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Italy Approves Jail for P2P Users
funkdid writes "Italy has made transferring content via the Internet without the permission of the copyright holder a criminal offence.Those found guilty of the unauthorised distribution of copyright material now face a fine of between 154 and 1032 ($185-1240), a jail sentence of between six months and three years, the confiscation of their hardware and software, and the revelation of their misdeeds in Italy's two national newspapers, La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera."
Can I still forward emails to Italy?
FP - I guess everyone else is deleting their Shared Folders :)
listen to britney spears without paying GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars
Did you know you can be apathetic to apathy? Not that I give a shit...
From the country that gave us the mafia.
I guess the fascists are back in power these days?
Not testing before making production changes, or jailing P2P users??
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Perhaps someone can explain to this ignorant American exactly how the government can use publication in a newspaper as a punishment for a crime (whatever the crime may be). At least here in the US, we at least pretend to have freedom of the press.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
It's interesting that this would happen in Italy. From my understanding (I'm not an expert in this), Italy has had very relaxed laws about bootlegged music, especially live recordings. That's why so many concert CDs come from Italy.
Anyone care to comment on this or clear it up?
Cheers,
Vic
.. but this is insane by any standard. Only the most extreme economic offenses should be punishable by imprisonment. Fines and compensation can do for the rest.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
(Linked via the Drudge Report -- hopefully more articles like this will further add to the drumbeat of realization... by the public at large):
Single mom overwhelmed by recording industry suit
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
I think speeding is a lot worse than sharing files. whats the fine for speeding in italy? i bet its a lot less than $1000 and 6 months in prison. extreme penalties will only drive the shares underground it wont stop them.
sorry 'bout the mess...
And people complain that they are afraid of the viral nature of the GPL - this would really scare them!
The Italian parliament yesterday voted in favour of imposing jail sentences of up to three years on anyone caught uploading or downloading unauthorised copyright material to and from the Net.
People don't download pirated music, computers download pirated music. Everybody calm down, unless you're routing packets by hand, you're safe.
Mussolini has been reinstated as the leader of Italy.
How long, with computerized production bringing music and movie making power to the desktop like never before and laws like this popping up, will it be before we see free or even Open Source movies.
I can foresee a possible future with Creative Commons, the GPL, the Free Documentation License, and the BSD license influencing the licensing of droves of hobbyist movies and music. I'm talking much, much more than we see now. Maybe the music and movie companies see this coming. Maybe they want to kill p2p not only because their own work is distributed royalty-free across it, but also because with the software to make competitive products getting better and p2p being a great distribution method, they're afraid of losing market share to upstarts.
Think of how scared SCO and MS are of Linux.
Does that mean their government controls what is printed in the newspaper?
Does that mean the prosecutor will get tossed in jail if he uses it without my permission?
Fascism returns to the country shaped like a boot. The boot that stamps out fair use.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Fine... I wonder how the prosecutors will prove that you have been using it. Logs? Logs can be easily forged.
Anyway, with the advances in P2P technology, it can become impossible to track who is getting what. Just like in Freenet.
Thank you, Italian justice system for proving once again that reason and logic have no place in a court.
This is just sickening. The worst kind of abuse of goverment by corporations.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
from a country that chooses ,a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3034600.st m">its own version of Rupert Murdoch to be the supreme leader.
If they promise to confiscate my windows box and all my MS CD's
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
If the jail time and the fine won't deter the fileswappers, certainly the public humiliation in two national newspapers will!
...with a Prime Minister who makes his money from media companies. Those corrupt Italians! Imagine something like that happened in the US. If the President or Vice President stood to make money from invading Iraq, say, there'd be a hue and cry about it and they'd have no chance of getting away with it.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Finally!!!
Don't get me wrong, I think this is complete BS and wrong on soooooo many levels...
But it's nice to know that America isn't the biggest (or the only) a$$-hat when it comes to p2p. Up until now, we've looked draconian in our handling of such matters compared to other parts of the world.
This makes what the RIAA is doing look like a slap on the wrist. Hopefully they don't get any ideas.
The Prime Minister of Italy got his job in large part because he controls something like 90% of the media there.
I could imagine that along with his general right wing Agenda, Prime Minister Silvio Whats-his-name might want to protect the interests of media companies. Or rather, the media company, since he is the only one.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly. -- Abraham Lincoln
/. after all), then I'd go looking for an intelligent, like-minded DA (or whatever the Italian equivalent is) and have him start arresting people left and right for the slightest violation, as long as it meets the letter of the law.
If this law is really so draconian as the discription implies (this is
I guarantee we'd here the angry screams all the way to N. America and it would be dropped pretty darn fast, I'll bet.
Google Cache has always operated in at least a slightly gray area legally, in that there's undoubtedly unauthorized copyrighted material available via the cache that authors wouldn't want there if they knew about it. Google obviously is on the up-and-up, and will remove content from cache when specifically requested to. However, with a minimum jail sentance of six months, anything questionable like this may be deemed to risky. Is it possible that Google cache (and anything similarly risky) may be disabled for the .IT section of the internet?
I laughed at the idea of killing virus writers, then I celebrated when the Buffalo Spammer went to jail, but now I'm worried, I've shared plenty of files in my day.... /. for me, I'm afraid the next time I refresh I'll see "US approves tar and feathering of wardrivers."
No more
Now all we need to do is to find some areas where one of the officials who voted to pass this legislation violates this law themselves. Scrutinize everything the Italian government puts out to try and catch them posting material which is copyrighted. Time to make examples of them of how passing such a shitty law will come back to bite them in the ass.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Italy Approves Jail for P2P Users
Ahhh Slashdot. Nothing like coming into a psuedo newsite full of ranting loons going off against the bias of Fox News or anything else then seeing half-truth, inflammatory headlines like that just to grab people's attention.
What you MEANT to say, of course, is:
Italy Approves Jail for P2P Users Who Transfer Copywritten Materials Without Permission to Do So
Which is, of course, already illegal in most places. Moral arguments about the punishment not fitting the crime etc. aside, it would be nice if Slashdot would at least pretend to be a news site every now and then instead of just trying to sell us ads by playing off of reactionary attitudes on this site.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
I seem to recall that years ago a number of municipalities around the US raised a stink by publishing the names of people who had been convicted of the truly terrible offense of visiting a prostitute.
I suppose it stopped when someone too high up was found on one of the lists.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
Anyone familiar with Italy's PM, Silvio Berlusconi, founder of, among other things, Italy's first national commercial TV network, shouldn't be surprised.
The analogue in the States might be President Orrin Hatch. (?) Except more corrupt and more successful.
Sounds like they're doing everything but Caining them.
On the bright side, it doesn't sound like this is anywhere near over.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
The SCO 699 principle -- Since I didn't specifically see anything about P2P, transferring content over the Internet would include stuff over the web.
