5 years ago... Silicon.com launches fight against web caching ban

01.03.99: Silicon.com launches its 'Ban the Ban' campaign today, in a bid to stop the European Parliament making web caching illegal.

The draft EU law on electronic copyright has provoked industry fears that it would lead to a ban on caching any copyrighted materials. That would seriously damage the development of the Internet, and could stop ecommerce dead in it tracks, experts claim.

Lobbying to 'Ban the Ban' will be directed at Mario Monti, European Commissioner for the Internal Market. As commissioner in charge of copyright, he alone has the power to remove Article 5.1 on "incidental copying", which includes the way most servers and browsers use caching to transmit data over the Internet.

The campaign has won support from music lobbyists and politicians. Nanette Rigg, director general of British Music Rights, said: "I would definitely endorse a campaign that deletes Article 5.1. I don't believe that the article is necessary - it should come out of the copyright directive."

Graham Watson, Liberal Democrat MEP, commented: "Any campaign that will help to put these issues across to make sure that we don't have - even by mistake - anything that will stop the development of the Web is very good and deserves our support."

01.03.04: Over the years silicon.com has run a number of campaigns - such as Back the Act which supported the Data Protection Act and IT on board which encouraged companies to include IT in their overall business planning by promoting IT directors to the top table.

We've also been outspoken on issues such as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, IR35 and spam - forcing powerbrokers to sit up and take notice of the voice of the IT community in the UK.