Secretary of State Peter Mandelson is planning to introduce changes to the Digital Economy Bill now under debate in Parliament. These changes will give the Secretary of State (Mandelson -- or his successor in the next government) the power to make "secondary legislation" (legislation that is passed without debate) to amend the provisions of Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988).
What that means is that an unelected official would have the power to do anything without Parliamentary oversight or debate, provided it was done in the name of protecting copyright.
My bold. Let's not forget that Mandelson is unelected to his post, has already declared that he'd happily change parties to the Tories, and that his copyright-related decisionmaking is done whilst on holiday at the expense of Hollywood bigwigs.
He's buyable, he'll turn colours given a cheque, and he's out to hit the majority - because we'll all be accusable, whether or not we fileshare - for the benefit of the (mainly Hollywood-resident) minority.
In direct contrast, we have Martha Lane Fox heading the Digital Inclusion taskforce, whose job it is to try to help the last 11m currently offline Britons onto the internet. Life online is provably more economically and intellectually beneficial to citizens and government alike. It's a Human Right in Finland, and Mandelson wants the right to take it away if someone near or in your house has downloaded the odd tune off the internet.
Bring on the petitions!
"Leaked secret plans"? For a bill that is, in contrast to what Cory says, not yet under debate, but due to be published in full tomorrow?
How about everyone waits a couple of days, reads the bloody thing, then saddles up their high horses? There's even a weekend for people to pass the proposals to a lawyer for a second opinion. If there are provisions for secondary legislation powers, that's the time to get ORG's campaign going.
Posted by: Paul Mison | November 19, 2009 at 16:38
PETER MANDELSON is an anagram of:
I AM A DESPICABLE CUNT
or something like that anyway.
Posted by: Cooper | November 19, 2009 at 22:09
This is a bad time to be a Briton, it appears.
Do you happen to know when's the bill actually being voted on? I can't find that info anywhere, and it's rather important if you're planning to, say, get a bunch of creative industries people together to go and shout at your MP.
Posted by: Hugh Hancock | November 20, 2009 at 13:15
There's a kind of petition about it hre - http://threestrikes.openrightsgroup.org/
Posted by: Ben | November 20, 2009 at 14:16
The world has changed, but there's some desperate cunts out there trying to hold onto their oversized slice of the pie. I'm dead against piracy, but even I can see this is just money grabbing bullshit.
Posted by: Mr Tom | November 20, 2009 at 19:00