Australia Considering P2P 'Three Strikes' Law

caitsith01 writes "ITNews reports that Australia's ever-unpopular Minister for Communications, Senator Stephen Conroy, has foreshadowed new action by the Australian Government to crack down on illegal file sharing under the guise of promoting the digital economy. Options apparently being considered include the controversial and previously reported French three-strikes approach and an approach which sounds suspiciously like New Zealand's even more dubious guilty-upon-accusation approach to filesharing. Needless to say, although the Government is consulting with 'representatives of both copyright owners and the Internet industry in an effort to reach an industry-led consensus on an effective solution,' arguably the most significant group — ordinary Internet users — are not being consulted. Senator Conroy is the man behind the crusade to 'protect' Australians from the horrors of the Internet with a mandatory, government-run blacklist, an effort which recently earned him the title of Internet Villain of the Year for 2009."

Comments

Government is a tool of the most wealthy

[Anonymous Coward]

There I said it. Those with money and power control all governments, even democratically elected ones. Sure you could vote out the bad politicians, but democracies are notorious for having apathetic voters. Tax dollars being given to billion dollar corporations and withheld from the poorest of communities. Criminalization of copyrights to protect billion dollar corporations, when all along civil courts could have served the needs of everyone easily.

Beh

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucking hate that cunt.

Gentlemen!

[Em Emalb]

You can't download here, this is the war room!

I don't pirate software, music, or anything else. I understand a lot of people do, however. The thing I don't get in all this, he's essentially correct. Downloading music or other files illegally should be punished.

The problem is that there's no way to prove who actually downloaded the content illegally. I also don't understand the /. crowd and the belief that downloading stuff off the internet without paying for it (assuming it isn't offered freely) is just fine to do.

I seriously don't get that. Why do people think it's okay to download stuff without paying for it?

Re:Gentlemen!

[catxk]

The downloading is rarely the issue. The issue is the liberties and justices sacrificed by lobbied and next-to-corrupt politicians in the name of saving the record industry. The consequences of this will not stop at pirates, it spans over the entire society, effectively undermining the freedom and security enjoyed by all of us. Is it really worth it? Some people seem to think so. I don't and I don't give a shit about filesharing.

Re:Gentlemen!

[HungryHobo]

On slashdot? It's the guilty-upon-accusation bit that bothers people here more.
It's the "Every kind of P2P is people violating copyrights" idea that idiot politicians have that bothers people here on slashdot.

I don't care if 90% of the people using a certain protocol are using it to swap the latest transformers movie because I'm part of the 10% using it for legitimate purposes.
Should I be denied my right to disseminate information because of that 90%?

If 90% of the people in your apartment complex are growing their own pot and you're part of the 10% that is not should you lose your right to not have the police kick down your door without a warrant?

Re:Gentlemen!

[Nefarious Wheel]

I seriously don't get that. Why do people think it's okay to download stuff without paying for it?

The thing is, that's only a tiny part of the real issue, and only acts to camouflage the real threat.

The real threat is that the government will lose its initial sense of trepidation over filtering content it doesn't like and start applying it wherever it finds an advantage to do so. It only takes a little bit of time for a bureaucrat to become comfortable with previously unpalatable acts.

Laws like the Three Strikes rules can be used to enforce an autocracy. If you can keep any particular group of people from communicating, you've nullified their impact on society. It starts with good reasons, good intentions, then progresses from there to "is it convenient".

Pretty soon you're seeing calls for increased monitoring to enforce compliance, then you have statistical modelling on top of that, then profiling, then ... pretty soon you can't talk to your friends or share photos without a license. And how is this different from all previous evil governments throughout history, all of whom started with good intentions?

Is that what we want?

Re:Gentlemen!

[catxk]

A valid point to some extent, but still no.

This uproar among Slashdotters is not heard only when politicians trade the democratic freedoms and rights we all have come to take for granted in order to please the media lobby. It is also heard when US customs claim the right to go through all the data on your laptop when you cross the border or when voting machines are closed source. Or when the Swedish government and parliament passes a law enabling a civilian authority to scan _all_ communication passing the Swedish border (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA_law).

My guess is that this is due to the fact that the average Slashdotter was here when it started. Or at least, as myself, have the deepest respect for what it was that got it all started. Thus, the average Slashdotter simply understand the implications to the potential of the internet and the purity of democracy of a closed source voting system, or the lack of privacy when passing through customs, or the wider implication of sacrificing privacy and freedom on the internet - just to save music.

I agree with the three strikes system

[Anonymous Coward]

I am forced to somehow like the idea of a three strikes system. We really should ban ISPs when they interfere with P2P traffic for three times.

Re:They really should punish illegal filesharers

[Sj0]

They shot first.

How long is copyright today? 70 years? 90? 150?

Companies are stealing our culture. Perpetual extension of copyright is theft from society.

Compared to the artists of the days when copyright was 20-something years, today's artists don't contribute more to society, yet they demand many times the protection. They want to get this for free -- they've never offered any form of payment, no return on investment for society.

When my grandmother was a child, she heard a song. If I were to listen to her sing me that song, she'd be breaking the letter of the law. Compared to a few brittany spears songs, the theft of every copyrighted work for 50 years is a much greater crime.

Re:They really should punish illegal filesharers

[Sj0]

That's not payment. Society at large doesn't gain anything from being able to have 150 year copyrights. It's only freeloaders who want to sell dead people's works as their own who are crying that copyright needs to be longer.

The "Happy Birthday" song first appeared in print in 1912. In other words, before nearly every defining moment of the 20th century. Despite that, it is a copyrighted song -- The Time-Warner Corporation owns the rights and charges $10,000 per performance in royalties.

So you're a filthy disgusting criminal. YOU. I know you sang the song publicly and didn't pay Time-Warner their due. Why are you such a filthy disgusting criminal? Why don't the long long long dead writers of "Happy Birthday" deserve compensation for their work?

Cartel

[Wowsers]

How about governments tackle the more important crime of the film and music industries running a cartel? It is things like region encoding which allows the media companies to run protected cartels in the various ways they've carved up the plant and where people can buy DVD's etc. from - this screws over consumers. Or is that the media companies give very generous amounts of campaign money to the politicians in different countries, and the politicians actually don't care and turn a blind eye about consumers?