Slashdot Mirror
UK ISPs To Face Piracy Deadline
superbrose notes that despite lots of legal difficulties regarding Internet privacy, the UK government is going ahead with plans to punish ISPs for allowing their customers to download illegal music and films. The claim is that there is "rampant piracy" in Britain with more than 6 million broadband users downloading files illegally every year. "The government will on Friday tell internet service providers they will be hit with legal sanctions from April next year unless they take concrete steps to curb illegal downloads of music and films. Britain would be one of the first countries in the world to impose such sanctions. Service providers say what the government wants them to do would be like asking the Royal Mail to monitor the contents of every envelope posted."
Let your MP know what a bad idea this is: http://www.writetothem.com/
Service providers say what the government wants them to do would be like asking the Royal Mail to monitor the contents of every envelope posted.
Don't give them any ideas...
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
It's surely more than that. What is the total amount of people in the UK between 15 and 25, for example? Every person I know in the EU in that age bracket downloads most of the media they consume rather than buying authorized copies. P2P is mainstream. If users could only group together for political power like some are starting to do in Sweden, the course of democracy might be able to break copyright law.
The ISPs died for my sins.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
Yes, this is essentially a shutdown of the WWW in the UK. So? It's what the Gov wants, right?
Best Slashdot Co
I'm sure this will easily allow them to deal with the other issue of the day http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/22/1458237
/sarcasm
When governments grow bureaucratic and so full of their own processes that they become forgetful of their own purpose and the reality of the situation of everyday life,they will surely fall and fall hard.
Translation; they're gonna figure out they've stepped on their own teat when the cost of phone service,let alone internet becomes so prohibitive that even the "Royals" bitch.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Would that be 10% of the WHOLE population (including oldies, sickies and kiddies)? Sounds like it's time to change the law, not enforce it harder.
It's going to get even worse. Imagine asking the Royal Mail to monitor the contents of every envelope posted, after half of the mail writers get tired of these draconian measures and start sending their messages in code.
What if P2P users start encrypting their traffic? The difficulties involved would be significant, but not insurmountable. Are the ISPs supposed to treat every user transmitting & receiving encrypted data as a criminal?
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
6 million people is about 10% of the total population. Maybe if such a large portion of its citizens want to do something it shouldn't be illegal. If the government were obeying the will of the people this shouldn't even be an issue.
Developers: We can use your help.
In response, a government minister said, "What a great idea! We'll need to get going on that, too!"
Keep in mind folks that the Net Neutrality that was allowed to expire several years ago here in the US have ISP's common carrier status. For those who oppose Net Neutrality, ISPs will be required to police the content crossing their pipes to avoid legal liability.
for the new world order
What?
I've been wondering about this since the story broke last week, presumably someone will have to keep a definitive blacklist of banned users, otherwise you could just go to another ISP and sign up for another connection.
This makes me wonder, will the address/telephone line be blacklisted or the individual user whose name the line was in?
If the former, then it would suck if you just moved into a place that had been blacklisted. If the latter, what's to stop someone else in the household from signing up for another connection?
I can imagine many student houses with 4 or more people living there, assuming it takes a few months to get noticed and sent you first warning, another couple to get your second and another couple of months to get cut off, you could then sign up again under another name and go for another round...
You can also sign this petition: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/openinternet/
Stuff like this makes me wonder just how much invasion/erosion of privacy will be tolerated in the UK before people rise up and flood into the streets in protest. Of course, I wonder how far the same thing will go in the US before a similar reaction too! But it seems that our friends in the UK are farther along this particular curve than the US.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
It is extraordinary how little clarity there is about procedures. The industry tells your ISP they suspect illegal behaviour. What is the standard of proof? What's the process for deciding if the evidence is convincing? How is it to be challenged? Disclosed?
Then your ISP writes to you. You say the allegations are false and libellous. What happens next? Do you get to cross examine the industry spokesperson who made the allegations?
Then three strikes, they disconnect you. You sue them. Who is liable? Them? The industry body?
Its not so much iniquitous as unworkable in its present form. You basically cannot do this without all the expense of the courts, which is what they're trying to avoid.
The easiest way to combat this is to then monitor the traffic of politicians and their families first. Obviously any piracy problem is most serious when practiced by a member of the parliament or their families, so careful monitoring of all communications from politicians is obviously a priority. After that, monitor traffic from anybody employed by the recording industry and their families. Then the families of the owners of all major industries. After that, ensure that no members of the police force are secretly pirating. If you get through that list without a repeal of the directive then you can monitor the rest of the populace, but I suspect that'll be a short lived initiative.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
ne1 know good russian based fast'n cheap virtual machines allowing p2p and proxy services.
