You should be familiar with what the Digital Economy Bill is, if not you can check out the post on the topic back in June 09.

I am not one for politics, but I did actually find myself listening to this discussion in parliament yesterday. There was some interesting and valid points made and discussed, however the end result is as expected, the green light has be given, and the bill is pretty much in its intended form.

So if you live in the UK what does this bill mean to you?

Mainly it means your going to get a letter of caution from your ISP if a copyright holder suspects you have been illegally downloading and sharing content. This can lead to being disconnected and legal action.

It also makes you responsible for all activity on your Internet connection. This means home users, offers of free wi-fi or similar are held responsible for all activity and will be taken to court for any illegal files downloaded.

The Government, with court backing will also be able to block access to any site that hosts, provides the ability or is “likely to” access copyright material. So basically any site can be blocked.

All of this can be done based on assumption / accusation. Seeing as search engines provide the ability to access this information, I wonder if these will be blocked in the UK 🙂

So interesting times ahead. I am sure there is alot more to all of this, and maybe last minute changes may still occur. Once everything is fully official then will be the time to have a good read through and fully understand.