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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.
Assuming that they're going to create something stupid, what would be the least stupid alternative?
How about something along the lines of "3 strikes and you're limited to ports X,Y,Z"
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
In the Bush years, the US had become the poster child for bad government in the Western world. Now, though, it seams the UK is the clear leader in this respect. There are so man examples other than this one. For example, just today, the UK fired a drug policy advisor because his scientific findings "sent the wrong message."
Yes, in the UK government, stating scientific facts is now a fire-able offense. Bush was pretty anti-science, but even he didn't outright fire people like that.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
It is in fact, THE conduit for getting naughty movies. People who downplay the role of porn on the internet are in fantasyland.
In a way that requires proving that someone stole, rather than a simple accusation maybe?
First I've heard of this. Citation, please?
I know that Doctorow was one of CC's early adopters. I've never heard that he was involved in the creation of the license.
IMO Cory Doctorow is good writer, but an absolute genius at self-promotion.
Find free books.
Even assuming the security services don't lynch the dark lord before this goes to the vote, i have to wonder how effective such a law would be. For 20 quid i can get a 3g pay and go modem. No contract, no names, just cash.
Then we have TOR and i2p, which if the papers are to be believed have the aformentioned services bricking it.
Still, so long as he keeps getting his back handers, I'm sure everything will work out fine.
regards, the_leander
No kidding. 40 years of the "War on Drugs" has wasted thousands of lives in jail, and we're no closer to eliminating drugs. It will take at least 40 years of a war on copyright infringers before anyone starts seriously discussing legalization.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
The obvious solution is to make it legal instead. No more problem with illegal downloads or copyright infringing videos.
If you then want beyond free-market incentives for certain sectors, then there are any number of ways to pay out such incentives, the simplest of which is simply automatically slapping a levy on any revenue derived directly from such duplications and paying it directly to the creators.
Much easier to deal with shares of monetary transactions than attempt to prevent the unpreventable.
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?
Simple - copyright reform. And, by that, I mean Mr. Capitalism pulling it's Corporate cock out of the Public Domain's ass and stop raping it. Short term copyrights, pay-what-you-want donor-based pricing. Open it wide open and the people will love it so much, they will want to give what they feel they need to the artists they love the most. Of course, the MAFIAA does not like that because that connects the fans and the artists, but ultimately, that's what the internet is all about. They used to be needed for distribution, aggregation, and promotion - with the internet and social networking sites, they are entirely obsolete and record labels can break up now and go back to being independent.
We need to start paying more attention to websites like kickstarter.com, they should be leading the way to busting this problem wide open.
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
I normally would not give the time of day with this bunch of cowboys(>£10 in phone charges just to cancel a landline) but if they do take legal action over the latest silly idea to come out of Darth Vader (aka Mandy) I'll support them.
IF the EU has told the French that this goes against the EU laws why the f*** does NuLab think this will also pass their scrutiny. Dumb idiots.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
I find this proposed 3 strikes law quite baffling. I mean, it's a conduit of communication, just like a telephone, right? I wonder what would happen if there was a 3 strikes law proposed for phones that kicked in if you were found conducting crime over the phone. How silly would that sound?
Lord Mandelson has today announced that the outgoing Labour government will be going ahead with the "three strikes" plan against Internet filesharing, thus ensuring the widespread use of encryption in all routine network communications.
"Encrypted communications as standard is the best possible thing for everyone's privacy," he said today, "but there's so much inertia from the installed base of unencrypted systems. This will provide a rapid incentive for everyone to upgrade as soon as possible. In our last few months in power at the fag-end of a failed government, we need to leave a real legacy for the future."
The benchmark for the new system will be illegal filesharing dropping by 70%. "That's measured illegal filesharing, of course. We have set out our metrics quite clearly. Furthermore, home taping is killing music."
MI5 and the police have objected to the plan due to the difficulty of mass-monitoring encrypted systems, even with the RIPA power to obtain passwords, since mass anonymity systems such as TOR and Freenet have been constructed where the end-user never has nor sees the encryption key. "But a few hideous terrorist atrocities is a small price to pay for less Lily Allen songs being shared. Particularly if they happen on the Tories' watch. MuWAAAhahahaha. By the way, have you noticed just how much Dave Cameron looks like Iggle Piggle? Uncanny."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Indeed. Just ask David Nutt.
I'm from Romania and we have a very difficult economic situation right now, worse than others, because of a crappy political crisis. All I can think now is how could we vote these stupid fucks. All other countries from EU criticise us because of this. But I think in the end we are the same: Who the hell voted for Mandelson?
L.
Copyright infringement laws are difficult to enforce. That does not automatically justify making someone guilty upon accusation.
Sure, the activities are illegal. And some believe they are illegal with good reason (something about causing economic harm). Be that as it may, it is still not okay to presume someone is guilty just because he has been accused too many times.
Any idiot can accuse, even if there is no guilt. Innocent people must be protected against false accusations. Allowing guilt to be presumed upon accusation is a far greater crime than copyright infringement.
So it doesn't matter how else the situation should be handled. It doesn't matter if there is *no other way* to inforce copyright law. Guilty-upon-accusation is outright unacceptable under any circumstance.
Physics killed the video star?
Goo goo g'joob.
Just as the war on drugs is only tangentially related to actual drug abuse, the war on copyright infringement will only be tangentially related to piracy.
The "failed" drug policy of the last 50 years only makes sense to me when seen as a war waged against the underprivileged in our societies. Drug use is high in all sections of society but the poor and ethnic minority groups are the ones that end up in prison.
Equally, I think the real reason behind slime-balls like Mandelson signing up to legislation that targets downloaders is to restrict freedom of speech on the internet.
New Labour, and Mandelson in particular, have waged a vicious war on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and habeas corpus in Britain over the last 12 years. This legislation is the first step to widening that war to the internet. It gives unaccountable bureaucrats and corporate officials powers that were previously only available to the judiciary, just as New Labour is doing in other areas of British life. It will lead to (ab)use of these powers to curtail fundamental human rights, just as is happening with those other powers.
As much as our politicians are in the pockets of various corporations, I don't believe that's sufficient explanation for the assault on due process we see here. If there's one thing that terrifies politicians more than falling profits it's democracy. And large scale copyright infringement is just the excuse our politicians need to go after that on the internet with a vengeance.
