Slashdot Mirror
Australian ISPs Soon To Become Copyright Cops
srjh writes "In the Australian Federal Government's latest assault on the internet, draft legislation has been released that allows network operators to intercept communications to ensure that their networks are being 'appropriately used.' Such legislation is particularly important given the interference of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy in a recent copyright lawsuit against iiNet, one of the largest ISPs in the country. Conroy called prominent filtering opponent iiNet's inaction over copyright infringement 'stunning,' whereas iiNet claimed that it would be illegal under current Australian law to intercept its users' downloads. While this latest legislation appears to be a concession of that point, the government is said to be watching the case closely and along with attempts to introduce a three-strikes law in Australia, it appears the law will be changed if the government dislikes the outcome of the case. The internet villain of the year just continues to earn his title."
Is an incompetent, idiotic, totalitarian, vindictive, morally bankrupt cunt.
Same with Rudd. You can assume this assault on the internet is coming from the top.
What stops more servers using HTTPS to get around this? All Internet communication should even have basic encryption.
They can bite my shiny metal ass!... I mean SSL!
This will never happen.
With the Emissions Trading Scheme, being voted down yesterday the Rudd government could be on it's way to an early election. The Rudd government has not got a majority, relying preferences from the Greens to secure a parliament majority. The Greens are opposed to both the Internet Filter and the Three Strikes law. Rudd and Labour will do an about face as soon as it looks like they are losing the support of the Greens.
This is just more scare mongering reporting in preparation for the upcoming iinet/AFACT (MPIAA in disguise).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
It's probably worth reading between the lines here.
Along with trying to get ISPs to remove all pornography from the internet (laughable, yes, but if you look at the current legislation and current filtering policy, this is exactly what they want to do), the Australian government has been strongly backing copyright lawsuits against ISPs for not snooping on its users.
This isn't just "we're allowing you to monitor your own networks", it's "monitor your networks for us, or suffer the consequences".
is that Conroy is still in office. I'm fairly certain this guy is on crack.
Meanwhile, across the sea in the United States, the 'Land of the Free,' various employees of various music/movie/video game agencies are taking notes. They're following this with a keen eye. If it works in Australia, why can't it work here?
Pretty soon, files such as Bellsouth Sucks.txt and Comcast Blows.rtf will be blocked in the US due to 'copyright infringement.'
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
I disagree, the government is accountable to me once every four years, a private corporation never has to ask for my consent or co-operation. In addition to this, the governement does not have a profit motive where as a corporation must not only be making a profit they must also be increasing shareholder value. So either way the money needed to run the service comes from my pocket, with the government I get a say in how well they are spending and they dont need to make increasing ammounts of profit on it.
The idea that a government is inherently inefficient is a misnomer, the same as the idea that a corporation is inherently efficient is a misnomer. Both are inherently neither. Government organisations like Medicare in Australia and our Canadian analogue provide better care and service for a lower cost then the US private health system. I pay A$500 a year for health care.
As for this bit of stupidity, it will never pass parliament as the internet filter never passed parliament, its already been voted down (thanks to the Green's), despite the fact that the trials are still ongoing (Conroy is permitted to waste taxpayer money on the trial unfortunately). The Rudd government is in a precarious position due to parliaments rejection of their Emissions Trading Scheme. The ETS may be enough to trigger a double dissolution of parliament, which at this point in time would not be entirely a bad thing.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Straw poll:
If an Australian engineer was to design a box that could you could buy/build to set up a nationwide mesh network (thereby eliminating ISPs and telco infrastructure from the loop), would you buy or build it?
What would be your preference?
a) An open source design that you build yourself.
b) An assembled and testbed box (for a price of course).
How much would you be prepared to pay for such a box (assembled and tested, ready to used)?
This Labor Australian government has been stunningly disappointing, and everyone I know thinks the same. There was a hope that Labor would bring a bit more enlightenment to a government that was previously seemed to be out of touch, but they have been infinitely worse. Who would have thought we would pine for the good old days?
