Digital Economy Bill will not be repealed. Minus 1 ConDem
By James • May 24th, 2010 • Category: Industry News, Lead Story
- Photo: Stock.Xchng
Jeremy Hunt, the new coalition government’s Culture Secretary, has indicated that the UK government has no intentions of repealing the Digital Economy Bill any time soon.
paidContent:UK got the scoop with Hunt telling them, in the clearest way possible, ‘We’re not going to repeal it’, with ‘it’ being the Digital Economy Act.
Should you be afraid?
The sad reality is it looks like the wheels are already in motion with Hunt adding they’re currently doing basic hypothesis testing by seeing how the measures perform. Insofar as they do not, only then will dropping the Digital Economy Act be a consideration.
In the mean time, it looks like those ISP-sent letters on your potential file-sharing practices may still be mail-bound.
So much hope, so much promise
- Photo: Stock.Xchng
As if promising politicians disappointing is anything new, there were signs that the ConDem (yes, that is intentional) coalition planned to seriously rethink this highly unpopular Digital Economy Act. In its initial state before being ratified, the Digital Economy Bill was rushed through government during a time lawmakers and decision makers were too busy electioneering and preparing for campaigns to focus on this bill and its ramifications.
The ramifications
These ramifications are quite simple – with the Digital Economy Bill ratified, the government now wields the power to blanket ban sites it deems as enablers of illegal file sharing, as well as wields the power to have specific broadband users banned from using the web due to suspected file-sharing activities. This , in effect, is a soft form of the kind of Internet censorship seen in China and while the government’s intentions of protecting creative industries seems pure enough, the means by which they are going about this are not so savoury.
Tags for this article: Digital Economy Act, Digital Economy Bill, file-sharing
