Mercedes Bunz, Guardian; Don't Disconnect Us petition surges after Stephen Fry endorsement:
"Don't Disconnect Us petition, asking the government to drop its proposed measure allowing the disconnection of illegal filesharers, has accumulated 22,793 signatures as of 9am today. After Stephen Fry used Twitter to express his lack of confidence in this law and tweeted a link to it, thousands of people signed the petition. Among the 4,550 petitions on the No 10 website, it is currently number six.
A spokesman for the internet service provider TalkTalk, whose Andrew Heaney set up the petition, said: "The Don't Disconnect Us campaign has been given new momentum by Stephen Fry's tweets which have seen signatories on the Downing Street website go from over 1,000 to 18,000 in just a few days."
Fry, who has over a million followers now, had posted on Monday: "I'll keep at this till a million sign! We mustn't let Mandy do this WRONG thing. Please sign & RT: http://is.gd/50gQK #webwar #threestrike". He reminded his followers the next day.
The comedian Alan Davies and the science-fiction author Neil Gaiman have also signed the petition and added their weight to the campaign.
While the website of the campaign makes clear that "copyright infringement through filesharing is illegal and the government is right to tackle the issue", the petition asks the prime minister "to abolish the proposed law that will see alleged illegal filesharers disconnected from their broadband connections, without a fair trial."
Instead of punishing it proposes to deal with the illegal filesharer in the proper way, in a court of law. "This guilty until proven innocent approach violates basic human rights."
It also warns that "illegal filesharers will simply hack into other peoples WiFi networks to do their dirty work. This will result in innocent people being disconnected from the internet."
If you want to sign the connection, go here."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/2009/nov/25/digital-media-stephenfry
No comments:
Post a Comment