Dear Mr Watson

The Digital Economy Bill

Britain is admired for its creativity and its sense of fair play. British musicians, singers, actors, writers and directors are known and loved around the world and create some of our greatest assets. Together they contribute more that 7% to the UK economy.

The Digital Economy Bill brings both of these together. It will ensure that British creators, entertainment companies and the 1.8 millioon people who work in and around the cultural sector are respected and rewarded in the future as they have been in the past., and that they are fairly paid when they put their work online.

Digital entertainment services are really beginning to take off: fans have never had so much choice as to how they enjoy their music, books, TV and films online. But for these new business models to develop, it is critical that more is done to prevent the illegal services providing easy access to free content.

We urge Parliament to pass this bill as a matter of urgency in order to secure the future of its creative talent and industries.

Sir Terry Pratchett OBE author
Simon Cowell
Paul Greengrass President Directors UK
Stephen Garrett Executive Chairman Kudos
Tim Bevan Co Chairman, Working Title Films

They’re clearly delusional if they think the DEB exists to benefit creators – and I’m pretty sure that the majority of creators are not out there lobbying the crap out of MPs to introduce the DEB.

I can’t help but wonder what he hopes to gain for lobbying like this
What was he thinking, who put him up to it? – I’d really like to know. Of course I’d also like to think that he was somehow put up to it.

Letter as blogged by Tom Watson : http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/2010/02/digital-economy-bill-unprecedented-lobbying-operation/

Since the weekend most MSM caught a wiff of this one.. it seems that Hutton has buckled.

I’ll be watching this one with interest.

Sweet Jesus – what were they thinking?  One can only speculate,  but from almost any perspective it looks naive at best.   How short are our memories?  How short are theirs?  Perhaps they were trying to wish the whole episode away.. I can’t claim to know…whatever it was,  and despite the truth of the incident in question, they’ve managed to cast one hell of a shadow of suspicion over the whole sorry clusterfuck.

Lets congratulate Lord Hutton’s inquest on drawing much needed attention to this situation.  What a fantastic build-up to Tony Blair’s appearance on Friday.

I’m no supporter of the unelected house – but they seem to be scrutinising the bill fairly competently for (mostly) techno-lay-people.  They’ve poked many holes and exposed large parts of the bill for the hare-brained scheme that it is. Crucially it’s become apparent that people whose connections are alleged to be involved in copyright infringement will not get to ‘appeal’ the allegation until they breach some unknown threshold and are threatened with disconnection.  On top of that if they choose to appeal, they’ll have to pay for the pleasure – all that after subsidising their own letter and monitoring in the first place. And after all that the (c) holders can still take an alleged infringer to court to boot. This is just one small aspect of the bill (and what’s wrong with it) but it demonstrates the contorted thinking that has gone into it.

As far as I can tell this is simply an attempt by industry to circumvent proper judicial oversight – with the help of our gvt. What a cock-up.

It’s become quite clear to all involved that the govt has put very little thought into the implications or costs of what they’re proposing.  No doubt they’ll forge ahead despite this.