News

Thousands view punk protest song tweeted by Stephen Fry

February 3rd, 2010

Thousands of people have viewed a punk protest song after Stephen Fry raved about it on Twitter.
Only Idiots Assume  written by Londoner Liam Mullone and sung by his friend Hils Barker, is a stinging attack on the Government’s plans to disconnect people suspected of watching films and music online without paying for the privilege.
 
Fry selected [...]

Digital Economy Bill cannot protect copyright

January 26th, 2010

‘Robin Hood’ developers will neuter Bill with new applications and tools
 
The Digital Economy Bill will have precisely the opposite of its desired effect. The Bill will ignite the development of tools that make it easier for people to access music, films and other copyright-protected material for free and undetected, defeating any attempt to protect copyright.
 
That [...]

Music entrepreneur speaks out about filesharing

January 22nd, 2010

The reverberations from Bono’s sermon about filesharing earlier in the month continue to be felt. Following our own broadside (interpretted by some as a bitchslap) and a whole host of bloggers and Twitter users airing their views on the U2 frontman, a music entrepreneur has written a guest opinion piece on The Register that shows [...]

TalkTalk responds to Bono’s filesharing outrage

January 5th, 2010

Bono has accused ISPs of profiting from illegal filesharing and has suggested that ISPs curb copyright infringement in the same way they tackle child pornography.

Stephen Fry to judge three strikes law protest competition

December 21st, 2009

“The government’s proposed ‘Three-Strike’ Copyright Protection Law is ill-conceived, constitutionally outrageous, morally unfair and epically foolish.” – Stephen Fry.
 
Stephen Fry has agreed to judge a competition to create a protest song, poem or other form of artistic expression against the proposed ‘Three Strikes’ law.
The law is designed to protect the music and film industry against copyright [...]

Digital Economy Bill

December 1st, 2009

TalkTalk believes the Government’s Digital Economy Bill has serious shortcomings in relation to the provisions on illegal file-sharing. It is their view that the Bill would be deeply damaging to the rights of consumers, and could lead to damage to the internet more widely, whilst failing to solve the underlying problem with file-sharing.  
TalkTalk’s main concern [...]

Stephen Fry tweets against filesharing proposals

November 23rd, 2009

Thousands of people have signed the Don’t Disconnect Us petition to overturn internet piracy legislation after Stephen Fry used Twitter to alert people to the perils of the proposed law.
Within 24 hours of Fry’s tweet on Sunday morning the petition, originally lodged by Andrew Heaney of broadband company TalkTalk, had passed 8,000 – more than [...]

TalkTalk’s response to the Digital Economy Bill

November 20th, 2009

The Digital Economy Bill, published today, is a further backward step in the efforts to reduce illegal filesharing while further threatening the rights of the consumer.
The Bill proposes that the Government can introduce new measures to punish people they think are infringing copyright without having to prove their case in court. This so-called secondary legislation [...]

EU agreement may derail government internet piracy plans

November 10th, 2009

The new EU agreement on telecoms regulation will make it almost impossible for film studios and music labels to force ISPs to disconnect customers who are suspected of illegal filesharing without first obtaining a court order.
That is the view of telecoms and copyright lawyers contacted by TalkTalk, the UK’s biggest broadband provider to homes and [...]

TalkTalk protests against Mandelson plans with brightdancing ad

October 29th, 2009

TalkTalk has created a special ‘brightdancing’ advertisement, made famous by X Factor, as a protest against Lord Mandelson’s plans to disconnect people accused of internet piracy without a trial.

Over the past few weeks millions of X Factor fans have been exposed to ‘brightdancing’ – using torches or mobile phones to create images out of light. [...]