Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Fry Tweets His Objection to Mandleson's Piracy Bill

Stephen Fry is once again showing the power of Twitter and using it to try and thwart the government's proposed internet piracy legislation.

Fry has expressed his lack of confidence in the proposed UK law saying in his own style, “Dear Mandy, splended fellow in many ways, but his is so wrong about copyright”. He even claims to have been responsible for introducing Lord Mandelson to the internet in 1997.

Within 24 hours, 8,000 objectors had signed the petition set up by Andrew Heaney of the internet service provider TalkTalk on the Prime Ministers official office web site Number10.gov.uk. Just three days lare the figure now stands at 15,500.

Charles Dunstone, CEO of TalkTalk Group and long standing opponent of the ‘three strikes’ approach states, “We don't support copyright infringement in any way but we live in the real world and understand that no amount of policing and censorship will solve the problem.It doesn't matter how many websites are blocked, how many services are shut down or how many individuals are pursued, people will always find ways to access copyrighted content for free.”

The petition is available to view and sign at No 10 website.

The UK Publishers Association has voiced its support for the bill and in particular the long overdue extension of PLR (Public Lending Rights) to payments on digital loans. However, the bill is somewhat of a mixed bag which contains proposals for unlocking orphans, the highly contested ‘three strikes’, issues on contracts and is bound to face a great deal of parliamentary scrutiny as well as a deadline on the end of this government's term.

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