I post to slashdot and claim copyright to my comments (which Slashdot willingly concedes with "Comments are owned by the Poster."
I then state in my comment that it is intended for viewing only by myself and trained monkeys from the San Diego Zoo.
Thus any Italians who are in violation of this -- by logging onto slashdot and downloading this page with MY copyrighted material and without my permission are jailward bound.
Hang on to your meatballs, dudes.
Just a testament to how lame this law sounds. I understand what they're trying to accomplish, but this can't be the way it's supposed to be done.
Did you ever notice how almost any "silver" or manufactured bootleg CD comes from Italy? Their law (unless it's changed lately) is that as long as you pay the artist/publishing company something, it's legal to make any recording for sale.
This results in a lot of these bootlegging companies paying less than a cent per unit manufactured to the record companies for "compensation." This new law seems sort of extreme if they still allow this other behavior.
http://cassettefetish.com
as stupid as this new "law" is, but for this one:
and the revelation of their misdeeds in Italy's two national newspapers, La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera.
they should be kicked out of the european union instantly. i mean, sorry, but this is a punishment from the middle age.
beer as in "free beer"
... if consumers were getting a fair shake in the first place. The music industry can sell me an overpriced album without showing me what is in it, but I don't get a satisfaction guaranteed return policy. Therefore, the industry has no economic incentive to strive to make better content.
Level the playing field before punishing consumers for being the only competitor this industry has.
"Derp de derp."
...needs someone to help them break this law, I am more than willing to assist.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
The fine isn't what deters me from speeding...
It's the insurance companies that do.
If I get caught speeding, sure, I have to pay a fine to the town / county. No biggie.
But then, I get "points" on my insurance. And while those points stay there, I have to pay a higher premium.
Frankly, getting jail time for P2P scares the crap out of me. I'm glad Im not in Italy.
I mean, paying the RIAA a few grand is bad, but getting tossed in the slammer would really suck. Besides the obvious suckiness, you'd probably lose your job, and then have to admit you're a fellon for your interviews.
Construction of Mussolini's arch has resumed after a 50+ year hiatus.
Well that makes my mind up as far as travel plans this summer. Sorry Hon, we can't vacation in Italy this year, It be a little hard to explain why daddy's gone to jail for listening to music on his computer.
I'm worried about how the international community is going to react to this law; I could easily see the XXAA's performing "research studies" that show that this form of legislation is effective and desirable, and should be used elsewhere.
As I see it, one of the most effective ways to counter this is to use once again raise the technological bar of P2P technologies. A system where the user does not know or control what content is stored on their PC (a la Freenet) would eliminate the ability of the legal system to charge an individual for distribution. In order for this to occur, anonymous software systems need to be made more effective and easier to use for the average user.
I'm sure many people will suggest that I just want to make sure things are easy to steal. The honest answer is that I don't; the same technology used to ensure illicit communications are caught could just as easily be used against legal but undesirable communications. The increased availability of raw information has revolutionized our society (just look at the Abu Gharaib scandal; that could not have happened a decade ago), and any attempts to restrict that movement must be opposed or countered.
and that is what it will take to stop this.
At the bottom of every Slashdot page is written: 'Comments are owned by the Poster.'
If you read my message, you've just bought yourself a trip to prison...
When most of italy's media is owned by that Italian president, and soft-core porn king and cretin Berlesconi, it isn't hard to imagine getting the newspapers on tack.
I recommend reading "The Dark Heart Of Italy". It is a very good book which shows just how much control Berlesconi has over that country. It is pretty scary. Some people joke about Moussolini's return...they aren't too far wrong.
some not so computer litarete download viruses with there warez and therfore spread them and since they are thinking about excecuting virus writes, Should they at least be castrated?
You'll wake up with the head of the Napster mascot next to you in bed.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Media mobster (and president) Silvio Berlusconi supported this? After all he owns most of Italy's tv stations.....
It is about time for the Italians to wake up and form a real democratic country. I just don't understand how they can enjoy being rules by dictators for such a long time.
-Alex
vaffanculo you fucking morons
"five foot two, he's proud as a stallion
a Popeye chin and very Italian"
Look it up. He's the boss in Italy!
are we bound to accept copyright laws from other countries? I know the US government tries to push their restrictions on less strict countries.
Does this mean that a US citizen could face extradition for copyright violation?
Oh yeah, I blame this squarely on the Italian PM, who I am pretty sure owns most of the media in the country.
little did they realize that when they logged into that Italian web site there was a copyright image on the page without the the permission of the copyright holder. time to build a LOT more jails eh Italy?
version 0.0002
...but such a rule in the land of Mafia? And how excatly does publishing the deeds in newspapers serve the purpose? Italian governement sure hasn't heard of Omerta.
P2P is a form of publishing. When you publish information, you really should play by the rules of the publishing industry.
You are correct in that the short blurb does not drawing a clean line on the difference between private communications and publishing. If Italy failed to draw this line then they have a flawed law.
It seems to me that the aim of such measures is to draw a distinction between private communications and publishing. Forwarding to an email to a friend is just communication. Forwarding an email to a mailing list or posting it online is a form of publishing.
calling P2P private communications to the world does not change the fact that it is a form of publishing.
This is the kind of lunatic laws you get when the recording industry lobbies government (hey, they got the cash!). Even in dear old Canada, where the courts protect our privacy through ISPs and uphold our right to freely copy media we own, the recording industry is lobbying government to change Canadian copyright law. If our government ratifies WIPO, as the industry is pushing them to do, we'll lose many of the media rights we enjoy (this will bring the DMCA into Canada). Please, visit our Digital Copyright Canada site, sign the Petition for Users' rights, and make digital freedom an election issue!
lets say we all live in italy (just for the sake of arguement).
Now, lets say I write an email to you, and you think the email is funny, so you forward it to another friend. now guess what, I _own_ you, why? well because you just broke the law, and I could press charges against you for distributing my email (which to me is a valuable copyrighted item that I did not give you permission to distribute)
The above example is intended to demonstrate how fucking insane this law is. Please mod me up so ignorant people can see it ( i posted anon so i wouldnt whore the karma)
I think that world record industry should apapt instead of sue.
They must find a way to distribuite music easily and and cheaper. Music stores are getting obsolete, webshops like Amazon takes too long. How long does it take for downloading a whole CD?
Prices are too high. But downloads aren't fast enough. They must avoid people from downloading any kind of music by giving them reasons to do so.
Jailing your own customers aren't a good options. Nobody buys CDs in jail.
The solution is to lower price, I think that US$ 5/CD or US$ 0,25/track are good prices, low enough to avoid people for downloading music. In Brazil piracy is so evolved that you can buy a CD for US$ 2,00, and you can buy a CD on every corner. Many people prefer to low quality CDs because it's cheaper, easier and faster, there's always somebody selling pirated CDs.
