The german conservative party recently wrote a draft for a new government program that contained a passage about establishing a graduated response law. Or as it should be called: the digital death sentence – completely banning citizen from using the internet after copyright infringements.

After bad press, the draft leaking onto Wikileaks and public net outrage, yesterday party officials had to back-paddle, saying cutting off access to the net would be “wrong and not enforceable”. Even if they now talk about “effectively enforcing copyright online” instead, it’s a tiny victory to have those guys scared enough to make them comment publicly about the issue. And at least partly thanks to all the people trying to raise awareness for digital rights, be it online or offline.

Rejoice. For five minutes. Then back to work.