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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 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.
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.
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
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
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.
What bearing does physics have on this?
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!
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.
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.