Did you survive without Wikipedia yesterday? English Wikipedia, and perhaps as many as 7,000 other websites, was blacked out for 24 hours in protest at the passage of two internet piracy bills through the US Congress. Simple souls merely dusted off their battered encyclopaedia, but the technically astute lifted the blackout with a host of sharp ruses and delicate subterfuge. This asks the question: can the internet be policed effectively when the intrepid will always bypass the impediments?
The question has been exercising European governments and law courts for a number of years. In Britain, the Digital Economy Act (DEA) was given Royal Assent in the ‘wash up’ prior to the 2010 election. The Act is yet to be implemented and looks increasingly unworkable. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have been challenged the government in court over its insistence that they bear a substantial portion of the costs of regulating their users. The government is also split on the issue.
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