Australian Government Considers Copying UK Copyright Law Ideas 190
msim brings word that Australian legislators are considering an anti-piracy measure that would require ISPs to terminate internet access for people who repeatedly download copyrighted material. The legislation would set up a three-strikes system similar to the one proposed in the UK recently. While British ISPs resisted suggestions that they act as internet police, the response may not be the same in Australia, where the government has already tried to censor the internet.
"Under the three-strikes policy, a warning would be first issued to offenders who illegally share files using peer-to-peer technology to access music, TV shows and movies free of charge. The second strike would lead to the offender's internet access being suspended; the third would cancel the offender's internet access."
Re:So what happens when they cut of half the count (Score:2, Insightful)
FTP is free! (Score:4, Insightful)
Which if IIRC is where it all started.
Of course, when Peer to Peer programs start using modified versions of well known protocols such as FTP and HTTP then identifying the difference between illegal and legal traffic is going to be impossible... Either that or Youtube is completely screwed.
GrpA.
I do (Score:3, Insightful)
Human rights? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Very likely to be mandated... (Score:2, Insightful)
The new government is making a big noise about listening to the people on a wide range of topics. Of course, the bureaucrats at the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy are still the same ones who promoted the previous attempts at censorship. Perhaps this is the right time to contact the new minister, Senator Stephen Conroy, with a balanced view on the issue?
What would Slashdot readers recommend as a good starting point for information to educate a government official on the problems with Internet censorship?
Nothing but FUD. (Score:5, Insightful)
The basis for the article, and in fact the only actual quote from a government minister, is as follows:
"We will also examine any UK legislation on this issue [including any three-strikes policy] with particular interest," he [Minister for Communications Stephen Conroy] said. Nowhere does it mention that the Australian government is "Considering copying" UK's laws.
Because it's obviously 'sexy' at the moment to write about technology and internet related issues (Going by the number of articles to do with p2p, Facebook, YouTube etc.) these two journalists have decided to write an article with pretty much no grounding in fact - but it does have a sensationalist title (The alliteration is nice too, I'll admit) and therefore people will read it and submit it to Slashdot.
Oh and then we'll link to an article about the Australian government's attempts to stop kids looking at porn (Because that's highly relevant?). I live in Australia, and according to that article I apparently need to verify my age before visiting 'Adult sites' but a quick check shows I don't. As for this quote; "While British ISPs resisted suggestions that they act as internet police, the response may not be the same in Australia". I'm sure you guys have heard of those DMCA take down letters issued by various copyright holders to ISP's and in turn to customers? Well the biggest ISP in Australia, Telstra, which has around 50% of the market doesn't even bother forwarding those to the customer who has apparently breached copyright. It seems that Australian ISP's have a lot more respect for their customers then ISP's in Britain and America.
Why shouldnt we do this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, if they do have a way for the files to be identified, at least to a reasonable degree of certainty, then why shouldnt we have a law like this? You can always contest it in court if you feel you have been wrongly accused.
Im serious. If we find a way to enforce copy right again, why shouldnt we? I know we like stuff to be free, but it really shouldnt be unless the person chooses to give it away.
"War on piracy?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nothing but FUD. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So what happens when they cut of half the count (Score:5, Insightful)
No difference to all those fake rolex watches etc., should it be a criminal offence to buy one or to have it in your possession.
Should the government make the end user liable for being the 'victim' of a fraud. Similarly those people who have been victims of phishing, a downloaded a fake copyright infringing version of their banking web site, not only does the victim have their account raided by a criminal, but the government will fine them in addition, perhaps by confiscating what remains of that bank account, as well as of course kicking them off the internet.
Of course you can not differentiate between different types of copyrighted content, so unknowingly click on a web site that contains 3 infringing photos, and they will kick you off the internet. Well if they really are going to be a bunch of fucked up phreaks, why don't they make it a criminal offence, to download infringing copyrighted content, I am totally positive that after just one month using the internet their would not be one person who has not unknowingly downloaded some infringing content, be a piece of writing, a photo, a portion of a web page design, some web page coding, or a viral video etc.
