Lord Lucas Says Record Companies "Blackmail" Users

Kijori writes "Lord Lucas, a member of the UK House of Lords, has accused record companies of blackmailing internet users by accusing people of copyright infringement who have no way to defend themselves. 'You can get away with asking for £500 or £1,000 and be paid on most occasions without any effort having to be made to really establish guilt. It is straightforward legal blackmail.' The issue is that there is no way for people to prove their innocence, since the record company's data is held to be conclusive proof, and home networking equipment does not log who is downloading what. Hopefully, at the very least, the fact that parliament has realised this fact will mean that copyright laws will get a little more sane."

Comments

Finally, someone gets it.

[mykos]

This is the best thing I've read all week. If I went to someone and said "You have wronged me so pay me money or I'll report you to the cops", I could be reported and sent to jail. Maybe if I had a lawyer write my threat up, my demand would magically be non-extortionate.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[JoshDD]

If your falsely accused don't give in. A "Fuck you" written under a lawyers letterhead can do wonders and isn't quite as expensive as court or the blackmail. Giving into blackmail only encourages it and the blackmailer will say "Damn that's easy." and come back for more.
If you will give them $1,000 and they demand another $1,000 will you say no?

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[icebike]

But will anything really happen or will this just be another excuse for yet more surveillance of home computer usage?

The track record of the House of Lords hasn't been so good over the long run has it?

I would bet that if Lucas gains any traction great pressure will be brought to shut him up one way or another.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Kjella]

The problem is there's no real scenario where they lose. You say "Fuck you", they take whatever evidence they have to court and maybe they win and maybe they don't but the evidence passes enough standards to never be considered a frivolous lawsuit. Didn't you see this case that was just covered on slashdot, fight for 5 years and end in stalemate. Now this is UK law and not US, but I assume it's civil with a standard of "preponderance of evidence", I've heard that this means in practice something like a 60-40 probability. Is it possible their accusations are 60% correct? Quite possible, 40% is a huge error margin. And if so, their evidence really does meet that legal standard, disturbingly enough as it is for the 40% who ends up falsely paying.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[JoshDD]

I've been in court over a dozen times in my life and spent several thousand dollars on lawyers. The last time 5 years ago my accusers were unwilling to to enter the court house after a 5 minute conversation with my lawyer but they postured right till the end. Sometimes $4000 on a lawyer makes you feel better that settling for the $2000 they wanted. And they leave feeling like bitches with their heads down. Mind you I did grow up and now I never pirate anything for moral reasons (my religion does not condone theft) plus I can't handle the stress anymore but it was kinda worth it. Btw software licences are cheaper and I only use OSS now.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[LainTouko]

If you say "Fuck you", they'll leave you alone and go and find someone more easily intimidated into giving them money. None of these cases has ever gone to court, and they're clearly worried about killing the cash cow if it does happen.

(A couple of related cases did go to court a while back, but I think they cherry-picked people who chose ill-advised defenses which effectively admitted the bits which are impossible to prove. And someone who had moved and wasn't getting any letters, so would never turn up to defend themselves in the first place.)

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

When you say condone, do you mean condemn? Because they are actually opposites, as it happens.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Merls the Sneaky]

Copyright infringement is not theft.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[PiAndWhippedCream]

Exactly, it's a trap. First they lull us in with suggestions of sanity in copyright law, then they will turn the tables and say we will now monitor all data passing through your network so you can ``prove your innocence.'' Right.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[JoshDD]

Summons are sent by registered mail and you have to sign for them and you have 5 days to respond in writting (Court of Queens Bench) if you don't respond they automatically rule against you. But you have to sign for the package. Some jurisdictions (USA for example) buddy walks up are you so and so? If you say yes he hands you a package and says "You have been served". They can't sue you if they can't find you.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not aware of any _courts_ ever deciding that copyright infringement is theft. Do you have any examples?

The "copyright infringement is theft" claim is just one being pushed by RIAA, MPAA, etc.

(Note that I'm not arguing that copyright infringement isn't illegal - I'm just saying it's not theft.)

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Chrisq]

Summons are sent by registered mail and you have to sign for them and you have 5 days to respond in writting (Court of Queens Bench) if you don't respond they automatically rule against you.

I believe that it is "decided in your absence", and there have been a handful of cases where a judge has decided that the case is so shaky that even in these circumstances they decide in favour of the defendant.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[red_pill1987]

i'm not sure what presure can be brought. lord lucas has no consitusence, and no campgain. he need not have any party loyalty since he dose not relie on the party. in short: his diffcult to make shut up. doubley so if his a cross bench peer.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[VJ42]

Well that's a matter for the courts to decide and unfortunatly for you they have decided.

Yes, in UK law they decided that information wasn't property and thus couldn't be stolen. See the case ofOxford v Moss for more detail.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see why you end up in court a lot :) Copyright infringement and theft should be quite easy to distinguish and courts all over the world are able to do that...

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[jimicus]

It's quite good that the Nobles finally stand for their nation and condone globalisation.

