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About LinkBacksRead more.All Finns are now legally entitled to internet access with 100Mbps promised by 2015.
Read more.All Finns are now legally entitled to internet access with 100Mbps promised by 2015.
Well, actually I think it's a bit daft, but I would appreciate a law like this being brought in for the UK - purely because it would completely destroy all of the ridiculous anti-piracy laws that keep being floated around.
Too many things are human rights tbh. It is possible to live perfectly happily without internet access. Certain jobs will require you to have internet access, but beyond that, I can't really see how it qualifies. I don't think it'll be bad for the consumer, but it's still ridiculous.
It'd just change them to fines etc. rather than denial of access. Denial of access is harsh in some ways, but it's a direct action->consequence and can easily be linked to prevention of re-offence (during the time you're cut off at leastOriginally Posted by snootyjim
Well, actually I think it's a bit daft, but I would appreciate a law like this being brought in for the UK - purely because it would completely destroy all of the ridiculous anti-piracy laws that keep being floated around.)
Fines are definitely fairer. Since if you need internet for work, a housemate/family member is downloading illegally, your internet shouldn't get cut off but you could shift the fine onto his back.It'd just change them to fines etc. rather than denial of access. Denial of access is harsh in some ways, but it's a direct action->consequence and can easily be linked to prevention of re-offence (during the time you're cut off at least
Yeah, that's what I mean - denial of access comes under the "ridiculous" section of anti-piracy laws as far as I'm concerned. Fines I'm okay with, on the basis that they're done properly in a court of law.
Carry on like thhis and sports cars will be a human right eventually!
Hopefully you'd have stopped them from continuing before your multiple warnings were finished, but it's a fair point.
Putting aside issues of Copyright enforcement, I think that this is actually a good idea, because it creates a target which all players are committed to achieving.
In a way, it is a bit like the law that the last Labour government enacted to eliminate child poverty in the UK by 2020. Will there still be children in poverty in the UK in 10 years time? Probably. Will the minister for children go to Jail in 2020 because of it? Of course not. But the existence of the law creates a strong target, much more than a bit of government policy that can be quietly changed or dropped on a whim.
The legal right to broadband is similar, but is about preventing Digital poverty. In this day an age a lot of services, both government and commercial are moving online, and if you don't have internet access, it is a lot harder or impossible to use them. People living in rual areas will find their cost of living going up because they are forced to use the more expensive and less convinent non online alternatives.
The Finns have realised this and are trying to do something about it. Back in the UK people are at the mercy of BT upgrading exchanges to ADSL when they feel like it, and renewing old and low quality cable only if they will get a return on their investment. No doubt there will be news stories in Finland about a local teleco being forced to spend thousands of euros laying 50km of fibire to some hermit's cabin in the woods, who does not want broadband anyway just to comply with this new law, but better that than have a society of digital haves in the the cities, and have nots in the country.
I think we should have a similar law in the UK. Rather than the now scraped digital levy, and all the bureaucracy and quangos associated with it, just make it law that BT (who are a regulated monopoly) has to ADSL enable any phone line on request, and they can't charge discriminatory prices for households in hard to reach places. Then go to the Cellular networks and remind them that they promised to cover the country with 3G signals when they brought their spectrum licences, and if they don't make more progress they could loose them.
Nobody is saying it's a human right. The Finn's have decided it's a legal right. You have a legal right to return goods that are faulty under the Sale of Goods Act. That doesn't make it a human right. The human rights laws are completely separate things that haven't been altered and are really quite sensible.
As in my previous post this has nothing to do with human rights.
Cunning point.
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