How the Digital Economy bill is trying to kill open Wi-Fi networks

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov/30/open-wi-fi-digital-economy-bill-government

by envitar • 17 years ago

37 3 17 years ago

guardian.co.uk

The more I hear about this frightful bill, the more I have to conclude it's Mandelson's effort to poison the wells ahead of the inevitable Labour defeat. He wants it to ruin everyone's day, while being attractive enough to a business-first Tory that it's hard for Cameron to repeal.

cstross• 17 years ago

There are other problems with the Digital Economy Bill that haven't made the papers yet.

For example, it's going to force mandatory registration and regulation of every entity that licenses intellectual property on behalf of two or more third parties:

http://www.booktrade.info/index.php/showarticle/24455

This is apparently aimed at regulating Collections Agencies like BMI or ASCAP, but it's going to hit everything from literary agents, to publishers with rights sub-licensing arrangements, to film producers, software resellers, Open Source software projects (where two or more programmers participate but do not assign their copyrights to the project organizers), newspaper websites, and quite possibly blogs (if you think the implications through).

The mind, she boggles. If you look at it from the right angle, it looks like the foundations of a full-on cross-media censorship infrastructure. I hope I'm being paranoid here, but I fear the worst.

dtf• 17 years ago

Dan Bull did a nice response to this bill, an open letter to Lord Mandelson in a musical style:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_P4lJD_OPI

How the Digital Economy bill is trying to kill open Wi-Fi networks

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