I would have expected it to come from a civil entity as it should be expected from a democracy.

Most of the hereditary lords lost their seats years ago when Labour first came to power. So they're not the nobles they once were.

However - and this is the important bit - they are not elected by the voting public. Seats are (generally speaking) for life.

This is completely counter-intuitive and flies in the face of democracy. I guarantee there will be at least one person who will reply saying "What a ridiculous system" or words to that effect. But the thing is, it works quite well. IIRC the Lords can't introduce legislation themselves but they can discuss and block legislation that's coming through - and because their seat is for life, they don't need to worry too much about pandering to either a panicked electorate or to commercial interests who are going to be funding their next election campaign.

In fact, it works rather too well in some cases. Our Glorious Former Leader, Blair, very nearly discovered this to his cost with a few of his anti-terror bills. They only got through because of the use of "emergency" legislation which essentially allowed him to bypass the House of Lords.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Religion? In what way does religion play into it? If religion were a grouds for morals, women would be considered property, not being a jew considered a crime punishable by death (by extrapolation, but still), eating pretty much anything non-vegan an afront...and that's a very short list and mostly centered around The Big Three.
How, when and why would you event _want_ to give religion as a reason for your morals?!

Yes, I see that this is sort of flamebait, but it needed to be said...

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Kijori]

But will anything really happen or will this just be another excuse for yet more surveillance of home computer usage?

The track record of the House of Lords hasn't been so good over the long run has it?

I would bet that if Lucas gains any traction great pressure will be brought to shut him up one way or another.

Unfortunately it's heading in the other direction. The statement was made in the context of a debate on the Digital Economy Bill, which is designed to make it easier to punish "copyright violators" (although, as numerous Lords have pointed out, they're actually just people accused of copyright violation), by making it easier to get information from ISPs and allowing copyright holders to have a user's internet connection shut off if they refuse to stop downloading (i.e. if the record company still has "evidence" after they have written to the user and threatened them). All in all, an absolutely disastrous bill.

*Shameless plug* If you agree and want to try to get answers from Mandelson, sign the DigitalWrong letter. This is going to be printed up on huge bits of card with all the messages people have left and presented to Lord Mandelson, since he doesn't bother replying to individual letters.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Kidbro]

(my religion does not condone theft)

Copyright infringement is not theft.

Well that's a matter for the courts to decide

The courts decide how you interpret your religion?

For what it's worth, I support your decision not to pirate anything, I just found that twist of the conversation strange...

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesnt actually matter what the Lords or anyone else thinks.

We saw this with ID cards in 2006 - Labour have a majority, so they can ram any bill through thanks to the Parliament Rule (if it goes between the Commons and the Lords a set number of times - I think its 5 - then the bill is automatically approved).

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[delinear]

You're right, the House of Lords gets a lot of negative press, and perhaps that's a legacy of what it used to be like with hereditary peerages and a lot of people deciding the laws of the country purely because of who their ancestors were, but yes it's changed a lot and is actually now a very useful legislative tool (along with its judicial function). It's great that people with a lifetime of skills and experience aren't simply discarded but have a real input into the way our laws are decided, and although its structure is partisan, the voting generally isn't, people generally vote with their conscience not just to bolster their party line.

A lot of the Lords' powers to block laws have been stripped away by the Parliament Acts unfortunately. As you mention certain legislation can bypass the Lords completely, I think this includes anything to do with finance and taxation, and on top of that no law can be delayed in the House of Lords for more than - IIRC - two parliamentary sessions, so while they used to be able to send laws back to "the other place" indefinitely, now they can only delay for effectively about a year. It's good that they can't hold up new laws forever, but at the same time a strong government can pretty much force through anything it wants now - as we've experienced in the last decade.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I come from these kinds of unsolicited bulk mails are reported to the police in rows, as they say.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[dargaud]

I used to think the house of lords was a ridiculous system, particularly when it was inherited. But now I recognize the need for a permanent govt structure with long term goals and stability. I think a system like that would work well with its members being elected for life based on various criteria: some named by the govt, some voted, some through some lifetime achievements (a few famous actors, journalists, artists, sportsmen, winners of work trade awards, persons nominated for civilian bravery, etc) in order to maximize variety. You don't want pro politicians in a system like that.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[jabuzz]

The problem with the House of Lords is that the vast majority of people have no idea as to the real work that they do. The amount of poor drafting of legislation that they correct is truly staggering. The amount of just nasty ideas that get blocked is also quite staggering. However because the chamber is unelected (which has traditionally made them very hard to bribe) people see it as undemocratic, and we get the fiddling that Blair did which just served to make them prone to bribery.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[jabuzz]

Unfortunately for you the this is U.K. law and the legislation makes it quite clear the offense is "making unauthorised copies" and not theft, and is only criminal if you are doing it for profit.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Cowpat]

The Lords can block 'money' bills but, by convention, don't. They did once at the start of the 20th century, that's why we had the first parliament act.
The Lords also let through any bill which is an implementation of the ruling party's last manifesto.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[tsm_sf]

Ok, where does Lord Sutch fit into the picture?