That's the solution. Make downloading boring and time-consuming, so it's better to buy a CD (or tracks) then to download it from any P2P network.
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
In many ways.
I live in Texas and once a week all arrests are published in the local newspaper.
All lawsuits, foreclosures, liens, divorces, bankrupcy's and every other manner of legal whatnot is also published.
I imagine if you'd tear yourself away from your computer monitor long enough to go purchase a newspaper you'd find the same things are also published in your local paper to.
Now it is really time to switch to anonymous P2P systems like Entropy: http://entropy.stop1984.com/en/home.html
Entropy totally rules!
Newspapers, TV, radio, film it isn't at all surprising that he thinks copyright infringment should be considered a criminal act rather than a civil one.
Oh, and he's being prosecuted for attempting to bribe a judge. He had a law passed which would give him immunity from prosecution while he was in office. It has since been overturned.
Did I forget to mention that he's the Prime Minister of Italy?
Deleted
is Berlusconi himself.
And please throw away the keys.
... in Italy this punishment is harsher than for discharge of a firearm in a public place? For careless driving that gets someone killed?
Where is proportionality? Where is "punishment fits the crime"? WHAT are they smoking over there???
Just recite this every time you think of using P2P in Italy.
Luca Brasi:
Don Corleone, I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your daughter... 's wedding... on the day of your daughter's wedding. And I hope their first child be a masculine child. I pledge my ever-ending loyalty.
In Italy, criminal offence definitions and stated penalties cannot be directly compared to their US counterparts. To understand how this law is going to be enforced, use the conversion coefficients below by taking the US figure and multiply it by the coefficient:
.05 .001 .00001 .0001
Will anyone will ever be charged with this violation:
Will anyone charged with this crime ever spend time in jail:
Will any law enforcement agency systematically seek to detect violations:
Number of people who'll be deterred from using P2P as a result of this law:
this law caused a huge drop of internet traffic in italy:l l-Total e.cgi?log=totaltraffic
see Traffic Analysis for MIX (the biggest italian node)
http://www.mix-it.net/brontolo/cgi-bin/14a
The article title is a little bit misleading, no? You can go to jail for transferring copyrighted files (I'm not saying this is cool), not for simply using P2P services.
154 and 1032? If only that was 128 and 1024, at least then it would make sense.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Including information in a lawsuit is not a form of publishing. When you wish to expose wrong doing in the press, you can do so by writing your own copy with citations and references.
Mussolini defined economic fascism as "the combination of the state and corporations".
Seeing as how this law uses the state to protect corporate interests rather than the interests of the people, isn't this a form of economic fascism?
Not when the vast majority of them are for pot, which is far less dangerous and far less addicting than either alcohol or tobacco.
And of course you know that "gateway drug" garbage has been empirically disproved. Or maybe you work for the textile industry and have a vested interest in the hugely hypocritical and totally ineffective War On Some Drugs?
Since the web works by transferring content, and since in the EU all content is automatically granted copyright protection from the moment of inception: isn't the WWW now illegal in Italy?
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
say i take a picture of my art, and then scan that picture to as high resolution as possible, then post it on my webpage under Art, including the upload timestamp etc etc etc
... what if someone used the excuse "someone hacked my computer and force-downloaded those files" ... or even have a web script that auto-sends certain info to a user... copyrighted material in a cookie file?
then, say i send that art of mine to a friend in italy. if he sends it to someone else without asking me first, are they both assumed guilty of this new law?
if so, someone could draw a farily funny comic, copyright it (put it on their page and hell, even have video of them drawing the original strip), and then email the strip to a few people... within a few days, if it's funny enough, so many people would have "illegally" send AND received copyrighted material without the author's consent, it could bring down, say, the entire senate?
also, it says "...caugh downloading..."
the possibilities are endless.
3 years in jail? I've heard of people in Canada only getting 5 years for murder.... However, that might be a flaw in the Canadian legal system.. Seriously, isn't 3 years a little excessive?
The whole problem is that we've allowed corporations and other commercial entities to redefine what "illegally copy" means. I mean really, who was it that decided to give them this kind of Godlike power, without any associated responsibility or accountability??
Anyway, I think there's a way to fix it that would be simple and fair for everyone. We need to change the legal definition of what a copyright means. Simply put, a copyright should grant the creator of a work the sole ability to collect revenue based on any use of that work. That's it, that's what you get, and nothing more. You write a book, record a song, make a movie, and you're the only one allowed to make money from it.
If someone is doing something with your work but not cashing in, guess what? Tough beans. You don't get to pull out any bullshit about "lost profits", because all that does is make for more lawyers arguing what that means, and God knows we've got enough of those. You've been granted the right to be the only person in the country who can legally make money from any use of your work, and that's an immensely powerful right. Sorry, but you don't get to have that, AND make that money by sitting on your ass suing people.
Now likewise, if you ARE using someone's copyrighted work to make money, we're going to come down real hard on you. Money always leaves a trail. And the Justice Department will have more than enough bulldogs freed up from hunting fileswappers to chase you down. Not to mention that income has to be -reported-. Try avoiding that, and see how quick the IRS gets after you too. Changing the currently unbalanced copyright laws to be fair to all sides means there will be more serious enforcement.
Ok, I don't really know how great a solution this is and it was a quick explanation, but this being Slashdot I'm sure someone can add something to it.
The article is about jail for people that illegally trade copyrighted works. Not about jailing people because they use P2P software.
There is enough skew in the replies to every article, can we keep the skew out of the headlines please?
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
Why do this... it's the actions of the far right. It reminds me of 'Sons & Daughters' by The Neville Brothers... We give up a few freedoms here and there In the name of a squeaky clean America Full lyrics are here: http://home.t-online.de/home/alexx/running.htm
now if only Italy would approve penalties for slimy executives who unethically prop up a distribution system against the good of the many, we'd have a great story.
(overheard outside a jail-cell)
Inmate 1: "So what are you in here for?"
Inmate 2: "I was the CEO of a large media conglomerate. I masterminded a scandal which cheated millions of people out of their retirement servings. So I've gotta serve three years here in the slammer. And you?"
Inmate 1: "My little brother used my computer to download Crossroads. He's always had a crush on Britney Spears. Of course it was my application of eMule and I had no way to prove it wasn't me. The judge was having a bad day and nailed me with three years.
Inmate 2: "Damn...."
The music industry can't sell you anything without your willing participation. You have the option to not purchase the album. All they seem to be asking, in general, is that if you are not interested in purchasing the album, that you not acquire it by other means. Seems fairly reasonable to me. In other, related news, I understand that you can now preview over the radio, in record store listening booths, at live concert appearances, and on web sites including iTunes Music Store. Your prayers have been answered!