I just don't understand where this government's sentiment comes from!! I live in a country that is full of people who are easy going, enjoy life, and who are generally quite non-idealistic - we do not tend to have the passion for politics and causes and pep-talks that seems to drive a lot of US-centric life. And yet the government takes these crazy stands that are SO against the Australian way of living!!
So what's next? Sueing bus companies for delivering terrorists to certain locations without being able to search all their backgrounds of all the passengers?
"Hey you transported a criminal to a certain location. IT'S YOUR FAULT HE COMMITED A CRIME! You should have played the police for us or face the consequences!
People like this, although I do not even live in Australia, makes we want to form a group of people, buy a shitload of waepons and shoot these idiotic assholes.*
*DISCLAIMER: which I am not going to do ofcourse!
Here be signatures
And encouraging the Australians every step of the way. (NZ is trying to expand its IT economy, this kind of application of projectile to pedal extremity is just the kind of thing they need.)
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
If successful, then it's the UK, then the US, then the rest of the world.
By the way, if governments cared about other things as much as they care about copyright infringement, things would be so much better...
but it seems they are being colonialized again by the media megacorporations.
Let me tell you a story about why you are wrong, lets call it Work Choices,
Work Choices was the IR policy of the previous Fascist government (not to be confused with the current Fascist government) that stripped Australian workers of their rights, this policy was unpopular with the people who then made it clear this was the reason they were voting out the Liberal Facists. Howard, die Fuhrer zum Zeitpunkt, lost his job and Rudd, die aktuelle furher immediately scrapped Work Choices.
The Liberals will never utter those words again. They learned what it cost them. So yes, I have a say in what my government does, at the very least once every 4 years. It's called an election.
Yes there is, often when an Australian politician loses an election, they are sacked. No matter how greedy a polly gets this will always, always be over-ridden by their sense of self preservation. It's the extremists who aren't greedy that are the problem but these guys will always be outnumbered by the greedy who want to survive (and they'll happily sacrifice one another to ensure it).
Not only are you an ignorant nutter with an extremely limited view of the world, you're wrong.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Yes, you do have a say. I contributed to the Green Paper on the Service Card, which was in danger of being owned by Motorola and Gemsmart. It was people like me, giving valid clear technically correct explanations of the failings of that "backdoor ID card" that resulted in it being a no-go. When have YOU been a part of the process - there's nothing to stop you! Have you petitioned parliament? Written to your local member? Shown up to ALP branch meetings and asked polite, informed but pointed questions? It's when everyone says "we have no power over the people we elect" that we give up our power. Fact is that if enough people go on record (by the 3 means I listed above) then politicians listen, purely out of self interest.
Firstly, Conroy is a Senator at the *Federal* level. This law was a *State* laws, meaning Conroy would not directly be able to introduce legislation to change these laws.
Secondly, crossing the state border to get around state laws is not hypocritical unless he actually supported those same laws. Nor is it Illegal.
But most importantly, despite being a Federal Senator, Conroy prompted a review of surrogacy laws which led to those laws being changed for the better.
So while Conroy may be a fool (Internet filtering, Copyright Cops etc.), he is not a hypocrite.
Yeah, so far American corporations only have the power to bankrupt you and ruin your life, not spy on you. Only the government holds that right.
This guy has a point.
From my experience of living long term in all three of: Australia, USA and UK, there is far more actual power in the people's hands (at election time) in Australia than either of the other two.
Partly this is because Australia's population is quite low, so there's less 'layers' between the wishes of the people, and the politicians (one example: the Prime Minister of Australia happened walked right past me on the street in Sydney few weeks ago ... but in America you will almost NEVER just 'happen to see the President' when you go out to lunch). Hell the previous Prime Minister went on a walk around the suburbs every morning and waved and said hi to people. Sure he had a few bodyguards trailing him, but nothing like the 30 guards, 20 armored vehicles etc that accompany the US President around.