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[jimicus]

Ok, where does Lord Sutch fit into the picture?

He was never a lord. He took advantage of the fact that it's perfectly legal to change your name by deed poll to anything you want - so he changed his name to Lord David Sutch.

Legally, he would have been "Mr. Lord David Sutch".

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Cowpat]

Except that bampot Pa Broon is in no position to wield a large majority, AND there's a general election in May, so there's only actually around 30 days of parliamentary business left to try and force this through, with a majority so thin that he's had to give major concessions (with our money) to minority parties to get his bills through in the past.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Eivind]

No, you actually couldn't, not if the claim isn't obviously frivolous.

"You owe me money, pay up, or I'll be forced to take the matter to court", is even, in principle, entirely reasonable in some situations.

The problem is that the punishments are so out of line with the severity of the transgression, that people cannot afford to let the courts sort it out, even in cases where they're quite possibly innocent.

If I say the above, and demand $700 from you for NOT taking it to court, and you know that being taken to court means potentially a year-long battle and hundreds of thousands if you loose, can you afford to take that gamble, even if you think you're most-probably going to come out innocent ?

Or do you buckle ?

That's the point where it becomes blackmail.

If the punishment for uploading copyrighted material was limited to something sane, this problem would go away.

Say if you downloaded 300 songs from piratebay, and have a share-ratio of 2, and they calculated this means 600 people illegally got a song from you, at $0.99 a song, that's a loss of $600 -- so they convict you guilty and demand you pay $1000.

That's not what happens though, you potentially end up paying orders of magnitude more. And that's wrong.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[icebraining]

Instead of a simple "Fuck you", one could find inspiration in The Pirate Bay legal responses...

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[kramerd]

Its not magical, you idiot. When you sue someone, they by definition have the right to defend themselves, generally a a matter of public record. When you extort someone, they do not get a chance to defend themselves (unless whatever you are trying to extort them with is a lie, in which case if you follow through, they will sue you for slander/defamation of character depending on method and likely make it a matter of public record that you have committed a crime). There is a huge difference.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[julesh]

If I went to someone and said "You have wronged me so pay me money or I'll report you to the cops", I could be reported and sent to jail

No you couldn't, at least not legally. This kind of threat is considered perfectly acceptable and is the basis of the "civil recovery" schemes that shops use against shoplifters: people caught stealing don't want the police involved, so will happily pay not just for what they stole but also a small amount extra, which is theoretically supposed to cover the costs of the civil recovery scheme, but is basically a fine imposed by the store they stole from, with the penalty for not paying = police involvement.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are wrong. Theft means wrongful subtraction of personal property while copyright infringement means distributing copies of copyrighted works without the owner's authorization.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[geekmux]

Unfortunately for you the this is U.K. law and the legislation makes it quite clear the offense is "making unauthorised copies" and not theft, and is only criminal if you are doing it for profit.

Not that I mind that much, but who came up with making copies being "not theft" and "not criminal"? I'd like to ask them what the hell is the difference in me stealing a CD from a music store and me "making unauthorised copies" of a friends CD?

Both give ME, the same net result, which is obtaining a product or property without paying, and therefore FOR PROFIT, yet violations of each are treated completely different.

Not saying that any of this nonsense in going after private citizens with extortionist tactics is right either, but damn.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! I see it's Slashdot that doesn't get it. There is nothing wrong with settling a civil court matter without getting the courts involved. It's not blackmail at all.

Dumb motherfuckers, you need to wake up and stop using your law knowledge from an old episode of Kojak as a basis of an arguement.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[MightyDrunken]

The media conglomerates really need to get their act together, all their lobbying money and they still haven't reassigned the meaning of theft. They should club together and change the law to reassign copyright as theft, maybe call it the "Alter Copyright to Theft Act (ACTA)".

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[hey!]

Although I agree that hereditary aristocracy is not democratic, neither is plutocracy.

Given the normal mathematical regression to the mean, the great families of, say, the Restoration aren't necessarily so economically high and mighty today. In an era where you have far more constituents than you can possibly meet, money rules. Hereditary nobility might be the only chance for a person of modest means to hold office.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[moranar]

I don't think he was talking about a 'legal' religion. Downloading for free something that you should be paying to acquire is morally wrong. It might not be theft, but it's certainly stealing.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[crimperman]

> He was never a lord. He took advantage of the fact that it's perfectly legal to change your name by deed poll to anything you want - so he changed his name to Lord David Sutch.

Under UK law you don't need a deed poll to change your name. It's perfectly legal to do so without any formal record. There are restrictions on what you can do if you happen to change your name that way (you cannot stand for parliament for example) and most institutions will require evidence of your change of name but legally, you don't need a deed poll.

With regards changing your name to Lord... you will find that most Deed Poll services will not accept such a change these days (probably because of Sutch). This is similar to the fact that they won't accept "offensive" or trademarked names.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[the_xaqster]

Does anyone have the comment by Lord Lucan?

