Neil Cartwright on why UK's Digital Economy Bill is technology censorship

 snip... "Incredibly, the DEB now gives record labels and movie studios the power to block these  [P2P] networks rather than deal with them and work out a licensing structure. The technology is, in fact, being censored because it doesn’t conform with someone’s idea of what constitutes a workable model. Note: the site itself and the technology will still exist – it will simply be ‘blocked’ so no-one in the UK can see it. Does this sound like a good policy for a nation heading towards a digital future?"

Cartwright goes on to examine how you could get around blocked sites by using Google  - which then raises the issue of the UK Govt blocking Google for offending users. He says that the law is so inherently flawed that it will fall down at the first court order. Which is essentially why the previous version of S92A of our Copyright Act was revised by John Key's government. It was unworkable.


Read Cartwright's piece in full here.

This DE Bill is not a million miles away from what New Zealand could end up with from the secret negotiations around ACTA (Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement), which has become all about protecting copyrights. It's essentially about rightsholders trying to dictate what should be in this trade agreement, behind closed doors. The only way we know anything about what is being negotiated in secret is from a series of leaks.

Check out PublicACTA to find out more about it from a New Zealand perspective.

From that site - "What is ACTA? ACTA is a controversial international treaty that impacts digital rights and is being negotiated in secret meetings. PublicACTA has been organised by InternetNZ so that the public can critique the known and likely content of ACTA proposals ahead of the next round in Wellington." This is taking place in Wellington at present.

From Computerworld NZ: "About 120 attendees at the PublicACTA conference gave up nine hours of Saturday to hammer out “The Wellington Declaration” — intended to be a constructive criticism of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement ACTA." Read the declaration here.

Russell Brown looks at the Wellington Declaration at Public Address, a good read.