But a bigger reason for this is the fact that there are very very strict laws against corporate influence on politics in Australia. And there are similarly tough regulations surrounding what companies are allowed to do when it comes to advertising, donations, etc etc. Far more stringent than in America. Sure there's still lobbyists and things in Australia. But realistically, the corporate world can't do much in politics in Australia, and they know it. In America, it's all about big business and corporations when it comes to setting the political agenda. In Australia, the issues that average people care about really can decide the elections. (See: Work Choices)
A final but more minor point is that we do have third and fourth political parties that actually matter. They aren't enough to actually take power away from the big two. But due to the preferences system that we have in Australia, it means that minor parties can influence things in Parliament and aren't just there to make up the numbers. In the US however there really is no serious alternative to the Dems and the Republicans.
Americans like to point to Australia and say "ha, your democracy isn't as good as yours, you don't even directly elect your head of State!". This is true. Our head of State is technically the Queen of England, and our Prime Minister isn't voted in by the people. But in practice, the Australian system reflects the wishes of the public a lot more quickly and more closely. (The Canadian system is like this too I believe, although I haven't spent enough time in Canada to comment).
Disclaimer: I'm Australian by birth but have lived 8+ years in the US and 4+ years in the UK. I also hold dual US and Australian citizenship, and love both countries dearly. Both have their strong and weak points. But when it comes to government, I'm afraid the Australian system is just ... better.
Exactly,
When push comes to shove you can always count on a polly's survival instinct. All you have to do is convince them they are about to lose their job. Most people have no say in government because they don't get involved. Become part of an interest group like the EFA or a the very least write a letter. All Western Australian's got a say in Daylight Savings changes earlier in the year, despite the fact it did not pass (I voted YES) I did get my say. There is no way you can say you cant change government, most people just say that to console themselves with the fact they never tried.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
yet illegal activities that are screened by the relative anonymity of the Internet are a persistent problem
Yup. Eating Bread suffocates 98% babies, Water is responsible for 100% of drownings, and kitchen knives are responsible for 80% of knife deaths. Shall we ban all these?
Quoting statistics is easy, even a fool like you can do it.
Making it relative to something else is harder.
Screaming about our loss of freedoms and privacy through draconian laws does not solve the problem of illegal activities, because the government and industry are not the root of the problem.
Oh... and you say the laws are magically drafted and magically passed by fairies masquerading as MPs?
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Australian elections are every 3 years, not 4.
It's late, its Friday, its time for a beer.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I can't help but notice one thing. If the same happened with Iran, N. Korea, China or any other political enemies of US, the media would be promoting more hatred towards those countries... would have tagged "tyranny" or "dictatorship", would have edited wikipedia pages about those countries to display false facts, would have created stories about "hackers" from those countries "stealing sensitive information from internet" (as if sensitive information is put on internet. oh wait! i'm sorry, i forgot. creating such stories is CIA's job. not media's.) The question is: does any one notice the amount of influence of US government (or its agencies) on media?
The largest prime factor of my UID is 263267.
I guarantee you that the Liberals (under Howard, Turnbul or anyone else who has a snowballs chance of being Liberal leader) would have supported this kind of "ISP as copyright cop" legislation had they won government instead of Rudd.
The big push for this stuff is comming from the commercial TV networks (7, 9 and 10), the Pay TV operators (i.e. Foxtel and all the various owners of the various channels) and the movie studios. All of these parties have been arguing that without some kind of "ISP as copyright cop" enforcement to stop piracy (why the same copyright legislation and court system that has served this nation for over 100 years is not suitable for this I fail to see), it will become more and more un-viable to continue to produce content in this country.
I hope you're right mjwx, but your vote doesn't look like it ever mattered much to me. I left the Defence Signals Directorate, and subsequently Australia a decade ago because I saw from the inside just how simplistic it is for this particular agency to have new laws made, old laws modified, and more worryingly, just how much latitude they give themselves for interpretation of existing laws. I lived through a couple of royal commissions focused on the very departments I worked in, those investigations never ventured beyond the walls of the "Director DSD's" office. Farcical to say the least.