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Word of advice: when going for the funny mod, don't spell out the joke. This is a site for nerds, a good portion of them can think.

I'll bet Lord Lucas finds himself a nice bonus soon

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[smpoole7]

But will anything really happen or will this just be another excuse for yet more surveillance of home computer usage?

Good question. Do we really need Yet Still Another Government Oversight, or draconian set of laws?

The real answer is "Loser Pay," whether in the UK, the US or elsewhere. We might word it something like, "the party prevailing shall be entitled to reasonable reimbursement of expenses incurred in obtaining relief." (And "reasonable" could be defined starting with, "the going rate in your area for quality legal representation.")

The problem in the US, of course, is that the Bar associations are (inexplicably, IMNHO) opposed to this.

(I say "inexplicably" because their favorite argument, that it would hurt poor clients, is specious; if anything, if the client had a decent case, the lawyers could help them even with small, currently "unprofitable" cases under the current system, while still receiving fair compensation. They could change their image overnight from sharks to champions, because they COULD afford to take the case of the little old lady whose landlord refuses to fix the heater.)

The Supreme Court ruled against reimbursement some years ago in a landmark healthcare case, as I recall ... and there was a story posted here just the other day about an RIAA case being dismissed, but WITHOUT the defendant being able to recover expenses. That's just wrong.

Loser Pay would be the answer. We just need to educate everyone, whether liberal/progressive or conservative/traditionalist, about just why this would work.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Courageous]

Well. Your lawyer would write their demand a bit differently. :-P If you can find a lawyer to write the demand the same way, please have him send me the demand. Also make sure he owns real property, I could use some extra income. :-P

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I own the copyright on your message. I demand you pay me £500. If you fail to comply I will take you to court. I'm a Solicitor (no really, I AM!) so you had better cough up or things will get worse.

Seriously, I had a letter like this, and I threw it away. The record company's data is not conclusive proof. The record companies are relying on the individuals mailed to settle out of court. ANYONE has the legal right to ask you for money, and anyone COULD start court proceeding against you. Fact is you are innocent until proven guilty. (the solicitors writing the letters are also innocent of extortion until prosecuted)

That means if you run an insecure wireless network and it can not be proven you are doing so to encourage copyright theft (proof would mean they have to AT LEAST to prove you have I.T. expertise, or consult someone with I.T. expertise - Don't try this tact with a computer science degree) and someone downloads they are staling your bandwidth and you are not to blame.

However, if you suffer emotional issues, and this letter has given you trauma which has effected your life, then you can counter-sue. Would recommend this!

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Talderas]

The House of Lords functions in a manner that the US Senate should have functioned. Since the appointment is life time, the Lords are not subject to listening to the populism. Thus they are free to make intelligent and informed decisions rather than relying on listening to the whims of the populace, potentially serving as a mechanism by which to prevent utterly stupid laws from passing.

The US had that with the Senate, by making Senators a 6 year term and not making their appointment subjected directly to the whim of the people. Since the 17th Amendment in 1913 things have gotten progressively worse as Senators suddenly pay heed to populism.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Aradiel]

"The Lords also let through any bill which is an implementation of the ruling party's last manifesto." Well that seems fair enough. If a party is elected then their manifesto has been democratically approved by the public. It would be stupid to stand in the way of that.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[dunkelfalke]

It is about as morally wrong as breaking a contract.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[NotBornYesterday]

I'd like to ask them what the hell is the difference in me stealing a CD from a music store and me "making unauthorised copies" of a friends CD?

IANAL, or more appropriately, IANAS (I Am Not A Solicitor)

When you take a CD from a store, you are taking a piece of their physical inventory. They have lost a real, tangible asset to you that they paid actual, countable money for.

When you copy a friend's CD, you are DUPLICATING a physical asset, meaning that the store has all the inventory they had paid for before you copied it. They have not experienced an actual loss. Now, there are a number of imaginative people out there who like to construe this as theft, and they have done a good job of spinning "unauthorized duplication" into "theft" in the minds of many. Of course, that bit of fiction is designed to serve the interests of the copyright owners, not serve as legal advice. Also, this artificial construct ignores the evidence that many who illegally copy music are trying it, not necessarily trying to keep it. A significant number go on to buy the music, which they might not have if they hadn't "borrowed" it.

Both give ME, the same net result, which is obtaining a product or property without paying, and therefore FOR PROFIT, yet violations of each are treated completely different.

Achieving the same net result does not necessarily mean that the same crime (if there is one) was committed. For example, if I killed someone, it could easily be a) murder (intent, motive), b) manslaughter (accidental, but with responsibility), or c) self-defense (unfortunate, but justifiable). Furthermore, I could argue that you didn't really get the same net result. If you stole the CD, you would possess the cover art, jewel case, and a pressed CD. If you copied the music, you might have bothered to actually burn a CD copy of it (inferior to pressed CD in lifespan, cost of media comes out of your pocket, not theirs, unless you stole that too) without taking the case and copying the art, but more likely you just downloaded the mp3 files, which although enjoyable, are measurably inferior to the store-bought product. As a matter of fact, at this point, you have come closer to a song recorded over the radio than stealing a CD from a store.

