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Sith Mandelson (Score:5, Informative)
It's Sith Mandelson that's trying to introduce this. Strangely it was reported in some newspapers that he was caught having a meeting last week with some Record companies. Wonder if they bought him a iPod or something?
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>>>Wonder if they bought him a iPod or something?
My local GM dealer (now owned by the government) gave me a free MP4 player! Awesome. All I have to do is pay $29.99 in shipping costs. How generous of my government to do this for me. /end sarcasm
Proposed-UK-File-Sharing-Laws-May-Be-Illegal (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course it's illegal. It has always been illegal for a special interest group to attempt to run the country. That's true in every society that makes any claim to be "democratic". The question is not whether these attempts to control society are legal or not. The question is, when are people going to get pissed off enough to tell the government that these attempts will no longer be tolerated?
All of the lobbyists should be tarred and feathered, and run out of town on a rail. When that's finished, go back and grab the paid off politicians for the same treatment.
One round of that, and we'll see all lobbyists reconsidering their strategies.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Now think about why you only wrote "should" instead of "will" and actually doing it.
Long and hard. For at least a hour a day for a week.
Then you might come to the root of the problem. :)
Re:Sith Mandelson (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
50:50 cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:50:50 cost? (Score:4, Interesting)
This sort of lopsided silliness (and the RIP Act) was why I walked away from being a ISP (one of the very first in the UK, with sensible notions of who owned the data passing over our wires).
So glad that I'm out of it, and still not really believing anyone makes money being an ISP.
Rgds
Damon
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
They should provide a service and be blind to anything on their networks.
OK - take that argument into some other industries:
Do you really think that the postal service should be immune if they carry a package containing methamphetamine? Even if they deliver it to a 13-year-old child?
Do you really think that a bus-line should be immune if they give a ride to a terrorist with a bomb in his back-pack on his way to blow up a kindergarten?
Do you really think that the phone company should be immune if they allow a 6 year old child to call a fetish phone-sex line?
Do you really think t
Re:50:50 cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I do think they should all be immune. The PS shouldn't be "inspecting" my packages. They're private. They aren't paid to snoop. The bus service isn't paid to look in back packs and conduct background checks. The phone company isn't paid to check the ages of people on the handset. The gun company isn't paid to parent people's kids. You know who is? The police. In every single case it's the legal authorities who should be doing something (well, apart from parenting, that should be the parents). A private citizen could call them and say "hey, there's a package labelled "meth" that was just delivered to a kid," or "there's a guy wearing a sign saying 'I'm on my way to blow up kids and all I'm getting is entry to heaven'" or "Hey, there's this kid on a public phone talking dirty," or "There's a kid on the playground with a glock." So, yeah, private industries should be blind and immune to abuse of their services.
Parent
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*whooooooosh*
You were even clearly warned and missed the clue. Do we really need to bring back the <blink> in big red letters to warn people that the post may contain irony?
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OK - take that argument into some other industries:
Do you really think that the postal service should be immune if they carry a package containing methamphetamine? Even if they deliver it to a 13-year-old child?
Yes. Are you suggesting that the post office be held liable for something that could not have known about unless they opened and inspected EVERY package? Are you suggesting that the post office in fact DOES inspect every package?
Do you really think that a bus-line should be immune if they give a ride to a terrorist with a bomb in his back-pack on his way to blow up a kindergarten?
Yes, they should be immune. Or again, should they inspect every backpack of every bus rider? Should every bus driver be an expert on detecting bombs?
The rest of your examples are equally invasive. You seem to want people to be responsible for things they can't possibly be
Re:If it makes you feel better (Score:3, Interesting)
After the bit about the post office I strongly suspected sarcasm. After the second line about the bus-lines I was certain this was sarcasm. By the time I got to "Woosh hammer" I thought this was such well written sarcasm making such a good point that your average sixth grader would fully comprehend this comment.
After reading the comments I realize I've either severely overestimated the reading comprehension of your average sixth grader or severely underestimated the reading comprehension of your average s
Re:50:50 cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because ISPs have a sparkly magic wand that will simply make this dreadful internet business and its calamitous effects on the entertainment industry disappear in a puff in punitive smoke.
I mean, really. There was a time in this country when a 5 minute pop song meant something. It was a sacred institution, protected by copyright and ensuring the livelihoods of distributors across the land. Now any old miscreant feels he can whisk his songs backwards and forwards over those ghastly green tubes just like one sends emails or spreadsheets or power-point slides. Well you can't! Music is not supposed to be treated like that. There are proper channels for its distribution and the ISPs know they they aren't it!
It's clear that they're being malicious. I remember meeting their representative. Frightful man. He accosted me with technical clap-trap; data, broadband, packet inspection, encryption, legitimate uses, feasibility studies. I told him what I'm telling you now. If the Chinese government can block off their entire internet from the BBC, then surely you can stop young scruffs from downloading things they're not supposed to. And if you can't stop them then you should cut them off! He threw his hands up in the air and left, but I sensed defeat.