Some commentators call this affliction, which seems to have harmed most English-speaking nations in the world, the "Anglo Disease". (Keep in mind that this particular eerily prophetic article was written before the Great Recession.)
This seems easy. Let the law pass. Then start accusing people in power of copyright infringment to get their internet turned off. Then, because the people in power won't have the laws apply to them (as usual), accuse their families, then their family's family. You then systematically create a society with no internet access.
Now, if the law is written that a specific named company (or companies) are immune, legally change you name to the same as the company, then infringe all you want (because you will be named in the law! woohoo! that is step 2 in the 3 profit steps BTW, the ???).
At this point, it is *OBVIOUS* that the people making these sorts of laws are in no way acting out of their own opinion on the matter (well, if favoring the people who line your pockets is an opinion, then ignore my last statement).
At this point though, everyone should just go re-read "A Modest Proposal" and start using satire/ubsurdity to make a point, because being reasonable certainly doesn't work any more.
[/cynicism]
Yes, it is amazing, that the Internet has become all this — and more — but civilization did exist before 1990ies, and all of the freedoms mentioned were there — some of them even more so than today, perhaps.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
you are of course absolutely correct
however, i am merely pointing out that although the thugs on the street corner will extract their pound of flesh, they will not prevail
it is still entirely valid and appropriate to directly confront the thugs, as you insist
but your point, and my point, are complementary points, not mutually exclusive points. i can make my point without hindering yours, and visa versa, so there is no need to assume friction between our two areas of concern
both of our enemies are the thugs. so you fight your short term war, i'll fight my long term war, and we will both prevail (in the long term ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Funnily enough, directly opposite Cory Doctorow's column in today's Times is an opinion piece by Hugo Rifkind, saying that the main reason drugs ruin lives is because getting caught will ruin your life.
What bearing does physics have on this?
i never changed my attitude towards hard core drugs, nor was i ever pro-copyright
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1424363&cid=29925269
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/1/28/31758/7402
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
California is holding legislative hearings on the legalization of Cannabis for non-medical use. Earlier this year Barney Frank introduced legislation in the US House that would have legalized small amounts of marijuana at the federal level. Public opinion in favor of legalization of marijuana is at an all time high.
Now I'm not saying it's going to happen any time soon, but there's been more progress in the last year than in my entire life time. But that wasn't really my point, my point is that we're going to have to suffer through decades of copyright warfare, wasting millions of dollars and people-years in jail, just like we have in the war on drug users.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
On a totally irrelevant note, what's going on with your movie? You've been editing it for as long as I can remember :p
[FUCK BETA]
No copyright and freedom of the individual are not the same thing, but the issue is here that you are asking a loaded question.
You are asking, if hanging escaped slaves isn't the answer, then how should they be handled. Making it obvious that in your mind, that you already made up your mind that there should be punishment.
Others would argue that you might ask whether the very concept of copyright might not need to be changed. Once again.
Copyright has NOT been in existence for the vast majority of human history. Thousands of years, humanity has progressed and produced art that has endured across the ages, with absolutely no copyright.
This changed, and NOT as you might think to protect the creators of content, but the publishers of content. Copyright is not for nothing called COPY right. It was created to protect music PUBLISHERS, printed music sheets, who bought the music from artist for a small sum and then printed money. Obviously, they wanted to be only ones to be allowed to do that, and so copyright was started in its modern form.
The current system is a dreadful beast. The same Disney that has lobbied to have it extended published Pinocchio on the day after the copyright on it expired. Yet if you dare to use their work, you will be hounded by their lawyers, even with works of parody.
No, you ask how the slave should be punished, when every right thinking person ask, should slavery be allowed.
Copyright needs to change, it has no longer got anything to do with giving a creator a change to make a living of his work and everything with enormous business interests seeking to bleed every last penny from content others produced. When a music publishers seeks money a dozen times from the same person for the same song, the beast needs to be killed. 1 payment for the audio sample. Another for the tune on your iPod, then next for the home stereo, another fee to embed it in your birthday video, another if you play it a party, more money still for your ringtone, buy it again if you buy another MP3-player.
ENOUGH
Copyright has to change. Computer games that cost ever more for shorter and shorter games with tiny addons costing 10 bucks or more is nickle and diming the industry to death. People bought games when you could simply swap them on a floppy because the price was right. 70+ euro's for a PS3 games is just not on. Especially since the PC version costs 30-40 euro's LESS. The Collectors Edition of Dragon Age for the PC costs the same as the regular edition for the consoles. Greed gone out of control.
For music the same goes. Apple lovers, turn away, this is going to hurt. The costs of an iTune song is the purest greed displayed, until the BBC named its pricing plans for the iPlayer. 1 dollar/euro for a song, that does not have to be pressed on a CD, put in a box with a printed sleeve, stocked and shipped, all with the risk of producing to few or to many, is JUST TO FUCKING MUCH. What happened to the CAPITALIST idea of cost savings reducing prices? The BBC even thought to charge 10 dollar per episode. God help the Eastenders fan. Or worse, neighbors.
The prices got nothing more to do with demand and supply but with "We supply therefor we demand."
Movies make record profits, yet the movie industry is being killed by downloading. How can this be? Because some MPAA accountant has told movie moguls that their are 6 billion people in this world and so their movie should at 10 dollars per ticket earn them 60 billion. When it doesn't, piracy is to blame.
Pension funds in Holland invest in MUSIC rights for the future as their analysts who are boring men who think gold is unstable because it evaporates at a rate of few atoms every 1 million years, have determined it is a reliable investment. A safe buy that pays for itself in 10 years and is then a steady source of income at virtually no cost.
Yet the music industry is supposedly at an edge.