Your interpretation of "profit" is a loose one. Personal gain is not profit.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Kavafy]

Not that I mind that much, but who came up with making copies being "not theft" and "not criminal"? I'd like to ask them what the hell is the difference in me stealing a CD from a music store and me "making unauthorised copies" of a friends CD?

Both give ME, the same net result, which is obtaining a product or property without paying, and therefore FOR PROFIT, yet violations of each are treated completely different.

Not saying that any of this nonsense in going after private citizens with extortionist tactics is right either, but damn.

They're treated differently because they are different. With theft, you have deprived the music shop of a product. With copying, you have not.

If you still can't see the difference, repeat the same action 10,000 times. With theft, the music shop would go out of business, having lost all its stock to, erm, theft. With copying, no-one would be any different, expect that you would be better off by 10,000 albums.

You may still not believe that copying is morally right, but saying it's somehow "the same as theft" just looks dumb.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Kavafy]

It doesnt actually matter what the Lords or anyone else thinks.

We saw this with ID cards in 2006 - Labour have a majority, so they can ram any bill through thanks to the Parliament Rule (if it goes between the Commons and the Lords a set number of times - I think its 5 - then the bill is automatically approved).

Not quite - the Parliament Act (1949) says that if a bill is reintroduced for a second Parliamentary session then it can pass without the consent of the Lords. Reintroducing a bill is quite a big deal, as legislative time is limited, and so it is rare for governments to do this.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Yvanhoe]

The wonderful thing is that they had to create a legal framework to make it possible, vote it, and let it happen to realize this kind of abuse was possible. What is the job they are supposed to do again ? I thought they were supposed to be literate and intelligent people, specialist of laws and how they could be used in a nasty way in order to design them intelligently.

Day after day, I wonder if it would be a lot more damaging to choose MPs at random and let random people be incompetent instead of these elected buffoons. At least, the random people would be really representative of the population.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to ask them what the hell is the difference in me stealing a CD from a music store and me "making unauthorised copies" of a friends CD?

The second does not reduce anybody's inventory of stock.

Both give ME, the same net result, which is obtaining a product or property without paying

There is no law against obtaining property without paying. There are a number of ways you may legally do exactly that eg: gifts. There is nothing in ancient philosophy or any religion to suggest that repeating or using an idea required authorisation or equated to theft in any way. Copying does not remove any property from anyone. So the onus is really on the proponents of the idea that copying is theft to demonstrate it, something they have failed to do. To many people, current copyright law seems to violate the US constitutional requirement of being for a limited time, therefore they feel no obligation to honor the "exclusive right".

... and therefore FOR PROFIT

I suspect the relevant laws will refer to commercial copying rather than "for profit". Having a vegetable patch clearly benefits (profits) you yet it isn't regulated or taxed the same as commercial crop production. You really shouldn't need that spelt out to you.

The large commercial copyright based businesses have expanded their profit through corruption. It should be no surprise if people disregard those laws and hold courts that effectively enforce them in contempt.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[NotBornYesterday]

We all draw our morals (those of us who have them, anyway) from different sources, including religion, philosophy, and personal experience. By our nature, and by the nature of how we see and experience things, we each have a slightly different perspective on these things. Despite the current vogue for blaming religion for many of the world's problems, the truth is that a vast amount of good takes place in the name of religion thanks to the various moral teachings among them (care for the sick and hungry, don't screw someone else's spouse, teach people not to lie, steal, and kill). The evil done in the world isn't the fault of religion itself - it is the fault of arrogant people who pervert religion to their own ends. If you really want to find evil, look to some of the more notable atheists, like Mao and Stalin.

If this guy finds that religion helps him not to do things he shouldn't, who are you to question it? Your arrogance and intolerance in dismissing and belittling value systems of others is similar to those who perpetrate the "religious" abuses you refer to.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is decided in your absence - but if you don't show up you are automatically in dishonour of the court. So it would need to be an obviously ridiculous case for you to be found in favour.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[noidentity]

If I went to someone and said "You have wronged me so pay me money or I'll report you to the cops", I could be reported and sent to jail.

How is this any different than "You have wronged me, so pay me money or I'll take you to court."?

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[JoshDD]

Have you ever been sued? I have. They cannot just have a trial without you unless you fail to respond to a summons. They have to find you and summon you first. Watch a lot of court TV shows?

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like in theory it works sort of like our Supreme Court, which is also not elected and serve for life (or until they want to retire). Democracy is nice, but sometimes "The people" are stupid and shortsighted. It's good to have someone in the system who isn't directly beholden to public opinion. Not that the SC is perfect (Unfortunately, it tends to develop a split between conservative and liberal justices. But since it usually takes till the end of a president for him to bend the court toward his way of thinking by appointing justices, they seem to quite often be politically at odds with the president. Which I guess is probably a good thing).

