

How the Digital Economy bill is trying to kill open Wi-Fi networks - envitar
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov/30/open-wi-fi-digital-economy-bill-government

======
cstross
There are other problems with the Digital Economy Bill that haven't made the
papers yet.

For example, it's going to force mandatory registration and regulation of
every entity that licenses intellectual property on behalf of two or more
third parties:

<http://www.booktrade.info/index.php/showarticle/24455>

This is apparently aimed at regulating Collections Agencies like BMI or ASCAP,
but it's going to hit everything from literary agents, to publishers with
rights sub-licensing arrangements, to film producers, software resellers, Open
Source software projects (where two or more programmers participate but do not
assign their copyrights to the project organizers), newspaper websites, and
quite possibly blogs (if you think the implications through).

The mind, she boggles. If you look at it from the right angle, it looks like
the foundations of a full-on cross-media censorship infrastructure. I hope I'm
being paranoid here, but I fear the worst.

------
JulianMorrison
The more I hear about this frightful bill, the more I have to conclude it's
Mandelson's effort to poison the wells ahead of the inevitable Labour defeat.
He _wants_ it to ruin everyone's day, while being attractive enough to a
business-first Tory that it's hard for Cameron to repeal.

------
dtf
Dan Bull did a nice response to this bill, an open letter to Lord Mandelson in
a musical style:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_P4lJD_OPI>