No, it is no wonder you posted as an AC. You are arguing a lost cause, people
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
. There is a worldwide momentum to see drug abuse as health problem instead of a criminal issue, and consequently to de-criminalize the personal use of (some or all) drugs:
Mexico
Portugal
Argentina
Similar legislation has been approved in Colombia, Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Spain
I see no sign of countries being 'coerced' into stricter drug laws.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/24/california.marijuana/index.html
and marijuana should be 100% legal
meanwhile, meth, coke, and heroin legalization should never be seriously considered
that's just my opinion
but even if you disagree with me, you completely fail at the subject matter as soon as you talk about DRUG legalization. now if you want to talk to me about METH legalization, or MARIJUANA legalization, or COCAINE legalization, then we are having a valid coherent discussion. but there is no such thing, nor will there ever be such a thing as a coherent subject matter called DRUG legalization
every single drug is completely different in its pharmacological effects, and therefore every single drug should have a completely different legal framework around it. this is the most rational logical approach. meanwhile, if you don't understand that or refuse to take the radically different inebriation/ toxicity/ addiction/ etc profiles of different drugs into consideration when you frame your opinions on the subject matter, you are not being serious about the subject matter
if you wish to tell me everything from caffeine to methamphetamine should have the same legal approach, you just announce yourself as a complete idiot who knows absolutely nothing about the subject matter, or you are willfully expressing an utterly naive attitude to an obviously complicated and multivariate issue. which means you fail
this is a solid fact: marijuana will get legalized in the usa. it will be legalized FASTER if the idiots who think ALL drugs should be legalized shut the fuck up, or are shut up and kept out of the discussion. you refrain your opinions to marijuana, and marijuana alone, in the discussion about marijuana legalization, or you are HURTING THE CAUSE. if you try to broaden your remarks to all drugs, you sound like an idiot, and you turn people OFF on the subject of marijuana legalization who might otherwise listen
if you confine your remarks to MARIJUANA legalization and insist that the approach to methamphetamine/ coke/ heroin/ etc should be DIFFERENT (whether or not you think they should be legal or illegal), then you actually win over hearts and minds to a good cause
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The fact that the government would be able to disconnect you from the internet after "3 strikes" of copyright infringement is very scary. The internet has become the center of communication. Critics of big companies or opposition parties use it to voice their opinions. Although the British current law will not go to the extreme, I fear that if it passes, other countries will begin to pass more extreme laws until the copyright becomes an excuse to completely silence critics.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, no one's stealing. If they were stealing it would be a criminal offense under the jurisdiction of the police. That wouldn't go well for the record labels at all since the police don't care. It's copyright violation or license violation; which carries the same moral penalty as theft but a dramatically larger punishment.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
Hey, Steven Spielberg has made the odd bad movie too, ya know.
[FUCK BETA]
The question is perfectly valid; it presupposes that people are illegally downloading copyrighted content. Which they are.
If you're going to try to "unask" the question on the basis that it makes an invalid supposition you'll have to try to argue that no one is illegally downloading content. Good luck.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
Assembly bill 390 all the way, baby. Californians - send letters to your assembly and your congresspeople urging them to support the bill!
As a counter weight...
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2009/10/new-3-strikes-law-proposals.html
What can you suggest.
(Naturally, it would be best not to have these 3 strikes plays at all...)
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
How about an Op Ed piece last week by George Will discussing decriminalizing marijuana?
Apparently some conservatives are looking at the tax impact of the war on drugs and the resulting prison population, and coming to the conclusion that a change in policy might be a good idea.
The universe was intelligently designed. Unfortunately God was in a hurry so he coded it in Java.
Why don't you stop telling us who the 'idiots' are and what we can and cannot debate and FINISH YOUR FUCKING movie. Okay, blowhard.
"No kidding. 40 years of the "War on Drugs" has wasted thousands of lives in jail, and we're no closer to eliminating drugs. It will take at least 40 years of a war on copyright infringers before anyone starts seriously discussing legalization."
We've had science, medical research, doctors, and hospitals for a century now. We still haven't eliminated disease or death. We fund police departments. We still haven't eliminated crime. We fund fire departments. Yet, we still haven't eliminated fires.
I think it's time we all just gave up.
Drugs don't ruin lives, cops/government ruin lives. If all drugs were legal there would be no drug related crimes.
I just don't get it. Why do people keep confusing socialism with communism? They are so very different. It's not even "Some purely academic" thing. It's two completely different ideologies. Political system. Economic systems. Communism relies on free market and people's ability to profit while socialism relies on state control.
Communism isnt social programs like Social Security. Communism is state owned property and means of production. This is something tea baggers should have been taught in school. Social Security isnt paid for by nationalizing all the business, its a tax, same as roads, navies, etc.
No. Just no. I beg you, read some Marx or Engels (or any socialist or communist philosopher or economist) before you try to explain communism to someone.
State owns nothing in communism. That's the whole point. There isn't supposed to even be a state, except perhaps (Marx never went into this subject) for law enforcement, etc.
Removing property from people and running a state command economy has nothing to do with these things. Heck, by the 1940s the Soviets were in a panic because the world was modernizing and the "commune" concept was only successful with the simple economics of the agrarian system and all the command economy voodoo cant compete with an open market in a complex economy. Forty years later their fears were realized when they couldnt afford anything and shortly collapsed.
That is exactly the opposite of true. Marx specifically noted that communism could never work in an agricultural society (which applied to Russia, China and North Korea at the time) as it required industrialized society to work. It was part of the communist theory (which you clearly haven't studied at all), which predicted that a society like soviet union would certainly fail.
Then again, soviet union was a socialist country, not a communist one. It even said so in it's constitutuion.
I think the lesson here is centralized planning economies attached to a totalitarian government == fail. Not "theres wisdom in command economies."
I think that the lesson here is "If inventor of a whole new economic theory says 'It won't work in your society' and you still try to force it through with incompetent dictators, your end result isn't very good.". Then again... Before socialism, Soviet Russia was FAR behind the western world when it comes to living conditions. So comparing "1970s soviets had it much worse than people of 1970s USA" is hardly valid.
Sadly, a lot of the pro-communist people in the states were fed carefully engineered propaganda and life in the Soviet Union was not what they thought it was. This all tied in with what the Unions were doing but Unions didnt need communist sympathizers, if anything having people in their ranks only hurt them politically.
You personally lack any idea of what communism is so you perhaps aren't a good authority about the subject.
The answer is to do nothing at all. They serve the market, not the other way around. If the market no longer thinks the product they sell is worth paying for, then they have to develop a new product that the market DOES find valuable or they die.
Their attempts to coerce the market to support their incompetence and unwillingness to adapt is despicable.
They aren't talking about jail time. It people's internet connection. Man ACs are even more retarded then normal these days.
Fortune magazine september issue? The cover says "Is Pot Already Legal?
of the things being pirated. The RIAA and MPAA should offer the lowest possible prices that still allow them to earn a profit and then sell at more reasonable prices. That would put big cuts in piracy of materials. Sell in quantities at lower prices, rather than sell less at higher prices and force poor people who cannot afford the materials into piracy.