If you weren't already aware of this, the government has long been doing whatever it pleases regardless of which sock puppet is in power. No doubt the driving force behind half of these initiatives are a handful of drones from ASIO and the NCA. Politicians don't know squat about real life.
I lost the faith a long time ago, I ain't ever coming back.
Perfectly natural activities (like file copying) are only illegal, because some guys in a building called Parliament have decided that it should be that way. Maybe, just maybe, the problem is the copyright law that criminalizes a large portion of the Internet population? How about reforming that law, or at least adapting it to the 21st century? Like, you know, legalizing private non-commercial copying, as the various Pirate Parties in other countries are already asking for?
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Thats great but I dont think there are sewers or pipes running to America :)
I have a simple rule in Australian politics. Never vote the last guy in again. Keep the bastards on their toes.
I just call him Senator Conjob, it's shorter.
I like to refer to our democracy as Federalism Version 2
Our founders looked at the US, looked at Britain and took what they thought were the bits that worked and threw away the bits that didn't work from both.
They really stood on the shoulders of giants and I believe they got it pretty close to perfect.
This is a maintenance amendment to the Telecommunications (Intercept and Access) Act that clarifies that it is not illegal to capture packets on your own network. One reading of the current act would require all network administrators to get a wiretapping warrant before opening wireshark.
While the Government may not have considered the consequences of this amendment with regards to ISP networks, I really doubt that this is a law aimed at copyright infringers.
australia doesn't have a single glimmer of hope on the political front, at both a state and federal level. that about sums it up.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Ok. I've just read your post with great interest. I'm now living in Australia, arrived very recently, and just don't understand what's the deal with the crippled Internet. Why is it that every other country internet has had unlimited internet service for years, while in Australia any plan will come with data limitations (and very expensive plans, by the way). My theory is that providers are profiting hugely by charging everyone for something that is essentialy free elsewhere, but your whole point about how Australian democracy undermines so effectively corporate power undermines my theory in a just as effective way.
I was thinking yesterday "only in the land of Rupert Murdoch would downloading be a luxury by now", am I completely wrong? What's the real reason then? Can something be done?
EFA opposes the construction of 'appropriately used' in s 6AAA of the exposure draft. We submit that the definition in s 6AAA ought to be amended to reflect that operators are only entitled to intercept and monitor communications where those communications pose a threat to the security of the network itself.
Personally, I'd want the ammendment to be clear that it applies to network troubleshooting as well as network security so that network administrators can definitely use tools like Wireshark to fix their network.
So, you are saying that you have no choice but to give your money to a particular ISP, no matter how abhorrent you find their practices? But with the government you can decide to stop giving them money any time you don't like what they do?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The big difference between Australia's responsiveness to the populace and the U.S.'s is population size. Australia has a population of about 22 million. The U.S. has a population of over 300 million. The smaller the population the more responsive a democratic government is to the will of the people. As the population gets larger the easier it is to play off people who care about one issue against people who care about other issues. Additionally, as the population gets larger the more people one needs to get riled up to change the outcome of an election.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I second this actually. I was born in Australia, lived 13 years in the states, have dual citizenship and have voted in both countries. In addition to all the above points, things are also a lot easier to change here for whatever reason. The government puts something unpleasant in, they get caned in the next election and the new government takes it out, we get a few years of garbage and then it goes away. We also have a tendency down here to take great joy in taking folks who get to uppity down a peg regardless of their political party.
Stephen Conroy is an ass, and the fact that Rudd hasn't shit canned him is fairly odd. I can only assume that his situation in the senate is causing him to want to appear to be supporting the Christian loons, so he can get legislation through. I don't really think he's all that serious about it though, it doesn't really come up here all that often and the government certainly isn't making it an issue nor do they want to. The right is in disarray at the moment, and the government would like to keep it that way, giving them something unpopular to rally around(and in all reality any actually implemented three strikes law would be very unpopular in any country) would be rather silly. I don't think that anyone in the liberal party has sufficiently strong feelings about this issue not to ride it to the next election if they thought it could win them government.
