Slashdot Mirror
Australian Government Considers Copying UK Copyright Law Ideas
msim brings word that Australian legislators are considering an anti-piracy measure that would require ISPs to terminate internet access for people who repeatedly download copyrighted material. The legislation would set up a three-strikes system similar to the one proposed in the UK recently. While British ISPs resisted suggestions that they act as internet police, the response may not be the same in Australia, where the government has already tried to censor the internet.
"Under the three-strikes policy, a warning would be first issued to offenders who illegally share files using peer-to-peer technology to access music, TV shows and movies free of charge. The second strike would lead to the offender's internet access being suspended; the third would cancel the offender's internet access."
According to the article, it only targets Peer to Peer technology, not FTP, HTTP or other protocols...
Which if IIRC is where it all started.
Of course, when Peer to Peer programs start using modified versions of well known protocols such as FTP and HTTP then identifying the difference between illegal and legal traffic is going to be impossible... Either that or Youtube is completely screwed.
GrpA.
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
Considering that the internet is becoming an absolute necessity to actually live, communicate etc, cutting of access is like saying you can't walk on the roads... to me it's starting to sound like a human rights violation. It's a necessity. In 20 years, nothing works without it. Imagine losing your bank account, having no phone, no home address... it would create a vast criminal class without ability to live a proper public life.
The basis for the article, and in fact the only actual quote from a government minister, is as follows:
"We will also examine any UK legislation on this issue [including any three-strikes policy] with particular interest," he [Minister for Communications Stephen Conroy] said. Nowhere does it mention that the Australian government is "Considering copying" UK's laws.
Because it's obviously 'sexy' at the moment to write about technology and internet related issues (Going by the number of articles to do with p2p, Facebook, YouTube etc.) these two journalists have decided to write an article with pretty much no grounding in fact - but it does have a sensationalist title (The alliteration is nice too, I'll admit) and therefore people will read it and submit it to Slashdot.
Oh and then we'll link to an article about the Australian government's attempts to stop kids looking at porn (Because that's highly relevant?). I live in Australia, and according to that article I apparently need to verify my age before visiting 'Adult sites' but a quick check shows I don't. As for this quote; "While British ISPs resisted suggestions that they act as internet police, the response may not be the same in Australia". I'm sure you guys have heard of those DMCA take down letters issued by various copyright holders to ISP's and in turn to customers? Well the biggest ISP in Australia, Telstra, which has around 50% of the market doesn't even bother forwarding those to the customer who has apparently breached copyright. It seems that Australian ISP's have a lot more respect for their customers then ISP's in Britain and America.
You still have to make a listing of the files available and searchable for each node/sharer.
Besides, if they do have a way for the files to be identified, at least to a reasonable degree of certainty, then why shouldnt we have a law like this? You can always contest it in court if you feel you have been wrongly accused.
Im serious. If we find a way to enforce copy right again, why shouldnt we? I know we like stuff to be free, but it really shouldnt be unless the person chooses to give it away.
I think we need a war on this stupid "war on" meme. For music companies or journalists to suggest that the downloading of music justifies the same response as Hitler's invasion of Poland is disgusting.
No difference to all those fake rolex watches etc., should it be a criminal offence to buy one or to have it in your possession.
Should the government make the end user liable for being the 'victim' of a fraud. Similarly those people who have been victims of phishing, a downloaded a fake copyright infringing version of their banking web site, not only does the victim have their account raided by a criminal, but the government will fine them in addition, perhaps by confiscating what remains of that bank account, as well as of course kicking them off the internet.
Of course you can not differentiate between different types of copyrighted content, so unknowingly click on a web site that contains 3 infringing photos, and they will kick you off the internet. Well if they really are going to be a bunch of fucked up phreaks, why don't they make it a criminal offence, to download infringing copyrighted content, I am totally positive that after just one month using the internet their would not be one person who has not unknowingly downloaded some infringing content, be a piece of writing, a photo, a portion of a web page design, some web page coding, or a viral video etc.
So the maroons can try to turn the whole country into a prison and oddly enough honour it's heritage as a prison colony, with a 'Rudd'y fool as the head warden.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Do you ever look forward twenty or thirty years and wonder what the world of technology will deliver to us? What it's potential is and what will actually be realized?