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[mcgrew]

my religion does not condone theft

Neither does mine, but theft has nothing to do with copyright infringement and my bible says nothing about copyright infringement. In fact, my bible was copied over and over and over long before there were copyright laws, and is in fact in the public domain.

Sometimes $4000 on a lawyer makes you feel better that settling for the $2000 they wanted.

My religion does not condone what you did there, either. My freely copyable public domain King James bible says "if a man sues you for your coat, give him your cloak as well."

If you consider yourself a Christian (although you may well be Muslim or Bhuddist or Wiccan) you should stop thumping that bible and READ it some time.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

The courts don't need to decide it. Theft and Copyright infringement are legally two different things. That doesn't mean Copyright Infringement is legal, just that it's not theft. Morally, it's up to you to decide if you make that distinction. I do see theft and copyright infringement as morally distinct. Both still wrong, but I admit I let myself get away with occasional copyright infringement (much much less than when I was in college without money), but I'm not proud about it. I don't engage in theft, though.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[DavidTC]

Also, murder isn't theft? Does that mean I can steal your life?

Hey, dumbass, not all crimes are 'theft'. Using someone's social security number is not 'theft', it is fraud.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[jellyfrog]

No, you can't "steal" a number. Not even a social security number. You can copy it (via hacking, etc) which is indeed illegal (violation of privacy & hacking laws), but it's not stealing. The difference really shouldn't be that hard to understand...

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[otherniceman]

You can't say "Fuck you". What you can say is "We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Eye#Litigation

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[zippthorne]

Oh, but that was by design. Now the senators don't have to worry about state legislatures and governors recalling them over their cumulative abuses, as long as they can snooker 20% (~1/3 of their state will be partisan anyway) of the people who bother to vote in senate races, they can get away with pretty much anything for five of those six years.

Since the 17th Amendment in 1913 things have gotten progressively worse as Senators suddenly pay heed to populism

Oh, a pun! what fun!

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[WillDraven]

But this is not a man suing you, its a corporation. My understanding behind that phrase is that by being generous in return for their cruelty, you will hopefully inspire them to be a more generous person themselves.
 
If the RIAA (or equivalent) sues you for $1000 and you give them $2000, the closest thing to generosity you'll get in return is a confused accountant sending you a check for the amount you overpaid. There will be no appeal to the corporations sense of decency, because they have none.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[DarthVain]

Canada has that too 'cept we call it a Senate.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Bowdie]

Yup, in the UK, you can't change your name to something that might infer a rank or title.

http://www.ukdps.co.uk/AreThereAnyRestrictionsOnNames.html

We will not accept an application for a name that:

        * does not include at least one forename and one surname;
        * is impossible to pronounce;
        * includes numbers or symbols;
        * includes punctuation marks - although you can have a hyphen to link forenames or surnames (for example, if you want a double-barrelled surname) and an apostrophe in the case of surnames like O'Brien;
        * we consider vulgar, offensive, blasphemous or unsuitable;
        * may result in others believing you have a conferred or inherited honour, title, rank or academic award, for example, a change of first name to Sir, Lord, Laird, Lady, Prince, Princess, Viscount, Baron, Baroness, General, Captain, Professor or Doctor etc.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

But that's not for you to decide - in your own words, "its for the courts...", and they've ruled in our favour in this case.

OF course it's only for the courts to decide when you agree with the ruling - otherwise you'd be standing up against injustice >.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[DarthVain]

Couldn't agree more.

All they are doing is taking advantage of an insane law and then lobbying to keep it that way. Repeat.

If the damages were not so out of wack with reality this extortion scheme wouldn't work as most people would just be, "fine, see you in court jackholes!"

However when facing a decision that for all intents and purposes could ruin you financially, you would be hard pressed to justify defending yourself, and most will just pay off the goons to be left alone.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Talderas]

Essentially.

And the pun wasn't intentional.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because more often than not, a crime is a crime based on what the effect on the victim was (the current drug laws being the main exception) - at least in Britain.

Its not theft unless someone has been provably separated from their property on a permanent basis (some of the older laws on the books actually made allowances for unauthorised borrowing i.e. they took it without asking but they brought it back before you noticed).

Just like its not illegal to enter someone's house if the door is wide open - as no harm has been done the victim yet. It would take extra actions or circumstances for it to breach an existing law - like taking something while in the house would be theft; causing damage to gain entry or while inside already would be criminal damage etc. But just entering a house doesn't imply harm or loss to the house owner - so there's no law against it.

You have to remember that only a corrupt court would ever claim to hold a moral authority over you and all your actions - all they can do is use the powers they hold to limit the damage and harm you can do to the public. Thats why, theoretically, you can do what you like in your own home as consenting adults - as there's no-one that could take harm from it.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[DavidTC]

Not that I mind that much, but who came up with making copies being "not theft" and "not criminal"? I'd like to ask them what the hell is the difference in me stealing a CD from a music store and me "making unauthorised copies" of a friends CD?

