Scary!
Looks like there's a couple of petitions relating to this on
petitions.number10.gov.uk;
http://search.petitions.number10.gov.uk/kbroker/number10/petitions/search.lsim?ha=1157&sc=number10&qt=digital+economy+bill
Daniel Morris
BBC / FM&T Vision / 07595327777
On 13/01/2010 16:26, David Tomlinson wrote:
Clause 17 of the Digital Economy Bill gives the Secretary of State for
Business the ability to make widespread changes to copyright law
through a statutory instrument.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/16/20100113/ttc-lords-oppose-clause-17-of-digital-ec-6315470.html
"Given the bitter arguments, constant amendments and huge interest in
the Digital Economy Bill, it was fantasy that the government thought
ISPs, rights owners and consumers would simply agree to the Bill with
such a clause," he said. [Robin Fry, a media lawyer at law firm
Beachcroft LLP]
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/36093ab2-ffc6-11de-921f-00144feabdc0.html
The Liberal Democrats warned that the clause, known as “clause 17”,
would allow a future Conservative government to slip through a change
in the law to allow the Murdoch media empire to take legal action more
readily against news aggregators such as Google, which it accuses of
“stealing” its content.
The Tories, who adamantly reject the charge that their future policies
might be shaped by Rupert Murdoch, have signalled that they will
oppose the copyright clause in the Lords, where the digital economy
bill is due to be put to the vote in its report stage this month.
The proposed changes ensure that the power would be invoked only when
the level of peer-to- peer illegal filesharing crossed a “significant”
threshold, government insiders said.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/18/government_to_control_the_web/
""Barrister Francis Davey has examined clause 11 of the Bill and
believes that it puts extraordinary powers to control the information
available to UK internet users in the hands of the Secretary of State
for Business, Innovation and Skills, currently Lord Mandelson."
[...]
Davey also has concerns about the lack of restraints on the powers in
the Bill. "It is slightly unusual because of its breadth and the fact
that there is no right of appeal or obligation to publish the notices
or to go through Parliament," he said."
There appears to be grounds, with an impending election, for hoping
the that whole bill will be lost.
:)
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