
Digital Economy Bill mashup: 40 MPs turned up - monkeygrinder
http://debillitated.heroku.com/
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whalesalad
Can anyone explain what this means to people outside of the UK? I don't mean
this in a condescending way.. I just really feel ignorant. I'm not sure what
an MP is, and I'm not sure what role this whole thing plays in the lives of
the English.

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streety
There are two houses of Parliament in the UK - the Lords and the Commons. Only
the Commons is made up of our elected representatives. The country is broken
down into 646 constituencies and each elects their own member of parliament
(MP).

The Digital Economy Bill has a decent write up on wikipedia -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Economy_Bill>

The highlights seem to be: \- a three strikes then you're off the internet
punishment against piracy which seems to assume guilt until proven innocent.
\- a real danger than small businesses will find it substantially more
difficult to provide wifi for customers.

Beyond the Bill itself there is also a lot of anger over Lord Mandelson who is
pushing this Bill. Mandelson is the Business Secretary despite having been
forced to resign twice for seriously suspect conduct. There are some questions
as to whether he was unduly influenced by the "old media" lobby before the
Bill

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motters
So what actually happened with the Digital Economy Bill? Did it pass? What are
the implications?

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arethuza
I'm surprised that 40 turned up.

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wendroid
that's 40 more than those qualified to talk on the subject

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cabalamat
Unfair; some MPs such as Tom Watson are actually clued up and sensible on this
Bill.

Unfortunately the majority are happy to let the government pass this law,
which infringes civil liberties, harms the digital economy, and is liked by
no-one except the corporate interests who wrote it. (Large parts were written
by the BPI, Britain's version of the RIAA).

If you're angry at this state of affairs, join the Pirate Party --
<http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/>

~~~
Silhouette
> Unfortunately the majority are happy to let the government pass this law

I'm not sure that's really true. There has been cross-party opposition to some
of the obviously draconian measures, and there is also cross-party opposition
to the principle of forcing through a bill with so little consensus during
washing up.

Unfortunately, this debate did take place a few hours after the general
election was officially announced, on the first afternoon of serious
campaigning. Funnily enough, most MPs were probably quite busy, and almost all
the frontbench representatives of the major parties were doing as many
interviews as they could manage on the major news channels at the time.

I'm very much in two minds about the "wash up" period, and the more I see of
what is being done via back room deals at the eleventh hour, the more I think
Parliament should be dissolved on the same day that the PM requests the Queen
do so to avoid these shenanigans.

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cabalamat
> I'm not sure that's really true.

The majority either voted for it or abstained. If they thought it was a bad
law, they should have voted against; that is after all the job they are paid
to do.