Because theft means, and has always meant through history, 'unlawfully removing ownership of property from someone who already owns it'. (Ownership being the right and ability to use property for your own purposes. It is the ultimate 'control' of property, as opposed to possession, which is just who controls it at any one time.)

Theft is not just 'taking', in fact. That's just one form of theft, 'theft by taking'.

You also have 'theft by conversion', where you turn the property of someone else into a different form, such as building a desk out of someone else's lumber, and not attempting to take the desk. Still theft.

And some places have 'theft by destruction' or 'theft by vandalism', which is when you just entirely or mostly destroy something of someone else.

And there's 'theft by fraud', where you mislead someone who is in legal possession of property, or the owner of property, into 'transferring ownership' to you under certain false pretenses. For example, using counterfeit money to buy things. (Which is illegal by itself, but it's also theft by fraud.)

And there's 'theft by misappropriation', where you are in legal possession of property you don't own, but attempt to do something that only the owner can do, such as sell it. Just because you have been been granted the right and ability to use property, aka 'loaned property', by the owner doesn't mean you can do anything with it.

Please note I said 'the owner'. Theft by misappropriation is taking the ability of the owner to control his property. The owner of a CD is not able to copy it, nor have you removed those rights if you copy it, and, as you're doing it with the owner of a CD's permission anyway, it would hardly matter.

Not all places distinguish in exactly these ways, and not all of them call all the offenses 'theft', but the common thread holding together the various forms of theft is: At some point, someone owned something, and the thief changed things by removing it from their control.

As making copies doesn't remove control of anything from the owner of the CD without their consent, it cannot be theft. (Even making copies without their consent isn't actually theft, and probably legal if you can do it without breaking some other law. It's like sitting on lawn furniture in someone's front yard without damaging it, but without permission. You are not intending to deprive anyone of anything. You are using someone else's property without permission, but that is not ipso facto illegal if it doesn't deprive them. Whether or not you're trespassing is another matter.)

Now you could steal in a copyright itself, if you filed various legal papers falsely transferring it to you. That would probably be 'theft by fraud', which is often just covered under fraud statues.

Theft is, technically, speaking, referred to as 'permanently depriving' someone of a thing, although I hate to use that word because people get into a stupid mode when they insist companies have been deprived of 'profits'. Unless you're stating that profits have been stolen, profits haven't been deprived by theft. Stealing my car is theft because it deprived me of my car, not because it deprived me of a way to work. I have never owned 'a way to work', and, likewise, I have never owned hypothetical future profits, and can be deprived by theft of neither.

Of course, if a civil suits happens, those might be unlawful damages to me that I can get compensation for, but damages != theft, especially since damages aren't automatically illegal. (For example, you can spread true, but damaging, facts about me.)

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[DavidTC]

Right. It's only criminal charges that can get decided in your absence. Civil suits, no so much.

If someone bringing a suit can't locate someone to serve them, they can hardly locate them to collect any money they have to pay. The courts frown on you just wasting the court's time with a meaningless suit.

This obviously applies to cases where the defendant is known at the start. If they are not, the court might let a 'vs. Doe' lawsuit proceed until they are identified. But if identified people cannot be located to be served, the court is essentially going to say 'You have to find them first, because this entire thing is pointless otherwise'.

However, you can't magically avoid this simply be refusing to confirm who you are to the messenger and rejecting certified mail. Having an impartial witness confirm he gave it to you is nice, but there are a lot of other ways in which you can be presumed to have been notified.

Now, a judge might let a case happen without one party if some property, which is in a known location, is being argued over. The big example, foreclosures, have specific laws about that (And notification happens via notices posted on front doors, not having to track people down.), but there are other cases.

For example, if I paid for someone else to purchase something for me, but I vanished and they were left holding it for a month, and that was costing them money, they can file suit to have it decided that they should sell my property to cover the costs they already expended in holding it, because they are unable to locate me. As the grounds of the case are 'They can't locate me', it's entirely reasonable that, for the case, they aren't able to notify me...but they don't need me to do what they're asking the court to do, unlike cases where the person filing suit is asking for money.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[hrimhari]

Even if I sympathize with the victims of record companies, I see a small but important difference between blackmail and the mentioned situation.

This situation: I caught you infringing my copyright. Pay me $500 or I'll take you to court.

Blackmail: I caught you infringing the copyright of somebody else. Pay me $500 or I'll tell them.

The claim from Lord Lucas is that the copyright infringement may be false since another person might have done it using the victim's resources. This seems to be false accusation rather than blackmail. Or can one be blackmailed with false accusations?

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[crimperman]

Yeah I looked there (and at a number of others) too. Bear in mind thought the UKDPS is not a government agency (AFAIK) but simply a service provider. I think that there are few laws on what you may change your name to, it's just that no DPS will do it for you if you want to be change your name to "Lord Microsoft".

You can (again AFAIK) name your child "Lord Microsoft" though, although why you want to beats me.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[DavidTC]

I don't understand why that isn't 'conspiracy after the fact'.

