38 Degrees respond to the Digital Economy Bill

We're sure the team behind 38 Degrees won't mind us reposting this here. Just into The Talking Clock's inbox...
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Dear XXXX,

We fought a hard fight, but the Digital Economy Bill has now been forced through its crucial third reading in the House of Commons. 189 MPs voted in favour and 47 against. It will now almost certainly be law within days. [1]

Our adverts, and our people-powered avalanche of emails and phone calls caused a stir in Parliament. But the government was determined to ignore public opinion to force the Digital Economy Bill through.

Why did this happen? Music industry lobbyists have their fingerprints all over this law. The government's position can be traced back to a shadowy meeting between Peter Mandelson and Music Industry figures on a yacht in Corfu last summer. [2] And music industry lobbyists appear to have played a key role writing sections of the law. [3]

Right now, it's perfectly legal for corporate interests to lobby the government in secret. We can only guess how much the music industry spent to get this law passed. 38 Degrees members are campaigning for new rules to ban secret lobbying. If the public had a right to know who was lobbying whom, and what about, corporate lobbyists would find it a lot harder to pull strings behind the scenes. That would help stop stitch-ups like this happening again.

There's a general election in 4 weeks. Our next set of MPs will have to further debate small parts of the Digital Economy Bill. It's more important than ever that secret meetings with lobbyists are banned.

Will you write to your election candidates now and ask them to pledge to support new rules to ban secret lobbying?

Click here to take 90 seconds to email your local election candidates:
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/ban-secret-lobbying

We may not have won, but we showed that by working together we are powerful. Politicians now know that they can't just force through draconian internet laws without anyone noticing. Our people powered uprising scared the music industry so much they rushed out their own adverts to fight ours. We forced the bill up the political and media agenda, and created a real controversy.

38 Degrees is a people powered movement that brings you together with other people to take action on issues you care about. Over the next few weeks we'll be working with our partners on this campaign, Open Rights Group, to work out if there is more we can do together. We'll stand ready to get involved again if there's another chance to challenge this law, or if new draconian internet proposals rear their head. Our partners on this campaign, the Open Rights Group, will stay more focused on just this issue, so for more regular and detailed updates please join their action list here:
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/get-action-updates

Thanks for being involved,

Johnny, Hannah, David, Nina and the 38 Degrees Team

NOTES

[1]http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/08/digital-economy-bill-passes-third-reading

[2]http://www.politics.co.uk/news/culture-media-and-sport/mandelson-s-filesharing-corfu-link-denied-$1321086.htm

[3]http://boingboing.net/2010/03/12/leaked-uk-record-ind.html