Stephen Fry rallies the troops to fight anti-piracy legislation

Mon 23 Nov 2009 1 Comment

Thousands of people have signed a petition to thwart the government's proposed internet piracy legislation after Stephen Fry used Twitter to express his lack of confidence in the law.

Within 24 hours of tweeting a link to the petition on Sunday morning 8,000 campaigners have signed the petition originally set up by Andrew Heaney of the internet service provider TalkTalk. According to reports this was more than the number of people who signed an e-petition to give Gurkhas the right to reside in the UK. By Monday afternoon this figure was closer to 10,000.

In his Twitter post Stephen Fry claimed to have been responsible for introducing Lord Mandelson to the internet in 1997. Fry commented: “Dear Mandy, splended fellow in many ways, but his is SO wrong about copyright”.

Last week, CEO of TalkTalk Group Charles Dunstone, commented on the provider's commitment to standing against the proposed anti-piracy measures: “We don't support copyright infringement in any way but we live in the real world and understand that no amount of policing and censorship will solve the problem,” he commented. “It doesn't matter how many websites are blocked, how many services are shut down or how many individuals are pursued, people will always find ways to access copyrighted content for free.”

The petition in question is available to view and sign through the No 10 website.

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Comments

  • unhappy

    by James at 10:56 on 24 Nov 2009Report abuse

    pointless law not just for the above reasons, but simply because if instead of wasting money fighting pirates, stupid modern media companies used that money to invest and utilize the way that has been paved (by pirates) then we could recieve media content in a way that actually suits us.

    it is only their anger at themselves that makes them cling on to the old ways instead of moving on.

    A law should be passed forcing companies to deliver content in a way the public feels acceptable. For example channel 4 on demand. I havent needed to pirate ANYTHING from C4 because they provide a selfsustaining way to reduce piracy. In fact I have bought several seasons of shows on DVD even though they are free online.

    If companies would just embrace the internet, things would be fine. Just look at murdoch and the google facade, its just the extension of the illogical piracy battle.

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