by Richard North
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=83725
Note: This definition of “relevant publisher” might catch the Libertarian Alliance Blog. David Davis and I will need to pay closer attention to the new censorship law than we thought at first might be necessary. SIG
Media: lone bloggers not under threat There has been a certain amount of concern as to whether bloggers might be caught by the proposed press regulations, and thus be exposed to crippling fines. However, in the debate last night in the Commons, the position was made clear by culture secretary Maria Miller.
A clause inserted into the coming Bill makes the law apply only to a “relevant publisher”. Such a publisher would have to be publishing news-related material in the course of a business, the material would have to be written by a range of authors and it would have to be subject to editorial control.
These tests, says Miller, “would exclude a one-man band or a single blogger”. The clause added is “specifically designed to protect small-scale bloggers”, she said. Lone bloggers clearly do not meet the criteria necessary to include them in the regulatory maw.
However, online news sites such as Huffington Post, may well be caught in the net. Thus, if anything, this new law will have the effect of levelling the playing field between the clogs and the independent bloggers.
I am sure that is an unintended consequence, but I am not going to shed any tears if parasites such as Huffpost find life a little more difficult.
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Well I won’t shed tears over the HP but it’s outragous that sites like Guido Fawkes might have to watch what they publish.
This will turn out to be a catastrophe.
We may have to move the LA blog “offshore”. At present, I trace the server to Mancehster, which is about 45 miles south of the Chimpanzee-Type-Writers’ Nissen Hut here.
When a “minister” says there is “no threat”, it means that there is one.
Those who have nothing to hide, of course, have nothing to fear.
We may all have to learn to “speak with forked tongue”.
May not be to difficult to lean just mimick the government!
Of course I can foresee a situation where the government attemps to impliment some sort of control over blogs. Firsty they are doing a great job of exposing corruption in government, this is why the governmnt wants to bring in law’s to access emails and other data, mind you in saying that it was very much like that with the typewriter, if you sent a letter to the police or authorities about policies you would fine your car stopped or get a knock on the door, in the old day’s it was easy for them to silence people in one way or another, it is becomming more difficult with the advent of the computor, I was watching a number of the secretly filmed You Tube clips on the British Police, stopping cars, it is clear people are now realising what a corrupted paramlitary dictatorship runs britian, some of the comments from all over the world, indeed concludes they are hated. This is where real political change will take place as more and more people become aware of what Britain is really like, these changes are already taking place and will continue to do so with increasing magnitude, some of the increasing cases on the web regarding the falsifications of evidence and medical records during litigation give serious concerns, people are able to see inside this pandoras box, and they don’t like what’s inside. They are being exposed as a thug government where nobody has any rights in civil law or statute!
Sean: if the definition of a publisher in the draft Royal Charter is taken seriously it will catch the LA Blog as well as every other blog. However, I think they will have to write a tighter definition simply because the present definition would make the whole exercise utterly impractical because of the vast numbers involved.
Thanks, Robert. I suppose it’s possible they will run out of steam on this one. Not likely, I must agree – but worth hoping for.
I just had a surf through the “Huffington Puffington,” god it’s all a little bit to
stereotype, to much of that would drive me mad!
Test
Look to events in Cyprus. As the Duc de Richelieu (Christopher Lee) said in Hammer’s “The Devil Rides Out”: “It begins”.
The scum will soon have much more to worry about than bloggers, large or small.
Yes, you are right Mr Ecks, Good film, I liked the old school actors, Vincent
Price, Christopher Lee, I away’s remember I got a Rolls 8mm slilent projector
for my 10th Birthday, there were loads of cheap films around then, did not
have the luxury of a screen so I used to convert my bedroom wall in to one
using a white sheet, those Hammer “Hammer House of Horror” films were
incredible when first released, they still now even give a good laugh.
Dr Thibes, Vincent price, highly recommended. of course you are right
they fail to see storm or mines that lay ahead. But who cares about them
anyway, hardley anyone. They can only only be classified as “Scum”.
Inccidentally was reading through some HO data last week, those bastards convicted half a million people last year of Threatening Behaviour, Alarm Distress, that was without all the other offences used by police, could be up being about five million, I did take a look a few years ago, and conviction rates stood at over 11 million for males of working age, They have turned the justice authority into an industrialised processing plant, pumping out criminal convictions, despite the police arguments, technically, these laws are subject to serious abuse of power, they would love to see a similar situation with bloggers, and have powers to give a knock on the door.
Interestingly, I was looking at the list of UK prisons, on the HO site, and lists
on Justice.gov.UK, some lists vary, at the moment I can’t seem to find any
other country that locks so may people up, I am still trawling on this, I’m
sure someone is telling fibs about the prison populaton and the buget. I
was horrified to see we have so many prisons.! makes interesting reading,
time to drag out the saturation kit, and do some deep research.