Even the Christian loons are only really against the porn, not the piracy anyway. We don't really have much of a commercial consumer software market down here, so we don't really care about that. Australian film only exists because the government subsidizes it, aside from every actor/actress with any talent going overseas, Australian film makers love to make movies Australians don't want to watch, so they've got no real power. ARIA(our RIAA) has a little bit more authority but not all that much.
I'm not really convinced that anyone in government other than Stephen Conroy really wants this to pass, and I'm not sure even he cares about piracy. What I am convinced of is that if the government passes and enforces a three strikes law, and it proves to be unpopular(as is inevitable), at the next election they'll be out on the street again and the law will be gone. After 11 years out of power, I don't think that they're likely to risk that, they do need to look like they're doing something for the Christian right though so that they can get a senate vote from the right wing loony who got in there, and maybe the anti-gambling loony as well. To pass this shit they'd need the 5 members of the green party though, and that ain't going to happen.
I guess this could mean that GSM operators can snoop on conversations made over their network.
Or fixed phone operators can listen to conversations made over their network.
Rupert Murdoch became a naturalised American Citizen in 1985.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch#Moving_into_the_United_States
I'm a Canadian who would strongly consider Aus if I were ever to relocate. About 4-5 years ago I went down there to visit some close friends, and found most things about the country wonderful. In terms of politics it seems that Australians were MUCH more in touch with political issues that might otherwise be ignored in Canada/USA. I'm not sure if the voter turnout is better, but I'm hoping that more-informed=more likely to vote (in an intelligent manner).
Sadly, Canada's system has gone downhill in that manner. While you can catch interesting pieces on CBC, general media on politics has little to do with political reality and plenty more to do with mudslinging and semi-slander.
It used to be ads were more about "what I can do for you" than "my opponent eats kittens and evicts little old ladies", which I had viewed as a more American thing, but we've certainly moved more towards the latter in the last 1-2 decades. Aus seems to be a bit more clean-cut and clued-in, so hopefully they'll stay that way.
No, you can get decent speeds in Australia if you live in a metropolitan area or the burbs, it's the rural areas that have the 1.5/512kbit dsl line.
you used to be cool.
I wouldn't necessarily agree that our (Canadian) health care is any better than care provided in the US. Sure, if you don't have enough money, it's better than nothing, but if you can afford it or have insurance, the American system (when it doesn't randomly dismiss your claims) is often better in a lot of respects.
For instance, my parents took a 2 day trip down to the US last weekend for some shopping and my dad woke up at 2:30am the first night almost unable to breathe due to pulmonary embolisms. My mom, a nurse, took him into the nearest hospital and he was being treated within 10 minutes of showing up at the door. I'm not sure it would have been any different to here up to this point. Within an hour, he had a CT scan, ultrasound on his legs to determine the source of the clots (turned out to be his right ventricle) and an echo cardiogram done. My mom, who knows the wait times here very well, said an echo would have been about a 6 month wait, a CT scan at least 6 hours, probably closer to 10. He was put in a private room, basically a penthouse suite. When he was describing it to me he kept calling it a hotel by accident. It's a LOT different when you're a paying customer. Luckily they both had Blue Cross travel health through work, and between both plans and the provincial govt's portion (they pay the American hospital what they would have paid had he been in the hospital here), they should be covered 100%. We haven't heard anything yet so hopefully that's the case.
His only complaint was this social worker or something kept trying to get him to admit he was an alcoholic by asking pointed questions. First she asked if he drinks at all and if so how much. He said 1 or 2 a day usually. Then she says "Due to your excessive heavy drinking, blah blah..." and he says "Whoa, lady, who said anything about excessive heavy drinking?" and she wouldn't give up on that and they fought about it the whole time he was in there. Come to think of it, that's probably how they get claims denied in the US.. get the social worker to classify everyone as an alcoholic.