Most piracy happens because the person is too poor to afford the materials, but they can afford a computer and Internet connection and then get a free P2P file sharing program and get as many materials as they want for free.
Hulu was a good idea, free TV shows and movies but with commercials. The RIAA and MPAA need to make a free access Hulu like site for videos, movies, TV shows, songs, music videos, etc and offer commercials in-between them for making money. Paid members can have the commercials removed and then buy the media for a low cost to download it to their computer or media playing device. The Internet is really based on a free content model of business, people don't want to pay access for a web site, but they do want to pay low prices to download media.
If the RIAA and MPAA did a Hulu like site, then there wouldn't be any need for media piracy as you could watch all you wanted for free, and then pay a small fee to download the media file you watched to your computer or media playing device. Commercials will pay for such free sites, and paying members can skip the commercials.
But I doubt the RIAA or MPAA would do that, as it makes too much common sense, and they are more of suing people for downloading content and are in fact suing their fans and customers. That makes a bad business model and gives bad PR.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
For those who do not know David Nutt is an academic who works for the scientific advisory body on illegal drug use in the UK. He has just been sacked for expressing the view that drug harm research was being ignored by politicians and the information being disseminated by the state was being degraded by the choice of the party in power to classify particular drugs for political reasons rather than the research results on the harm that they were causing. It is not unusual for politicians to choose how to run society on the basis of whether they will be re-elected by the influence of various other players in a democracy - in this case the owners of certain media outlets who are believed to have considerable influence on the election of politicians. However this case calls into question why the party in power bothers to employ expensive researchers who they sack if the right answer is not being provided. Why not just tell us how it is based on what they think will get them re-elected. The party in power is a disgusting cesspool of unprincipled scum who will do anything to foist their arbitrary theories of how society should be run on us. They are no better than the generals in Burma or the greedy rulers of Iraq. Shame on them for their lies and incompetence. The three strikes and your out laws are just another thing that they follow because they have zero interest in reality but think that it will spin well to get them re-elected. They are lazy and evil.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
No drug affects anyone other than the imbiber. Therefore all drugs should have the same legal framework - none at all.
There are lots of good reasons to hate this law beyond being anti-copyright. It basically spits on the concept of innocent before proven guilty, denies the basic human right to knowledge and culture and is probably unconstitutional in multiple ways. Doctorow is not "creating reasons", he's giving perfectly valid reasons that people who have never even heard of Doctorow independently thought of.
If I say 'have a drink', do you interpret that to mean 'drink anything and everything liquid'?
If not, then why do you interpret 'legalize drugs' as 'legalize anything and everything that can be addictive'.
Effectively, your whole comment is about language (CAPITALIZED language even), not the subject at hand.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
peter mandelson isn't even elected so he should fuck right off - he is in the house of lords and the role of the house of lords is to monitor legislation passed by the house of commons
SURELY NOT!!!!!
Award-winning SF author and BoingBoing co-editor Cory Doctorow
Is this really what first comes to mind when people think of Cory Doctorow? I thought "Disney obsessed douchebag and general internet wanker" would be the more appropriate description.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Drugs don't ruin lives, cops/government ruin lives. If all drugs were legal there would be no drug related crimes.
That's not true, stop thinking in terms of extremes and absolute. There would be a great drop in drug related crimes, but you'd still get people driving high on meth or fucking up their lives with heroin, even if the problem would be attenuated.
You can't take the sky from me...
many or most addicts can't keep jobs, can't stay in relationships, and wind up on the street, destitute. do you deny that is true?
it is pharmacologically impossible to take highly addictive drugs without risking becoming an addict. when you become an addict, you may need my tax dollars to house and feed you. since i am expected to pay for their care, this gives me every right to prevent the creation of addicts in the first place, by severely curtailing the open trade of highly addictive drugs. obvously i can't prevent the creation of addicts completely, but that never was the point. the point is, i can make a dent in the creation of addicts. and this effort at addict creation prevention may be cheaper than caring for a lot of addicts that are created as simple unavoidable result of easy access to highly addictive drugs
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I see no sign of countries being 'coerced' into stricter drug laws.
Back in, I think it was 2003, Canada tried to decriminalize personal use of Cannabis, the Justice Minister went to Washington to ask permission, and he was told by the drug czar "nice economy you have there, 'd be a shame if the borders were shut down..."
There's been lots of pressure put on the Netherlands too.
Do some research, you'll see the coercion.
You can't take the sky from me...
"why do you interpret 'legalize drugs' as 'legalize anything and everything that can be addictive'"
because that's exactly what many people actually mean when they say 'legalize drugs'
many people out there actually believe all drugs should be legal, period, end of story
yes, they are that naive/ ignorant on the subject matter, and they are very loud and assertive about their naivete/ ignorance
i am not arguing with phantom opponents in my mind, i am arguing with a large vocal contingent of idiots
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You claim many things, but the only you have to offer us is your assertive, but subjective and very personal point of view.
The points of view of people demanding despenalization fro the consumption of all kind of drugs deserved to be heard.
You seem to imply that "people" and individuals debating issues are non intersecting sets, which is, demonstrably (unlike your rants) stupid, since clearly all people proposing despenalization of drug consumption are part of the populace, and as such they don't "turn off people" since they are part of the people after all.
If you think that a different strategy would work better, all the power to you, but your attitude is patronizing on the extreme.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"No kidding. 40 years of the "War on Drugs" has wasted thousands of lives in jail, and we're no closer to eliminating drugs. It will take at least 40 years of a war on copyright infringers before anyone starts seriously discussing legalization."
We've had science, medical research, doctors, and hospitals for a century now. We still haven't eliminated disease or death. We fund police departments. We still haven't eliminated crime. We fund fire departments. Yet, we still haven't eliminated fires.
I think it's time we all just gave up.
Maybe if you'd let the doctors deal with drugs instead of insisting to have the police take care of it, you'd see more progress.
You can't take the sky from me...
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*
That sucks... at least in jail I would still have internet.
Well, I'd do it by telling all these folks with digital products that because it is SO cheap now to make copies, so cheap and so easy, that society has made an historical breakthrough in eliminating "want" and scarcity in an entire class of products, with this digital replicator technology, which is in the "public good" because our "arts and sciences" made a TREMENDOUS leap forward when this happened in the gestalt; that they either get real and charge a sane fair price, such as perhaps a full 100% markup over bandwith costs for transfer and no more, and make their money on just much larger and legal mass volume sales then, because there is no scarcity now, or that they lose all copyright protections and it goes into public domain instantly if they attempt blatant price gouging by charging 100,000% markup or similar, like they do now, or try to.
