Digital Economy Bill is Challenged by 10,000 Protesters

According to the Telegraph UK, about ten thousand Britons have banded together to oppose the Digital Economy Bill. All over the internet, there are thousands more opposing the passing of the new Bill and with it, the government’s bid to control internet activity.

The reason for the opposition is simple; the bill is a potential threat to the privacy and well being of every free citizen in the UK. Part of the fundamental rights that every citizen is granted under Great Britain is that each person would have the right to privacy in their home and with communications. This is the right that protects letters, text messages and even phone calls from being exposed, this is also the very same right that protects our emails, chats and other internet based communications.

With the Digital Economy Bill granting the government access to all our activities online, even private correspondences will not be safe.

According to Lord Erroll, even the actual proceedings regarding the bill are no respecting the proper procedures. With the elections not too far away, there not enough time for an adequate debate which will allow the parliament to properly examine the Bill. Add to this the unnecessary pressure from many groups that are blindly pushing for the bill, and we have the recipe for disaster.

Groups such as workers unions are easily swayed by survey results –such as the recently released survey that points a cold hard finger at piracy costing the UK over a million jobs by 2015 –an assumption that has no backing since the cost of pirated material was equated to the cost of originals and the value was then marked as a “financial loss” which was then calculated with current trends in cost reductions in order to create a prediction regarding job loss.

But in truth, the monetary value of pirated material is close to practically nothing, and while the practice is illegal, people who support creative industries will continue to purchase original content despite already having pirated copies –which means that the media industries would never be in a deficit and effectively, no jobs will be put to risk.

Get to know more about the protest against the Digital Economy Bill at the Telegraph UK.