Digital Bill Update

[xxMATTGxx]

Last night, the Digital Economy Bill was passed through the Commons and will soon become the Digital Economy Act.

http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/blog/2010/apr/8/thank-you-donations/

And any other website that will have the information.

[Luke]

One word - ********.

[xxMATTGxx]

TalkTalk's View:


It looks like much of the Digital Economy Bill will make it through to get Royal Assent by the end of the week.

The Bill is now in much better shape than when first tabled by the Government last year – the ability of the Government to impose disconnection at will has been checked and the Henry VIII clause that literally allowed the Government to do anything else to reduce copyright infringement has been removed.

However, many draconian proposals remain such as the responsibility on customers to protect their home networks from hacking at a collective cost of hundreds of millions of pounds a year, the presumption that they are guilty unless they can prove themselves innocent and, as in China, the potential for legitimate search engines and websites to be blocked.

This is made all the more appalling by the ability of big music and film companies to influence government and the absence of any proper debate or scrutiny by MPs – only 5% of MPs turned up for the brief debate yesterday and the other important Parliamentary stages will be bypassed in the wash-up process.

TalkTalk will continue to battle against these oppressive proposals – they will require ’secondary legislation’ before they can be implemented.

After the election we will resume highlighting the substantial dangers inherent in the proposals and that the hoped for benefits in legitimate sales will not materialise as filesharers will simply switch to other undetectable methods to get content for free.

In the meantime we stand by our pledges to our customers:

* Unless we are served with a court order we will never surrender a customer’s details to rightsholders. We are the only major ISP to have taken this stance and we will maintain it.
* If we are instructed to disconnect an account due to alleged copyright infringement we will refuse to do so and tell the rightsholders we’ll see them in court.


http://www.talktalkblog.co.uk/2010/04/08/digital-economy-bill-its-a-wash-up/

[MrPinkPanther]

Good on TalkTalk is all I can say. The Government of a so called "Liberal" country should have no business in monitoring peoples internet usage.

[Flisker]

Is it me or has TalkTalk just earned themselves some cool points?

[Niall!]

And thus, internet privacy and freedom was destroyed.

Good job Britain, you ******* suck.

[Oleh]

Seems like ima have to go to usenet :(

[Hiro]

It ain't gonna stop me. #whatdebill

[Niall!]

You know, honestly you guys are acting like a bunch of kids. This isn't bad because no more piracy, it's bad because they can block websites at will, as long as they have illegal content.

Bye bye Youtube, Veoh, Megaupload/video, google being censored. The list goes on.

The death of the internet and you guys are making jokes.

[xxMATTGxx]

You know, honestly you guys are acting like a bunch of kids. This isn't bad because no more piracy, it's bad because they can block websites at will, as long as they have illegal content.

Bye bye Youtube, Veoh, Megaupload/video, google being censored. The list goes on.

The death of the internet and you guys are making jokes.

I know it's not just about "illegal" downloading. I have been reading about this for a while now.

[Pyroka]

You know, honestly you guys are acting like a bunch of kids. This isn't bad because no more piracy, it's bad because they can block websites at will, as long as they have illegal content.

Bye bye Youtube, Veoh, Megaupload/video, google being censored. The list goes on.

The death of the internet and you guys are making jokes.

I know Niall, its bad. The only thing which may stop this being every single website is the fact every site they want to ban has to be debated vigerously, as stated in the updated version of the bill. It's still worrying that they have the power to do it though, I mean how long before we become like China?

[Oleh]

Piratpartiet ENGAGE!

we need a party to oppose this law, this is far by the most outrageous law ever if the mps dont know what an ip is then we are doomed and all have to move to finland!

[Niall!]

I know it's not just about "illegal" downloading. I have been reading about this for a while now.

I wasn't referring to you, you seem to be taking this seriously.

Pyroka, I agree completely. The only problem is, debates are often corrupt nowadays. Hell, this bill was passed because of a deal between the two major parties. China, here we come.

@The poster above, the pirate party is the one you're looking for.

http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/

[Pyroka]

Piratpartiet ENGAGE!

we need a party to oppose this law, this is far by the most outrageous law ever if the mps dont know what an ip is then we are doomed and all have to move to finland!

Pirate Party is a joke. If anything, Pirate Party is a party with ideas which hopefully will be stolen by bigger parties. They're just there to field the idea, they're not a serious party in my opinion.

[Niall!]

Pirate Party is a joke. If anything, Pirate Party is a party with ideas which hopefully will be stolen by bigger parties. They're just there to field the idea, they're not a serious party in my opinion.

Yet again, agreed. They're to small to make a difference.

We're going to end up with a hung parliament IMO, so expect Mr.Brown to still be in charge come May 7th.

[Markeh]

So they can block sites with offensive content?

Oh I bet regular porn watchers will be annoyed.

But this could have huge rebounds. OMG WHATHAPPENS IF THEY BLOCK HABBO? ONOES THEY BLOCKED HABBO COS SOMEONE SAID ****!

[Flisker]

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/speakout/extremeinternetl

^ Write to your MP asking if they can do something about it.

[Adamm]

The internet is the future.

Trust me, it'll only get bigger in time. Doing this is just halting evolution.

[Flisker]

Got this back from my MP:


Dear Chris Blake
Thanks for this which for some reason only arrived today.
The Bill was rushed through, disgracefully, right at the end of the session. I voted against the Bill on Third Reading because I think this is exactly the wrong way to legislate.
The Bill is now an Act; a future Conservative Government will have to decide how to deal with it.
Kind regards
Michael Fallon MP

[xxMATTGxx]

Got this back from my MP:

Oh great. Bloody fantastic! >:[