Charging folding dollars for a few cents worth of download bandwith is nuts, it's a ripoff and a dangerous precedent for the future as tangible replicators get developed.
Now, if they did that, adopted rules that really reflect advances in technology, then society could still get strict then on really cheap people who wouldn't even pay that now really small and much more fair price as well. I think "cracking down" then would be justified.
What they are doing is trying to maintain the completely junk science totally debunkable viewpoint that these digital copies are a "scarce resource", like they were with wax cylinders and vinyl and plastic tape holder conraptions or even a simple spinning plastic disk, when they are not.
They should NOT be allowed to charge those huge sums for digital copies. Yes, this would require some serious paradigm shifting of the copyright laws, but those copyright laws are all man made, artificial constructs first designed for a much earlier age with primitive technology, and they are not a natural law, and as such, we-society as we-could and should adopt and change the laws as technological circumstances change.
Blatant price gouging and relegating digital technology into the past, locking it down and carving in stone some huge no longer necessary markup for these products is no more than enforced legal Luddism and is abhorrent to the true advancement of the arts and sciences "in the public good" when they insist on such ludicrous prices. It is NOT in the public good for them to get away with that.
The law just shouldn't treat them the same as truly scarce tangible copies which have much higher production and distribution costs. Times have changed, and oh ya they changed copyright law-for the worse, not the better.
BTW Mr. AC, your post was not a troll, it was a legit and honest question. Mods, please fix that.
There's a general principle at work here. Harm caused by drugs is increased by prohibition. We saw it with alcohol, we see it with marijuana, and we're about to see it in action with nicotine. The same principle applies to cocaine, amphetamines, and opiates. If you're concerned about harm reduction, which is really the only sane policy approach to drugs, you're going to end up advocating for at least the decriminalization of these drugs.
Here's why. Drug prohibition doesn't stop anyone from taking drugs. Check the facts, alcohol use was higher under alcohol prohibition, and countries that decriminalize see a decrease in drug use (see Portugal). Why does this happen? Well instead of thinking of the difference as legal vs illegal, think of it as unregulated vs regulated. You can't regulate a black market. So illegal drugs get sold to teenagers, while legal drugs get sold to adults. Who do you think is more likely to get addicted?
So with decriminalization you're going to have fewer addicts, but it's also less harmful to be an addict. You get cleaner drugs, with measured doses, so you're less likely to have an overdose or adverse reaction. If you do have an adverse reaction or side effect, you can get treated for it without the fear of going to jail.
On top of having fewer addicts, and reducing the harm on those we do have, decriminalization helps reduce the negative societal effects of drug use. Cheaper legal drugs are easier to support an addiction to without resorting to crime. With the criminal stigma lifted, it will be easier to get and keep a job without employers caring about what's in your urine. So addicts can continue to contribute to the economy to the best of their ability. The profits from the huge US drug market would no longer go towards criminal organizations, and the associated crime wouldn't happen anymore.
From every way I look at it, decriminalization of all drugs is going to cause less harm than prohibition. If that makes me an idiot, I'd like to know where I'm wrong. But I think it's you who's afraid and not really thinking. I understand why, stimulants and opiates are quite dangerous and change is scary. I do agree that we should focus on Cannabis first, though. It isn't as dangerous and will serve to illustrate the general principle.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
And it would be shameful that me, a foreigner living in the UK, would have to explain this to you.
Peter Mandelson, Lord Mandelson (for fucks sakes...) is "Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, First Secretary and Lord President of the Council"
Secretaries of government in the UK are selected by the PM of the day, the only requisite is that the lucky one should be member of one of the legislative chambers (Commons or Lords).
Since Mandelson is not elected, the the only way is for him to be offered the patronage of the PM in order to accede to the House of Lords.
This system is corrupt and contrary to the most basic democratic principles, but the current Labout government wasted his majority in Parliment and never delivered the promise of wholesale reform of the unelected House of Lords....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Alcohol doesn't ruin lives, cops/government ruin lives. If all alcohol were legal there would be no alcohol related crimes.
Since when is drug legalization seriously discussed?
*cough*
You might want to ask the British government.
You'll be waiting a long time, I believe.
Stick Men
Consider: The US, in its infancy, models itself after the biggest guy on the block, the UK, and builds an empire.
The U.S. didn't so much build an empire as buy one - gathering up pieces here and there as they became available.
Louisiana 1803 $11 million
Mexican Cession 1848 $15 million
Gasden Purchase 1853 $10 million
Alaska 1867 $7 milllion
US Virgin Islands 1917 $25 million
The US was a debtor nation through most of its history - but the money went directly into infrastructure and economic development.
The building of the railroads, for example.
Take oil out of the equation and the American economy looks very strong and very well balanced.
I think what the parent poster is asking is how to handle a habitual "infringer", with the assumption that they have been caught and "convicted" multiple times.
Everyone has responded by throwing a fit that one only has to be accused 3 times, with no due process, and that is bad. Well, of course it is. Here's a gold star for everyone insightful enough to point this out. No reasonable person would argue against due process. (note: reasonable person) Clearly, as it is written now, it's a bad law.
Instead, maybe someone should try to answer the question. Assuming there's a method to catch and "convict" copyright infringers, how do you deal with habitual offenders? Community service, IMO. Personally, I don't want to waste tax dollars on jail time.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Much as how the ideal goal for all companies engaged in free market competition is not to be, the ideal goal for all career politicians engaged in democratic government is not to be.
posting to undo my mistaken mod (I hit overrated, sorry about that).
But while I'm at it: I agree with your conclusion about differentiating the legal status per drug, but I think your persuasion skills need some work. You're ostensibly trying to change people's opinions while simultaneously calling them idiots. That is not the way to win an argument.
It's copyright violation or license violation; which carries the same moral penalty as theft
Although I appreciate the point you were trying to make, I feel compelled to point out that, ethically speaking, depriving someone else of something (theft) is clearly far worse than making a copy of something owned by someone else (infringement).