Just a single day! I think they'll get the message that they shouldn't try pushing stupid laws on them after that.
I wish politicians learned about the subject of their laws before they started throwing laws everywhere based on which corporate powers paid them what, regardless of the interests of the people who put them in power.
Considering that there are legal download and streaming alternatives now. And there will be more in the future...
Who is going to decide?
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Let time expire, in the 11th hour take the UK offline. See how long those beholden to the media companys remain in power. In fact given how addicted to the internet people are I doubt they would have long to live, much less remain in office.
To every lawmaker on the planet:
OUR COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE IS GREATER THAN YOUR OWN! We have got hordes of geeks working on ways to circumvent every single way you have ever conceived to censor what we do.
What happened with iTunes DRM? It got owned by qtfairuse.
What happened when you blocked bittorrent? We started encrypting it.
What happened when you blocked the port that bittorrent runs on? We started running it on a different port.
What happened when you throttled NNTP connections? We started using lots and lots of simultaneous connections, each of them throttled, but collectively adding up to our original speed.
What happened when you started blocking NNTP all together? We started running it over port 80 and disguising it as legitimate SSL traffic.
What happened when you started listening to our phone calls? We started using encrypted VOIP.
Every single time there has EVER been ANY attempt at stopping people from doing what they want it has only caused them to grow stronger. Don't challenge us to develop stronger encryption, because we will. Its like spraying a weed with weed killer, eventually you're just going to create stronger weeds.
What you are trying to do in the UK will absolutely fail. History has shown this. Non tech-savvy users will be alienated for a while, until we create yet ANOTHER work around for your idiotic bureaucratic attempt at pleasing your own appetite for money and power.
I cannot repeat enough that this WILL fail.
The community welcomes your attempt at censoring us. It will only present us with yet another challenge and cause the gap between our skills and your own to grow.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
Solution 1: A solution is implemented which pays lip service to the requirement - something like ISPs poisoning the entries their DNS servers provide on demand of the BPI - or if they're really paranoid, null-routing the IP addresses. This is the kind of thing the ISPs would go for, isn't too onerous and doesn't actually do anything to solve the "problem".
Solution 2: The Great Firewall of Britain. This is what I see the Government doing if the ISPs don't. I doubt it'll be terribly effective because the government will outsource providing appropriate technology to a consultant like EDS (a company that specialises in taking money off UK government departments in exchange for half-baked systems which don't really work properly) and once the technology is ready, ISPs will be obliged to deploy it.
Tell them suspicious activity related to file sharing was detected on their network and, in accordance with the new law, they've had their access terminated. Oh, and of course, no refunds...
1984 Marathon, at with Big Brother, all night. Every night!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
So much for lack of censorship and freedoms.
The media giants have too much power, they just can't face decline. There's a massive amount of music, films and media out there, the demand and supply doesn't always match. I for example don't want much that Hollywood churns out, I don't like a lot of popular media. So am I to be prosecuted because I don't purchase rubbish commercial music and use p2p?
Remember, remember, the fifth of November.
Governments need to be afraid of it's people.
Start running around with a mask that has a shit eating grin on it mkay?
...and pass the cost on to the consumer. So what if Brits spend half their earnings on internet access, right? All the tech savvy folks will just leave the country...bing, bam, boom....market economics works around the problem.
This is a classic case of the UK government loosing sight of reality. The ISPs are the "highways" of the Internet, If someone speeds does the government or highways agency have to get a fine, no the end user or driver gets the fine. The Highway agency is not responsible for users speeding or driving badly. If the road is poor they have to fix it, if its a dangerous section they have to do something about it but they are not held responsible unless they are found negligent for whatever reason. It is a similar situation with the Internet. I guess a more accurate analogy is the postal service, The royal mail is not responsible for providing a service where I could post pirate DVDs or movies to other people. With the costs that some ISP's charge for data it is probably actually cheaper to pay for the cost of media than the traffic charges. I think its times like this where the completely technically inept government attempt to or do pass policies which are either not enforceable or loose sight of the end goal of the bill is/was. Is the key objective of this policy really to reduce piracy or to try and enforce a bigger picture of big brother watching what users are doing on the internet? What benefits does this really provide the copyright holders? The answer is probably that they can hold someone with deeper pockets liable for fines rather than the end user who probably earns a great deal less than the business and is therefore not a great legal target at "recouping losses".
