Digital Economy Bill gets FAST approval

Unsurprisingly FAST (Federation Against Software Theft) has welcomed the 'success of the Digital Economy Bill', even though the DEB has attracted criticism from many corners including the music industry itself.

FAST have been criticised in the past for using strong arm tactics on companies to force them to hold audits (from FAST) to ensure they're not using unlicensed software.

The Government has forced the bill through, without proper debate which has angered many people. Allowing the '3 strikes rule' to get through is now imposing punishment without trial and it is too far ranging (i.e. anyone illegally sharing on an open WiFi network can get the WiFi network disconnected). Other issues are that BIS can request to have any domain registry removed (or the infrastructure removed) if the registry doesn't remove content they don't like.

Hopefully someone will take the issues up the the Court of Human Rights and have the bill (or aspects of it) quashed.