Of course, that assumes that something made up of bits (or thoughts) can truly be owned by anyone in any real way. Ownership seems to imply having something to the exclusion of others having it. You might as well start an Emotive Property movement and try to charge people for falling in love.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the need for certain limited legal protections of copyright, but in the real world it's absurd to suggest scarcity of an infinitely-reproducable good.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
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.
but there is no such thing, nor will there ever be such a thing as a coherent subject matter called DRUG legalization
I find it funny how you assume it is impossible to acknowledge and take into consideration the different effects of different drugs and still conclude that they all should be legalized and thus support what can only be called in a small number of words "drug legalization", without being an idiot.
It can be rationally argued that there is no existing drug whose effects are such that the harm is not worsened by prohibition. Ergo, supporting the end of prohibition for all drugs is a rational stance to take. That isn't the end of the issue (even legal drugs have many regulations, and these indeed would have to be different just as a practical matter), and its not simplifying it. It is most definitely a "serious" stance that people who do in fact understand the issues can take.
every single drug is completely different in its pharmacological effects, and therefore every single drug should have a completely different legal framework around it.
Completely different legal framework? Really? Even today, drugs are organized into only a few broad classes of illegality. Let's assume I agree with your position that amphetamines, coke, and opiates should never be legalized. Why would they require "completely different legal frameworks" beyond changing the quantities specified by statutes?
Besides, I already know that reason you think those drugs should remain illegal is because they are in the "inebriating/toxic AND addictive" category, which is already a gross oversimplification. "Inebriation" as a description of the mental effects of alcohol is wildly different from the mental effects of cocaine which is wildly different from LSD. Having already boiled down the entire constellation of drugs into basically 4 categories*, why is it so hard to accept that if you consider the "worst" drug on the few axes you are concerned with and decide that it should be legalized, it makes sense to say that all the others should be too. Even considered individually.
Not saying you have to agree, just see that this is not the logic of idiots. It's not actually my opinion either as what I think of when I think "worst", PCP, I think should be illegal.
you refrain your opinions to marijuana, and marijuana alone, in the discussion about marijuana legalization, or you are HURTING THE CAUSE.
Okay now you're talking how rather than should, a completely different issue, but I agree completely. For two reasons. One, the argument against prohibition is a much surer thing with such a mild drug, and thus a much easier sell (who doesn't know at least one stoner to know that they're harmless :P). Two: If the trend is going to be to rollback prohibition, we need a period where mj is separated from other drugs, because one thing you touched on I agree with completely is that we need to stop viewing all drugs the same. Regardless of legality, the question of "Do I want to take this drug now?" should be a more informed and more nuanced opinion than "Drugs are bad, mmmkay?" That's going to take time.
* Giving credit where credit is due, this is vastly more nuanced than usual.
The enemies of Democracy are
Hopefully he'll die from AIDS.
Similar legislation has been approved in Colombia,
Bawahahahaha! Seriously you have a point but no one will take you seriously if you put them at the top of your list.
The cartels run that country.
"owing in no small part on his insistence that his work be made available for unrestricted electronic distribution and copying."
The fundamental and basic point being, that is Cory's right to insist on those terms for his work, NOT FOR THE WORK OF OTHERS.
How long until you people get this? What works for one person does not necessarily work for another.
" If drugs were not illegal then those people who become destitute may never even have run into those problems in the first place."
i stopped reading there. its pure ignorance
you can work/ have a relationship while using LSD on the side. LSD is not addictive
you can work/ have a relationship while using nicotine: its not highly inebriating
you CAN'T work/ have a relationship if you use a highly inebriating and addictive substance: the desire to use the drug is greater than the desire to support yourself, and using the drug bltos out your ability to work/ relate. you do see the straightforward logic here, right?
guess what moron: THE ACTUAL SUBSTANCE IS THE PROBLEM. if the country let anyone use whatever they wanted, no drug policy at all, complete freedom to use: there would be addicts (a whole hell of a lot). if the country beheaded drug users and their families at the slightest whiff of nanoseconds of a chemical substance, there would be addicts. why are their addicts in both societies? because the POLICY OF THE SOCIETY DOESN'T MAKE A FUCKING DIFFERENCE, THE SUBSTANCE DOES
can you try to recognize the fucking obvious in your opinions at some point in your life?
the DRUG is the problem, not the POLICY
how do you have a discussion with someone who won't admit or see the blindingly obvious?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
... AND the major reason Cory Doctorow opposes this law is because he supports piracy. The fact of the matter is that I actually agree that people should have the right to appeal this accusation the same way they appeal a traffic ticket. I also think that if you kick someone off the internet, all you're doing is kicking them off of their HOME internet connection. Where I live, there are plenty of coffeeshops and libraries offering free wifi. The whole idea that disconnecting someone's home internet connection leads to the effects Doctorow claims is nonsense ("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.") That's guy's got a knack for nonsense propaganda.
I also have to wonder: does he oppose removing someone's driver's license? Afterall, I could come up with a pretty good argument that "driving" in the United States is directly connected to everything. Oh no! If we allow the government to take-away anyone's drivers license then "how will people drive their children to school? How will we assemble for government protests? It is a conduit for visiting the video store and getting naughty movies. Cars are the circulatory system for our economy. Any attempts to take away anyone's driver's license is a violation of their constitutional rights!!"
And what if phone companies started disconnecting people's phones when they habitually make prank calls, or do telemarketing, or harass people, or... Do I need to write-up an argument why people's phones should never be disconnected under any circumstances? That the phone is essential for assembly? For our freedom of speech? For the socialization of our children? For our economy? etc.
If we were to take Doctorow's argument seriously, I don't know why we can't apply the same logic to "you can never take away my drivers license" or "you can never disconnect my phone".
Honestly, Doctorow's opinions become painfully predictable once you realize two facts about him: he was raised by communist parents (so he has a pretty good hatred of corporations) and he spent some time as an anarchist (so he hates laws). Once you combine those two things, you can pretty much predict what his opinions will be whenever questions about corporations or laws come up. For example, his position on piracy falls right in line with those two influences.
The government shouldn't be able to tell anyone what they can and can not put into their own body.