As someone that works in the Internet space it seems ridiculous for the ISP to be enforcing even more silly government policy without having any ability to recoup the costs of implementing the technology or the systems to manage the technology. Someone in this whole situation will be making a huge amount of money and some will be loosing even more.
Oh dear, Oh dear, oh dear...
Need I say more?
I was previously of the opinion that European countries made (generally) good decisions about MAFIAA-related things.
There goes that theory.
Lets suppose it were something else. People are buying cigarettes for minors in supermarkets. So the government says, the anti smoking league should be able to monitor people buying cigarettes by observation. Then they give a name to the supermarkets. These then deny service to these people. Refuse for instance to accept their credit cards.
Or speeding. We get anti speeding bodies to notify their insurers that they have been observed breaking the speed limit, who then have to terminate their insurance. No court, no ticket, no magistrate, no legally established penalty. No speed camera necessary.
Can you seriously imagine this scenario? The answer is, if people break the law, arrest and prosecute. You cannot just allow self appointed bodies to make unsupported allegations and then have other organisations decide to refuse service, or worse, be obliged to refuse service, on this basis.
Its procedural insanity. And probably will be found contrary to the European Human Rights Act, which, in another part of the wood, another part of the Government signed up to while no-one was looking....
Voilà, problem solved.
1. Piracy will still exist, just obfuscated and encrypted more.
2. ISPs will be more expensive, as Internet service providers will have to relay the costs of scanning all the packets onto their customers.
So basically, this has failed before it has even begun as far as I'm concerned. As per usual for this government, it doesn't benefit the population in any way.
Unfortunately the US doesn't have a monopoly on corrupt politicians, Europe also has those, and they are also prepared to trouser great wedges to table these sorts of stupid proposals.
The cocaine & whores budget of the "MAFIAA" & their related European cousins, easily stretches to a few corrupt politicians.
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
This British law will piss off the ISPs. This law isn't action against the customers.
We should wait and see what the ISPs reaction is.
Not only shutdown the WWW, but all ISPs in the UK should just simply unplug everything in protest, and announce total and sudden complete end of business. No email, no web servers, no file transfers, no VPNs, no government traffic either, nothing. All at once, and on the same date and time in unison. That will get the attention of both the government and every average joe citizen. If the ISPs all at once announce the shutdown and the reason being that the government has essentially outlawed their ability to conduct business in a practical and feasible manner, the public will force pressure on the government to pull their heads out of their arses.
If I were in charge of an ISP in the UK, I would immediately block the Kontiki P2P system, as there is no way for me to know whether that traffic is legitimate BBC shows or pirated material, same with other ports used for P2P - IE everything but a few whitelisted ports. I would also block all encrypted traffic on those remaining ports as there is no way for me to tell if it is illegal or not. But keep the blogs and news sites up so everyone can read about the reaction to this bill.
And this requirement actually came through, I would get my tools out of the garage and renew my plumbing contactors license.
If a significant percentage of the population regularly does something that happens to be illegal, perhaps it's the law that needs to be re-examined, not its implementation.
Legalize it.
I think it is time for people to start mailing complaints that certain government officials have violated their copyright, and let the ISPs follow these draconian rules.
Thats not how it works. With that logic, black men and women still shouldn't have any rights. There are WAY more people who go above speed limits than there are file sharers. Should we abolish those? (I know that a significant percentage of Slashdot readers think so, but...).
The government is given (indeed, by its people) the authority to do whats best for the country for the present and the future. Remember, these are not democracies, but democratic republics, or variations of it. Its job is to handle issues that the population might not be able to handle, or understand the implications of. A lot of people who share files illegaly don't even KNOW its against the law... many (including here on Slashdot) are not even knowledgeable of the impact of these laws, going from word to mouth, and crap they see on websites like this one, with absolutely no critical thought put into it (they beleive what they want to beleive). Now, because of that, it is totally pointless to try and have a balanced debate on if these laws are good or not.... Point is: Its not because half a country breaks a law, that its a bad law.
Now, thats cute in theory. In practice governments tend to totally suck at their job. But thats another story altogether. If -THIS- law is a good or bad one, is also a different debate. All i'm trying to say is, saying "If a lot of people break a law its a bad law, because its the people who decide!!!1!1!" is simply not a valid point.
