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In the UK, a Plan To Criminalize Illegal Downloaders
krou writes "It looks like the launch of the UK Pirate Party came not a moment too soon. The Independent reports that Business Secretary Lord Mandelson is going to take a hard-line stance to preserve copyright after intense lobbying by the music and film industry. 'Under the proposed laws, Ofcom, the industry regulator, would be given powers to require Internet service providers to collect information on those who downloaded pirate material. The data would be anonymous, but serious repeat infringers would be tracked down through their computer ID numbers.' Prospective punishments included restricting internet access, either slowing down an offender's broadband or disconnecting them altogether, and fines up to £50,000. The Pirate Party came out against the scheme, calling it a gross invasion of civil liberties, while Tom Watson, the former minister for digital engagement, spoke out against the move, saying that the government should stop trying criminalize downloaders just so as to 'restore 20th-century incumbents to their position of power,' but should instead be 'coming up with interventions that will nurture 21st-century creative talent.'"
The data would be anonymous, but serious repeat infringers would be tracked down through their computer ID numbers.
This must be some definition of the word 'anonymous' that I was not previously aware of.
If they are downloading something illegally, aren't they already criminals?
I thought criminalising something was where you took something that wasn't illegal ( but a significant amount of people do ) and making it illegal?
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
Maybe he was a Grand Vizier in a previous incarnation.
:).
p.s. somehow Grand Viziers tend to be portrayed rather "unsympathetically" in books and films, wonder why
It deprives us from works becoming public property long after they cease to be economically feasible, being held hostage by the 'rights owners' who refuse to let them go into PD and be renewed, to serve as a foundation for new work, new art, as it has been so many times before. We are deprived from the same rights that authors and musicians during the times enjoyed, to look at what was, rethink it, rephrase it and wrap it in new clothes. Think of all the plays and movies that are based on the basic idea of Romeo and Juliet (and I'm not talking about cheezy works like the one movie with Leonardo), something that could not be done if Shakespeare lived and worked today.
How many songs have been written that used classic tunes and parts thereof as their base, rearranged and reworked to fit the tastes of today? Have you ever heard Vanessa Mae play Toccata and Fuge? If Bach lived today he could demand that his work is to be played with organs only and we would never hear this goosebump-creating work of violin again. Ever.
You see how easily that argument is turned around? Why shouldn't we spin "copyright is stealing" in return?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So we have more camera surveillance than anywhere else.
We have more regulations than most places. And now we are going to help out the big money companies by criminalizing use of the internet.
Why are we helping a business model that doesn't work and is being flogged to death. UK industry used to be innovative and groundbreaking. Now instead of encouraging evolution of business, we are actively saying we will help you keep your outdated methods and kick the people who innovate.
We should be telling the record/movie industry to move with the times and only help when they have proven they have made changes that are compatible with the customers of the day.
Yes I know about iTunes and other services. but the pricing models applied to them are often the same (or worse) than physical media. And with all the DRM pain when the industry failed again to move forward, these methods have a bad name.
Things are changing and people *are* still buying music and movies. the losses the industry report assume that the downloaded tracks would have been bought (which is rarely the case) only a small preparation of downloaded music would have ever been bought. the rest would have been borrowed (taped/copied) from physical media as has been going on for many years. I don't ever remember a lawsuit over the sale of a dual tape deck that could copy between two tapes.
More interestingly, downloaded music can lead to more sales as bands that are not mainstream are discovered and shared.
I don't condone illegal music downloads. I do condone the use of laws to fund outdated industries that have big enough pockets to buy politicians.
Bullshit. Its acceptance by the mainstream media shows the irrelevance of the mainstream media. The fact that a behaviour casually classed as 'criminal' by newspapers is engaged in by such a large portion of the population shows they haven't won anything. Furthermore, the proportion of the population that does engage in this 'criminal' behaviour is disproportionately young.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
[Hitler's] primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it. /Godwin.
It's the Big Lie technique, through and through. Do you really expect otherwise from these mooks?
What constantly astounds me about Mandelson is the lack of furore about the fact that he's unelected. We didn't vote for this man. How the hell did he get to be running the country?
How can they possibly write this law in a way that will clearly delineate what a legal download is from an illegal download? Is it the responsibility of the consumer to know whether or not the distributor has acquired the legal rights to allow you to download a file in the first place. Does paying for something automatically indemnify you from charges of illegal downloading if you're not sure of the legality? If netflix offers a promotion to allow me to watch 3 movies for free without signing up for their service, is that legal? What about a site that streams the movie to me, inserts commercials, but doesn't have a license with the movie studios. Am I charged for illegal downloading or are they charged with illegal distribution, or both? What exactly is an illegal download when the distributor (even a pirate distributor) is willfully giving you content without charging for it?
"The law is made by the rich and powerful in order to make sure they stay that way". Piers Paul Reed, (but he may have been quoting somebody else, and from memory so may not be exact).
