UK digital economy bill ‘a complete mess’
p2pnet view P2P | Politics:- UK Liberal MP (Birmingham) John Hemming (right) is a member of the BPI.
He also belongs to the Performing Right Society and the Musicians Union, as he stresses on parliament.uk.
So you’d think he’d be warmly and enthusiastically supporting the BPI (British Phonographic Industry), the Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music ‘trade’ organisation whose hacks actually wrote a significant portion of the digital economy disconnect bill, which has just been rammed through in Britain.
To the contrary, “The Bill is a complete mess”, he states.
One of its effects, he says, would be to stifle free speech, stopping sites such as WikiLeaks from publishing details of incidents of international importance such as the US Iraq air attack which killed 12 people.
“The first problem is trying to deal with a very complex issue in the wash-up” he’s quoted as saying on parliament.uk, continuing >>>
It is a completely absurd thing to do.
I accept that the industry has had to wait four years for this, but that is not a reason to do it all in one night or two nights. That is a reason to drop clauses 11 to 18 and new clause 1 from the Bill and examine the matter properly in the new Parliament.
The dangers lie with sites such as WikiLeaks, which is a good example to look at.
It publishes leaked Government information, on which Governments always have the copyright. A recent example is the US air force video, which it published.
Copyright exists with the US Government, who under the Bill could, and would want to, apply to ban WikiLeaks from the UK. That provision is clearly in the Bill.
Yesterday I gave the example of freedom of information. Most local authorities, when they send people freedom of information requests, say, “By the way, we keep the copyright on this.” They keep the copyright, and they could say, “There are websites that report on freedom of information requests, and they can be banned as well.” I know that it sounds absurd.
This debate comes down to the fact that we need to review copyright, fair use and where copyright does and does not exist.
On the one hand, the Government are imposing massive restrictions on copyright, whereby any situation involving any vague copyright suddenly means banning everyone in the family from the internet. On the other hand, the Government are taking from a television programme a picture of an Audi Quattro and mashing it up-and then somebody else is doing the same thing. We have that absurdity.
Hemming makes the point he’s a computer programmer and, “a small amount of code can have a massive impact”.
A plane flying on “duff computer programming can actually crash, and the same applies to laws”, he says, adding:
“Computer programming involves testing, and the lesson is that we should test things rigorously before letting them go live.
“With laws we have scrutiny, and that process should be rigorous, particularly when it involves something that is a part of so many people’s daily lives.”
(Cheers, Marc)
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
hacks actually wrote – Intriguing new BPI Three Strikes leak, March 13, 2010
rammed through – Digital disconnect farce: what happens now?, April 9, 2010
US Iraq air attack – WikiLeaks ‘Collateral Murder’ update, April 6, 2010
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April 9th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Wow, I think I like John Hemming, can we get him to defect to the US and help us out the current bunch of ignorant crap we have going over here??
April 9th, 2010 at 11:08 pm
Wouldn’t it be interesting if he gave a speech in Canada on the issue there?