Great, hit all the people who don't download illegal stuff why don't you?
Why not? It's a technique that works very effectively.
When in the army, if an individual in the platoon screwed up, our entire group received the punishment. Only took once for our group to learn how to police itself very effectively.
They should try a new line of PSA's. It starts with some oldish teens or young adults at a house part.. the techno is bumpin, everybody's having a good time.. so a suave guy goes up to a girl and says "Hey have you heard the new ASDF album?" She smiles and says "No, why you have it?" And he say yes and pulls out a silver cd with ASDF written in crappy handwritten sharpie.. So she scoffs and rolls her eyes in disgust. Then suave guy number 2 strolls up and holds up the store bought copy, and they lock arms and walk away. There is not enough public distaste for piracy, and there should be, because it's kind of scummy. I know I feel a tinge of guilt from using pirated materials if I know I would have paid for it otherwise. On the other hand, it's hard to feel guilty about "stealing" from a bunch of uber dickheads. In the end, the only thing that will stop piracy or at least seriously reduce it is the same thing that has kept humans in line for all these years: shame. And right now, too many people are too ignorant to realize they should be utterly ashamed of their behavior.
But the difference would manifest something like: suppose you have a teenage son, you go into his room and see him sliding a burned cd into his deck. The current authoritarian method would be that you beat him with a bat and MAKE him sorry. The shame version would be to say "son, you have a job, but you waste your money.. if you wanted this album you should have saved up for it.. here, take your pirated cd back and play it, but I hope every time you listen to it you remember how disappointed I am right now".. IMHO, the former will backfire by making the lad A) pissed off, and B) more careful next time. But the latter has at least a chance to make a difference in a way that really matters. Do we really want to settle for just scaring people into not being dicks at every turn, or do we want to reach a little higher? Knuckle cracking is artificial. The real deal comes down to pride versus shame.
I realize that the above is a tad ethereal and maybe simplistic, but all generalizations are false anyway. The point is that since no real tangible harm has been done, I don't feel that most end user type pirates really deserve more than a helping of shame as their punishment. Excessive punishments simply make people indignant and even less likely to respect authority. But is it too late to change the culture of media consumption to allow people to feel shame for their behavior? I dunno..
Remind me why your form of government is considered a democracy. They've taken away your means of defense and rebellion. Now they are herding you like sheep. Hope you don't live downwind when they set up the camps. Every UK citizen who died in World War 2 is spinning in their grave right now.
The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.
The success of the misinformation from the **AA's is ilusutrated by the fact that the word piracy occurs more often in these comments than the word copyright. Copyright violation is not piracy and we should avoid refering to it as such,or we serve the purposes of the enemy.
You just acknowledged that governments tend to make a lot of bad decisions. Why, then, is it automatically irrelevant that a large fraction of a country's citizens break a law? Please note that I didn't say anything like, "If a lot of people break a law, then the law is bad." My point was that the larger the number of people who break a law, the more likely it is that the law is not optimal, and should be corrected rather than enforced more harshly. Perhaps in this case the law is bad (or perhaps not).
Your examples (racial persecution, reckless driving) without a doubt *do* harm others. As you mentioned, there are very heated debates with good points on both sides when it comes to whether music sharing is ultimately harmful. The question of whether such sharing should be illegal is therefore not nearly so cut and dry a question as other things. Is the broken copyright system really what's best for the people? Why is the government the best, most knowledgeable entity in this particular case? Who actually benefits from this law?
If it's pointless to try to have a fair debate about a topic, then why is it fair for the government to make a law in favor of one side or the other? I stand by my initial statement: if an insignificant portion of a country's citizens break a given law, then perhaps it is the law that needs to be re-examined, rather than its implementation (or enforcement, in this case).
Legalize it.
Well, a young Springfield woman was found dead in her home. Her face had been chewed off by two pit bulls, which were taken to the animal shelter on suspicion of murder, no bail had been set for the dogs.
The coroner says she overdosed on cocaine before getting her face chewed off. Her live-in boyfriend had an airtight alibi- as the Springfield paper reports:So for those of you who are against downloading music, I say SO THERE! =P
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
The combination of the laws can make things exponentially worse...
So, we have some service provider that have to monitor that what they provide is not used for illegal activities.
This is such a powerful concept!!
For the very reasons we apply it to ISPs, we should apply it to weapon manufacturing!