So the maroons can try to turn the whole country into a prison and oddly enough honour it's heritage as a prison colony, with a 'Rudd'y fool as the head warden.
On copyright and technology.. (Score:5, Insightful)
In the last 20 years we've gone from home computer systems with half a meg of ram or less to a worldwide network of high powered PC's in every home, evolving human interaction from e-mail, IRC, web pages, instant messages, internet radio, internet video, 3D virtual worlds, online stores, the participation of a global audience in projects ran by NASA, live news coverage from hundreds of vendors - it's impressive. And we have more to look forward to: 3D TV, space elevators, nanotechnology, advanced AI, accessible quantum computing, artificial limbs that interface with our nervous system, maybe even space travel to other worlds.
Sometimes I catch myself wondering about all the things I can't even imagine today that will come along after my death and I'll never experience. Then I think about modern day issues such as this ludicrous copyright legislation, in my home nation (UK) no less, and I wonder if in ten years time if the Internet will even be recognizable as a free, neutral foundation for furthering mankind, or will it simply be transformed into a Government regulated and observed, pay per use, pricing-tiered no-man's land destroyed by industries seeking to motivate individuals to purchase their products or works as a product of fear mongering and contorted calculations of "damages" that haven't even been shown to have occurred?
Copyright is necessary such that those who spend their lives creating works valued our societies can continue to do so. It is a balance between the needs and desires of our societies and the needs and desires of our artists, authors, and musicians. It is not a tool to be wielded by industry associations to sue individuals who can't afford to buy a dozen CDs, let alone defend themselves in court, into bankruptcy for the purposes of a public scare campaign, nor a tool to twist the laws of a society against itself solely in the interests of those agencies - those agencies who themselves are not the artists, authors, and musicians who create the works they claim to protect, and who they have recently announced they seek to pay less.
Please stop this madness. The world will suffer greatly at the hands of a small group of greedy executives and their shareholders if this nonsense continues much further down its current path.
Judge, Jury and Executioner? (Score:2, Insightful)
Be a victim of the torrent downloading worm. (Score:3, Insightful)
However, there should be ways of making the such a monitoring useless. For example, a worm could be done that connects to torrent sites and download movies to random folders in your computer. The worm could accept suggestions about how to search in such a way as to make it impossible to discern if the movie it downloaded was the "infected" user's choice or simply a random popular choice.
With a portion of the population not willing to patch or kill the worm, the propagation would be brutally fast (taking into account which part of the internet population would be voluntary victims).
You'd have to hunt down the unwillingly downloaded Harry Potter latest movie or britanity spear latest... whatever she does now. However, bandwidth speed is growing fast and multimedia size is more or less constant.
Re:So what happens when they cut of half the count (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes it should, if it can be established that a reasonable person would have thought that the watch was counterfeit (i.e. `replica' in the title of the auction, suspiciously low price,etc.), they should be prosecuted. This is no different from `possession of stolen goods' or `handling' in the UK: you cannot simply claim that you had absolutely no knowledge that the goods were stolen if it would have been obvious to a reasonable person that they could not be legitimate. The same rule could easily be applied to copyright infringement: nobody will ever prosecute you because someone posted an infringing picture on his website. However, if you download songs and movies from other users using P2P software, it is almost certainly copyright infringement.
Re:FTP is free! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So what happens when they cut of half the count (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nothing but FUD. (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait a minute, isn't something that's mandatory the exact opposite of a privilege?
Re:So what happens when they cut of half the count (Score:4, Insightful)
Umm, this might sound like a nitpick, but you forgot another not insignificant category --- legally sharing copyrighted material. Think Free software, CC licensed audio and video, etc. I download several GB every month, and I'm sure I'm not alone. People do produce things for reasons other than just money.
Just sayin' s'all...
Re:fail (Score:2, Insightful)
Encryption may be a bad solution but it's possibly our only one in the forseeable future. If goverments do outlaw encrytion, or at least make it illegal to withhold your keys (as they do already in some countries), then steganography will be the next step.
Standard encryption should be enough to stay one step ahead in the arms race for now, though.