UK Digital Economy Act Delayed Till 2014 33
judgecorp writes "Although ISPs protests failed to stop Britain's Digital Economy Act — which applies measures against illegal file sharing — they have succeeded in delaying it till 2014. As a result of the appeal a new impact assessment has to be carried out secondary legislation needs to be approved."
Dear Mandy (Score:4, Interesting)
obligatory [youtube.com]
Meh. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Well that's what makes the whole thing really funny. The measures are aimed entirely at file sharing. Since the bill was passed file sharing has declined and become harder to trace, whilst file lockers and usenet have grown in popularity.
So now this wont go live for another 2 years, I suspect the components of the bill will be so woefully irrelevant to the way piracy is working by this point that it will be meaningless anyway.
This is the great thing about this sort of thing I suppose - UK politicians are su
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Oh don't worry, once they make sharing any pirated material on the web punishable by death, it'll slow down dramatically.
I'm being facetious, of course, but I fully expect the penalties for piracy to become more and more draconian to the point of absurdity within the next decade. The financial penalties and even the inconveniences imposed by 3-strikes rules are never going to be effective because the odds of getting caught are so low, so as the MAFIAA fuckheads get more desperate, you're going to see more
Out of sight... out of mind. (Score:2)
They probably hope that everyone forgets about it before then. Then "bang" here it is!
Hopefully the beginning of the end (Score:4, Insightful)
This is how we kill legislation. Delay it endlessly until a different government is elected and drops it.
Re:Hopefully the beginning of the end (Score:5, Insightful)
The trouble is, this is the different government.
The DEA was voted in by the last Labour Government in out of hours voting which saw a grand total of 236 (189 for, 47 against) votes cast (out of 650ish MP who could have voted).
The Conservatives didn't bother voting one way or the other for the most part giving Labour a free run at introducing a law the Conservative wanted but knew wouldn't be popular.
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It's not too cynical to think the whole bill was timed to proceed through this wash-up period. They knew an election was coming; proper oversight from committees and the Lords would've rightly killed it. The media are all wetting themselves over the forthcoming election and critical oversight is not working.
This sort of poorly-though through stunt was also pulled by the Tories in 1997 when the railways were flogged off- that turned out well.
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"This sort of poorly-though through stunt was also pulled by the Tories in 1997 when the railways were flogged off- that turned out well."
So well that the 21minute train section of my commute this morning took 2hrs.
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Indeed. You knew that Blair's govt weren't going to do anything world-changing when they did nothing but watch it happen. They could have reversed the decision that was only a few weeks old. But no, we're still paying through the nose for a strategic service.
Surely some sort of renationalisation would be a vote winner? It could even save money for the govt!
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"It could even save money for the govt!"
It depends how you mean that, if by govt you mean the country then yes, but if by govt you mean the people in govt then no, it'll lose them money because it means no more backhanded bribes and cushy jobs post-political career from the likes of Serco.
Unfortunately for the rest of us the latter definition takes precedent.
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Well the corrupt Republicans in the US House pulled the same thing last night.
CISPA passed at 6:31 pm in a surprise vote, right before the speaker pounded the gavel and shouted "adjourned." Why the rushed, secret-surprise vote instead of the normally scheduled vote next week?
- No news story already running (e.g. the evening drive-time news) would cover it. Not that the corrupt assholes on right wing racist "talk" radio would bother, even if CISPA is how freedom dies.
- No 10:00 news will devote more than 30
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Re:Hopefully the beginning of the end (Score:5, Informative)
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Pretty sure there are no votes in the washup period.
Just a bit of horse-trading with the Tories.
You're probably talking about the earlier Second Reading though I didn't bother to check.
I *think* the LibDems are keen on scrapping bits of the DEA.
SOP (Score:3)
In this case (DEA) it looks as if an unholy combination of lobbying from "Lord" Mandelson's mates in the media, and the obsessive population-trackers in the Civil Service, was responsible. It was against the core Labour value that legislation should never enshrine privilege (i.e. private law), and it is equally aga
Let's evolve our opponent.... (Score:1)
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This is a fundamental law of nature. Hackers will circumvent your next measure without waiting for a vote in parliament. Keep invading privacy to catch people downloading songs and you'll just advance the tech for those who would do more malicious things with their anonymity.
I hope you're prediction is right, because if you're worng it would imply the 1984 crowd's parinoid predictions are right. A true totalitarian regime such as N. Korea will stamp their will on THEIR people, it's practically the definition of 'totalitarian'. Western democracies get all hung up on things like hacking hacker's hands off.
Personally I think you're right. I don't think Mickey Mouse will be the first step in the long road from here to Orwell's nightmare, but stranger things have happened.
It's incredibly easy to get around this (Score:4, Informative)
Just change to one of the many other ISP's out there http://www.ispreview.co.uk/list.shtml [ispreview.co.uk]
Re:It's incredibly easy to get around this (Score:5, Funny)
Fortunately the UK has a clear written constitution and the first clause states "bad laws can't be made worse", so we're safe.
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And how long will that last?
Yes - just change to another, more expensive, ISP because a law is being introduced that makes your current ISP worse for no good technical reason.
When a bad law is introduced the correct response is to fight it, not to skirt around it. If you do that you are willingly giving up your rights. We are racing towards only having access to a subset of the internet in the UK and the
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"Yes - just change to another, more expensive, ISP because a law is being introduced that makes your current ISP worse for no good technical reason."
Yeah, except those 5 ISPs in question are the ones whose networks are overburned, who have some of the most restrictive caps and throttling as a result, and who aren't cheaper anyway.
"When a bad law is introduced the correct response is to fight it, not to skirt around it. If you do that you are willingly giving up your rights. We are racing towards only having
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Quite a few of the smaller ISPs are buying capacity wholesale from larger ISPs anyway, particularly if you're looking at FTTC services. So "switching to someone whose network isn't overburdened" isn't as easy as swapping supplier, you've got to do quite a bit of research.
Just in time! (Score:2)
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There's a good chance that Scotland will vote to end the Union in 2014.
Here Here Sir!
Cost issue? (Score:1)
The only cost issue for me is the fact that it is a total waste of money.......