Overall, we're looking at this as a blessing in disguise. He might still be in the hospital waiting for a test or treatment if this happened here.
A lot of it is to do with the pipes into the country. Most overseas content comes in over a fairly limited couple of cables. Looking up the local stuff doesn't cost them anything, but overseas content does, hence the per byte charges.
This is also why they don't particularly care about p2p traffic. If it's local, they get the high fees for practically zero expense, if it's overseas you pay the same as any other user, and they get to claim the upload on peering agreements.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
One would think that me sharing my movies that I bought with my own money would be considered appropriate use of my internet connection that I am paying for with my own money.
Foreigners, especially Americans, make this joke a lot, but they don't really think through what it means. Actually it provides some really good insights into the Australian character. IANACSP ( I am not a cultural studies professor ) but I was born and raised here, have lived here for the best part of forty years, and have travelled a fair bit overseas for comparison purposes :)
Firstly, stop thinking about criminals and start thinking about inmates.
caveat americanus When yankees think about prison, they probably think about race and drugs. Don't. There are serious issues with racism in Australia, but they have an entirely different character to in America. Instead, imagine a prison full of loyal Mafia dudes who have taken a fall for their Capos and are serving their time, and have no real grief with each other or how they got there.
What do these inmates do? They look out for each other, and try and get through a shitty situation with as much humour and enjoyment as they can. They don't think the guards or the wardens are any better than they are, and largely they just try to stay on their good side and otherwise ignore them. They break the rules (which they don't take very seriously) - smuggle stuff, pinch stuff, do what they aren't supposed to - as much as they can get away with, but if someone gets caught, that's just the breaks. They love their sport, and grow a little weed and brew some beer in a shed out the back while a 'decent bloke' guard looks the other way.
They don't try and rock the boat. If someone stands up and starts yelling about prisoner's rights, or the unfairness of the guards, they are more likely to make fun of them and give them a swift kick in the backside than to start a riot.
And they have an amazingly high tolerance for invasive government. That's just part of the deal. You expect the warden to make stupid rules (this week everyone must piss sitting down!) : you ignore them if you can, and make jokes about them if you can't. You cheer the guy who breaks them and gets away with it, and laugh at the guy who gets caught.
This is the real nature of the Australian laid-back approach to politics : fundamentally, Australians with this character (which is about half) don't see the rules governing their situation as subject to fundamental change. You can get better and worse wardens and guards, but you're still going to be in the nick. An inmate may feel real affection for his particular prison - and get very patriotic when there is inter-prison football games! - but they don't see it as something that belongs to them, something under their control.
Democracy didn't change this very much : it just means we get to elect the guards and the warden! But we will pick the guy who promises to be a good natured guard, not the guy who wants to tear the walls down. And when the warden asks us if we want to change something ( constitutional referendums in Australia are only initiated by the government ) we virtually always so NO, largely just to stick it to him.
But thats only half the story.
Secondly : whenever you have inmates, you have guards and plantation owners (we call them the 'squatocracy') whose wealth depends on the labour of the prisoners. And largely those are the ones who set the character of our government and our institutions.
This is the other half of the Australian character. These people think that all the rest are lazy, and stupid, and venal, and need to be controlled and governed as much as possible. Pick up any Australian newspaper, or listen to any talk radio, and you will see and hear dozens of articles and letters and callers ranting about the need to punish people more, and pass more laws. I don't think Australian parliaments even know how to revoke laws - they just ratchet them up with more and more details, more and more control, more and more punishment.
Law and order sells even better in Australia then in Am
Problem solved. ( at least the mechanics, sounds like a revolution is needed to get to root of the problem )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Howard, die Fuhrer zum Zeitpunkt, lost his job and Rudd, die aktuelle furher immediately scrapped Work Choices.
