Stop the Dangerous Blogs Bill
Dear London Bloggers. One of our members sent on this note (published in full below) from the Open Rights Group.
It appears Lord Leveson’s proposed regulations are about to be applied in such a way that ordinary bloggers you like and I could be put at significant risk of financial loss.
There is still time to do something about this. But you must ACT NOW. Monday 25th March is your last opportunity to do anything about this.
Read on below and if you are in anyway concerned you should follow the links to send an email to David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Harriet Harmon.
——– Original Message ——————————————————–
Subject: Stop the Dangerous Blogs Bill
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:11:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jim Killock – ORG <>
To:
Open Rights Group <http://www.openrightsgroup.org/join>*
Lord Leveson’s regulations are being applied to UK websites – in ways
that could catch more or less anyone who publishes a blog. Ordinary
bloggers could be threatened with exemplary damages and costs. If this
happens, small website publishers will face terrible risks, or
burdensome regulation – and many may simply stop publishing.
We have until Monday to stop this happening. Act now.
Lord Leveson said he wanted to regulate print media. He proposed that
judges be allowed to award exemplary damages and full costs against
unregulated publishers. These are stringent and controversial measures,
but he only envisaged them applying to large and powerful publishers.
Not websites, unless they belonged to print publishers.
Last weekend, the proposals were agreed in a rush, without public
consultation, and with no attention to the detail.
Outrageously, they have given the Lords until Monday to fix their
mistakes.
The result is that they apply to any size of web publisher – if there’s
more than one author, the content is edited and there’s a business
involved, then you must join a self regulator.
Most blogs like this aren’t powerful publishing houses. Even ORGZine
would need to be regulated, or face punitive measures if it ended up in
court.
The threat of websites being regulated like this was never the purpose
of Lord Leveson’s recommendations. Websites weren’t involved in phone
hacking. There is no evidence that they need to be forced into
self-regulation like this.
We need you to email Nick Clegg, Harriet Harman, and David Cameron to ask them to back off and leave the Internet out of Leveson.
Yours,
Jim Killock
Executive Director
Open Rights Group
If you like what we do, please join us
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/join/join-law-fund>
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