It's only a matter of time. We have petitioned the Her Majesty's Government, and they have responded favorably. Soon we will make these ISPs bring their customers to heel, and we will do it with the full force of the Law. Honestly, the attitudes and doomsdaying of some people on this never cease to amaze me. Just last week I was in conversation with a chap who felt too much restriction on the Internet was dangerous or some such rot.
As I said to him at the time: "My dear Norfolk, this isn't Iran. This is England."
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Why should ISPs foot the bill to protect rights holders IP?
Because they want to keeping getting the profits from raping people with their licensing agreements, but don't want to lose those profits in legal proceedings they are obligated to undertake in order to continue to have a valid claim on the copyrighted work. If they don't do something about this, a lot of copyrighted works could fall into the public domain because the derived income is less than the cost of legal proceedings to protect it. So all these manipulations of the copyright law will be for nothing.
The gap between politicians and reality (Score:5, Interesting)
Lord Mandelson of Sith went to dinner with a corporate interest, and came back with a policy that suited that interest without regard to either citizens rights or even practicality.
How do you stop illegal torrents without crippling the UK Internet? I mean, more than BT has managed to do?
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>>>Lord Mandelson of Sith
I'm waiting for the trumpets of the Grand Republic to start playing. Ahhh... here comes Chancellor Palpatine now.
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Meddling Mandy (Score:5, Interesting)
Why are the UK government getting into this? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is entirely a problem for the music and movie industry. Why are the government acting as their bitches against the will an freedom of the people who elected them?
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Your big mistake here is assuming that the government was elected. In particular, the minister moving this is Lord Mandelson - and he's a Baron because that was the easiest way to get him into government without the pesky election business.
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He likes to suck on young virgins. That's a vampire, surely?
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Who doesn’t?
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Because the UK is not a democracy.
There are more files sharers than there are content producers, there for in a true democracy file sharing would be legalised.
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This is entirely a problem for the music and movie industry. Why are the government acting as their bitches against the will an freedom of the people who elected them?
The geek is convinced that he speaks for everyone.
The James Bond and Harry Potter films have earned ten billion dollars, unadjusted for inflation. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, three billion.
You could quite plausibly double or quadruple these numbers when you total up the return on book sales, home video and other merchandising.
The numbers a
Sith Lord Mandelson (Score:5, Informative)
This evil man, who somehow reappears in UK politics despite having been thrown out twice for being scum, has now become a Lord (!!!) and basically cares only for himself and his rich friends. He recently had chats with media companies, and suddenly he is espousing this hard line response. Coincidence ... hmm ...
I don't think that many people will be sad to see Labour lose in the next election. We might not be too happy with who will come in though.
Anyway, if 1 in 10 people is doing the same illegal thing, then what needs assessing? Surely the law itself!
Why have a special provision? (Score:2)
If somebody sharing a file on a network is breaking the law then why not pursue them within the law? For any other crime the approach would be to obtain evidence, and then prosecute them. I can't see why the "special status" of file-sharing means that the law should be circumvented in this case to allow punishment (disconnection) without any sort of due process.
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Because following due process requires money. The media companies have no money because people keep downloading their stuff illegally.
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Because following due process requires money.
Not to mention evidence. It's more difficult to conduct a reign of terror if you actually have to start proving things.
Conflict of laws VS "Primacy of Parlement" (Score:2)
Traditionally, the UK Parlement has had primacy and complete authority without any overarching controls such as the US Constitution serves in the American system. Whatever they pass becomes new law, and old law is automatically modified/voided.
Now, with the EU, Parlement might face some laws being invalidated by EU courts. A bigger question is whether the UK Courts can or will respect EU findings. It may be that UK citizens will have to petition EU courts, but UK courts might not enforce the rulings.
It is
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It would be political suicide to try to curtail the HRA
Given the number of other rights willingly surrendered by the good people of the British Isles I'm not sure that I believe it would be political suicide to go after the HRA. They've willingly surrendered the right to remain silent, the right against self incrimination and the right to keep and bear arms. Why is the HRA sacrosanct if those rights aren't?
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>>>A bigger question is whether the UK Courts can or will respect EU findings.
Well during the early years of the United States, many state governments simply ignored the rulings of the Federal or Supreme Courts. I suspect we'll see something similar within the European Union where states like the UK or France simply ignore the rulings.
In the U.S. the solution was to keep a standing army such that States were afraid to challenge the authority of the U.S. Perhaps the EU will follow a similar tactic
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We don't have a written Constitution like the US, which can be amended as the government wants if it can get a supermajority in Congress and supermajority of the States
Fixed that for you.
