Digital Britain promises to ‘tackle piracy’ online. Extensive powers of blocking, filtering and reducing access to the internet will be put in place if anti-infringement letter writing campaigns are not successful.
If ‘secondary legislation’ (rubber-stamped papers to parliament) is passed, new powers would be given to Ofcom to require ISPs to restrict access of alleged infringers.
There [...]

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News that Lord Carter will quit government in July raises serious questions about the future of the Digital Britain proposals, which are due to be released next Tuesday.
Minimum - if minimal - standards for broadband; hopefully, additional thinking about privacy online; and the controversial and much disliked Digital Rights Agency are all expected in the [...]

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ORG is non-partisan, and the quality and chances of your candidates vary from region to region, so we are not recommending any party over another. Hopefully, the candidates’ pledges on key issues and their track records will help you decide who it’s best to vote for.
What is clear is that Labour have unfortunately refused to [...]

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Update: We have now had a reply for all Conservative candidates.
The Open Rights Group is publicising the positions of MEPs on several key digital rights issues that Europe will be legislating on. These include copyright, data retention, personal data and the open internet.
Around half of the candidates from the Lib Dems, Greens, SNP / Plaid [...]

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Six million UK citizens are infringing copyright daily by downloading material via P2P and other file sharing services, according to the government’s Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property.
Let’s not however fall into the trap of assuming that the choice is between massive infringement bringing industries to their knees, and clamping down on users.
What we are [...]

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Reposted from La Quadrature du Net
The debates on the Telecoms Package, thanks to a remarkable citizen mobilization, led to an extremely strong recognition of the access to internet as a fundamental right with the re-adoption of amendment 138/46 in second reading by a qualified majority. It is the final blow against three-strike laws such as [...]

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Against widespread dissent and controversy MEPs in the European Parliament voted this morning to allow copyright term extension to pass a first reading.
4 out of the 7 main groups (ALDE, GREENS/EFA, NGL, IND/ DEM) together with a cross party platform of MEPs voted to reject the proposal. Internal opposition threatened the group positions of the [...]

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Wednesday is the last full day to lobby your MEPs in Strasbourg before this Thursday’s vote on copyright term extension.
A cross party platform of MEPs have tabled an amendment to reject the proposal to extend the term of sound copyrights beyond 50 years. Contact your MEPs in Strasbourg and ask them to support [...]

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Intense lobbying pressure has resulted in last minute tabling of the copyright term extension proposal, for a full plenary vote in the European Parliament, in Strasbourg next thursday. However, with the European elections rapidly approaching and the Council of Ministers currently blocking the proposal, its future cannot be guaranteed.

Reanimating a discredited text that doesn’t deliver what [...]

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Copyright term extension was dealt another serious blow last week when COREPER, the European Committee representing EU member states and the Council of Ministers, voted against the proposal.

In a surprise move the UK government joined others in a blocking minority, rejecting a compromise deal that would have delivered minimal benefits to performers. It now seems [...]

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