Weapons can be used in very bad ways!
Weapon manufacturers must keep track of the weapons and take them back whenever there may be suspicion of improper use, where "improper use" often means someone's death!
Of course, there may be some technical difficulties in doing that, but we're speaking about *homicide* and *wars*!!
I'm sure that when this proposal will reach the govt, it will be immediately adopted...
Sorry. I guess my point was a bit vague. Or more accurately, I misunderstood the comment I replied to. I've just heard that argument a million times, and usually it is by people who equate: lots of people breaking a law = bad law.
:)
Personally, I think that ALL laws must always be reevaluated for relevence, accuracy, and how well they meet their goals. But a lot of people breaking a law often has more to do with poor education, or misunderstanding of the goals of such laws (see: speeding laws... How many people don't realise that going 60 mph vs 50 mph is going to take much more than 20% more time to break?).
Basically, from the way I see it... we agree with each other. My communication skills were just lacking
Government sucks. The population does too. But I DEFINATELY agree with you the law needs to be re-examined, as do most contreversial laws, especially lately.
Sweden's Pirate Party points out that the only way to give the "content" industry the protection it needs is to control all speech. Thus, file copying must be permitted not to protect a few thieves, but to protect everyone's freedom of speech.
In other words: Your need to make money isn't going to infringe our freedom of speech.
Figure out a different way to make money.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
that's like saying the british government should be held responsible for their citizens commiting crimes. I steal something, the prime minister would go to jail for not preventing this from happening. wonder where a system like this would lead. well, since the only one, who can hold responsible the state is the state, the only outcome would be a police state. no crime would be commited, because it would be illegal for their citizens to say that a crime happened simply because by definition, the existence of the state prevents crimes from happening. in the name of preventing crime, anything would be allowed. freedom would cease to exist. crime wouldn't be solved, but because noone would allowed to say that, no crime would be happening. perfect safety. at least officialy. britain is on its way to become the first dictatorship in eu. they were the first to come up with the idea of freedom( as in limiting the state oppresion), they are the first to tear it to pieces. circle of life:) good luck
If a few people do it, it's against the law, if 6 million do it, wouldn't you call that a revolution instead?
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
Opening all packages... don't give them any ideas or you will have that next.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Or perhaps copyright infringement drastically increases the bandwidth of the downloader. I'm getting ripped off, back to dial-up!
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
So, the post office would be responsible for letter bombs? And the government would be responsible for Drunk Drivers?
I think we can see why this is a bad idea.
"Teach a man to build a fire, and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life."
You insensitive clod. I have just returned from Charlie's funeral. He was a good man, but had a weak heart.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Comment removed based on user account deletion
An even bigger percentage I think disobeys speeding laws regulary and everyone hates speeding tickets. Will we now reexamine all speeding laws and abolish some/all?
This argument of the parent is not very well thought out and not very well presented.
Most people these days have gigabytes of cheap portable storage. Just take ur usb stick/ipod/media player over to a mates house and pick up a copy of their whole media collection in about 5 mins. Crippling internet connections is not going to stop piracy - don't they remember how we copied music and movies BEFORE the internet.
Regardless, at this point in time copyright infringement is against the terms of service of pretty much every ISP. As such, monitoring their networks for service violations and imposing penalties would seem to be entirely within their mandate.
In fact, if such penalties were financial in origin, one could easily see how such monitoring could easily become a major profit center, much like how banks and credit card companies make their bread and butter on overdraft and late payment fees.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
As soon as I heard about this, I thought, 'That won't work'. Will they crack the latest change in days of a centralised encryption change that is widely spread to most savvy users faster than they can even realise what's happened? We are the intelligence. We are the best, the brightest, we stand united for our causes and so far, what have they done to stop us that has succeeded? Now, I don't blame the greedy corporation CEOs for trying to get all the money they can, it's the common human nature our degrading society has formed, but in doing so they affected the largest and most deadly group they could. We control the flow of technology. We will change the encryption. We will resist every attempt to censor anything unnecessary. We will fight for our causes for as long as it takes for us to defeat them, the fools who attacked us. The things we... obtained... kept us preoccupied from their scheming and evil. But now they're trying to prohibit this, they've woken the beast. Can't stop the signal.
With that logic, black men and women still shouldn't have any rights.
He's not saying that the majority should decide the law - but that there are problems if you bring in a law against what a large proportion of the population is doing. I don't see that applies to rights of black people.