It might destroy their lives and their health, but it should be their right to destroy their lives and their health.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
of prohibition you mention
i don't dispute any of it, i agree with it 100%
now lets get to my point as unambiguously as possible: increased casual use leads to more addicts
so if you have a society where access to drugs is easy, versus one where it is difficult, sure, there will be a core committed population who will get drugs no matter what you do, in either society. again, i agree with that point of yours
but this group does not describe every type of user
there's another population, the casually interested group, which is a much larger population. they are not highly motivated to get access to drugs, but if access is available they will try it
now you can't talk about alcohol and marijuana in the same breath as cocaine, meth, or heroin in this situation. simply because basic pharmacology tells us that the addiction potential is much higher for meth/ heroin/ coke than anything else, and so this casual group will result in a number of addicts. do you dispute that?
such that, with this casual population, with the easy access to these hardest of drugs that you accept, you harvest a population of addicts THAT WOULD BE MUCH SMALLER IF ACCESS WAS DIFFICULT
do you see my point?
the war on drugs that makes access difficult for the casual user has MANY negative side effects you demonstrate. and yet the positive of the war on drugs: a much smaller population of addicts, is something you will not recognize or admit to, when basic logic about the addictive potential of something like meth/ heroin/ coke should tell you something about the fate of many casual users with easy access. the best way to fight addiction to hardest of drugs is to fight this initial contact between CASUAL user (you can't do anything about the committed losers) and hardcore drugs
casual interest + easy access + high addictive potential = much larger pool of addicts. do you dispute that logic?
the lessons of prohibition of things like alcohol and marijuana do not teach us anything about the highly addictive+inebriating drugs because the harm the highly addictive+inbriating drugs do to individuals directly far outweighs all of the negative prohibition effects you speak of. the negative prohibition effects you speak of DOES argue for soft drugs like marijuana and alcohol to be legal, but NOT meth/ coke/ heroin
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Portugal. Decriminalized *all* drugs (including heroin etc) in 2001. With considerable success from almost any public health or criminological perspective:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10080
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=portugal-drug-decriminalization
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124061360462654683.html
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html
As I understand it, they're under sporadic pressure by the US and Sweden and other holdouts for demonstrably failed drug policy to revert to the bad old days, but the benefits have been so significant neither the Partido Socialista or any of its viable competition has shown any real sign of buckling.
That economic thing goes both ways, Canada being the US' largest trading partner, and the Canadian government doesn't need to ask for "permission" from the US to pass legislation.
Just think how bad the jails would be if all those good folks had not been sent there.
Not to mention the badasses that skated.
Aren't Britons allowed to go to court to get such an unconstitutional law repealed?
Remove a method of communication if you break the law with it (slander, libel, insider trading rules, yelling fire in a theater)? 3 strikes on speech: vocal cords cut out 3 strikes on writing, typing, or sign language: hands severed 3 strikes on cell phones: must communicate via voice and writing for the rest of your life, unless you had those removed in earlier violations
The court system would collapse under the weight of so many cases. They need to deal with this like parking tickets. See a violation, give a ticket. If you want to fight the ticket, show up at court. Most people don't fight it, because they have no grounds to. The government gets their money and influences behavior. The court system isn't destroyed. People's lives aren't severely disrupted. Yes they'll probably do it again.
It will take at least 40 years of a war on copyright infringers before anyone starts seriously discussing legalization.
The U.S. government worked so hard to demonize rock and roll when it first appeared. Held Senate hearings on the evil influence and tried to ban it. If you go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a display on this subject is (was) the first visual element you encounter -- a giant Frank Zappa, in a suit, testifying in the Senate. The existence of the Hall of Fame is a tribute to the failure of the government to stop rock and roll.
It took the record labels to make music illegal. It'll take musicians with Doctorow's attitude to make it legal again.
The only reason it could take 40 years (although I think they'd be broke in another seven) is that after 9 years of this nonsense, I have yet to randomly meet anyone in real life, much less musicians (and I am one) that had a clue what the RIAA (BPI, in this case, but the same people) is, much less what it is doing. Maybe the Brits are better informed, but average American hasn't even noticed anything going on at all.
Seeding is community service.
That Anonymous Coward guy is pretty annoying. Can we have the government censor him or something?
To clarify, David Nutt is an academic, who works for Imperial College. His role as government advisor on drugs was unpaid, and he is being sacked from this unpaid position. The government may be paying for expensive researchers on this subject somewhere else, but it was not paying him directly.
Even if they're legal you still need money to buy them.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
There used to be a legal loophole in the UK where magic mushrooms were not counted as an illegal substance but after they were prepared they were a class A drug. That meant that you could, quite legally, order them online and have them delivered and you'd even pay tax on them. Then this became big news and the government closed the loophole. It's still just as easy to buy them, but now the government doesn't take a cut of the profits.
Every time I see a headline talking about police raids capturing millions of pounds of drugs I wonder how many schools and hospitals could have been paid for if those same drugs had been legally imported and sold with the same tax rate as cigarettes or booze.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
We've had science, medical research, doctors, and hospitals for a century now. We still haven't eliminated disease or death
We've eliminated diseases like polio and (in the UK) rabies, so we've made some progress. Life expectancy is significantly greater than it was a century ago.
We fund police departments. We still haven't eliminated crime.
But looking at statistics over the last hundred years or so, we've seen a fall in crime rates overall, and in violent crime in particular (although you wouldn't think so if you read a newspaper).
We fund fire departments. Yet, we still haven't eliminated fires.
It's been a long time since we've had anything like the Great Fire of London. One of the houses on my street caught fire a couple of years ago, and the fire brigade stopped it from spreading even to the house next door.
40 years of the "War on Drugs" has wasted thousands of lives in jail, and we're no closer to eliminating drugs
Which is the point. Not that it hasn't eliminated drug use - drug use is higher than it's ever been, more people are having their lives ruined by drug abuse and by society's reaction to it, and we are still spending vastly more on criminalisation than we would on medical treatment for all of the addicts (particularly if you realise that tax on drug sales would fund most, if not all, of this treatment if they were legal).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The same way they appeal a traffic ticket? So in a fake court which doesn't have many basic due process rights? Traffic court is for $40 tickets, and even then I don't support it. Disconnecting one's internet can cause tens of thousands of dollars of damage to some people. And I can't think of anything that can replace the ability to look anything up on Wikipedia in 5 seconds. Sure, disconnecting driver's licenses will be similarly deleterious to some people but not only is it much easier to live without a car than without the internet, taking away someone's license requires a serious offense confirmed in an actual court of law.
