Steven Timms says he requires a body of evidence to support requests from copyright holders, I say this requirement should be in the act as all the act requires is suspicion at the moment

further if there is evidence then its evidence of a crime and should be prosecuted through the courts and not summarily dealt with by a quango

plus it punishes the connection renter not the criminal

I pointed out how easy it is to break into a wifi network even with long random WPA2 passwords that are regularly changed & MAC address filtering, measures a lot of people with wifi don't know how to set up

I'm still waiting for a reply to these points, I'll let you know what it says

apologies for any spelling mistakes, I'm using my phone to post

Can't they just ban the physical device actually downloading rather than the network?

There are 6 users on our network on 6 seperate devices and I know that one complete **** downloads movies etc, so unless I'm mistaken we'll all be punished because of his online behaviour, and if that is the case then that's totally outrageous.

Can't they just ban the physical device actually downloading rather than the network?

Not really, the IP address can normally only be traced back as far as the router/modem, not the actual device.

There are 6 users on our network on 6 seperate devices and I know that one complete **** downloads movies etc, so unless I'm mistaken we'll all be punished because of his online behaviour, and if that is the case then that's totally outrageous.

As esme said, this legislation will punish the broadband bill payer, whether it be a parent, school, college, landlord or coffee shop owner.

How they gonna read every packet of information? Most bit torrent clients encrypt the packets now.

It would be like the royal mail opening every letter, decifering the code it's written in and then deciding if the contents are copied from someone else.