Gordon Brown's government spoke out in defence of their new Digital Economy Bill today. The Prime Minister spoke in support of the bill and defended the proposed sanctions against filesharers contained in the legislation. "When Al Gore invented the internet all those years ago he did not intend it to be used to rob musicians blind. We need to send a message to those who steal the creative works of our premium artists. Bands like Cliff Richard and the Shadows, Herman's Hermits and the Spice Girls are musical giants who enrich our everyday lives and should be rewarded for their hard work in writing their modern masterpeices" he said.
Many of the largest internet businesses have formed a consortium to speak out against the bill. At a press conference yesterday Simon Hadaway, counsel for the consortium said "The sanctions laid out in the bill are outrageous, penalising every member of a household or a business for the actions of one individual goes against natural justice. The banishment of an entire family to Wales because little Johnny downloaded a copy of the latest number one hit is just bonkers. And that is the just the punishment for a first offence. How will we maintain our profits if half the country is disconnected from the internet and sent to Wales."
Welsh first minister Owen lllangolllellenlll spoke of his dismay at having "all these evil criminals sent to Wales as a punishment." He further stated that "Should too many offenders be sent to Wales there would soon come a time when there were not enough sheep to go around" When asked what the Welsh parliament would do with it's own internet criminals he responded "What is the internet?"
Even the UN has voiced concerns about the punishment for those caught committing a second offence. Ali Abu Hamza, head of the UN Commission for Human Rights said "The handing over of offender's children to music industry executives for merely downloading unlicensed music is akin to slavery and should only be applied to non muslim families." He went on to explain that the law should not apply to muslims as sharia law made no provision for punishing muslims who break infidel laws.
Seth Bumscag speaking on behalf of music industry interests said "It is only fair that we are compensated for the losses we have suffered. Internet users have a simple choice, play by our rules and you are fine, pirate music and loose your children. It's a simple choice." Speaking about the fate of children confiscated he said"Only the pretty ones will be pimped out as child prostitutes, the plain ones will be sold off as house servants and the ugly ones will be sold to cat food makers. The income from these ventures will be ploughed into our bonus schemes."
BaE Systems has spoken of it's delight at the business opportunities that would arise from those caught committing a third breach of the law. Jason Warmonger the company's spokes-suit said "A tactical missile strike on the neighbourhood of a third time offender is entirely reasonable in defence of record company's income streams. The effective use of this law will also secure the jobs of those employed in our new missile factory in Croatia."
Nick Clegg of the lib-dums said of the third offence sanction "That's one of ours, we came up with that one. The whole party is over the moon that we have finally managed to get one of our ideas on the statute book."
The bill was supported on it's passage through parliament by all three main parties. Speculation that they supported the bill in return for cash payments and the rights to use naff pop songs as campaign anthems during the forthcoming election were strenuously denied by all parties.
MPs will be exempt from the legislation because they need to be able to monitor how much unlicensed content remains available on the internet and establish how easy it is to download and send to their friends.
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