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
You seem to have forgotten that the government is meant to be there to implement what the people want. If everyone in the country wants the speed limits increased, then in theory, they should be able to vote for someone who says they will do that. The equivalent for this is the Pirate Party. The government are not meant to control us, we are meant to control the government.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
Get a law passed that criminalizes The leakage of private information by Govt or its supreme "Yes, Minister" servants.
That way, the next time some MP or minister or a civil servant loses a hard disk containing private information, he/she faces hard time in a Federal Prison: for 10 years or more.
Why doesn't someone get the stupid ministers to pass a law like this?
There already is such a law - the Data Protection Act forces organisations to keep data secure and a major mortgage company were fined for losing a laptop which had a whole lot of personal information on it. (They later announced that they'd pass this fine on to customers because they "didn't think it was fair" to pass it onto the executives, and nobody raised a stink. Go figure.)
There is the minor issue that AFAICT the only thing they can do is fine an organisation - and of course there's only one place government can get money from to pay such a fine...
I read this a while ago and also found it on wikipedia. It was said by Jean-Paul Gaster who happens to be the drummer for the band Clutch. "As a musician, I think it is irrelevant to me. It exists and it is out there and no matter what I try and do about it, it will always be there. I don't mind kids trading tapes, that's totally cool. Videos are cool too. They only add to the live show. A kid might show that to some of their friends and they might think that we are cool and might come out and see us next time. The reality is that an artist has to have a record go gold, before they are even going to see a dime. Bands put out 3 or 4 records on a label and never see a dime from record sales. So, it is not like people who are downloading would be putting a dollar in my pocket if they would have bought the record. The industry is set up so that the record company will immediately get paid from record sales. So...download all you want!!! I think that the internet has changed the record industry and will continue to do so. The record labels will find some way to make money. I think that the artists main concern is to concentrate on their live performance and be the best artist that they can". I don't know how much of this actual fact but this is coming from someone who has been making music for a very long time and is in a relatively well known band. So basically this will most likely come to pass considering all the lobbying from the music and film industry. Personally it does not affect me since I don't download music or films illegally (used to a few years back) but what does concern me is the privacy issues. I don't want someone keeping track of all my internet activity because I doubt that only illegal downloaders would be monitored.
Isn't it redundant to "criminalize" something that is already illegal? Isn't that sort of the definition of "illegal?"
Funny, I thought they were synonymous.
Its complicated. With a wide and varied population you can't identify a singular reason. Let me see if I can have a crack at enumerating a few though:
1. Boiling frogs. There was never an Enabling Act really, more a series of measures which have slowly made us one of the least free people in Europe. Ask any of my fellow Brits, I bet none of them can definitively name a date when the government anti-freedom agenda began.
2. Thatcherism. Old milk-snatcher mounted a long, brutal, and ultimately successful campaign to decimate the base of her political opponents. This has left any political organization that doesn't blindly follow the dictats of the City out in the wilderness with few members. Sometimes I don't think Americans appreciate how horrific it was; they just assume she was a clone of Reagan - but she was much worse.
3. Media lockdown. The BBC doesn't have a mandate to really rip the government a new one. The papers are owned by people with heavy financial interests in the government. Murdoch has a vast media empire (several newspapers, and the very popular Sky television network) which basically dictates policy. In one instance, the Murdoch-owned Sun ran a 'campaign' to get the then home secretary David Blunkett to make some token move against immigrants, which he ultimately acceded to in an interview with the Sun. Thing is, he had his interview with the Sun to announce this very initiative already arranged before their 'campaign' started.
4. Paranoia. Britain is a very fearful society, largely for reasons 1 and 2 above. The assumption that everyone is ruthless and out for themselves is a self-fulfilling prophecy, because believing everyone else is a greedy scheming fucker makes it easier to be one yourself.
5. Deference. The curse of British society. We are conditioned by centuries of culture to defer to those of higher social classes. Even icons of the left such as Bertrand Russel and Tony Benn come from aristocratic stock, and their aristocratic manner helped them become iconic. The concept of 'betters' is sold to ordinary people by the tacit suggestion that, whilst they have their betters, they are in turn better than others...
6. Scapegoating. British people don't look up for the source of problems, they look down. Its the chavs. Its the muslims. Its single mums. Aside from taking the heat away from power, it also helps sell deference by telling people that there are 'scum' out their that they are better than.
There will be more reasons. Frankly, I think my country is doomed.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
You know nothing about me you patronising cocksucker. The old chestnut of 'when you get older you will understand' is just an excuse to avoid addressing somebodies arguments on their own merit.
Socialism (by which you mean, anything not pure capitalism) is a faith? But I suppose YOUR views are founded on pure logic and reason? Logic and reason that will, regardless of the evidence your are presented with, always vindicate capitalism? You really haven't taken a hard look at yourself have you?
The fact you classify Mandelson as a socialist shows just how far gone your 'thinking' is. After 30 years of Thatcherism, your idiotic prescription is more Thatcherism, based on the premise that every bad politician must be a 'socialist'.
