[Rnb] [Fwd: Digital Economy Bill]

[David Goodwin]

(Via the LUGMaster mailing list)


---

Hi,

I hope you don't mind me contacting you; I work for the Open Rights
Group, and we're currently campaigning against the Digital Economy
Bill - specifically the clauses which allow for disconnection without
fair trial and for the secretary of business (currently Peter
Mandelson) to change copyright law without putting it to Parliament
first.  We're hoping to get LUGs around the country involved with the
campaign, and I was hoping that you could pass on this message to
email lists around the UK, rather than my cold-emailing them all
myself.

Many believe we are defending copyright infringement: to clear this
up, we are not.  ORG's concerns with this Bill have nothing to do with
civil copyright infringement, except that attempts to deal with
infringement are threatening to erode our basic human rights.  We
support copyright, but believe that it should never be placed above
our civil liberties.

ORG's stance on the Digital Economy Bill is simple: any law which
proposes unreasonable punishments which would be dealt out to anyone
suspected of copyright infringement with no proof at all is as unfair
as it is possible to get.

Disconnection is a disproportionate punishment, especially when given
to families or businesses rather than the individual perpetrator, and
could have severe consequences, putting people’s jobs, businesses or
education at risk.  To put this into perspective, if a child is
suspected of shoplifting, it would be terribly unfair to ban an entire
family from the town centre without any evidence - yet this is quite
similar to what the bill proposes.

Additionally, disconnection could mean the end of WiFi hotspots, which
provide accessible Internet to the public, by making owners of the
connection liable for any copyright infringement that occurs, even if
they didn't commit it themselves.

We also believe that nobody should be allowed to change these laws
without Parliamentary debate (Clause 17), that censorship is wrong
(Clause 11) and that our personal data should not be used to aid
copyright enforcement agencies, especially when that data was
originally collected for another purpose entirely.

The fact is that our concerns with this Bill have nothing to do with
civil copyright infringement, except that attempts to deal with
infringement are threatening to  erode our basic rights.

We're asking UK citizens to get in touch with their MP and explain to
them how unfair this is, and possibly to meet them at one of their
surgeries to discuss the specific problematic points of the bill in
detail.  Talking to MPs is a much needed step because, whilst over
30,000 people have signed ORG's petition against disconnection (which
can be found at http://bit.ly/dontdisconnect), we recognise that a
petition doesn't go far enough.  It's worked in that people are now
talking about it in the media and to their friends and families, but
we know we need to push the campaign forwards and persuade the people
who will actually be voting either for or against the proposals.

ORG believes that visits and letters from voters will help change the
minds of MPs currently for the proposals; our representatives will
then see that people care about their rights and, as their duty is to
vote in accordance with constituents' opinions, we hope that they will
then oppose the Bill.

Any help is appreciated.  For further information or help with talking
to their MP, list members can contact me - katie at openrightsgroup.org -
and I'll do my best to help.  The only thing we can't do is the
talking, as MPs will only talk to their own constituents - will you
help us fight this battle for our rights, and do the talking?


--
Katie Sutton
Digital Economy Bill campaigner
katie at openrightsgroup.org
http://www.openrightsgroup.org

-- 
David Goodwin

[ david at codepoets dot co dot uk ]
[ http://www.codepoets.co.uk       ]