Where do we draw lines between manslaughter and murder?
There are no perfectly clean lines in life. Trying to demand that we have perfectly clean laws before we can exist is absurd. To a large extent, everything depends on intent.
If I dropped a piano from a fifth floor window and if falls on a passerby, that is manslaughter. If I wait for the ex to walk by, aim and cut the cord...it is murder. The difference between the two has very little to do with either the shape of the piano or the laws of gravity. The difference is intent, and we need courts to decide on intent. Generally intent is clear. Pointing a gun at a person and pulling a trigger is generally a good sign of intent of murder (but it could just mean stupidity). Under cooking eggs benedict and causing a person to die from food poisoning is more indicative of manslaughter, but if the courts find out I purposefully cultured salmonella for the eggs...then I am a murderer.
Emailing copies of an ebook to friends (so they won't have to pay for the book), there is clear intent on doing the copyright holder wrong.
Italy's government is headed by its monopoly satellite media mogul, Silvio Berlusconi. Copyright infringement is henceforth a political crime. The WTO will shortly be synchronized with the Italian laws, then the US with the WTO, so the US will be offering these innovative government reforms soon enough.
--
make install -not war
Not when the vast majority of them are for pot,
Currently, just over 1/2 (54.7%-2002) in prison for all drug offenses, and declining from a high of 61.3% in 1994.
The BOP has lots of stats on this.
A prison cell with a raper, murderer and a 12 years old kid that downloaded Brinty Spears. ...
:(.
So yeah, it is about time they dealt severely with Brinty Spears lovers.. But what if it was someone who just downloaded a good song?
Oh the cruel world
I think speeding is a lot worse than sharing files
This is because you don't see the big picture. Speeding just kills or injures a few people now and then. File sharing, however, prevents the very rich from continuing to become a lot richer, which is clearly a much more evil offense.
While I haven't done the necessary research, it seems to me that in this age of harsh penalties for copyright violations, it should be possible to launch a very effective campaign against it by pointing out that the penalties are more harsh than many crimes of a greater magnitude.
For example,
"Thinking of copying your friend's CD? Think again. According to the policies of [insert pol's name], copying without permission is worse than [manslaugter | embezzlement | whatever fits].
The more people have reason to stop using current-generation P2P software and start using (or wait for) completely anonymous and encrypted P2P networks, the easier it will be to distributed child pornography.
I'd like to thank Silvio Berlusconi on behalf on sickos everywhere.
Berlusconi is a wannabe dictator. He controls all the media in his country, he uses censorship, he even tries to make himself immune to certain laws because he's the PM.
The guy is a nut.
Is Jack Valenti Italian?
Deep sleazeball, much like Murdoch, only he's dispensing with the puppet-middleman and occupying the office himself.
No wonder they adopted this weird law.
In the government own words this law is "seriously flawed". Yet they passed it urgently on the promise they will "fix it later"...
But at least you must do something to be considered guily. Not long ago another law introduced a fixed 30 cents tax on *each* CD-R on the assumption it will be used to pirate music. All this tax money goes to SIAE, the italian RIAA, which is lobbying for all this crap...
If you leave a 9 year old alone to do whatever they want, you have pretty much abdicated responsibility for being a parent. So, if your child downloads and distributes something, the parents should take the heat. Just because someone is underage doesn't mean that there is no accountability anywhere.
I think I hear the RIAA shedding a tear of joy. It's just so beautiful.
This is 100% Insightful -- if all us serfs would just take our rightful place at the bottom of the pyramid and accept our fates, the world would be a much better place (for the rich).
Since this is Italy, I assume this law only really applies to downloading materials that come from companies that Berlusconi owns a controlling interest in.
Which, since this is Italy, is practically everything.
Speaking on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of Italian P2P users, what are Italian jails like?
Are they sex torture rape factories like American prisons? Are they government profit centers like Mexican prisons (where you have to buy your own food)? If you download really big files and get the death penality, do they charge your family 50 cents like the Chinese do? Are they just 'work the zeks until they drop' slave-labor camps like the Soviet Gulags?
Come on, Italian politicians, you passed a law to put tens of thousands of your own young people in prison for activities that few civilized people consider to be a crime. Now that you have your 'law', what are you going to do with it?
*sigh* this just gives the RIAA more ideas of what to do to people who file share...
Does Italian law have any equivalent of what we in America would call the doctrine of jury nullification?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The law has been approved only under the promise it will be modified for that part. It contains other parts (on movies' copyright) that needed to be approved, or the entire law iter would had to be done again. So minister Urbani asked the parliament to approve it, promising to modify it ASAP.
I'm completely against italian government, but being italian myself I'm also against this fashion of reporting only half of the real news. And stop calling us fascists, please!
So obviously the papers would be exempt.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
In Italy, I think speeding is the right of every citizen. Have you seen how they drive over there? They don't need an insanely fast Italian supercar to drive like a maniac. Hell, even the police have Lamborghinis! (I'd post a link if there was one, but I think the latest Top Gear magazine has a pic...)
You must think in Russian.
Good! I hope they throw the mom in jail, and put the little criminal in juvenile incarceration! The mom for criminal negligence, and the daughter for the copyright infringement(s). Plus, I hope they seize any/all property to pay towards the fine(s), with possible mitigation (Of the fines, not the incarceration, that should be served in full.) if the little girl cooperates in helping gather evidence against all her school friends who are likewise criminals. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. If the mom had taken due diligence to supervise her daughters' activities, this wouldn't have happened. Personally, I think that since serious criminal acts can be committed with a computer, all computers/users/software/internet connections need to be licensed and closely monitored by the government. The U.S. constitution gauruntees freedom of speech, which means you can grab a soap box and shout your opinions to whoever will listen, not a right to freedom to use a computer however you like, or even what you can say with one. Just like driving, using a computer and the internet is a privelege, not a right, and should be licensed/regulated at least as well, especially when it comes to writing/publishing software.
Try posting as HTML and using the standard HTML € entity, which renders like this: € (If that doesn't work, then it's your browser's fault.)
Here's a link to some other HTML 4.0 Entities.
It seems to me that issuing these disproportionately large fines and jail sentences for such small crimes (after all downloading and sharing a few mp3s is not going to cost the record companies that much per user doing the downloading and sharing) is silly. IMO if they really wanted to make a difference they should be looking at speeding tickets and parking fines. If each person sharing or downloading infringing material could be issued smaller fines ($50 - $100), without a huge court case, not that many would bother to appeal and it would probably make more of a difference than throwing a few p2p users in jail.
