This bill very specifically concerns startups. Want to create a disruptive service? (e.g. You create a site to allow people to rate insurance sites) - well with this different businesses that say they're in the same industry can accuse you of infringement (e.g. insurance price comparison sites) and have you shut down providing they can convince the secretary of state, meaning that if you have a competitor then you may be screwed if you don't screw first.

It's not necessarily the case that it will fail. The current government uses laws with enabling clauses that are triggered by statutory instruments. Some of these laws include the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill (which allows wiretapping by authorised authorities) where authorised authorities were extended from the police to local authorities - who use it to spy on people to make sure they're managing bins properly. Another one is the Serious Organised Crime and Policing Act (SOCPA) which even the head of the association of chief police officers (ACPO) has said was excessive - it allows bailiffs to forcably enter your home and remove your goods before a hearing or trial and to sieze all your property once arrested.

My own personal favourite is the terrorism act, which introduced stop and search if police suspect things that may lead to a terrorist act. People get stop and searched at football matches, on their way to work and so on regardless of suspicion of terrorism. These things are all evil and all believed to be irrelevant but still got through. This is no different.

So you think that an insurance company can accuse another startup insurance comparison website of infringement, and get them shutdown?

Surely the same argument could be said for any law? Accuse your neighbor of murder, accuse a competitor of money laundering, etc etc.

idk. Things always sound worse when people moan about them on the internet. They'll affect a tiny handful of people. It's more about the government making news stories and appearing "tough on X" rather than anything else.

I've never been stop+searched. :(

How? It makes it really really easy to be knocked offline which I suspect would make it hard to continue work on a startup. For instance

People working on startups are resourceful. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to find free wifi/3g/get cable/adsl from another provider etc etc etc

I agree the law is stupid and ill thought out and puts the whole idea of innocent until proven guilty out the window, but technology is hard for some people like unelected politicians to grasp. So they mess up, and make stupid laws.

Meanwhile, people just sidestep and make the laws useless and irrelevant.

Suppose you called your site say "hacker news" and some local councilor decided that "hacker" was offensive - under this law they can simply delete your domain registration.

Then you'd post about it on twitter+reddit and the whole baying mob of sheep that compose the modern internet would track down said councilor and make their life a living hell forever.

Not everyone is so popular, and not all audiences are so political.

Exactly. And that kind of action shouldn't be the only way of enforcing your rights.

Especially since the Dark Side can afford to hire a LOT more lawyers, who are second only to politicians in their ability to make your life a living hell.

Yeah that councillor would never be able to visit reddit again. That would totally stick it to them.

Well they might have to change their username, or just never visit it, ...

Said councillor probably wouldn't be on the internet. Or he'd only check his email once a week and wouldn't notice.

People on reddit+twitter hunt people down in real life all the time.

Only if they hurt animals.

If your startup is domestically based or requires important people to have home internet access, and that access can be completely removed if your kid downloads (or is suspected of downloading) something that big-media say is infringing their copyright, then can you see how that might disrupt your online activity.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and posit that internet start-ups generally do less well without internet access.