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South Korea Joins the "Three Strikes" Ranks
Glyn Moody writes "For years, the content industries having been trying to get laws passed that would stop people sharing files. For years they failed. Then they came up with the 'three strikes and you're out' idea — and it is starting to be put into law around the world. First we had France, followed by countries like Italy, Ireland — and now South Korea: 'On March 3, 2009, the National Assembly's Committee on Culture, Sports, Tourism, Broadcasting & Communications (CCSTB&C) passed a bill to revise the Copyright Law. The bill includes the so called, "three strikes out" or "graduated response" provision.' Why has the 'three strikes' idea caught on where others have failed? And what is the best way to stop it spreading further?"
Simple. Accuse prominent law-makers of copyright violations.
Three times.
Except for the french president, he only needs two more.
There probably needs to be made a ruckus for each law-maker that needs to be disconnected, but after a few successful stories in the media, they'll either write exceptions for themselves into law (and that can easily be used against them next elections) or the law is dropped.
So who do we get to appeal to when we've been falsely accused. The power company can't cut off my electricity without some legal recourse. The city can't turn off my water or sewer without some legal recourse. Who do I appeal to when my only ISP shuts me off because someone spoofed my IP address or botted my machine, or hijacked my router?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
What exactly is the problem? You break the law, you are punished. Hating on PITA DRM is one thing, but arguing against punishment when you are plainly violating copyright is just stupid.
I don't like your attitude. One sec while I fire off some copyright violations to your isp.
In many of these cases, "You break the law" is actually "The RIAA(or local equivalent) accuses you of breaking the law". That is the big problem.
A situation where you can be punished on the strength of a mere accusation, without any legal standards of evidence or proof, is an absolute travesty.
3 strikes is more appropriate for a cultural struggle, which is what this is. Many of us firmly believe that intellectual property law is invalid, and that there is no duty to society to follow it. Both we and industries built on IP are trying to convince the public towards our perspective, and the "3 strikes" law gives some limited protection to people who have only heard our side and don't know the legal risks.
In the end, what we hope is that instead of simply "learning and accepting" the concept of intellectual property, people will just be more careful not to get caught, and that eventually we can remove copyright and patent protections entirely from our legal system. In the meantime, it's nice not to have people have their lives ruined in this cultural/legal struggle.
By analogy to other struggles over notions of human dignity and autonomy, if people who were part of the Underground Railroad had a 3-strikes rule, it would've afforded them some protection without requiring a complete victory .. yet.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
I hereby accuse you of terrorism. Would you like to face the punishment now, or do you think that due process is important now?
And, like a lot of people, you missed the point: there is no need in any of these provisions to prove that you were indeed file sharing. All it takes is an infringement allegation by someone stating that they represent a copyright holder. That's it. And I can tell you that the vast majority of ISPs will log the allegation, tally up the current count, and cut off the Internet if the tally reaches three. If you're lucky, they send out form mails stating that they received an infringement notice, and how many there are now.
You got DHCP? You're pretty much guaranteed to get someone else's notice. And as you pointed out, a lot of stuff gets done over the internet. Including my job. The Recording associations are essentially killing off the ability of anyone but large corporations to use the internet. Of course they're happy with that. The questions is - are you? Can you be?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
It's not fairer. "3 strikes" implicitly assumes that you are guilty. It's typically used in sentencing proceedings in some criminal courts.
In applying it to filesharing, the laws conveniently (for the accuser) leave out the proof-of-guilt phase. It is really just "3 times accused and you're out". At least with a lawsuit the accused has a chance to put forth their side of the story to an impartial court of law. The new laws do not.
It's not an issue of what you do and don't deserve. We can argue about the ethics of TPB's business model all day and there's certainly fair argument for it being unethical. However, unethical != illegal. That's the problem here. If you want to shut people off the Internet for copyright violation, that's fine, but you had better damn well prove in a court of law that the defendant indeed violated copyright. Actually, since the punishment is no longer just monetary, you had better damn well prove in a criminal court (where the burden of proof is much more stringent) that the defendant violated copyright. The thing that has been pissing people off more than anything is abuse of the system. Using questionable evidence, flawed arguments, and outrageous damage claims is what has set most people against the recording industry. If you can prove that I shot off a Metallica mp3 to 50 people and you want somewhere between $50 to $100 in damages, that's reasonable. Demanding $100,000 with no evidence of distribution is an absurd violation of due process.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
My comment is now on your computer, as are many other people's comments. The notice at the bottom of the page says that the comment is mine. I don't want it on your computer, so now I can call your ISP and claim that you have some of my content on your computer. Two of the other people on here can do the same, and now you don't have the internet any more.