Berlusconi is already deeply loathed for his ass-kissing support for the Iraq invasion. He's such a seething mass of conflict of interest and corruption that he makes Cheney look like a paragon of integrity. The fact that this was his idea, that the penalties are so grotesquely disproportionate, and that it's so evidently in support of his own personal interests, makes it likely that a future Italian government will repeal it, and it will be politically infeasible to revive it for years after that.
Better it didn't happen, but if it has to happen, at least it's happening in a way that will bring the whole idea into the worst possible disrepute.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
So, now isntead of filling overcrowded prisons with drugaddicts, it's time to overcrowd them even more with people that have shared a song, even without any commercial gains.
4 6995 and the follow-ups. Draconian measures are taken, but still it won't help...but in the meantime, much harm is done and lives and families destroyed - all for keeping up the power, greed and profits for the big corporations.
It's almost exactly like I said in http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=108810&cid=92
If followed to the letter, by making a civil sueing into a criminal one, it will effectively turn the majority of online users in Italy to criminals.
All reason and measure of proportion has left, it seems. But then again, what can you expect of a right-winged fascist government that supported (and still actively supports) the war in Iraq, against the will of the people?
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Jails too good for 'em. They should burn them at the stake. Those dirty thiev'in bastards. Kill 'em all I say..
Osama Ben Laden
anche un schifo, un finocchio, e un bastardo!
Ritorna, Le Rosse!!!
"I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq"
-- Paul Wolfowitz, 7/21/2003
sucks for that lady--good point. Email or phone that mom, who doesn't have a lawyer,who's not going to be able to afford a lawyer, and is scared out of her wits right now, and turn her on to it. Make the RIAA reveal how they did it, in exquisite detail, because if THEY were offering it for download, then it is FREE to download. Just like if SCO released a linux with their alleged IP in it, under the GPL, then it is FREE for anyone. Use their own lameness right back at them.
Being up against government or some filthy rich corporation is scary. I've done it-twice-without a lawyer,representing myself, but I spent months learning the laws, court procedures, etc. Won both times too, out of court settlements, bercause they realised I had them and wasn't going to rollover for them. Cretins.. Obnoxious cretins.. Anyway, not many people have the time or mindset to do that. I wish more did, because it's totally legal to represent yourself, and one of the things we need to do is take back "law" from the lawyer-legislators/lawyers/judges axis of mega-profits guild. Talk about your true lucrative monopolies... if MORE people would just file their own suits against government and big corporations, and if they were really hip if they get called to jury duty, and if more ethics complaints were filed against government employees, hired, appointed or elected, we could go a long ways to re establishing the republic like it was designed as, not as it has been changed into, mostly illegally, too, IMO.
As far as I know, a copyright is designed to protect a specific work of artistic/creative expression. It does not cover material which has no intrinsic artistic value. I believe there have been legal skirmishes between publishers of "raw" data (including the phone companies), and those who have taken this data and repackaged it for their own use. It used to be that if the data does not exist within a creative context, there is no basis for protection under copyright law. I am not sure if this has changed recently, however.
Italy makes Pizza too?
of course these geniuses got signed up with Hitler.... oops cheap shot
this has been a hotly discussed issue among net folks here in italy (was it bruce sterling who identified italy as a frontier for net affairs...?)
to sum up briefly how this law came to be passed: the movie industry (yes, berlusconi owns a major movie distribution company, medusa) complained about pirate dvd's (sold massively on streetcorners) and threw in p2p sharing as a further grievance.
in rapid response the minister of fine arts (yes, you read right, delle belle arti - it all went under the cloak of measures to help the movie industry...) whipped up a decree which was imposed by the government, who then had sixty days to convert into law.
during those sixty days, it became clear that: a. the minister is clearly incompetent (both in general, and in the specific subject of legiferating on the use of the internet); b. that the movie industry lobby is mighty powerful still (especially once they allied themselves with the recording industry, the publishers, the software industry and the all-commanding so-called authors' society, the siae, who handle all copyright dues in a very murky manner; and c. that the opposition parties, with a very few exceptions (notably the green party) don't have much of a clue on the issue either.
during the consultations that took place in a dedicated parliamentary commission, it was hoped that the strong interests of the national isp's - all of whom are touting high-speed adsl or even dedicated fiber-optic connectivity (and that's speed that you do NOT need for checking your e-mails...) would at least help to distinguish between private use/sharing and proper commercial pirating. indeed it seemed up until a few days before the final draft of the law was presented, that government and opposition had reached an agreement in this sense (also exempting isp's from having to police their own users) but at the last minute corporate interests forced a series of changes and wordings resulting in this draconian and indeed surreal law.
what needs to be said, however, is that the minister himself has acknowledged that the law is flawed and has specifically promised to emend it as soon as possible in order to align it with the recommendations passed by the european parliament that clearly distinguish between private use and commercial copyright abuse - indeed the greens withdrew 750 amendments they had collected (in a public initiative on their website) with which they wanted to filibuster the law beyond it's sixty day limit, in recognition of the minister's promise...
so: stay tuned, it's looking pretty bad, but it ain't over yet...
ciao for now...
That makes sense. Note how many really nasty criminals Clinton pardoned in exchange for money just before he left office.
The GPL *requires* uploading and downloading...there's no such thing as illegally sharing GPL'd works. It's when people *don't* upload or download their changes that we have a problem.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
Often on Slashdot, folks argue that there needs to be a balance in the law. Would the following work?
.wav file, but not for sharing an .mp3 or an .ogg file. Also, you'd go to jail for sharing an HDTV file, but not a lesser-quality copy like a VCD or DVD.
The reasons offered for the DMCA often center around how digital technology is different from analog because with digital one can make perfect copies.
What if the digital copying rules directly addressed THAT issue, then? Could we all compromise there?
Make the re-distribution of a perfect digital copy completely unlawful, a right afforded only to the copyright holder.
But make the re-distribution of imperfect digital copies lawful. Thus, you'd go to jail for sharing a
Wouldn't that be the makings of a new and viable business model for the content industries? Like bottled water, you would charge people more for higher quality. But for the tap water type of copies that most people consider "good enough," those would basically be free. High quality digital would have a premium.
I would subscribe to a regime like this. I think the current place where the line is drawn, making only analog copying considered acceptable and not needful of an Analog Millenium Copyright Act, draws the line too low.
What do people think?
Apart from maybe Cinema Paradiso, what's Italy given world culture in the past 30 years?
Imagine: Millions Italians decide to fight this by:
...
1- Making sure their computer is obsolete.
2- Download something copywrited. ( anything )
3- Go to police station and admit the "crime".
Result:
- Puplic services completly paralysed.
- Two newspapers FORCED BY LAW to publish millions of useless prints that would both bloat price and reduce relevant content.( leading to bankrupsy? )
Government stuck with tons of useless PC that they will have problem getting ride of. ( thank to friendly environmental groups already upset by wasted paper. )
Haaa... Dreaming is Soooo nice. But remember: IT COULD HAPPEN!
