Digital Economy Bollocks

Well, all in all, this has been an infuriating evening for me, following as I was the mindless passing of the Digital Economy Bill by the small minority of blithering idiots who actually turned up to the Commons to deal with the matter. As if the evening couldn’t get any worse, I was following the whole palaver on the Grauniad website, which, being the Grauniad, was as lucid about the whole thing as my grandma’s tights.

My interest in the Digital Economy Bill began, really, out of curiosity for the fate of fellow photographers, some of whom rely upon selling stock photographs for publications. If the 43rd clause had been passed, publishers would have effectively been granted free licence to print photographs without credit or payment to the photographer, so long as they could reasonably prove that they’d made an effort to contact them first. The clause was not passed, I am delighted to say, and cameras were tossed gleefully into the air across the United Kingdom.

It’s the rest of the Bill that concerns me, though. It appears that some slippery laws have just been passed. Legislation over copyright infringement could lead to many, many people’s internet connections being limited and even disconnected. All right, all right fair enough. You can get a lot of things on DVD now, piracy costs billions, why should musicians bother making music if you’re not going to pay for it, chunter chunter chunter…

I’m quite sure you don’t need me to cough all those hackneyed, unimaginative, frigid arguments at you. They have become as familiar and irritating as the Kaiser Chiefs over the last decade. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll err on the side of logic, and think about the implications of what has just been passed.

One: Cutting off an internet connection is one thing, but you would, surely, need proof that the concerned property’s wi-fi connection hadn’t been hacked, a phenomenon which I fully expect to increase as, erm, as a direct result of this legislation. Additionally, what of shared houses such as student accommodation? If one tenant gets caught, is it right that everyone should suffer?

Two: Is this Government not a part of the same UN organization which has previously argued that internet access should be regarded as a basic human right?

Three: The inevitable legal fragility of public access to online material is bound to have a profound negative effect on wi-fi connections in city and town centres, universities, airports, trains, hotels, bars, cafés and even, it delights me to say, the Houses of Parliament. Come on, MPs. Which one of those were you in this evening, when the votes were being cast? Wasn’t Parliament, was it? Choads.

Blogs will doubtlessly crop up frantically over the next two or three days, on this subject. I’ll have a keen eye open for anybody who can logically justify this legislation, as I’m sure you will too. I shall sign off to torrent an informative television documentary, mercifully available online, that has never been released on DVD - while I still can. Thanks to politicians who couldn’t be bothered to turn up to the debate, the United Kingdom has just became an altogether muggier place to live.