If you’re in the UK, do us all a favour right now and stop whatever the hell your doing and pay some attention to this. Most likely, if you’re reading this, what you’re doing is online and after Tuesday it could be drastically limited or eliminated. You could in fact find yourself without an internet connection. Join us and the Open Rights Group and others in helping defeat the Digital Economy Bill, which is popular among no one save for overseas entertainment industry lobbyists. The Digital Economy Bill being pushed forward by Peter Mandelson is bad for real people and the real economy.
Open Rights Group: “On Tuesday, the Digital Economy Bill, with all its myriad problems, will be voted on its second reading – after the election has been declared. It will then be pushed through ‘wash-up’ – and become law without full scrutiny. There are only a few days left. Write to your MP, write again if you have already.”
Get them on the record before they trash your digital media rights
Reposting from Cory Doctorow’s post here, and 38 Degrees post here. Ah, the echo chamber…
The House of Lords failed to take reasonable action on the threat posed by the Digital Economy Bill and let it slide back into the House of Commons for final amendments and approval. Of the three main parties, it seems only the Liberal Democrats have started coming around to seing how bad this is for UK’s citizens and its actual real-world digital economy. They at least want to retract the bad bit they’d originally submitted, but that would still leave an incredibly flawed law.
Cory says, “38 Degrees is asking Britons to write to their MPs and ask them to call for a full debate on this law before they vote on it. It seems stupid that we’d have to ask our elected reps to actually give sweeping proposals consideration before turning them into law, but there you have it. No matter what side you come down on for the Digital Economy Bill, is there anyone who wants law to be made without debate.” Read the rest of this entry…
The Liberal Democrats seemed determined in the UK to outdo Peter Mandelson in draconian efforts to disable the web via the Digitial Economy Bill, which seems aimed at doing anything but advancing a truely digital economy. Read the rest of this entry…
Don’tdisconnect.us is lobbying hard against the well-moneyed interests currently working in the UK to make you a criminal suspect and possibly cut off your internet connection
“Copyright infringement through filesharing is illegal and the Government is right to tackle the issue.
But the proposals to deter illegal filesharing announced by Lord Mandelson in September are wrong in principle and won’t work in practice.
Don‚Äôt Disconnect Us is a campaign group initiated by TalkTalk which is opposed to the measures proposed by Lord Mandelson.”
If you are reading this in the UK please follow the link below and sign this petition to the Prime Minister Gordon Brown to cancel the Digital Economy bill provisions that would¬† require internet service providers to unplug any household’s internet connection should anyone living there be accused (not convicted) of three acts of copyright infringement. Ridiculousness has a new definition and that is the logic put forth by the bill’s founder, Business Secretary and lead idontgetit Peter Mandelson.
“This petition has been set up in response to the Government‚Äôs proposal to cut off internet access to those who are caught illegally downloading copyrighted files. We think this has one fundamental flaw, as illegal filesharers will simply hack into other peoples WiFi networks to do their dirty work. This will result in innocent people being disconnected from the internet. What’s more, such a punishment should be dealt with in the proper way, in a court of law. This guilty until proven innocent approach violates basic human rights.”
OPEN RIGHTS: The freedom for each and everyone of us to express our views on the internet is under threat like never before. The UK government is now considering laws that would allow individuals to be cut off from the internet. They say the reason is to protect the economic prosperity of the creative industries.
“Our coalition comprises organisations, charities and people who believe disconnection from the internet would mean that people like us would be unable to engage in banking, socialising, campaigning, home admin and many other activities that are increasingly moving online. Worse, disconnection would restrict our long standing right of freedom of expression just at the time when we all need to be able to critique and engage more than ever.”
