Terry Coles wrote: > On Tuesday 30 Mar 2010, Peter Merchant wrote: > >> http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/view/8357/digital-economy-bill-protest >> s-spread-across-the-uk/ >> > > Yes, but that report is nearly a week old, so the momentum has been lost. > The > LibDems were the only major party opposing the bill. Now they've decided to > support it, it's a shoo-in, so it doesn't really matter how many protests > there are. > > I just hope the LibDems are right and the process of kicking serial > infringers > will be fair and just. My worry is that we end up in the same situation as > in > the US where individuals get letters threatening legal action and have to > decided between paying the money to the protection racketeers or facing years > in court and the millions of $ that that entails, even if they win!. Even > when the money for defence is provided pro bono (eg out of the coffers of > some > support organisation), the victim can get hammered (and that takes no account > of the stress and time involved in the process). > > See > http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=124929 > for a couple of examples, where the defendants had help and were still hit > for > huge damage awards. There was also the woman who had never used a computer > who got successfully sued (the computer belonged to her late husband) and the > 12 year old girl who got the threatening letter. > > I realise that British justice is nowhere near as unjust as the US variety, > but bad things do happen. This law needs debating to prevent those kind of > situations ever being possible. > >
On that subject, here's something I read today: http://tinyurl.com/y8hwcfz A 19 year-old in the UK whose case was dropped. Sean -- music, film, comics, books, rants and drivel: www.funkygibbins.me.uk -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Wed 2010-04-07 20:00 http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2645413 Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.org&channel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset
