Music Industry 'trying to hijack EU data laws'

sebFlyte writes "The recording industry is trying to hijack the EU's data retention directive, which is being brought in to fight terrorism, to try and get their copyright battles fought for them. As previously reported, the EU may be making copyright infringement a criminal offence, and the Creative Media Business Alliance is lobbying hard to stop the European laws on data retention being restricted to cover terrorism and organized crime (as is currently proposed). In essence, they want to be able to get police to search through newly extended records from ISPs to look for evidence of illegal filesharing. In the words of the executive director of the Open Rights group, 'the music industry's attempt to hijack this legislation is a travesty and a gross affront to civil liberties and human rights.'"

Comments

What is it with "trying to"? Already a done deal.

[shanen]

I feel like laughing at the idiots who voted for Dubya and are now waking up and smelling the roses--but they smell terrible. [How did Mr Spock word it in I, Mudd ? Something about logic as a little bird?] Well, actually that's a bit of exaggeration and giving Dubya even more discredit than he deserves, since the music and movie and other publishing-related industies have been subverting and perverting the laws for decades. A lot of the worst damage was actually in the reign of Reagan, but now with Dubya's help it's just like pigs at the trough.

Anyway, insofar as there is any hope for the future (of America or of the world?), the solution is a new and improved legal principle. The default case for data retention should be "No", with an occasional "Hell, no" thrown in. The basic principle is not really all that new, but we need to make it explicit that "we, the people," should own our own personal data, and no one, and especially not private companies like the members of the RIAA should have ANY right to retain our personal information without OUR permission and without telling us what they want to know and what they are going to do with that information.

The natural solution is for the information, even including our personal business records, to be stored on OUR own computers. They can encrypt it and sign it and whatever to protect it, but possession is nine points of the law, and if they have possession, we have nothing to defend. If we are to have any semblance of privacy in the future, we better start thinking NOW about where it is going to be defended.

The next part needs a bit more thinking, but I suspect there is some intrinsic link between privacy and human dignity... However, regardless of those complexities, I'm certain I don't want the RIAA and f[r]iends meddling in my personal life.

Re:Consumer drons are teh problem

[roman_mir]

1) A non-DRMed copy is provided to the government in each and every country where copyright is desired. This is used for archival purposes (cultural inheritance), libraries and so forth. No non-DRMed copy, no copyright. - I don't see a reason for this. But I don't particularly care about the culture 100 years from now. So from my point of view this is a non-issue. Whatever, I am sure the music industry would even agree with this deman, but to be honest with you I wouldn't agree with anything if I was them unless I was making a profit.

2) No prison time. Prisons are overcrowded, and downloading a copy of a 30 year old work should not put you in the same place as rapists and murderers. Period. - Infringing on copyrights is a criminal offence (or if it is not it should be made a criminal offence,) and while putting people to prison for this is probably too much, I don't see a reason why the defendant shouldn't be responsible to the fullest extent of the law, whatever the law is.

3) All 'blank media' levies are immediately dropped and refunded. - I fully agree with this, since I am quite libertarian in my views.

4) Breaking the copy protection in order for the product to comply with Fair Use traditions/laws in your country is fair game and not prosecutable. - whatever dude, if your country's trade deals suffer from political pressure of the copyright owners, it could be your country's laws that could change in order to be able to function in the world where copyright is a criminal offence. Unless your country doesn't want to deal with other countries, where such measures are set.

You might believe that you created your music all by yourself, but you didn't - you built it on top of every other artists out there. Who did you imitate when you were learning your instrument of choice ? Did you pay them ? No ? Why not ? According to you, it's 'their' song. - while you might believe that using a copy of someone's elses product is ok for making your own products on top of them (whether by extending them or by refactoring the original,) it does not mean that the legal system will agree with you on that one. I agree that idea of music should not be protected by the legal system (you should not be able to patent ideas for music,) but the actual implementation - a copy of someone's product should be fully protected by copyright laws.