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3 Strikes — Denying Physics Won't Save the Video Stars
Philip K D writes "Award-winning SF author and BoingBoing co-editor Cory Doctorow has an editorial in today's Times of London. Doctorow elegantly eviscerates the basic injustice posed by the imminent Mandelson '3 Strikes' law in Britain. He makes the explicit observation: 'The internet is an integral part of our children's education; it's critical to our employment; it's how we stay in touch with distant relatives. It's how we engage with government. It's the single wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly. It isn't just a conduit for getting a few naughty free movies, it is the circulatory system of the information age.' It is worth noting that Doctorow was influential in the creation of the Creative Commons. He has enjoyed considerable commercial success for his writings, owing in no small part on his insistence that his work be made available for unrestricted electronic distribution and copying."
In related news, the UK's second-largest ISP, TalkTalk, is now threatening legal action if Mandelson's plan goes through.
Cory, that's only encouraging them. Now you've told them that if you can arbitrarily cut off people's Internet access, you've got those people by the gonads and can make them do whatever you want without going through the annoying process of actually passing laws and obtaining convictions and such.
They should create a 3 strike law for dumb politician laws.
In a way that requires proving that someone stole, rather than a simple accusation maybe?
How about not punishing people who presumably have not been found guilty of breaking the law? If they broke the law and were found guilty, they'd be subject to the ruling of the court. If they haven't been found guilty or for that matter given no trial then the whole thing is a violation of due process.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
So if this isn't the answer, how do you propose that illegal software downloads, copyright infringing video clips on youtube, and illegal downloading of mp3 music *should* be handled ?
Have you stopped beating your wife yet?
Your question presupposes that people accused of something are automatically guilty of it.
Take them to a court of law after doing due diligence to figure out if they were really the ones infringing. Subject them to due process. Don't play shenanigans in court or behave unethically in the proceedings. If found guilty, then charge them fair, not extortionist, penalties.
The problem is that the media companies don't like the idea of not being able to railroad everyday people into settlement, or not being able to threaten the public with ridiculous penalties. This is because they lose the FUD-factor, and the cost of throwing lawyers at the problem becomes prohibitive.
How do you solve this? I don't know. Its not my problem, and its not the duty of society to ensure that litigation is profitable. Its the duty of society to make sure that due process is followed and the justice system improves society. It's not my duty to ensure that the media companies stay in business.
Since when is drug legalization seriously discussed?
There are very few countries that have a slightly less restrictive stance on drugs and those countries are all being coerced by other countries into adapting stricter laws.
We're still far, far away from sane drug laws.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
who fucking cares? its just so much damage to route around
yes, they could make laws that would end filesharing... laws that would also essentially kill everything that makes the internet worthy our contribution and attention. that's not going to happen, unless media companies have more power than self-destructive military dictatorships
therefore, let them pass all of the half-assed measures that don't essentially kill the joy that is the internet all they want. let them joust with that technological hydra, and waste all their resources, a pool of cash and manpower that just keeps dwindling every day. obfuscation schemes, proxy schemes, encryption schemes, steganographic schemes, etc ... some college freshman in his dorm will handle all the complexities, for free, and make it as easy as point and click, and the program will spread like wildfire. and will of course get stamped out, just as the next moronic big media-sponsored law circumventing tool is spreading like wildfire. whack-a-mole is never a game you eternally prevail at
so let them buy as many legislators as they can, pass as many intrusive legal schemes as they want, waste as much of their dwindling reserves as they can
again, who fucking cares?
millions of media hungry, technologically savvy, and most importantly, POOR teenagers
versus a counple thousand lawyers basing their strategy on a philosophically flawed premise: that the internet can be controlled, that the distribution tollbooths that allowed media companies to thrive in the pre-internet age can be preserved
game over, douchebags
it doesn't reflect well on you when you are already defeated, and don't know it or won't admit it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What bearing does physics have on this?
It occurs to me that taking away peoples' internet for what they may view as a perfectly reasonable use of their access (Or even worse, through no fault of their own) is going to KILL PEOPLE. I wish I were joking. I wish this was a joke. But if some kid murders his parents because they took away his Xbox for playing too much Halo, or someone commits suicide because their WoW account was hacked... What's going to happen when people have their right to use the internet revoked?
I have no qualms about saying that I cannot function without the internet. If I need to know something, I look it up on the internet. If I want to know what's going on, I check news sites. If I want to buy something, I buy it online. I do business online. And quite frankly, the number of people that I consider to be 'close friends' and 'colleagues' on the other side of my monitor far exceeds the number of people I know offline, by at least 20-to-1.
Nevermind the whole ridiculousness of it all anyway. Piracy is not theft. Nothing is stolen. There are copies made. And there's only two kinds of people who want copies of stuff: The ones who never would have paid money for it to begin with, and the ones who will end up actually buying it anyway. You can apply that to literally anything.
People are going to die because the entertainment industry doesn't want them getting something for free that they wouldn't have bought anyway.
Hundreds of people die every day in the industrialized world because they can't afford healthcare...and now we have the entertainment industry killing people because they think they lost a CD sale?
Here's a novel idea: Instead of trying to sell a CD with only one or two good songs on it for THIRTY FUCKING DOLLARS and giving the artist (You know, those people who did all the work and that the consumer actually gives a shit about?) fuck-all, how about you get with the program and actually try to leverage the goddamn internet to sell things-- ACTUAL PRODUCTS PEOPLE WANT --in a manner that MAKES SENSE for a REASONABLE PRICE.
And people wonder why I don't want to participate in society.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Alcohol doesn't ruin lives, cops/government ruin lives. If all alcohol were legal there would be no alcohol related crimes.
i'm not american, but even i know 20th century american history better than you.
neither communism nor socialism were dirty words in america until the 1950s with all the scare propaganda about the Red Menace.
right up until then, there was an active, large, and popular socialist movement in america. it wasn't likely to hold government in its own right but was strong enough to provide a moderating influence on the growing corporate control of american government.
after mccarthy, socialism became a thought-crime in america and corporate control had no effective opposition.
i'm constantly astounded by the mindless american hostility to the idea of government - it's like children denying reality. the fact is that government is inevitable and unavoidable, you can't deny its existence or power by just subscribing to some moronic "rugged individualist" mythology. so, if government is inevitable, then only sane thing for citizens do is to ensure that it works for THEM....because if it doesn't work for the citizens, it will be controlled by the rich and powerful for their own benefit. which is *exactly* what you've got. as a whole, the people of america have abdicated and the power vacuum has been filled by corporate interests, which is precisely why there is so much corporate-sponsored propaganda brainwashing citizens into believing that socialist principles like universal health care are bad for them.