More information:
What does this mean?
It means a resounding NO from the European Parliament to any
possibility of a service cut off without a judge deciding it. With that,
the plans of the copyright management societies to create an entity
with which to cut off access for internet users are over.
It means that citizens have made their rights prevail over
the pressure of the lobbies, thanks to the campaign carried out
by Blackouteurope and Hacktivistas.net
However, the season is now open for the operators to want to put an end
to net neutrality in order to favour their own products.
Approving this directive will have incalculable consequences as far as
setbacks for freedom and free access to culture are concerned, for European
citizens. It will be a setback for innovation, since the products and
content belonging to the operator will have priority over those of the
competition, even when these are technically superior. The net will no longer
belong to internet users but exclusively to them. From now
on, and even more so when laws are developed to cover it,
we will have to exert strong social pressure to keep the
pressures of the lobbies from prevailing over our rights. In
short, the result of the vote in the parliament means that
we have to keep fighting for our rights and that there is a long
road ahead.
What will we do now?
The next step is to demand of the candidates for Spanish
and European seats in the parliament that they show us what policy they will follow
regarding net neutrality and the free distribution of culture
in case they are elected by our votes.
We will also have to warn the operators that any
change in their service that breaks with net neutrality
will mean our automatic unsubscribe from their service (we are working
on a tool to unsubscribe automatically), as well as in
case any pact is reached with the copyright management entities
that poses a threat to our privacy.
For all of this we encourage you to take part in the demonstration that will take place on the 24th of May in front of the Ministry of Culture, to defend the neutrality and universality of the net, as well as civil rights on the net.