Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Copying is stealing.
The very fact that we're willing to accept that sentence for discussion shows how far things have come. Stop and think about it, taken out of context. How Orwellian it sounds!
Now that every uninformed member of society believes that copying is a criminal act, well of course it should be criminalised. That only makes sense.
I do believe that artists and creators need to be rewarded. But more and more I'm coming around to the notion that we should scrap the whole bloody slab of law that covers IP, and start again with something sensible.
That won't happen of course. It seems that preserving industry and building capital is the single only motivation for existence in this brave new Labour world.
What ever happened to the notion that money is not valuable in and of itself, but only as a means to the ends we choose?
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.
Yes, quite. The whole thing is pure fascistic lunacy, that appears to have been drawn up by corporate lobbyists and Whitehall bureaucrats with no awareness of either the technical or legal ramifications of what they are doing.
Also, since the rate of progress of technology nowadays is so much faster than big business and government can respond to it, this scheme will be obsolescent by the time that it gets implemented.
I recently wrote to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in response to the pre-legislative consultation documents, and I would encourage other technically-literate Brits to do the same.
Pirate Party UK
Like those companies which abuse the GPL and release media STB but not the source code for them? Oh, like Humax for their Foxsat-HDR box as (and I directly quote them) "the consumer can't update the firmware so there is no need to release the source code we use".
Thats just as much a breach of copyright as someone downloading a TV show off a torrent site.
So will Mandelson remove their net connection
"It isn't helped by the fact he really looks like Hitler."
Its funny but also somewhat scary you say that, because for years I've thought he not only looked like but also behaved very much like Heinrich Himmler. At times I find Mandelson a truly scary character because he seems to have immense political power behind the scenes. Time and time again he has been linked with corruption. He has even been thrown out of Government twice, yet he is back for a 3rd time and within months of being back, somehow he has one of the most powerful jobs in New Labour. He must have some very powerful friends and considering the speed he has got back to such a powerful position, I wonder if he has also enough dirt on other MPs to blackmail and force himself back into such power. In some ways he is just as manipulative and controlling as Heinrich Himmler was. I think if Mandelson ever got anymore political power, He would create a nightmare country with him at the center of power.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
The ruling class is utterly insulated. Politicians in this country can live their entire lives without meeting anybody outside their social class. All the MPs have been railroaded from private school through to Oxford, and thence into safe seats arranged by their mentors and parents. Their entire reality is defined for them by their lobbyists.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
No, they're not. In the case of music, the money lost is lost by the majors - the money for artists is not and has never been in recordings, with a very very few exceptions. Same for post-theater movies, the money doesn't go to pay the people whose hard work went into it, but to make a fat cheque to an already overpaid mpaa exec.