As this act clearly marks the end of democracy in that country, it is imperative that the US invade immediately to preserve democracy and build a new, democratic, constitutional basis for the government before we can withdraw our troops. We owe it to the people of our long-time friend and ally to save them from the loss of their freedom.
But who will save us?
People should not fear their government. Governments should fear their people.
Who pays Imperial College ? He was not unpaid, he didn't do this stuff in his spare time as a favour. He was appointed to the position because he is an expert, and the govt. pays organisations to perform studies. Just because it doesn't say HM Treasury on his wage slip doesn't mean he wasn't being paid from funds allocated by the govt. And none of this has anything to do with the article we are supposed to be discussing.
Just vehicular accidents caused by Alcohol consumption. Sure the Alcoholic may live, and you can make a case that he doens't deserve jail, but Alcohol still had a role in the destruction of his vehicle and whatever he hit.
Common Sense
Whoooosh.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
I think the real reason behind slime-balls like Mandelson signing up to legislation that targets downloaders is to restrict freedom of speech on the internet.
That's a serious charge, and I don't see the evidence for it. It seems much more likely that it is about protecting intellectual property.
Mine is Good
Maybe if you'd let the doctors deal with drugs instead of insisting to have the police take care of it
If the government controls the doctors, then there isn't much difference.
Mine is Good
Fines? Prison?
And if that seems too extreme.... change the laws to make sense?
I'm not one of those "throw copyright out the window' guys - but something should change. Copyright law was created by us in response to our newfound ability to do things like use the printing press and record audio for mass productions. WE recognized that we wanted to protect, ultimately, the creators of these works. THe laws were sufficient for the time.
Now, with the internet, we've made another quantum leap in our ability to copy.. rather than being feasible on a commercial scale, it's possible for something to be available to everyone, at a cost approaching zero, globally, at a personal level. The law needs to catch up somehow.
Your freedom too can be taken from you if you break the law. And freedom is far more important than the internet for things that are essential to humans. So, according to Cory Doctorow's logic, we should also stop jailing people who break the law because freedom is so important. What kind of argument is that?
Except drink fueled violence and people stealing to support their addictions.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Herein lies the essence of the problem: Any idea or piece of technology can be used for both good and evil. However, government rarely takes that into account when creating legislation. Oh, some moron chose not to wear a helmet while riding his motorcycle and splattered his brains all over the road? Well then clearly every motorcycle rider is an idiot and we must save them from themselves and have a law requiring people to wear helmets and fine them if they don't. Look! I did something. Re-elect me. Oh and the government makes money on the deal! How cool is that?
educate yourself. here's a start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rational_scale_to_assess_the_harm_of_drugs_(mean_physical_harm_and_mean_dependence).svg
the question being: how many addicts does easy access by casual users create?
CASUAL users, who would not pursue the drug if it were less available
depending upon that number of addicts you harvest from casual users who are created by easy access, you have a greater amount of evil happening from the drug itself VERSUS from the society's prohibition effects
with some substances, prohibition is clearly worse. with other substances, the actual DRUG is the worst effect
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Destroying your own life and health might really suck for you and your family, but it also isn't free either, for you or for me. Same thing with refusing to wear a seatbelt, bike helmet, etc... No?
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
$10 is a month worth of highs, you realize?
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
That economic thing goes both ways, Canada being the US' largest trading partner, and the Canadian government doesn't need to ask for "permission" from the US to pass legislation.
They are not equal partners. One is large and domineering, the other is small and subservient.
You can't take the sky from me...
So in a fake court which doesn't have many basic due process rights?
Or small claims court. I've gotten out of tickets, and I've known other people who have too. The fact of the matter is that a huge court case shouldn't be required for smaller crimes. Though, I can see the strategic utility of pirates trying to push it to the two extremes (no court case, a full-blown costly court case).
Disconnecting one's internet can cause tens of thousands of dollars of damage to some people.
Yeah, I guess they'd better watch it if they run a business out of their home and they've already gotten 2 warnings.
And I can't think of anything that can replace the ability to look anything up on Wikipedia in 5 seconds.
I think part of the problem here (including Doctorow's argument) is that people suddenly decide that the internet is so important for everything. Nevermind the fact that lots of people don't have it at home. I have to wonder: why haven't we made it a basic human right and pay for universal internet access for everyone from their home? Because that seems like the logical conclusion of all these "the internet is deathly important, I can't live without it" types of arguments.
requires a serious offense confirmed in an actual court of law.
No it doesn't. It requires 12 points on your license. Those points can be from anything - even a series of small speeding tickets. For example, this website [http://transportation.ky.gov/drlic/license/point.htm] has a long list of offenses that will get you points on your license. Here's some of them:
6 Points - Failure to Stop for School or Church Bus
4 Points - Failure to Yield to Emergency Vehicle
3 Points - Wrong Way on One-Way Street
3 Points - Too Slow for Conditions
3 Points - Failure to Dim Headlights
3 Points - Failure to yield right-of-way to Funeral Procession
And to back up my earlier comment about pirates being worries about having their internet cut-off: "The poll suggested the Government's plan to disconnect illegal downloaders if they ignore official warning letters could deter people from internet piracy, with 61 per cent of illegal downloaders surveyed admitting they would be put off downloading music illegally by the threat of having their internet service cut off for a month." http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/illegal-downloaders-spend-the-most-on-music-says-poll-1812776.html
A lot of people are making the internet a basic human right.
If that's the case, then they should also take away incentives for behaviors such as:
I could go on, but I won't.
Rather than take away incentives, have them pay higher premiums.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
You obviously haven't seen many ACs.
Denying people access to the phone has been done but only under the most extreme circumstances and you hardly ever hear about it. Access to telephone is so important that it would be unimaginable to deny anyone access to it as it would deny people access to their own government quite often.
Denying people access to [driving on] the roads is also been done but only under the most extreme criminal circumstances such as too many accidents, drunk driving, etc. Even vehicular manslaughter does not automatically deny one access to roads.
The internet is quickly becoming so tightly integrated with society that cutting people off of the internet would be to cut them off of society... and their government. And for what? At whose request is all this going to happen? A special interest group and business model (copyright) that exists because of permission granted by "the people" and routinely abuses those same people.
I think it is beyond the time to visit the purpose and intent of copyright and correct the areas where current law and practice exceed the purpose and intent or fails to fulfill the purpose and intent. Following this, we can talk about appropriate remedies for any civil abuses of copyrighted material.