Thursday, April 08, 2010

letter to my MP protesting the digital economy stitch-up

FOR THE ATTENTION OF:

Meg Hillier MP
Hackney South and Shoreditch

Thursday 8 April 2010 robert munro
xxx address

xxx email
Dear Meg Hillier,

I am writing to express my dismay at the pushing through of the digital economy bill during the washup period before the election.

There are so many problems with the bill and the way it is being handled:-
* It will criminalise the innocent because it will lead to an increase of peoples wifi being compromised(hacked) in order to download on their connection (very easy to do!).
* Music and film companies have been goudging customers and artisits for years, if they would just sell at a fair price then the problem of piracy would go away with out the need for people to be criminalised.
* The costing of illegal downloading to the industry is heavily biased. 99% of content downloaded wouldn't have been bought alternatively, contrary to what the music and film industry bodies say.
* At a time when lobbying has been highlighted - it appears to be central to the lack of opposition from MPs (combined with their ignorance of the issues).
* Society is going through a cultural revolution, easy access to content is the norm now and ultimately this bill will further alienate the draconian music and film bodies from normal people. This law will actually be bad for the music and film industries. Attempts to find new business models have always been lacklustre at best, if these companies had their way they would block the internet all together and just go back to selling CDs. There is a lot of free content on the internet and this bill will just drive up demand for that content.
* Giving the government power to block content based on copyright breaches will be manipulated by the music, TV and film industry's to infringe on fair use, especially our right to criticise the mainstream media.

In my opinion what would have been best is a copyright tax on internet connections, or some modification to the distribution of tv licencing money. I desperately hope when the new parliament sits something can be done to amend copyright law to strengthen fair use rights.

In an election which increasingly depends on the internet to get points across, ministers on all sides, have in one fell swoop shown that they do not understand the basic principles that have made the internet a success. Especially when they couldn't even be bothered to show up stand by the decision, absence is not an excuse.

This is a real issue and I will be donating money to real institution that stand up for the rights of ordinary people - not big (outdated) business. And I really hope more is done the issue in the lead up to the election.

You will have to work very hard to earn back my vote, and I normally would vote labour.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Munro.

digital economy bill = digital totalitarian bill

The digital economy bill has been pushed through, this is a clear case of corporate lobbying where both sides have been lobbied and the bill has just been voted through by the record industry's cronies.

I used to think we lived in a democracy - but this just makes a joke of it. There was massive public disapproval of the bill and it gets sneaked through in the 11th hour. Its not even being highlighted in the BBC!!!! the people who want to manipulate free information have won a great victory.

the fact that it easy to hack someone's wireless internet connection - and the fact that its easy to anonymise your IP address makes this bill criminalise people who are completely innocent.

this is a;ll despite the fact the the entertainment industry seem to place a value on download equivalent to the DVD or CD value downloaded - it is very obvious that all downloaded material wouldn't normally be bought alternatively


i have no idea what the consequence of this bill will be.... but i think that it will just serve to create fear of downloading open software and art.