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Australian Media 'Crooks' to Come in from the Cold
pagefault writes "News.com is reporting that millions of Australians who tape TV shows and copy CDs will soon get the right to do it with a clear conscience. From the article: 'The Federal Government will next year legalize the video recording of television shows for personal use, and the transfer of songs from CDs to MP3 players, in a bid to overturn a ban which has made criminals of much of the population."
If everyone does it, then maybe its not so illegal.
I seriously doubt someone had unclear conscience while trying to copy his own CD-s to his own mp3 player.
Again brainwashing in action to make what's moral and what's legal the same thing.
If they outlaw living should I have bad conscience for being alive?
Nah, they were rarely enforced. Most people don't know they exist, and that's fair enough, because you assume if you buy a CD you have the right to make a copy of it for yourself. That makes sense. The laws against it don't. It's only with the rise of portable MP3 players that the media has picked up on the fact that, before the recent opening of the Australian iTunes store, there was almost no legal use for an iPod in Australia, yet they were selling in their thousands.
-"I still believe in revolution; I just don't capitalize it anymore." - srini!
I'm an Australian and I know of four police officers who are absolutely aware of my mp3(/ogg) collection. My collection is ripped from cd's that I legitimately own using sound-juicer and put onto my ipod using gtkpod. The police officers that have knowledge of this have part-taken in usage of my ipod to play these 'illegal' tracks and in three cases the officers themselves have children (or personally) who have mp3's both legal and illegal.
So I ask; how can the police enforce a law/requirement that they themselves do not respect? Further more I welcome this ruling from our great overlords (who I voted against) as it will stop most of the population being made criminals for using some thing (fairly) that they paid for. Kudos.
PS. Please don't arrest me and use this post* in court as an admittance of breaking the law!
*In the event that this post is used in the above fashion it is a complete fabrication! *Hides in his Bunker!
I ate your fish.
[US President]: Hey, I hear that you are letting your minions copying CDs down there. You do remember the agreement we had right?
[AUS President]: huh?
[US President]: The FREE trade agreement?
[AUS President]: Oh yeah, I forgot. Don't worry, should be fixed in a jiffy. Btw, I got to get back to Australia in a week. The people seems to get a bit worried when their president is away for more than a few months.
[US President]: Ok, I guess I can replace you with an intern. Go ahead and get out from underneath my desk.
All hail to our Yanky overlords. I, as an Australian, welcome our inclusion into the United States of America as its newest state. I also welcome renaming our parliament to "Congress" and our Prime Minister to "President". One can only hope that the states will outsource its prison facilities over here.
If I can do it, its probably not worth doing... probably
True story...
At the last federal election I rock up to the polling place, a school not too far from my house. I just walked up, got the iPod going so I don't have to listen to the local "party members" trying to hand me how to vote forms. As I walk in this guy, talking to someone on his left, bumps into me. I turn around, he turns around. It's fucking John Howard (prime minister of Oz if you don't know) - his office is just up the road from the school and he'd wandered down for a meet-and-greet. I just kept going.
He did nothing! There I was, fragantly defying the law of the land and our fearless leader, otherwise known as "the rodent", did nothing. He had his security guys there. He could of tackled me himself. Grabbed me and made a citizen's arrest or something. But he did nothing. Weak on law he is. Weak!
Just to insert a little sanity here. In Australia, most copyright violations are prosecuted in the civil courts (exceptions include sale of couterfeit goos, called 'passing off'). It is only in corrupt countries where the media corporations can easily buy new laws that such things have fallen under criminal prosecution.
Let's not even begin to talk about the DCMA, the shiny new laws which make videotaping a movie in a theatre more heavily punished than several types of killing, or the perpetual copyright on Mickey Mouse or anything else that american corporations bother to pay supreme court justices for.
Nihil Illegitemi Carborvndvm
"Artist" in this context means "media corporations", and "lose" means "fail to gain".