“Net Neutrality” UK style?
(Wow – “Net Neutrality” two days in a row…!)
British Members of Parliament passed the Digital Economy Act 2010, and thousands tweeted their anger!
Control freaks of the world, unite! 
The rest of us need to prepare, as these folks try to take over the Internet.
The United Kingdom (UK), home to so many retrograde and repressive measures lately (1, 2), has passed a bill that gives Internet Service Providers (ISPs) the power to punish people who watch unauthorized copyrighted material on their computers and gives government the power to close Internet sites that publish unauthorized copyrighted material.
People are concerned that the law will be invoked to restrict their freedom of speech. Other governments are watching the UK closely, because they may want to “try this at home!”
(Note added May 16, 2010: Actually, in the United States at least, it is the major telecommunication company “carriers” [who often serve as ISPs] that seem to want to “take over the Internet” much more than the Federal Communications Commission, which seems [lately ] to be interested in preserving Net Neutrality.)
One tweeter worried because one Labour MP thought that “IP” stands for “intellectual property” (well, it does, but that’s not all ).
(“… gettin’ so much resistance, from behind…” – Buffalo Springfield, “For What it’s Worth“)
(For another view of the legislation, see CNET. As someone who has seen my stolen [lo-res] photos [with copyright notice on the photos] listed for sale on a Chinese site, I can see both sides of the issue. In this case, the “devil” might be less “in the details” than “in the implementation.”)
-Bill at
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