You clearly consider yourself an intellectual, privy to a great truth that the other 'sheep' just cannot see. There are some people who believe this, and is true. There are many more people who believe this, and are medicore minds wearing tinfoil helmets. Make an honest appraisal of the stats and work out which you are.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Capitalism is socialism for the rich
Mining had to die, because 'the market' said so. Manufacturing, shipbuilding, all the other things had to go to. But when industries that the ruling classes have deep interests in, such as media or banking, start losing money - they must be saved to 'safeguard jobs' and 'protect creativity'.
Twas ever thus. The market promotes self-interest, and self-interest distorts the market for its own benefit. Capitalism always does this.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
They do what they already do, join BitTorrent swarms, note down the IP addresses in the swarm, see which ISPs they belong to, if the ISPs are UK ISPs, contact them to get their details, or get them via court order, then they sue.
The problem is that BitTorrent is by default weak to this type of attack - you have to connect to a public tracker for a specific piece of content.
If you use USENET to just download off of newsgroups on foreign servers using SSL then you should be safe to all government legislation and attempts to crack down on piracy, unless they take it to the extreme of making ISPs perform man in the middle attacks on SSL connections to see what is being transferred and catch you that way, but I don't think even Labour would go that far- it would have too many side effects, such as reducing confidence in online shopping and banking at UK firms if it was known that encrypted connections were being snooped.
Realistically I think if these laws go ahead a lot of people who don't understand the vulnerabilities of P2P systems like BitTorrent do leave them open to getting caught. Personally I do not believe an IP address connected to a tracker is an acceptable level of evidence of a crime as it's so fundamentally flawed, but unfortunately it seems people in government do believe it's acceptable. This catching of large amounts of people will go one of three ways, either it will kill off British file sharing (but leave other methods like burning CDs for mates, direct downloads, USENET etc. intact), it'll lead to a cat and mouse game where technology (such as anonymous networks built for file sharing) arise to work around the inherent vulnerabilities of bittorrent or it'll lead to public discontent and political pressure will force the government to backtrack.
Either way, if you use P2P, it's going to be a bumpy road.
@AC: Wow, judging from your totally over the top frankly arrogant comments its you who needs "a sense of perspective" rather than flying off the deep end. If you AC, bothered to learn some "history", you would see there was a lot more to Heinrich Himmler than his high profile horrific acts during WW2.
Heinrich Himmler spent years scheming and manipulating to finally work himself into a position of immense power. It is that scheming and manipulation that allowed him to consolidate his position of power leading up to WW2. His behavior showed someone extremely driven (at almost any cost) to seek any way to gain power over others. Psychologically that's very interesting, as it strongly points to a personality disorder that I strongly suspect Mandelson shares many aspects with. A good example is their extreme self interest, with such a total lack of empathy for opponents. Knowledge and lies are a weapon to people like this. Mandelson is exactly like this. (People like them so often learn from a young age that lying gets them what they want and as they have no empathy to others they don't care they are lying. Worst still, they sadly see most people as overly trusting pawns their lies easily manipulate. Even worse, they consider themselves smarter for winning over trusting people).
We have seen atrocities throughout human history, so sadly there's nothing special about our time. Given the right circumstances (or more to the point, wrong circumstances) seemingly innocent people today would sadly be capable of similar levels of horrific contempt and lack of empathy to opponents and people they just see as their pawns, in their own rampant driven for self advancement at the expense of others. For example, the act of treating 1 person with contempt or 10 million people with contempt is simply the difference between the amount of power the person in power has. But if someone with a huge amount of power treats the lives of 10 million people with contempt, then you will find hundreds of thousands of people out of the 10 million are likely to end up dying if the contempt lasts months and years. We have seen that repeated throughout history and around the world. The people in power at the time, often don't want the 10 million to die. The point is, they don't care if they live or die. Their only concern if the 10 million died is what effect would that have on their own position of power. Its a totally self interested mindset. They don't even think about the victims they are only interested in how that affects them. Thankfully most people don't think like this sick minority of people, but sadly this minority so often seeks to gain extreme power over others, ultimately for their own gain from having such power over others.
If the world is to ever progress, we *all* need to learn to recognize this kind of person and then together we would have the power to stop them holding such positions of power over us all.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
I have been COPYING music for 30 years, when cassette tapes came out the same cry went up. It will ruin the industry, people will stop making music, think of the poor starving artists you are stealing from. But they had no way of finding out how many tapes I was giving out, or tracking which records I borrowed. One of the best things about having a library card back then was taking out records and recording them.
They are desperate but most of us who are over 40 remember the crap from back then, and now we are starting to get into postions where we can tell these guys to shove it up their arse
This is Britain, not a democracy, why does he need anyone to vote for him? No-one voted for Brown, and two-thirds of the country voted against the ruling party in the last election yet they were returned with a large majority.
You've never needed an electoral mandate to rule this country, what are you so surprised about?
And I'm not being Orwellian at all. It's plain fact. Copyright gives other people power to dictate how I may or may not use my own private property. If I buy a book written by Orwell, the estate of Orwell has legal power over what I may and may not do with that book--my own property. This a a gross violation of the most important right that underpins social progress: the right to private property. Ergo, Copyright is Stealing.