Over the last few weeks I've been following the progress of the Digital Economy Bill through the House of Lords. It's principally intended to protect the interests of copyright holders, but it could be argued that the way it is currently set up to do this has an awful lot of problems, especially for netizens and ISPs.
One of the effects of the Bill is to potentially oblige ISPs to take technical action against users in some circumstances, which may include disconnecting them if there is suspicion of a copyright breach (such as downloading or sharing music/movies without legitimate authority). One of the proposals is that Ofcom would then levy a charge to users for appeals against disconnection. The Bill is pretty complex in parts*, affects ISPs and consumers in ways that some Lords are describing as draconian, and has an impact further than the relatively narrow sphere of copyright protection.
I'm just wondering (a) how aware the Plusnet user community is of the Bill, and (b) whether Plusnet have any official thoughts about it (and it's impact on network management, user privacy, consumer rights, net neutrality or other areas). It's interesting that TalkTalk have launched an anti-disconnection campaign, but most other ISPs (including Plusnet) are broadly silent.
* Too much to go into here. Find out more at
http://digitaleconomy.thegisthub.net/ or come to this free informational event and workshops on Wednesday:
http://undeb-pn.eventbrite.com. ; The event is in Sheffield, so if anyone from PN wants to join in, your perspective is very welcome.
