Digital Economy Bill: the last hours

With the dread Digital Economy Bill in its final days of the UK Parliament, this is our last chance to demand that the government hold it over until after the election and give it the full debate it deserves. Please share this Open Rights Group video with your friends and colleagues and get them to write to their MP and ask for support for full debate.

This Tuesday, the government will rush a law that could cut you off the Internet

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Satan Ate My Ears

Nonsense such as this scares the crap outta me. I sincerely hope that your MP’s don’t puss-out on you.
zyodei

Article about a flashy new electronic gizmo: 461 comments.

Article about the Internet rights in one of the most important democracies in the world being gutted: 8 comments.

Ummmmm……
- sabik
  
  Article about a flashy new electronic gizmo: 461 comments.
  
  Article about the Internet rights in one of the most important democracies in the world being gutted: 8 comments.
  
  As someone said on the other thread, “the world needs starry-eyed idealists. I just wouldn’t take their advice about anything important.”
imag

I don’t care what Gordon Brown says, running water is way way way more important than the internet in a house. The human body can’t live more than a week without water.

I hope the scary propaganda video works, I’m just sayin’…
kaleesh

>Article about a flashy new electronic gizmo: 461 comments.

>Article about the Internet rights in one of the most important democracies in the world being gutted: 8 comments.

once the first few people start getting 3 strike-d out of the internet, will it be too late to change the law? or will they consider? so if someone uses someone elses IP via high-tech methods that normal people have not even heard of, who’s liable?

and all this while, i only see how to punish people. never: a new way for under 18s to pay for the goods they buy without a credit card for goods purchased online. if buying 1 single song is as easy as popping into a store and buying a candy bar for a teen, will they really dl?

what about appending their purchases to their phone bills that you can pay via bill or a card for like 20 songs you can buy at 7-11?

and drm for the songs. what if i don’t have an ipod and live in japan? what if i only like one song in an album. can i still buy japanese mp3s?

it’s the same thing with A c t a. no solutions or alternates only punishment.

your take guys? i worry for a future where breathing may become illegal because you didn’t pay for the oxygen D:
Anonymous

Course it’s as vital as water and gas. For 1 a lot of people don’t have time to ring/goto the bank so they do their banking online and pay bills online because they don’t have time to get to the post office etc. No local library? Google and Wiki are vital for kids still in school to use the internet for research and study at home. Live in the middle of nowhere want to buy a couch but haven’t got time to go to a shop because you’re busy with your farm? Internet. Moved to the UK and need to talk to your family outside of the UK? Skype. In this day and age the internet is playing a fundamental role in society with the aid of people’s lives. Not everyone sits there and looks at stupid, offensive or pornographic material. Not everyone downloads music illegally. Not everyone is a sex offender. Not everyone is a bad person.

So why should the good people suffer due to uneducated old farts who sip brandy and smoke cigars all day who know nothing about the internet except the bad things like stealing music and movies and child pornography etc. Why should the good people suffer?

And its the fact that the “Lords” have power.

Titles of nobility, Lordship etc are an ancient and primitive concept. Its an out dated ideology to the point of foolishness. This is not the era for a ruling with an iron fist its a time to create peace and prosperity clichÃ© as it may be but its true. Sure some order needs to be bought to fruition but I think that the way things are done today are creating the problems that we are trying to fix like trying to kill a monster with many heads but it grows 3 for every 1 you destroy.

If they so choose then they could make it law that everyone must be naked and ban clothing. Not likely to happen. But this is the kind of power these people hold. Why do we sit idly as our world is slowly shrunk into a small metal box a police state but worse. Funny how all the cameras around the UK haven’t stopped crime. But they’re still there aren’t they?

Banning people from the Internet isn’t going to stop the illegal trading of Music and Movies.

So. What’s the bloody point?
cyberdoyle

Really good article here about the bill, simple enough to send to your MP…
an allegory about banana ice cream and the Digital Economy Bill http://bit.ly/aq8fDB #DEBill
Anonymous

Will this help?
togi

Wrote to my MP (Gerald Kaufman, Labour, Manchester Gorton) and received the following letter today:

Dear [togi]

Thank you for your letter dated 27 March. I am grateful to you for writing to me about this matter and agree with you entirely that it would not be satisfactory for this Bill to be rushed through parliament. As you will know, it has not arrived int he House of Commons. As and when it does I shall, of course, take full account of the views you express.

Yours Sincerely

[squiggles]
Hugh “Nomad” Hancock

Togi – may I suggest writing back pointing out that it has, in fact, arrived in the House of Commons, and that the Second Reading is on the 6th April?
Anonymous

It just occurred to me there is one group of people who will be very happy with this bill. Organised Crime. The internet ruined the piracy business (people sharing stuff for free. The nerve!) but now they will be able to once again turn a profit from pirated movies, games and music. Well done British Government. Prohibition always succeeds.
togi

Suggestion duly noted and acted upon, Hugh, cheers!
Anonymous

I am not saying I agree with this bill, but as vital as water and gas, really?

That being said, it is not the government’s job to protect the interests of corporations, they do a pretty good job of that themselves.
cabalamat

@1: I am not saying I agree with this bill, but as vital as water and gas, really?

It’s possible to lead a normal life without gas. it isn’t possible to lead a normal life without the internet, not these days.
a1579

I still don’t understand what the big deal is. A three strikes rule sound fair to me.

But I can’t find any info about details. Like what evidence is needed, how is it supposed to work? Can you lodge an appeal?

All I can find are some “beeh, meh so scared, ma brainz froze” articles, like this video…
Hugh “Nomad” Hancock

There’s definitely a chance this won’t pass. The Lib Dem chief whip has expressed his opposition to the project, according to Twitter, and a number of backbench MPs are extremely unhappy with the way this has been forced through.

In addition, the sheer weight of correspondance about it has shocked some MPs – my own MP has mentioned he’s had more than 100 emails about it in the last week alone.

If we keep bombarding them, and equally importantly, if we keep contacting the press about it, we’ve got a chance.
lukus

I wrote to my MP last year, and a handful of Lords.

More recently I wrote the leader of the House of Commons (Harriet Harmon).

I didn’t receive any replies.

Is there _any_ chance that this won’t go through?
shashi2005

Is there somewhere I can download this video so I can post it elsewhere? I assume copyright is not an issue here!

I wrote to my MP about it’s effect on my music business and got a reply from another MP about photography copyright. Prats.

I wonder if this issue will be whipped.
- Cory Doctorow
  
  Download here:
  
  http://www.pwnyoutube.com/watch?v=gOyg1GUY18U&feature=player_embedded
- Zoe
  
  From the Youtube description:
  
  This video is released as Creative Commons BY-SA. You can download the high-quality video for remixing or re-uploading on other sites at http://www.strangecompany.org/Files/DEB-final-push.mov
Liberation

Change this bill into net neutrality and you guys would love no debate and would love to force government on internet.

This is what you guys asked for, don’t deny it. Your stupidity of net neutrality is the one doing this.
Anonymous

I think the bill should be postponed till after the election, something with such wide reaching clauses and such a negative reaction it would be political suicide to carry on with the election coming.

(random addition random blog about politics: http://uktactpolitics.blogspot.com/ for anyone interested)
Yarr

Not to be a crybaby here but this was one of the worst videos I’ve seen! It doesn’t say anything to make people care about the issue. I really hope this doesn’t spread :S

Instead I’ve written my MP and donated money to the ad campaign they are launching on tuesday (see more here: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/digital-economy-bill). Hopefully that’ll be a little more effective…