Cut of the Internet connection of 10% of the population?
There are WAY more people who go above speed limits than there are file sharers.
Citation needed? I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's not obvious to me. Everyone I know happily admits to copying in one form or another (if they don't download, it's only because they've yet to get broadband). I don't know anyone who ignores speed limits.
When has music sharing ever killed anybody's daughter on prom night?
Legalize it.
"pot activists have the silliest, most delusional persecution complex of anyone I know. Get over yourselves, already! You are nothing special. Nobody is out to get you..."
...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_McWilliams. ...At his trial, the judge ruled that McWilliams was not allowed to mention in court that he was terminally ill, that using medical marijuana was (in his opinion) keeping him alive, or that his usage of medical marijuana was legal under California state law. Even as he vomited repeatedly during court proceedings, McWilliams was, under such legal conditions, not allowed to explain his condition or its connection to the charges against him.
Wrong, sometimes they are out to get you
so finally democrats will be dictators
it's not a matter of communism or something else
hahahaha
just plain-ly human
If every MP that voted for this stupid law suddenly found their broadband connection being cut because their kid wanted to see the latest ((whatever)) video, this law would (hopefullly) get repealed within 6 weeks.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Cut the government off first and see how they like it. Then tell them they have to prove they are not doing illegal downloads before they can be reinstated. If 3 times the subscriber base is downloading illegally, this must include the government machines as well.
Wouldn't it be simpler to throttle users' internet connections so they were useless for large files? Legit services like iTunes, the BBC, and Ubuntu, for example, could be exempt from this, and if you had other needs for large files, you could simply sign up with some kind of state-registered proxy with your real name. Then everyone would be taken care of.
The laws in question are the copyright structures that bias benefit away from society and toward a select few who seek continuous compensation for a singular act of creation. Given the opportunity, the media cartels would terminate any "fair use" clause, and require (through force of law) that you engage in a "pay per play" structure. They would also extend copyright durations indefinitely, as they are already doing, such that you and everyone else is bleeding cash into their pockets. How exactly does this benefit society or promote creation of new works?
Civil Disobedience doesn't have to be an organized protest marching at a significant location. An individual may perform an act of civil disobedience, though individual acts usually aren't as effective as large organized ones. Rosa Parks is an excellent example of how individual civil disobedience can be effective.
Like it or not, copyright law around the world is busted. It's been usurped by the large media cartels, and converted into a corporate welfare program. Oh, and your participation is compulsory - the cartels may use government resources (law enforcement, the courts, etc.) to force you into compliance. This is one situation where the government is listening to the special interest at the expense of society.
If you want to talk about "outright theft," have a look at the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act in the US. Works that were scheduled to enter the public domain were snatched back under copyright protection. The artists, authors, and middle-men enjoyed decades of government-authorized monopoly, with the understanding that at the end of the term, the works would enter the public domain. Instead, they continue to enjoy the monopoly, while society has lost all benefit. They deprived me of access to these works, for which they have already received compensation (and I'm not talking about the monetary kind of compensation.) So when the lawmakers are clearly in the pockets of special interest groups, it's unlikely that changing the laws will be an option. Civil disobedience is the next best thing. Note that boycotts and abstinence don't work, as the media cartels have lobbied for blank-media taxes, thus ensuring that you're bleeding cash into their coffers whether you use their products or not.
They proclaim this, denounce that, harrumph harrumph, and at the end of the day it will be impossible for them to do what they say they will do.
I wish them good luck, though.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
What bothers me is that this spying will cost the ISP money to implement and they will raise their prices to makes ends meet. So the end-user will get spied upon AND pay for the privilege.
British MPs get to spend £250 of tax payers' money every single month on what ever they like. iPods, DVDs, Handcuffs, Whips, and who knows what else. They can also spend another £400 of tax payers' money on food. Full story - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7233560.stm
Now that's what I call stealing!!
Seriously though, I think they're all being a bunch of assholes with this new law.
You raise an interesting point there. Acceptance of new laws might often depend on the ability of the affected to become involved. In that case, smokers might be more likely to be depressed, uninvolved in politics because of class, uninvolved because of age, uninvolved because of rebelliousness, etc., therefore, the public's acceptance of that law becomes more questionable.
Likewise, acceptance of internet laws becomes highly questionable, given the absence of live, real-time direct voting on issues (i.e., direct democracy, or something like it).