The Open Rights Group has slammed the Digital Economy Bill, saying that the method of targeting specific ISP addresses will result in the wrong people being prosecuted.
In an article on Entanet’s blog, executive director of the ORG Jim Killock points out that: “it’s not possible in most cases to equate a customer’s IP address with an individual who may have infringed. The result is that current government plans will target anyone with a computer with more than one user, or a network.”
He goes on to highlight that the proposed tactics will result in substantial costs for hotels, bars or cafés that offer free internet to their customers, while in domestic cases liability will simply fall on to the account holder, ie parents.
“Many MPs have simply not understood how wide these liabilities are, or the likely consequences,” commented Killock.
“We need to stop this before it starts damaging the real digital economy and undermines respect for the law. We haven’t spent the last fifteen years building the online economy just to see it given a senseless knocking purely to give copyright holders sweeping powers to punish the innocent.”
Advertisement
Related Stories
- Gem to acquire Ztorm Jan 6th 2012 at 1:27PM
- Rise of the planet of the apps Dec 15th 2011 at 2:18PM
- Little Printer produces personal 'newspaper' from web Nov 30th 2011 at 5:05PM
- New direction for Spotify? Nov 30th 2011 at 12:10PM
- Digital games sales to overtake retail by 2015 Nov 11th 2011 at 1:52PM
- New look PCR website gives you more Nov 9th 2011 at 2:17PM
- Firefox 8.0 released Nov 8th 2011 at 9:25PM
- Google launches Google+ Pages Nov 7th 2011 at 8:46PM
- Virgin says one third of the UK has access to 100Mb broadband Nov 6th 2011 at 10:52PM
- Music and film industry presses BT to block the Pirate Bay Nov 6th 2011 at 10:34PM
Follow Follow this article if you would like to receive notifications of updates.
Add a new comment
You need to be logged in to post comments. If you do not have an account then please register.
Comments
0 comments
There are no comments yet, be the first to add one!