If this law is true, anyone going to a website is guilty of a crime (they make a copy of the webpages as they view them). All italian websites now have the ability to become multi-billionaires. Just email the people coming to the website that you are going to report them for violating your coyright, and tell them send money or they are going to jail for 6 months. Do they have cappuccino in Italian prisons?
I don't think anyone will be going to jail, although p2p in italy has slowed down a lot in the last two days due to people waiting to see what happens.
For a crime like this, if you have never commited a crime before the punishment is very likely to be changed into a fine, though that can be very high.
Many people criticized the jail part as ridiculous, since that's the same punishment you get for theft or rape. There's an ongoing joke these days about the police stopping a guy who stole a Ferrari, and don't do anything to him until they find some cd-rs in the trunk...
Also, this law doesn't apply to all copyrighted material.
The claimed objective of this law is to protect the movie business. In order to do that, the first draft of this law only covered online trading of movies. Only later music files were added to the basket, since record companies felt left out.
The same law, in fact, has a section about state financing of private movies in order to promote the italian movie business. That is not new. But to clear the context, you should know that Urbani's (the minister who proposed the law) wife is an actress and also a movie producer, and her company got quite a bit of that public money in the past.
It is obvious to everybody that this law is insane. First of all, it is impossible to enforce. Nobody has the means to do that. In earlier drafts it was up to the ISPs to look after their customers and watch if they were trading movies.
Second, the minister Urbani himself has said that the law will be modified. But the movie companies and him felt that it was important to have this law approved first, no matter how badly written, and modified later, rather than have a good law discussed and maybe approved god knows when. Third, the law could also be interpreted like this: in order to encourage people to go to cinemas, all major football events are to be moved from their actual tv schedule (i'm not kidding)(like it wouldn't be easier to lower the price of the tickets to the cinemas...). Lastly, Italy for example has had a very good law that covers copyrighted software since the early 90s, still piracy is very common and apart from a few fines (even if sometimes rather big), i don't think anybody ever went to jail for using (not selling, that's another thing) pirated software.
Italy Approves Jail for P2P Users
At first glance I wondered if this headline meant that Italy approved a special, separate prison for P2P users. Which would be kinda cool in a way... the P2P jails would be the ones where prisoners are constantly trading single cigarettes and stolen pudding.
If the law only applies to movies and music, is a zip file of a song, music? Or more generally, if one has to "transform" a file into something it wasn't originally, does the original file classify as the item being violated? This whole copyright/computer arena is a big mess.
Oh no! Dio Mio! Che cazzo giorno scuro!
Ever borrowed a book from a friend? You horrible copyright infringing thief you. Why is sending your friend a copy of an e-book any worse than loaning you friend a paper copy? Oh yeah, its digital, computers are new and scary.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Let me see here, The GI accused of tourture in Iraq gets 1 year in prison and a slap on the wrist but if your caught downloading Metallica you get 3 years. Where are societies priorities ?
I applaud that someone has taken this bold stance. A lot of people think, oh gee, those songs are free on the radio anyway, so why would you punish a kid for just taking music.
But let me tell you a little story. I was in the theater the other day and I saw a short film on the effects of the internet. They had a guy who made sets and also a stunt man. Well, it turns out that what these kids are doing is putting these people out of a job. According to a film, they're not rich, they're just guys trying to scrape by.
ANd then some kids copy the music or film and then everybody is out of a job.
So hundreds, if not thousands of kids are homeless and hungry because their dad is out of work because of P2P.
Prison? At least. Maybe if we took cigaretts and burned them in the face, or perhaps make them get naked and form human pyramids, or suffocate them in a sleeping bag. That is justice, and if a few little punks are hurt, then that's okay, because there are bigger things at stake here.
So I am right with you, brother.
All this is doing is pushing people into using anonymous p2p applications. The four main ones are:
Freenet
Mute
I2P
GNUnet
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
I've recently begun to wonder why patent and trademark infringement lawsuits are entirely handled in civil court, but copyright infringement has become a criminal matter. Why shouldn't copyright be handled strictly in civil court, just like patent and trademark?
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
There's one big difference as to why there is such outcry about the Italian ordeal and why there is much less about the goings on in the US. In italy, the government is persecuting it's own people for their gain. Here in the US, Bush is persecuting another country for his gain. Putting Bush in office was like putting a kid in charge of a candy store, much as is the situation, apparently, in Italy. I think it's only a matter of time before we're pushed too far and start pushing back. Together we can be the most powerful force in the world, and no army can hold us back. For what army, in place to protect the people, would turn against them to protect the beaurocrats that run this country from their corporate office and lobbyists. We need to cleanse the politics of this world, and only we can do it. The coruption must end.
You're blowing his comfortable vision that bush and cheney and screwing the country up "for our own good".
to completely ignoring the law entirely. Have you ever driven in Italy?
I was once driven back to the airport in a taxi where we *overtook* a police car which had it's lights and horns going. Went past it like it was standing still.
Deleted
the prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi is a media mogul, and lets face it possibly a criminal too.
f m? story_id=1763981o m/Media/CitizenKan e_Steroids.html
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.c
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.c
ad infinitum. It's all there on Google, just type in Silvio Berlusconi criminal-and draw your own conclusions from that.
So yes... there is such a thing as illegally sharing a GPL'd work.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Fascisti !
The US is often criticized on slashdot for creating oppressive laws (and, at times, rightfully so). However, the regulation that we have here is NOTHING like the regulation under the New Earth Government^W^W^W European Union. There, people proudly donate 90% of their income to the government, and accept whatever rules are imposed on them. They have done this since the beginning of Western society, so they see no need to stop now. Thankfully, the US courts do not put up with this bullshit. I'm confident that the PATRIOT Act, the DMCA, etc, etc. will be struck down by courts. However, I don't see that heppening in Italy. I think that many lives will be ruined by some silly UberMegaMediaCorporation's need to control the government. Oh well, not my problem.
Also, I love the part about publishing the offender's name in the "national" newspaper. Seems like Italy has resorted to the practices of a third world country.
You Europeans give us Americans a lot of shit, but at least we don't have to go to jail and be publicly hummiliated for sending our friends some music.
My other car is first.
Copyright infringement is illegal and generally bad. But P2P is neither illegal nor inherently bad. The headline equates them: that is bad.
Publish (source):
/dis-"tri-by&-'tE/ noun
1 a : to make generally known b : to make public announcement of
2 a : to disseminate to the public b : to produce or release for distribution; specifically : PRINT 2c c : to issue the work of (an author)
intransitive senses
1 : to put out an edition
2 : to have one's work accepted for publication
Publishing a work is actually done by the artist, trough an editor (usually), which then propose it to different distribution channel. At some point a collection of work might be grouped and recorded (an album), or a single work could be produced (movie), the resulting product would then be published to various distribution channels (in the case of majors, their own).