Looks like yet another Hot potato, can’t understand how bugets funded by the tax payer, fall into hundreds of millions in deficites, perhaps the poor old tax payer in england is just plain Bankrupt. The lemon has been squeezed dry!
“In the course of running a business”–is the L.A. technically a “business”?
It never used to be, but under NL note the comments of SB, they claimed they were going to turn it inot a giant commercial institution, this appears to the be the case looking at the bugets, pre-New labour, it is now being run on industiral scale as proven by the figures, it is a business, but only for those in the golden circle, full of nepotisim, and class selection. I think the main problem with it is the exploitation mechanisims employed to generate income, as findings by some recent investigations, industrialised criminalisation at the expense of the majority to the advange of the minority. Of course main problem all tax payer funded, people getting very rich on blood sucking the tax payer, and everyting around it.
Maybe they want us relegated to personal blogs so we keep out of the mainstream.
Karl–convicting half a million of threatening behaviour last year hasn’t done them a lot of good since the jailhouse pop. is only 80000+. Increasingly–unless it is for something really heavy they have no power except with ordinary citizens who have jobs or family(family worth having) to lose. The criminal and underclass (not always the same) laugh in the cops/judgeboys faces. How many of those convicted of “threat” won’t even pay the fines or turn up for “community service”–the only people who need fear swift and decisive action are those who threaten the state–non-payment of income tax/council thieving being triggers for dynamic attack.
David-
Moving to offshore servers will do no good as Tim Worstall recently pointed out. As far as our ruling bastards are concerned, “publishing” is the act of reading on the internet, so if somebody in England can read the LA Blog, it’s being published here, and the LA would be legally responsible. The only way around that would be to move yourselves offshore too.
In my personal case for instance, my porny comics are on servers in the USA, but they’re “published” here because Englanders can read them. And since I’m here too, if they were to breach the law, I would be arrested and it would be useless saying to the filth, in between kicks and slaps, that my server is in the USA.
I still don’t know what huge crime the press are supposed to have committed. So far as I understand it, the grandly named “phone hacking” just involved using a default password to listen to the messages of people who hadn’t changed it, which is unpleasant behaviour but it’s hardly the crime of the century is it?
Ian B – I predict that life will go on much as before for most of us once this law is in place. The changes will be long term, in the sense of laying down precedents for later use, and in accustoming the next generation to living in a police state where everything is formally controlled.
For the next few years, the main use of the law will be to make the occasional example.
I think you’re right. however it does them some good from the point of veiw of collecting fines it creates a lot on nonsensical jobs for them, they appear to spending 60 million to collect 27 million, I have being doing some research on EU government data, we appear to have the highest detained pupulation in Europe, Germany 81.8 million people only 90 prisons, the UK population 67 million, so they say, 153 prisons, longest sentences, and far more people sent to prison in UK for minor matters, this was due to labour copying the US model. I was speaking to a car salesman last month main agent, he told me, hardley anyone walks throught the door now for a test drive with out some conviction or other on thier licence. I don’t think this mass criminalisation is good for employment, the all want to driving licence records now when you apply for any job associated with driving, another type of CRB vetting in house. The reason they go after people on rates and tax issues is because they are able to access data to see what you’re bank sitiuation is, they know these people have some money or assests that is why they don’t give up on them, they know one way or the other they will get the money, especially with new powers to make people sell thier property. This country has become a living nightmare, talk about reaching the sea bed and falling right into the trap of a great white.
E, no doubt you have not seen a copy of the leaflets being sent out to council tenants today, Quote, Can you really afford Sky, cigarettes, drinks, bingo or none essential items, we advise you to ditch these items if you want to keep your “Council Home” none essential items won’t matter is you lose your home, start budgeting now, it was all part of the plan I heard the conservatives expose several months ago, the poor are not going to thnk like normal people, they are not going to have cars, TV’s, holidays, they are not going to think or live like normal people, sounds like some sort of memoranum Adolf Hitler would have issued!
Of course, this order is barked out,at a time when many of the woddentop and state worker families, have a TV in the lounge, Kitchen, bedrooms, three or four computors in one house, and five cars in the drive, what I say to them is “Kiss My Arse” Mine Fuhrer!
Indeed Sean. Their modus operandi is depressingly familiar.
Indeed so, Jim Seridan, Ban some journalists from parliament, there are
parasitical elements within the press. Labour MP.
Anyway E, seems it has done no good at all, just had the DR on, one of those political post mortum buget type topics, ND now stands at 1.3 trillion, I wonder just how much of that is down to the wooden tops and those dysfunctional courts. Glad their not in charge of the banks everyone would shit bankrupt and totally knackered. See what happenes when you let B C’s play around with money.