A Lib Dem MP is leading the charge to get parts of the Digital Economy Act scrapped.
Julian Huppert said it was wrong to rush the controversial Act through Parliament before the last election and that the proposed measures warrant more discussion.
He told TechEye today that one of the parts he objected to most concerned the powers to block or disconnect broadband users accused of file-sharing.
Huppert said that if these proposals could not be changed through discussion then this section of the Act should be repealed.
The new MP for Cambridge said: “Most of the Act is fine, I just don’t agree with every bit of it - and with this section in particular. It is collective punishment. It shouldn’t identify someone from their IP address. If this section can’t be changed, and made to work, then we shouldn’t have it. It should be scrapped.”
Huppert, who tabled an early day motion entitled Effects of Digital Economy Act 2010 On Use of The Internet shortly after the last general election, has been gathering support from other MPs for the cause. And this group has been organising ways to make vital changes to the Act.
According to Huppert, the key is to have more discussion between everyone affected, including consumers, ISPs and those who hold the rights to copyright.
The MP, who has a PhD in biological chemistry, said part of the problem stemmed from the Act being rushed through “in the dying days” of the last parliament.
MPs, who would normally try to learn a bit about a subject before voting on it, had other things on their minds - namely, getting re-elected. And so the Act had too short a debate in the Commons in the middle of an election meaning many MPs still don’t really understand the tech issues.
“These are serious issues,” said Huppert. “The bill put too much into the regulations. Having discussion will be extremely useful. I’d like to get the law changed.”
He described the implications for public wi-fi use, such as in libraries, “very worrying”.
According to Huppert, it is important to protect copyright, but it is also important to have a system that works.
Huppert is in a number of discussions about the Act, including talking to Ofcom. And the Act still has to go back to Parliament for approval - and this includes there having to be a vote before the powers can come into operation.
No date has been scheduled for this yet but the group of MPs are determined to make their case against the sections of the Act they object to.
Huppert has also been looking at the Freedom Bill to see if this could help.
Meanwhile, other industry objectors have been making their voices heard, including Talk Talk and BT who are both seeking a judicial review of the Act.
In addition, the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) today issued a press release to tell us that the Act was here to stay “so cut it some slack”.
In the statement, it called on opponents of the Act to give the legislation time to “bed in and demonstrate it can work”.
John Lovelock, chief executive officer from FAST, said: “We have long struggled with rampant internet piracy, together with other intellectual property rights holders, and the debate did appear to have taken a step forward when this Act was passed earlier in the year.
“But what we are now seeing is a rear guard action by some.” He included in this "rear guard action" the Judicial Review and moves by MPs.
Lovelock added: “The provisions of the Act must be allowed to have a chance to work for benefits to be seen.” When TechEye contacted FAST to ask if it thought the Act could benefit from a bit more scrutiny,
Julian Hobbins from FAST said via a spokesperson that the organisation anticipated “engaging with DEAAPPG” - an all party parliamentary group that is looking at the Act - this Autumn.
Lovelock could not be directly reached for his comment.
And when asked if there were any parts of the Act in particular which might benefit from more discussion, the brief answer from Hobbins was: “See if it will work first.”
And finally, was there a chance that the Act may be repealed? “Ditto answer in 1. above” (referring to the comment about “engaging with DEAAPPG”).
EFFECTS OF DIGITAL ECONOMY ACT 2010 ON USE OF THE INTERNET
25.05.2010
Huppert, Julian
“That this House believes that sections nine to 18 of the Digital Economy Act 2010 should not have been rushed through in the dying days of the last Parliament; further believes that these sections have large repercussions for consumers, civil liberties, freedom of information and access to the internet; and calls on the Government to introduce early legislation to repeal those provisions.”
<b>Tract on Monetary Reform</b>
__________________
<b>Credit is Like Nostalgia:</b>
It can lead to procrastination and prevent us to go forward!
__________________
<b>Our economy is slowly dying, your job, lifestyle are dominated by anxiety.</b>
<b> The economy is kept alive artificially. </b>
No one is proposing a solution because no one has the slightest idea of why it is happening and many have vested interest in the present system.
<b>However an objective observation of the phenomenon can help us understand it and provide us with an innovative solution. </b>
Of course we can't solve the problem with the tools that brought us there in the first place and we need a new ideology.
__________________
<blockquote><i>- Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?</i>
<i>- Well, remember that what an ideology is, is a conceptual framework with the way people deal with reality. Everyone has one. You have to -- to exist, you need an ideology. The question is whether it is accurate or not. And what I'm saying to you is, yes, I found a flaw. I don't know how significant or permanent it is, but I've been very distressed by that fact.</i>
<i>- You found a flaw in the reality...(!!!???)</i>
<i>- Flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works, so to speak.</i>
<i>- In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working? </i>
<i>- That is -- precisely. No, that's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I had been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.</i></blockquote>
__________________
<b>In order to alleviate those economic woes wee need to create, as fast as possible, a new credit free currency that will solve the credit crunch and bring incremental jobs, consumption and investments to the present system.</b>
<a href="http://post-crash.com/credit-free.html"><b>An Innovative Credit Free, Free Market, Post Crash Economy<br>
Tract on Monetary Reform</b></a>
<b><i>It is urgent if we want to limit social, political and military chaos.</i></b>
<blockquote><i>Is the fulfilment of these ideas a visionary hope? Have they insufficient roots in the motives which govern the evolution of political society? Are the interests which they will thwart stronger and more obvious than those which they will serve?</i>
<i>I do not attempt an answer in this place. It would need a volume of a different character from this one to indicate even in outline the practical measures in which they might be gradually clothed. But if the ideas are correct — an hypothesis on which the author himself must necessarily base what he writes — it would be a mistake, I predict, to dispute their potency over a period of time. At the present moment people are unusually expectant of a more fundamental diagnosis; more particularly ready to receive it; eager to try it out, if it should be even plausible.</i>
<i>But apart from this contemporary mood, the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.</i>
<i>Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.</i>
<i>Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.</i></blockquote>
<b>__________________
<a href="http://post-crash.com"><b>Credit Free Economy</b></a>
More Jobs, No Debt, No Fear.
Prosperous, Fair and Stable.
__________________</b>