In the last 20 years we've gone from home computer systems with half a meg of ram or less to a worldwide network of high powered PC's in every home, evolving human interaction from e-mail, IRC, web pages, instant messages, internet radio, internet video, 3D virtual worlds, online stores, the participation of a global audience in projects ran by NASA, live news coverage from hundreds of vendors - it's impressive. And we have more to look forward to: 3D TV, space elevators, nanotechnology, advanced AI, accessible quantum computing, artificial limbs that interface with our nervous system, maybe even space travel to other worlds.
Sometimes I catch myself wondering about all the things I can't even imagine today that will come along after my death and I'll never experience. Then I think about modern day issues such as this ludicrous copyright legislation, in my home nation (UK) no less, and I wonder if in ten years time if the Internet will even be recognizable as a free, neutral foundation for furthering mankind, or will it simply be transformed into a Government regulated and observed, pay per use, pricing-tiered no-man's land destroyed by industries seeking to motivate individuals to purchase their products or works as a product of fear mongering and contorted calculations of "damages" that haven't even been shown to have occurred?
Copyright is necessary such that those who spend their lives creating works valued our societies can continue to do so. It is a balance between the needs and desires of our societies and the needs and desires of our artists, authors, and musicians. It is not a tool to be wielded by industry associations to sue individuals who can't afford to buy a dozen CDs, let alone defend themselves in court, into bankruptcy for the purposes of a public scare campaign, nor a tool to twist the laws of a society against itself solely in the interests of those agencies - those agencies who themselves are not the artists, authors, and musicians who create the works they claim to protect, and who they have recently announced they seek to pay less.
Please stop this madness. The world will suffer greatly at the hands of a small group of greedy executives and their shareholders if this nonsense continues much further down its current path.
Yes it should, if it can be established that a reasonable person would have thought that the watch was counterfeit (i.e. `replica' in the title of the auction, suspiciously low price,etc.), they should be prosecuted. This is no different from `possession of stolen goods' or `handling' in the UK: you cannot simply claim that you had absolutely no knowledge that the goods were stolen if it would have been obvious to a reasonable person that they could not be legitimate. The same rule could easily be applied to copyright infringement: nobody will ever prosecute you because someone posted an infringing picture on his website. However, if you download songs and movies from other users using P2P software, it is almost certainly copyright infringement.
If you've got a copy of the Star Wars animated feature on your machine a month before it comes out in the theater I'd say you have a mouth full of chicken feathers and claiming you didn't know it wasn't out yet isn't going to fly. One of the biggest problems with the whole argument is there's a lot of different positions falling under the hat of P2P. People argue that there are legitimate uses but most of it seems to be sharing copyrighted material. Then there's others that are claiming fair use but that's murky too because fair use was never meant to be a dodge for getting around paying for materials. Then you have people that flat out don't want to pay for anything and why should they if they can download it for free? I don't know, maybe because the producers of all this content you want for free may decide to do something that pays instead of producing free content? The subject really needs to be divided up into several arguments. File sharing of non copyrighted materials isn't an issue so it's a non argument and can be excluded. Fair Use? Well Fair Use doesn't cover uploading a movie that has yet to hit the theater for your closest hundred thousand friends to download. So we are largely left with "I don't want to pay for anything" being the argument. Well since the people making said products don't want to work for free so you don't have to pay then either some one else has to pay for you or the products will cease to be produced and everyone will loose including those willing to pay. The debate is being clouded by the different issues but it really comes down to free verses pay. Pay is called capitalism, free means the government pays for content then you get what they want to produce and you pay for it with your tax dollars. So unless you want to watch documentaries on the life and times of Ronald Regan and George W Bush or hear their favorite music you might want to consider paying for music and movies you like. Socialism and Communism may sound like a free ride but you still wind up having to pay through taxes and you tend to get a lot of crap. Yes most films and music are crap these days but believe it or not it can get a lot worse.
Umm, this might sound like a nitpick, but you forgot another not insignificant category --- legally sharing copyrighted material. Think Free software, CC licensed audio and video, etc. I download several GB every month, and I'm sure I'm not alone. People do produce things for reasons other than just money.
Just sayin' s'all...
Cogito, ergo sig.