Distribute (source):
transitive senses
1 : to divide among several or many : APPORTION [distribute expenses]
3 a : to divide or separate especially into kinds b : to return the units of (as typeset matter) to storage
4 : to use in or as an operation so as to be mathematically distributive
intransitive senses : to be mathematically distributive
[multiplication distributes over addition] - distributee
synonyms DISTRIBUTE, DISPENSE, DIVIDE, DEAL, DOLE OUT
mean to give out, usually in shares, to each member of a group.
DISTRIBUTE implies an apportioning by separation of something into parts, units, or amounts [distributed food to the needy]. DISPENSE suggests the giving of a carefully weighed or measured portion to each of a group according to due or need [dispensed wisdom to the students]. DIVIDE stresses the separation of a whole into parts and implies that the parts are equal [three charitable groups divided the proceeds]. DEAL emphasizes the allotment of something piece by piece [deal out equipment and supplies]. DOLE OUT implies a carefully measured portion that is often scant or niggardly [doled out what little food there was].
The distribution channels, using various formats (cd, vhs, whatever) then divide the published worked into many copies which they sell (usually).
When we use P2P software we distribute files, we do not publish them, to be able to publish something a software would need to create that something first.
However I feel the need to point out that I strongly oppose what is happening in Italy. I just couldn't resist playing the word game. Fact is, most people abusing the law, or using loophole, are actually doing exactly this, arguing over words, not concepts, making the law systems pretty hard to grasp and navigate trough. We don't need a dictionnary, we all knew what they meant in their judgement, even if it's a sad sad one.
Your conclusion. Cleverly constructed, but I would point out that your last sentence is complete falsehood, or at least naive assumption in a faulty inductive argument.
Emailing a copy of an ebook to a friend does not show any CLEAR intent of any such thing.
Under what presumption should the sender see any causal link between the intended act, enriching his friend with knowledge, and the alleged consequence, loss of profit for the author. The courts make a distinction between Manslaughter and Murder because every human being intuitively understands the consequences of such action. A _reasonable_ evaluation or equity. When it comes to etherial half baked notions like copyright people simply do not make these connections naturally because they are counterintuitive.
Unless people like yourself continually shove these straw man analogies down their throats noone would EVER consider sharing information _wrong_.
Nice try.
The ghost of Benito Mussolini rears his ugly head!
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
I was thinking along the same lines. How much influence would a billionaire media magnate have had in introducing these laws, particularly when said media magnate is president.
If you think Fox is bad, imagine how bad it would be if Murdoch became US President. Here in Australia there is always a little tension between the media magnates and the government trying to restrict their power. It is difficult when the population gets their political views from the mass media to place too many restrictions on media ownership. It is a case of one body that prints its own money fighting with a group that buys ink by the truckful.
Having said that, the recent FTA with the USA may be leading .au computer users down a similar path to the Italian (although not as extreme). The power that American bodies such as RIAA and MPAA were, and are, going to be allowed to exert over Australia is disturbing, so much so that Australian performers have formed their own special interest group to highlight the inequalities and unfair treatment that they will receive as a result of the FTA.
InfoSec that matters, when it counts.
zoit
it gets WORSE
the dumb diabolic perverted dipwits also gave us a nice 45% tax on HARD DISKS AND OTHER METHODS OF MASS STORAGE!
THESE PEOPLE MUST BE STOPPED!
He was saying that what you said is indeed the case. The point was that, what really is worse? Killing someone because you were going to fast or trading music online? Is protecting someone's intellectual property more valuable than someone else's life? I dont think so. And neither did the original poster.
Joseph?
As far as I know, a copyright is designed to protect a specific work of artistic/creative expression.
Ummm, no. Anything you write is copyrighted by default. Your comment that I am replying to is copyrighted. It's also a creative expression, you might note.
resigned
If I create a work through the efforts of my mind, I have every right to control its distribution. I'm free not to distribute it at all, or I'm free to distribute it under extremely restrictive terms, or I'm free to BSD it. Whatever I choose, it is my choice and mine alone.
Now, since no one is holding a gun to your head, you are free to choose whether or not you want to access my creation (assuming I choose to distribute it at all). Since you are free to choose whether or not to accept what I offer, you are morally obligated to abide by whatever terms I demand if you do in fact accept what I offer. Should you violate that agreement, you have not simply breached a contract--you have essentially denied me of my right to my own mind. And that is very deserving of jail, if not torture and death.
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
Now I walk down the street listing to my CDs without fear that those nasty file swappers will steal my music from me! What a turdload!
My name is already copyrighted-when can I start suing. Is this a new Italiano internet game. Did we miss the curve again???
about jail is that it hasn't been outsourced to India yet.
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
I bet the RIAA lawyers are green with envy (and $).
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
Lookout...troll crossing .......
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
This is a case of the tail wagging the dog, I think. if you want to stop them, do something appropriate like confiscate their computers and ban them from using the Net for 5 years (like Kevin Mitnick). It's not as if any individual P2P user has much impact on the level of "piracy" - there are plenty of big gangs and under-utilised CD pressing plants to take care of that.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
First: Italy has well more than two national newspapers! "La Repubblica" and "Il Corriere Della Sera" are just the two most important ones. We are not such a little country, after all!
:-)), but there are even worse ones... a few weeks ago a new law had been approved that mandated all content made publicly available on the net to be sent to a national library... how on the earth could it be made possible? We spent some time making fun of it, and then we'll probably just forget it.
Second: this law has been approved, but the proposer of the law (a member of Berlusconi's Forza Italia[1] party) seems to already have agreed to modify it for removing the criminal offence part for file-sharing users. Supposedly, only a fine of at most 1000 (some 1100-1200$) will remain.
Third: in Italy, we have an enormous record of unapplicated and unapplicable laws (and idiotic ones, of course, but in the computer part I think USA is by far ahead): this one is unapplicable (it's impossible just to think to process every single guy that shared an mp3 file online - that would mean, I guess, at least half of the people between 15 and 30
Fourth: I don't know how is it in other countries, but we have so many ways to reduce the sentence and get into prescription that even Lionel Hutz couldn't have success in making a 18-year old guy be imprisoned for doing file sharing. It's not uncommon that people sentenced to "life" imprisonment get out after ~20 years[2]. Even our "beloved" prime minister got out of several processes with prescription.
--
Matteo
[anglosaxon people sensibilization campaign - all the world makes the effort of learning your language: could you please do us the favor of stopping using your stupid medieval metrics when you are talking to us?]
