<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"I love politicians who actually have a clue about the Internet. Case in point: Guy Bono, French socialist and member of the European Parliament for the south-east of France. The music and movie industry has been pressuring governments to shut off internet access for people who are \"illegally\" downloading copyrighted materials. It worked in France and it might work in the UK, but the EU Parliament has just voted in favor of Bono's bill which asks individual countries to \"avoid adopting measures conflicting with civil liberties and human rights ... such as the interruption of internet access\u201D (as translated from French by the good folks of PaidContent UK)\nHere's what Guy Bono has to say about the idea of shutting down internet access to anyone, for whatever reason: \"The repressive measures are measures dictated by industries that have been unable to change their business models to meet the needs imposed by the information society. Switching off internet access is a powerful sanction which could have profound repercussions in a society where access to the internet is a mandatory law for social inclusion.\"\nThe above sentence is right on the money and it nicely summarized this entire mess. First, it clearly says that these measures are \"dictated by industries.\" This, by itself, is not good. Big business should not be able to dictate laws in any country, otherwise we're off to 1984. \nSecondly, these industries \"have been unable to change their business models to meet the needs imposed by the information society.\" Many people have trouble understanding this, and I always come up with the same example: if you're selling bread and suddenly bread starts raining from the sky, are you going to be able to keep selling bread? Hell no, because it will be free for all and your business model needs to change. You think you can tell people that it's illegal to pick the free bread from the street? You better start making better bread, buddy.\nThirdly, he says that \"access to the internet is a mandatory law for social inclusion.\" Or, as I like to put it, net access = tap water. I know that perhaps some old bureaucrats in tiny offices, smashing on typewriters and hating computers because \"we did it faster because these damn machines came\" don't get it, but screw them. Taking net away from people - for any reason - is not an option, period. \nBear in mind that the bill is just a directive; we can only hope that individual countries will start enforcing it. And we can only hope that more smart guys like Guy Bono will be able to make important decisions like this one."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2008/04/11/guy-bono-net-access-eu/>