You know what is next.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Buying favour (Score:2)
An internet provider should no more be police for content than the postal services, who don't open and read every letter or packet to see if there's something incriminating in it. Besides which, how much volume of information is flowing around per hour on the internet, and you're somehow going to police that for who owns copyright on the files?! Idiots.
These schemes are always thought up by politicians who have NO qualifications in engineering, information technology or ANYTHING remotely relevant. All we ha
file sharing (Score:2)
You know, I keep hearing the phrase "illegal file-sharers" -- but in truth, what's left to share that's still legal? Upload it to a website and they now likely own the copyright via some license you didn't read. Transfer it over the internet, and the ISP can claim it has certain rights to it. It seems like almost anything that can be made digital is now controlled by some corporation rather than the original creator of the work -- and anything introduced into almost any distribution medium is gobbled up by
Guilty without trial by jury. (Score:3)
That's basically what this boils down to. You are punished without a trial, or a chance to convince a jury of your peers that you don't deserve to be punished. Yes it's efficient but it's also tyrannical... like living under the old monarchy where punishment was swift but arbitrary.
check riaaradar.com (Score:2)
Vote 'em Out (Score:2)
Britain on the edge (Score:4, Informative)
Too bad the Labour Party has been taken over by a bunch of neo-conservative autocrats. The people of the UK now really have no choice except that between far right and even further right. Personal rights and due process are becoming a thing of the past, surveillance cameras proliferate like rats on Viagra, and the state is pushing its way into every area of one's private life...all in the name of security.
I'm entirely unsurprised that this latest assault on individual freedom and dignity is gaining currency with the UK government. Who cares whether the person whose connection is cut was actually responsible for the alleged piracy? Who cares whether they were even breaking the law? And how much more efficient it will be when the notoriously greedy and dishonest entertainment industry can inflict its will on average people without even having to prove its case in court!
All the fascists we fought during WWII would be laughing their asses off, because the current pack of neocon thugs are bringing about everything they wanted with the stroke of a pen. This latest offense against due process and the rule of law is just the cherry on an excrement sundae.
What annoys me is business... (Score:3, Interesting)
What annoys me is that business chronically shrieks that the consumer should be ever more regulated and that the penalties for breaking those regulations should be ever harsher.
But when it comes to their own behavior, what I hear from Business is that they should be ever less regulated and the penalties for their noncompliance should range from weak to non-existent!
Now that kid over at the university who swiped 10 songs is costing me little or nothing...pennies, at most. But, at least here in America, the Businesses who have so successfully bought deregulation have cost my country, me, and my children trillions of dollars.
The system is whacked!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It reminds me of when Adam Smith rallied against the mercantile system: "It cannot be very difficult to determine who have been the contrivers of this whole mercantile system; not the consumers, we may believe, whose interest has been entirely neglected; but the producers, whose interest has been so carefully attended to; and among this latter class our merchants and manufacturers have been by far the principal architects. In the mercantile regulations, which have been taken notice of in this chapter, the i
Forego Copyrighted Material (Score:3, Insightful)
If a copyrighted work doesn't come with a fair license, don't consume it.
Simple fact is, as long as we keep feeding these trolls, they will keep biting our hands. It's not hard to give it up, particularly if you allow yourself the occasional dalliance. Prior to the Metallica/Napster debacle, I had built up a collection of more than 1,000 CDs. Since then, I have bought maybe two dozen CDs and one downloaded album. I think all the CDs were used.
Meanwhile I have more than 30 gigs of podcasts on my iPod, and another 30 gigs on my hard drive. All downloaded perfectly legally, and most of it is an excellent replacement for the lackluster material coming from the gated cloisters.
As an added advantage, I'm spending a helluva lot more time listening to educational material about hobbies I am interested in, and a lot less time sucking on candy-media.
Give 'em what they want. They don't want us to use their media the way we want to use it? Fuck 'em.
Re:Forego Copyrighted Material (Score:4, Insightful)
Even that doesn't work very well.
In order for it to work well, you'd need to cut the money off suddenly and more-or-less entirely. In other words, almost everyone on the planet starts a boycott simultaneously while loudly explaining exactly what they are doing and why. This would force them to re-think their business pretty well.
Unfortunately, what's happening is a few people here and there are starting a boycott and the industry doesn't know what's happening - all they know is they're making fewer sales. They've been blaming this on piracy for years, what makes you think they'll stop now?
Parent
It will work. (Score:2)
It is simple, efficient, and the people oppressed by this approach are already painted as "criminals." Would YOU want to stand in defense of "criminals and thieves" ? Didn't think so.
Move along people, nothing to see, RIAA's boot has finally found it's way to your collective ass.
ISPs pay for something irrelevant? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not the ISP's jurisdiction to protect the rights of content holders. This is ridiculous.
It's like a telephone company being legally responsible for checking if I am reading copyrighted material. They're just trying to reduce they're own costs.
Media companies need to get with the times and compete.