[1] Oh, if you have already seen these words without relating to Berlusconi, you probably have seen them in a stadium: prior to Berlusconi's involvment in politics, "forza italia!" was the preferred incitement for the soccer national team... nowadays nobody uses it anymore.
[2] Yes, it's the maximum possible sentence. Anyway, with mafia and all, we still have very, very, very much less murders than the USA.
-- Matteo
I'm writing from Italy, of course.
:)
The fact is that this new law - recently approved, soon to be changed, according to the same politicians that made it - just hardened the problems for using P2P the wrong way.
In Italy (and almost everywhere) it has always been prohibited to get get unauthorized copies of copyrighted material. If I download a movie or a CD, I know I can be prosecuted. Subtantially NOTHING has changed: piray was and still is prohibited (the fast that the economic market model must be changed, that sociologically things are changing are no matter now, as we're speaking about existing laws).
This new draconian laws now states one more time that you cannnot do that AND makes you pay - if found guilty - a lot more that the past AND (argh!) publish your name on national newspaper as "old bastard thief".
What is worst is the our politicians are making wrong law on subjects they don't fully comprehed. This new law has been promulgated with the pressure of SIAE, our contry's RIAA.
So, don't be fooled: until now, italian P2P users has only been alerted of "wrong P2P" usage bay our providers WHEN THEY GOT CONTACTED BY AMERICAN RIAA.
Oh, yes, one other thing.
Berlusconi may be the evil but don't believe everything you read...
i posted this ~one week ago and got rejected
on the other hand, i think slashdot moderating system is a perfect sample for a very simple rule
"the percent of stupids is directly proportional with the number of people"
"There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I live in italy. I've been fined for being caught whistling the last Britney Spears song under the shower in the gym, which is al public place. Oh my...
The move comes in direct response to the rise of P2P services such as Kazaa and Gnutella, and was prompted by the country's film industry.
Who would download an Italian film, let alone watch it?
This is great news! Maybe they'll fix up the catacombs and repair the coliseum and they can make even greater spectacle of evildoer file sharing pigs by throwing them to the lions! That'll be great sport!
"For-profit use should require a fair fee paid back to the copyright holder."
What you propose is unenforceable.
Say I have Photoshop installed on my computer for my own personal use, but I use GIMP for professional work (okay, unlikely, but not impossible). How can you prove I used Photoshop, and how can I prove I used GIMP, if I filter everything through, say, GraphicConverter and remove or modify all the metadata? What if I really do use Photoshop, and use GraphicConverter to hide the fact, how do you prove it, or should it be assumed that any machine with both products should have a paid license?
Same goes for a dual-boot system. I might do all my production work using Linux, and only keep Windows around for games. I can't prove that I don't use Windows for production work, so do I still have to pay a license fee? And then there's the games themselves, the driving force of the high-end PC market, which aren't used for profitable work at all: are you seriously insisting the games market, which is turbulent already, should adopt an entirely shareware/donation model? This is totally unrealistic, considering the amount of work (paid hours) that goes into modern games.
And how is this supposed to work for music or film? Both are entertainment, so do you charge only when someone is entertained, or only if they use part of an existing work for their own commercial purposes? You eliminate 99.9% of your paying audience right there, so you can forget your multi-million dollar blockbusters; Pixar would be out of business as quickly as Disney, and films like Lord of the Rings would be impossible. So your idea works if you only like cheap, amateur film and music, since copyright laws must be consistent whatever the medium it is presented on (the capacity to easily make flawless copies doesn't confer the right to do so).
"As it is, it's already possible to get a "free" copy of any Microsoft or Adobe product off the 'net."
And its illegal. But as long as nobody knows you have them (ie you don't use them for production work and you don't put them up on P2P networks), how would anyone know to take action against you? Same goes for music: the only reason peole get busted sharing files is because they are advertising to the world that they are sharing files by making them available via P2P. Remember, prosecution requires that evidence be collected against you; P2P networks have so far proven to be a wonderful source of such evidence, thanks to the hubris of the file sharing fraternity. The *IAAs & BSA were warning several years ago that file sharing was illegal; the file sharers laughed, and said "you can't catch us". Well, now they're being caught, and you're squealing that the laws aren't fair. They were warned, why should they expect any sympathy?
"See, it just requires a different way of thinking."
No, it requires completely unrealistic thinking, and a tremendous ego to imagine that someone who obviously has no idea how copyright really works can come up with a simple solution. But then, simple solutions appeal to simple people.
"We should have laws that make sense, and not have laws that chase impossible goals."
We should have a sense of responsibilty and respect for the work of others. In this regard, our laws do make sense. Eliminating child abuse, robbery and murder are apparently impossible goals; should these laws be abandoned? File sharers, like serious criminals, are the minority; most people are prepared to pay for what they use. Do we have laws to suit the minority, or do we have laws according to the morals of the majority?
I'm not saying that every part of existing copyright law represents the desire of the majority, or is the best for society. But really, is civilization going to collapse because you aren't allowed to make Mickey Mouse cartoons, or you have to pay for software? I doubt it.
But remember, the *IAAs suing people IS enforcing the law. While you may consider it unfair that 14 year olds are facing huge fines,
>> Italy also has a notion of freedom of the press
Not a "notion". It's in the constitution. We do have libel statutes that bite more than in the US, but way less than in the UK. In practice, political opinion is generally unassailable, with the only limitation that you can't advocate crime, while you can advocate legalizing what the law considers a crime - e.g. drug taking (never legalized) or abortion (later legalized). A big grey area is now advocating armed struggle in foreign countries (you guess where...).
>>"illa libertario della prensa."
>> (illa obligadrio della prensa)
This is neither Latin not Italian. Not even 10th century Italian. I appreciate the nice Spanish and Portuguese resonances, but you're not quite there. Is it Esperanto?
>> all nationally-sanctioned newspapers are required to print certain materials. Much like legal notices and novenas in American newspapers
They ARE legal notices. Novenas have nothing to do with it.
>> the Italian government has the power to influence the press.
A legal notice is NOT a government interference. It is mandated by the courts. If you are a lawyer you know the difference. If you know Italy, you also know that judiciary and government have been at loggerheads for many years.
>> All of these announcements are clearly labeled and are almost never mentioned in the newspaper itself, but of course this P2P issue will easily become a page 1 news story of its own.
Yes, I agree on both counts.
>> Il Duche Della Cybersecuridata
Soooo predictable, even complete with the classic misspelling!
Try posting as HTML and using the standard HTML € entity, which renders like this: € (If that doesn't work, then it's your browser's fault.)
Great. Now when is Slashdot going to support the £ entity? Or do they know something we British don't?
A obvious student of history posting verifible truths on slashdot?
Under his own login?
How can this be?
Where are the revisionist rants?
I must be dreaming