My letter to David Clelland

Written by Rob Colling Tuesday, 06 April 2010 10:53

We're very worried about the Digital Economy Bill here at internetsubtitling.com. Aside from being based on almost entirely flawed and unjust principles, it also carries a lot of details with it which could seriously harm our business and others like it.

With that in mind, and with parliament about to start a rushed and cursory debate on the bill this afternoon, I sent the following letter to my MP, David Clelland. You're welcome to use any or all of it in a similar letter to your own MP.

Dear Mr Clelland,

I wanted to contact you before the debate this afternoon on the Digital Economy Bill. I am a constituent of yours, and I run a company based in Low Fell.

My worries about the Digital Economy Bill are many. The possibility of someone hijacking my private business wifi and using it to download files illegally is very real - it is almost impossible to completely prevent such hijacking, and if the bill is passed this sort of activity will obviously become much more common. I am deeply worried about the fact that under the proposed bill a passer-by with a laptop could very easily get me prosecuted and put me out of business.

Another inevitable effect of the bill is that we will lose much of the country's public wifi provision, at a time when we should be encouraging its proliferation. My own ability to do business whilst out of the office (e.g. at meetings) will suffer greatly. My company competes on an international level - if I have to stop doing business every time I walk out of my door, I will be at a grave disadvantage.

Furthermore I am concerned about the proposed amendment to the bill which would outlaw so-called "weblockers" such as YouSendIt and SendSpace. Yes, these services are used for file sharing, but they are also used by millions of legitimate businesses like mine. Banning them would completely prevent me from trading, and effectively destroy my company.

It is very clear to me that the bill, if passed, would cause significant damage to my business, at a time when I need all the help I can get. Hundreds of the people I know and work with would be similarly affected, and it would be a huge blow for the emerging north-east digital sector as a whole.

But most of all I am concerned about the way democracy is apparently being abandoned in the rush to get the Digital Economy Bill passed. It is a complex bill, to my mind based on grossly unfair and flawed arguments, and written to safeguard the interests of big business, with no regard for ordinary people. To pass such a potentially devastating bill primarily on the insistence of corporate lobbyists, without any opportunity for the public to put their side of the argument, seems undemocratic in the extreme. If the government is intent on damaging my business, it should at the very least conduct a proper debate beforehand!

So I am contacting you at this email address, on the advice of your constituency office, to implore you to lobby for a full debate on the Digital Economy Bill, and to vote against it in its current form. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Regards
Rob Colling