Brits: sign petitition to kill proposal to disconnect accused infringers from the net!

Glyn sez, "The UK government is now considering laws that would allow individuals to be cut off from the internet. If Lord Mandelson's plan becomes law, disconnection may start for alleged copyright infringement, with no guarantee it would not be extended for other things. If you want to hear more about the Governments plans. David Rowntree (Blur), Ben Goldacre (Guardian / Bad Science) and Gerd Leonhard (Media Futurist) are doing a benefit talk for the Open Rights Group on October 2 in London, entitled 'Stop Mandelson's disconnection plans'."

Open Rights Group | Stop Disconnection without trial (Thanks, Glyn!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: censorship • Civlib • Copyfight • politics

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Gilbert Wham

#13: Good point. I recommend everyone goes to http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ and contacts their MP personally, spelling out EXACTLY what they don’t like about this legislation, and how it will guarantee their losing your vote come the election…
annoyingmouse

I don’t know if I can sign this. It doesn’t seem very professional. I mean M-a-n-d-e-l-s-o-n is not how you spell “David Geffen”!
shallot

What petition? All I can see is a link to the ORG site.
Takuan

“The construction of public railways would only encourage the lower masses to move about needlessly.”
BritSwedeGuy

Remember recording the Top 20 off the radio?
That didn’t kill music but the music industry is still trying.
Somebody give slimeball Mandy a white Persian cat to stroke…
Anonymous

Urm, isn’t the UK a part of the EU (even when they try to pretend they’re not) and didn’t the EU sort of kick out this sort of legislation?

I think people ought to be more angry about this ‘lord’ wasting people’s time and taxmoney by trying to get a law accepted that will be repealed as soon as someone goes off to the European Court. Huzzah
SpeedRacer

I still think you are fighting this the wrong way.

Let the bill pass. Make absolutely certain the bill is everything the media companies want — no recourse, no courts, no exceptions. Simply three unproven accusations and then the offending user is disconnected. Make certain there are no penalties of false accusations and that the burden of proof is on the accused, not the accuser.

As soon as the bill is passed, it should be a simple matter to make certain every governmental agency is disconnected from the Internet. Make sure to include the media companies. See how much impact you can have on the entire British economy when every commercial website is suddenly disconnected.
- Anonymous
  
  It won’t go through exactly as it is, though. It’ll go through in a watered-down version that won’t have such damaging consequences for the economy, and the less we fight it, the less watered-down it’ll be. If we don’t fight it at all, we might get something that’s fine economically, but hell for the consumer.
Anonymous

This in the same week that the Independent Safeguarding Authority (the ‘unsubstantiated speculation and malicious gossip = guilt’ child safety database) came onstream in the UK.

First there was

“You are politically active in the UK, so we will charge you extra for services.” (Google ‘Politically Exposed Person’)

then there’s

“Pay Â£65 per annum to the new quango, or live under suspicion that you may be a paedophile.”

and now

“You lose internet access. Because we (or our copyright maximalist paymasters) say so. Appeal will be at our convenience, but at your expense.”

UK < ===> DDR
hbl

How many times did Mandelson resign? For how many indescretions? So they made the charlatan a Lord so he’s got a job for life. And then he pulls this crap and doesn’t have to resign.

General Election please. Now.
Anonymous

This petition:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/web-ban/

already exists and is woefully under-supported in my opinion (perhaps because nobody was savvy enough to get somebody with ‘clout’, like Boing Boing, to publicise it).
Anonymous

I agree with Speedracer. Even if there’s a penalty for false accusations, I’m sure there are people with nothing to lose that you can hire inexpensively to use an internet cafe and a web-based email account to accomplish the same goal. In particular, I think the homeless would serve nicely for this purpose.

What are the officials going to do, fine him and take away all his possessions? Put him in jail where he gets three square meals a day and a roof over his head? Oh, the humanity!

But don’t just do this to government agencies or the media companies. The people in charge of those agencies or companies will still have internet access at home. If you’re going to go to that length, finish the job and accuse them of misusing their personal accounts.
Von Haus

It slightly concerns me that because of this, everyone who is opposed to giving companies the power to cut people from the internet are now all putting some personal information together in one place and sending it to the very governemnt who are supporting the ability to cut people off from the internet.
It would strike me as a good source to get the first targets of accusation from.
hbl

Tory government, I won’t vote for them, but that’s what’s coming regardless. At least with a two part system, they spend the first 5 years unravelling what the previous government has done.

ID cards, this internet strike out thing, and some of the other labour garbage would fall away. No one liked the Tories last time cos they were in power for 18 years, and did away with the mines and the railways.

Nothing has come out of Westminster in the last 10 years that hasn’t been laced with fear, suspician and disdain.

ASBOs, binge drinking, making a database for every single stroke of daily life, fear of paedoes, knifes, fast cars, immigrants. Ask Cory Doctorow how he likes his ID card and how much it cost him. Then ask how much it cost to bake up the idea in the first place, and how the hospitals and the schools are getting privatised by the back door. And how much Jacqui Smith’s cable TV bill is.

Taking away people’s internet is just Napster on a bureaucratic scale. Rather than recognise that the machine is broken, and a better solution is already apparent, they attempt to change the surroundings to better accomodate the machine. If your TV is too big for your living room, you don’t buy a bigger house. You also don’t cut off people’s TV for recording the big game.
Nelson.C

Mandy will still be lord even after a Tory win. And you’d have the Tories in power, which doesn’t sound all that thrilling, either, quite frankly.
Anonymous

I have a question.

How do you tell a legal bit torrent file from an illegal one if all you have to go on is the information in an IPv4 package. Oh that right you cannot.

Also how much slower is the internet going to be if ISP’s have to scan every package running though there servers to look for illegal content.
arkizzle / Moderator

Done.