If you want to use German for your Nazi-comparison, do it right:
"Führer" is a male noun, so the right personal pronoun would be "der".
"Der Führer zu diesem Zeitpunkt" and "der aktuelle Führer"
If Howard was female it would have been "die Führerin"
The politically über-correct, gender-neutral Version would be
"der/die FührerIn"
I'd like to point out that our compulsory voting helps to counteract this. As someone said (Federation 2.0) we've tossed the worst bits; optional voting being one.
Compulsory voting means that words like "Work Choices" will evoke not just angry words and letters, but actual votes from the lower and lower-middle classes; who elsewhere do not necessarily vote (since they may have to work on that Saturday...)
Just before I left Oz for a holiday though, I'm sure I heard Capt. Kevin mention the idea of a referendum to scrap compulsory voting. If this happens, I'm moving to NZ...
Wait! Whats a sig?
This is such a stupid idea...I don't want my internet records being perused by anyone let alone the government...I posted on my blog about this so read my post here
Maybe, just maybe, the problem is the copyright law that criminalizes a large portion of the Internet population? How about reforming that law, or at least adapting it to the 21st century? Like, you know, legalizing private non-commercial copying, as the various Pirate Parties in other countries are already asking for?
A large portion of the population also commits theft*. Doesn't mean it should be legalised.
I'm not going to sit here and deny that I have downloaded or shared movies (though I admit to nothing). But how can you justify a push to make copyright infringement legal, merely because it's done for non-commercial purposes? I mean, sure, infringement for commercial purposes is a bigger problem, because it happens on a larger scale. But copyright exists to encourage people to innovate and create.
Why would I invest days/weeks/months/years of my time, and hundreds/thousands/millions of dollars in creating something to sell to people who can make good use of it (as opposed to spending that time working for a salary, and simply holding on to my money) if you have a right to just use it without paying me?
Yes, I am aware of the open-source arguments, and yes, I have contributed to OS projects. But I have also taken time off work to try to create something new. I had to forego three months' salary, to do it. I simply could not afford to give it away for free, because, strangely enough, I couldn't find a landlord who'd give me her house for free, or a supermarket that would donate food to the cause.
OS software works because it's easy for many people to collaborate, and the equipment required to develop software is relatively cheap. The same does not apply to all software, and certainly not to something like music or film, which, at a professional level, simply can't be done without paying for access to specialised, expensive equipment, and specialist people to operate that equipment.
Your position would mean that if I produce something that's useful for commerce, then I deserve to be paid, but if I produce something for personal use (such as a music album or a film), I have to do it out of charity.
As it happens, I do compose music and write lyrics, I do record that music, and I choose to make it available online for free. But that's a choice I made, and a choice I want to have.
There are a lot of problems with copyright law in its current state. Big corporations have certainly tipped the balance in their favour, with longer copyright periods, etc. When copyright was first conceived, individuals created intellectual property. Copyright periods generally ran for some period of time following the creator's death. Corporations, however, are not natural persons, so they cannot die.
There's also the matter of US courts, specifically, awarding outrageously high exemplary damages, which, in turn, means that people agree to higher settlements. In Australia we don't have this problem. Australian courts are far more realistic in awarding damages, and also tend to punish plaintiffs that bring actions over very small matters. There's a reason why we haven't had many filesharing lawsuits in Australia. I believe that if a multi-billion dollar corporation went to the Federal Court to sue a teenager for downloading 300 songs, the Court would, likely as not, find in favour of the corporation (its copyright has, indeed, been infringed), but award only nominal damages.
The problem with your position is that it's just as bad as that of the corporations. There's a middle ground. You're both trying to tip the scales grossly in your favour. Right now the corporations are winning that particular tug of war. By all means, let's bring balance back in, but don't make the same mistakes in the other direction.
* I mean theft, not copyright infringement. You cannot steal intellectual property under Australian law. Copyright is a chose in action (intangible property). Theft is dishonestly appropriating property belonging to
So much for my grand plan to blast Australia back to snail mail by spamming the entire country with the first 64KB of Microsoft Word.
