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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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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[ A Black Out Europe campaign has started on Facebook. ]
EDRI have sent out the following analysis of the current Telecoms Package amendments:
Several alarming amendments to the Telecom Package second reading in the European Parliament are to be voted on 31 March 2009 by ITRE/IMCO committee. The amendments are meant to give additional control to [...]

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We are looking at the report in detail, but we are extremely concerned that the voice of consumers and citizens is being marginalised.
We are concerned that there is no suggestion that consumers and citizens should be represented on the proposed copyright ‘Rights Agency’. Without our voices, such an agency could easily be dominated by industry’s [...]

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I’m delighted to be writing this as the new Executive Director of the Open Rights Group, whose work I have been watching with enthusiasm for the last few years.
In the last two years, under Becky’s leadership, ORG has developed a formidable media presence, and built a reputation for strong, evidence-based policy in fields as diverse [...]

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Last week’s outrage over the blocking of Wikipedia by the UK’s major ISPs after the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) added, and then removed, an image hosted by the online encyclopedia to their blocklist may have died down. But lingering questions about the UK’s internet censorship practices remain unanswered.
According to this report in the Guardian:
“A spokeswoman [...]

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Update #2 (09/12/08): The IWF has just announced that they have removed the Wikipedia url from their blocklist. They say that “in light of the length of time the image has existed and its wide availability, the decision has been taken to remove this webpage from our list.”
You can read the full statement here.

Update: [...]

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Update (17/11/08): Write to your UK representatives today! French campaigners La Quadrature du Net have today launched a letter-writing campaign to urge Council of Ministers delegates from each of the European Member States to honour amendments passed by the European Parliament that ensure only proportionate and just sanctions against illicit filesharing can be proposed [...]

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ORG has submitted a response to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform’s consultation into legislative options to tackle illicit peer to peer filesharing [pdf]. Here are some of the main points from the response:

Illicit peer to peer filesharing is not a law enforcement problem, it’s a business model problem. The best way to [...]

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