Yeah, that's a BS example, and wouldn't stand up in court. But it doesn't need to. All you need is three allegations, and you're done.
For example:
-Book of Armaments, Chapter 9 (excerpt)
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
Seems to me that what is needed is a large number of people abusing this law and lodging false complaints with the aim to deny service to random/ non-random people before the legislators will be able to understand what a stupid law this is. Once enough of their (voting) constituents are adversely affected they'll either rescind it or be voted out of office.
Three, copyright law has gone way off the rails to the point where it is significantly impairing free speech, innovation, and creativity. Century-long copyright terms, takedown notices to block speech one disagrees with, DRM that seizes control of communications technology, and a tremendous concentration of cultural ownership in the hands of a few companies are bad enough. Strengthening the enforcement of illegitimate and unjust laws only increases the injustice.
I concur. The copyright law is a bright example of laws not serving the people but lobbyists. And, it's going to get worse and worse and worse, until *we, the people* wake up and make a shift in governance which puts the legislative, judicial and executive branches of the government in their place, serving the people.
Serving you and me, listening to our needs, proactively finding ways to support us and make our lives easier, cheaper, healthier and happier.
Currently, *money* is the most important thing to the government. And, government has found ways to collect its money from us, without accountability from our side. We have no control about giving our money or where our money goes. Lobbyists do have that control and they use it to steer the government.
When a shift happens that makes *us, the people, and our well-being* the most important thing for our government, then we will see policies that serve our interests.
This shift will not happen in the government before it happens for most individuals.
What we are seeing is the government acting as a greedy, insecure, vengeful child-king. Our last president was a wonderful illustration of that.
Our own insecurity, greed and separation manifest on a large scale.
Our laws naturally become more and more oppressive until we can't take it anymore and then get eased just enough to avoid violent response. After a while this is the new norm and a more oppressive version gets pushed again, and again and again. We are cornered and the walls are closing in, all the time.
This is how you boil a frog, this is how you enslave people under the illusion of freedom.
And, of course, there's always the power... http://www.george-orwell.org/1984/19.html
Scenario: the wrong geek gets 2 strikes, gets mad, and fires up a botnet (or just happens to have, say, $20,000 laying around to rent an existing one for a few runs). The botnet causes a significant percentage of users in some country to start getting their "strike warnings". As a result, the fallacy of the idea that IP addresses identify human beings is exposed (or the fallacy that ISPs invest the slightest effort in controlling botnets, if you like).
A surveillance society to keep copyrights in place is not acceptable.
If there has to be a choice between surveillance on all civilian communications and ceasing the copyright regime, I choose ceasing copyrights.
There are other programs and if you do not want others knowing what "traffic" you carry then you would be wise to use them.
The more I know, the less I know
Such legislation would cause more economic loss than the actual infringement (businesses included).
Which is why the ISPs will challenge the law in court when and if the MAFIAA attempts to bring suit for failure to "cut off" a customer(s). If you were a business and some third party, who is not a paying customer, came to your place of business waving some piece of paper in your face and told you to "cut off" certain customers and never serve them again (resulting in a loss for your business) would you just do it? Certainly not, and neither will the ISPs. The negative PR from their customer base and the prospect of losing tens of thousands of dollars a month in subscription fees will put ISPs in a fighting mood, lawsuits be damned. A lawsuit might take years to work its way through the courts and in the meantime the ISP is losing tens of thousands of dollars per month in subscriber fees from customers that it has been forced to "cut off". The MAFIAA will be put in its place when it starts costing the large ISPs such as AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint/Nextel real money. It will be like when SCO foolishly attempted to sue IBM and Novell, the MAFIAA will be swiftly crushed by the much larger telecom industry and their lobbyists/attorneys.
Lawmakers aren't subject to the laws. That's why they pass stupid laws in the first place: they know that any complaint made against them will be investigated and, unless done by a large enough company, ignored.
The common man is the only one you can hurt. Legislators are quite safe in their ivory fortress.
If politicians are untouchable, then corporations are Demon Gods capable of smiting you with lawsuit and then dragging you through all kinds of legal Hells. Don't even think of going up against them.
You know that old joke? "Cthulhu for president - why vote for the lesser evil?" The sad thing is that, as far as powers that be go, Cthulhu is the lesser evil.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.