[p2p-research] Massive Protest Against UK Anti-Piracy Bill

[Ryan]

  Sent to you by Ryan via Google Reader: Massive Protest Against UK
Anti-Piracy Bill via TorrentFreak by enigmax on 3/19/10

The UK Government continues to push forward the Digital Economy Bill
(DEB) that aims to protect copyright holders from online pirates. On
15th March the House of Lords approved the bill and handed it over to
the House of Commons.

To the absolute dismay of most outside the music and movie industries,
some of the most controversial elements of the Bill are unlikely to
receive any major scrutiny and will be dealt with quickly under the
so-called “wash-up”, a short period between the announcement of an
election and parliament being closed down.

“It’s a deeply unsatisfactory and very worrying development,” a senior
executive from an ISP told The Guardian. “The fear is that no one will
know what is being cooked-up before it becomes law. It’s legislation on
the hoof.”

But this situation suits the BPI just fine. This week a leaked memo
from the BPI fell into the hands of Cory Doctorow which showed that the
“LibDem amendment” – a proposal under the DEB which would allow for
websites to be blocked if, essentially, the BPI didn’t like their
activities – was in fact written by the BPI. Very cosy.

But the controversies don’t end there. Doctorow also received an
internal document prepared by the BPI’s Director of Public Affairs and
prospective Labour parliamentary candidate, Richard Mollet. In the
document he admitted that the only reason the DEB had a chance of
passing is because MP’s are resigned to voting on it without debate.

“Translation: if MPs got to debate the Bill, they would tear it to
unrecognizable pieces as they realized what terrible rubbish it really
is,” wrote Doctorow. The scandals go on and on, but we have to stop
somewhere.

Nevertheless, UK Music head Feargal Sharkey says that he is confident
that the DEB will be passed before the general election, although
others are not so sure.

“It will still be nip and tuck to get the Digital Economy Bill onto the
statute book before the election so the battle is not won yet,” wrote
Shadow Culture Minister, Jeremy Hunt, on his blog this week.

According to Jim Killock at the Open Rights Group, UK citizens aren’t
leaving anything to chance with 10,000 of them having written to their
MPs in the last three days to demand a debate on the Digital Economy
Bill.

“It is outrageous for corporate lobbyists including the BPI, FAST and
UK Music to demand that MPs curtail democracy and ram this Bill through
Parliament without debate,” says Killock, adding: “The British people
did not elect UK Music and the BPI to write our laws.”

Killock says that what is making the 10,000 so angry is the pushing
through of the DEB without debate, an act he describes as “undemocratic
and dangerous”.

If you’d like to add your dissenting voice, please email your MP, write
to your local newspaper, and attend the planned demonstrations.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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