You understand - as revenge for inflicting Rupert Murdoch upon America?
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
People power in australia is said to be the thing thats gonna stop the pollies taking away our human rights ie internet privacy and freedom on the basis that politicians are greedy and self preservation keeps them loyal to the people.....Yeh but average joe is an uninformed idiot. All he cares about or knows about when it comes to the internet is that the government is gonna stop terrorists for him and protect his kids from online pedophiles. Protect the kids! Do it all for the safety of the kids!! Thats the notion chief in the minds of joe and jane public and that means that huge abuse of privacy at a governmental legislation level is about to happen here in australia before joe and jane public in say 10 years time begin to realise why we need our internet rights protected from fucktard assclowns like Conroy...
http://www.anticharisma.com/
and by the way Conroy was the only one to make a supportive comment for that victorian politician recently investigated for rape...I reckon this to be yet another insight into Conroys bizarre set of principles
http://www.anticharisma.com/
It seems to me, as long as traditional P2P remains the scapegoat and focus of attention for these kinds of regulations, governments can appear to be doing something (cue Yes Minister music), however people will still be able to use any other method of file sharing; newsgroups, file hosting services, etc. till they go blue in the face. New methodologies may already be in the works which further muddy the waters and keep our friendly legislators guessing (ie. posturing and looking busy).
Hopefully, voters won't allow universal censoring of the web. But some protocol or other needs to take the heat. Or perhaps "draw the heat" would be a better way of putting it.
That's indeed a very good argument. As a published book author, I know how much time it takes to write, review and polish the final version, time you -- of course -- don't get paid for. My personal preference would be for copyright to exist for a reasonable period of time, like, say, 5 or 10 years at most. After that, the copyrighted works have already been out of print, forgotten, or, if you're very lucky, have become part of the public culture: in all cases, they should enter the public domain by then.
However, granting copyright for N years would mean repeating history. N will start low, but will be extended again and again, until it reached perpetuity. That's why as content creator, I'd still reluctantly prefer that copyright be abolished altogether, or as a compromise, only exist to deter competing commercial entrepreneurs from leeching. Some law in the spirit of CC-BY-NC (or CC-BY-NC-ND) would seem fair. Harshly punishing the little file sharer as if she were a dishonest competitor hell-bent on destroying your only way of income, seems way out of proportion. There has to be a better way.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
A lot of people like to think there's a huge conspiracy re the internet here. But there's not. It's simply a product of the fact that:
a) We are English speaking. We therefore source the VAST majority of our internet content from other English speaking locations (mostly the US). In the US, 90% of IP traffic is domestic and never leaves the US. In Australia, 90% of IP traffic has to be pulled all the way FROM the US.
b) We are an island with a small population, a very long way from anywhere else. There are a handful of undersea cables connecting us to the outside world. These cables are EXPENSIVE. We don't share big long land borders like the US. We don't have a big content-producing domestic population like the US.
c) Telstra is still a bit of a problem. They have a monopoly on the last-mile copper at the moment and charge through the nose for other ISPs to access it. This should hopefully change with the NBN, but that's probably good decade off being completely finished.
There's no great conspiracy. There have been ISPs that have tried to provide unmetered accounts. They have all gone bankrupt. 90% of our traffic is international and the access to those undersea cables costs too much not to meter. It is a unique situation ... in other countries they consume far more domestic content, or have land borders, or simply don't have as far to travel (EU-US distance is way way less than AU-US distance, and has more pipes that are competing on price, due to the massive population on both sides). Remember ... only 12% of the world's population live in the southern hemisphere. We are very isolated down here.
If the technology exists for this to work perfectly, with no risk to privacy or performance, and all it did was prevented copyright infringement and access to illegal material, I wonder how many of us would still be against it regardless.
Would this still be classed as an "assault on the internet"? Or is this really an "assault on my access to pirated music/software/movies/porn/etc" at heart?