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Draconian Anti-Piracy Law Looms Over Australia
ccozan writes to tell us of a law being rushed through the Australian legislature that would criminalize great swaths of the citizenry. The Internet Industry Association of Australia is posting warning scenarios spelling out how far-reaching this law would be. From the release: "A family who holds a birthday picnic in a place of public entertainment (for example, the grounds of a zoo) and sings 'Happy Birthday' in a manner that can be heard by others, risks an infringement notice carrying a fine of up to $1,320. If they make a video recording of the event, they risk a further fine for the possession of a device for the purpose of making an infringing copy of a song... The US Free Trade Agreement does not require Australia to go down this path, and neither US nor European law contain such far-reaching measures. We are at a total loss to understand how this policy has developed, who is behind it and why there is such haste in enacting it into law — with little if any public debate."
The love of money is the root of all evil.
It's time to route the music supply AROUND the RIAA, just the same way a person would route AROUND a circuit that poses a fire hazard.
In the long run, greed will greed itself out of existance as publically created free music replaces "go-to-jail" / "pay-the-fines" music.
Hmm. Of course...who's working on that free music again?
www.anvilstudio.com
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
Normally on slashdot, there are thought-provoking topics that trigger much debate and such, but it's all pretty clear in this case.
I'm gonna need a spec.
because the kernel source says "fuck" in a few places, and there was a proposal to make it illegal to convey profanities via the internet.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I mean this sincerely:
If you believe that you can make any kind of difference to the masses with a move like getting people to give up licenced popular culture due to unfair IP laws, then go for it; it's a good goal, but I think you might be understating the difficulty of converting even one person just a bit.
Do you have plans? An idea without a plan generally doesn't amount to much. How do you intend to achieve your goals? Warning friends and family that you won't accept the gifts you mentioned and then not accepting them is a good move, though you might piss people off if you don't accept a gift, which they will inevitably buy, despite your warning. If you want people to write to their politicians, perhaps you could come up with a template and host a site that contains in an easy to use form who the relevant politicians are for each area. Rather than suggesting that maybe people should meet up in Sydney at some time, specify a time that you will definitely be there and then seek commitments from others.
Like I said, it sounds like you could achieve some part of your goals, but are you actually going to try, or is it just steam?
I'm gonna need a spec.
It's not about greed...
It's about a lust for power. As a libertarian, I tend to be fair to capitalism, as long as it stays within the boundaries of good ethics.
During the industrial revolution and earlier part of the last century, it was more simple. Your mind designed something- a lightbulb, the first radio, you produced a prototype, you hired people to produce more, and you got paid based on the value of your ideas, and the value of your products - the catch being that competetors are too. You build a mousetrap, and if they build a better one... well, the power's in the hands of the customers.
Then we evolved mass media advertising, technology, and non-tangible goods, and things became more complicated. Market visibility becomes an issue as the marketplace becomes wider. So little people who are hardworking and make good products and want to compete start hiring the big people to help them with this... some to help them become visible, and others as a shield help to protect them legally. This becomes more and more of a corporate thing, and the little people tend to become just visible enough to get bought out, and the larger companies show off what the little companies did and say "see, we can take credit for this now." In the meantime the little company sadly, in some cases, mutates to the form of "productivity" the new parent company had: producing mostly crap, but lots of it.
Then you get people like the RIAA, doing this for musicians or the movie industry. But with digital media becoming prevalent, they don't have as much to hold on to.
At the billion dollar level, it's not about the few hundred thousand. It's about control. File sharing deals a blow because the most popular files are the easiest ones to find... the catch being if you want to find music by an obscure enough artist, you *have* to buy it. This eventually leads to musicians who are outside the "current realm of control" getting enough money to do things like produce videos, which gets them seen... which is a threat if they don't have a sellout pricetag. The RIAA doesn't want enough competetors joining together to produce a bigger competetor that could take them down off their high mountain.
Good capitalism wants its competitor to have enough of a chance to make life interesting, but will work hard to beat it. This "working hard" should not involve dirty tricks or absolute control of the media outlets used to advertise, but the problem here is that the industry in question IS the media. It turns business into little more than politics, which is part of why the american system is in need of reform.
This is all IMHO, though, since I'm neither a lawyer nor in the media.