If I walk up to someone and say 'I saw you jaywalk, pay me $5 or I'll turn you in', that's just flat out illegal.

If someone steals from me, and I do the same, somehow it's legal?

See, what people have apparently forgotten is that criminal acts are not crimes against the victim. If the victim wants recomps, they can sue. Criminal acts are crimes against the state.

Yes, the state doesn't like forcing victims to testify, and thus often people a chance to 'drop the charges' if they don't, but they don't have to do that, they can just go ahead and prosecute. (In fact, they often prosecute against the will of the victim in cases of spousal abuse, although the victim usually can't be made to testify there anyway.)

If I were a witness to a crime, and I asked for money from the suspect in return for not testifying, I would, quite rightly, be charged with conspiracy after the fact, and I'd be jailed for contempt of court until I did testify. If I was charged with a crime, and attempted to pay a witness to keep them from testifying, I would be committing conspiracy after the fact and witness tampering.

Yet, somehow, change 'witness' to 'victim' and that's all legal, despite the fact that, in a court, 'victims' really are just unique witnesses. Crimes are not against victims, they are against the state. We realize it's hard to prove cases without the testimony of the victim-witness, and the victim-witness is often fairly fragile, so we often drop a case if they don't want to 'file charges', aka, to testify...but I'll be damned to see how it's legal to bribe them. There are fucking 'witness bribery' contracts out there filed in lawyer's offices.

Now, of course, there's no way to fully stop this, but that doesn't mean it should be legal.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[thetoadwarrior]

Knowing someone's SS number is not theft. If you dropped you SS card and I hand it into the police yet remember it are you saying implying a photographic memory is criminal?

What is criminal about having an SS number is how you obtained it (theft of SS card or hacking) or what you do with that info. If I use it to apply for credit in your name that is not theft but fraud.

It isn't really that hard to figure out.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[DavidTC]

Civil suits are to collect damages doe to you.

Criminal trials are about crimes against the state. All of them, even ones with 'victims', are crimes against the state. That's why the state is the one in court, and it's 'Defendant vs. The State of Virginia' or whatever.

Bribing a witness to not testify as to what they saw related to a crime of assault is witness tampering, even if said witness is the person who was assaulted.

I honestly don't understand how that often is allowed.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite the current vogue for blaming religion for many of the world's problems, the truth is that a vast amount of good takes place in the name of religion thanks to the various moral teachings among them (care for the sick and hungry, don't screw someone else's spouse, teach people not to lie, steal, and kill).

There are two problems with that.

1. You think humans didn't have any form of social order before religion, as if we had no idea murder and rape were wrong before the ten commandments.

2. Even if somehow you don't know that hurting others is wrong, you SHOULD. If you have to be told how to behave then YOU aren't really moral at all. You're just a robot following commands.

Being a good person is DIFFICULT and not something that you can pick up off the discount rack at B&N. Religion has fuck all to do with it. Religion is, more often than not, used as a badge so people can CLAIM that they're moral without having to ACTUALLY expend any effort. After all, why bother trying to be a good person when you can just say "I would never do that, I'm a Christian!" and be done.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[ironjaw33]

Members of nobility elected for life? Sounds a lot like the U.S. Senate...

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright infringement is not theft but, it is still illegal and immoral.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Darguad, check this link out, it makes your implicit reasoning explicit:
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/6/24/184325/864
It's called the NPV of grand children. The comments are decent too, a bit of Tolkein mixed into economics in a couple of them.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[selven]

Say if you downloaded 300 songs from piratebay, and have a share-ratio of 2, and they calculated this means 600 people illegally got a song from you, at $0.99 a song, that's a loss of $600 -- so they convict you guilty and demand you pay $1000.

1 download != 1 lost sale. If you're selling a calculator program for $100000 and I put it up on the internet, and 100 people downloaded it, I have not caused $10 million in damages - nobody would have bought your overpriced program anyway. It's not that extreme at $0.99 per song but a 100% reduction in price still tends to increase demand quite a bit.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[dryeo]

Of course the article is about the UK where the King James version of the bible is still under copyright.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[ubercam]

Yeah, but all Senate appointments are POLITICAL!

Harper just padded the Senate with some of his cronies the other day. Haven't you ever noticed that the PM will only appoint senators from within his own party? Usually it's their close friends or party minions who have put in a lot of time on Parliament Hill and "deserve" an appointment. Luckily the maximum age for a Senator is 75.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[jc42]

If this guy finds that religion helps him not to do things he shouldn't, who are you to question it?

While such results are commendable, this doesn't alleviate us of the moral responsibility to question religions. After all, in addition to the good that religious leaders claim to have given the world, there is also a lot of evil that also appears to be associated with their leadership.

A sensible person would question such a situation. For starters, is either of these claims supportable, or are they example of "correlation isn't causation"? It has been observed that all religions pretty much agree on their claims for good, and this implies that the concept of "good" is independent of religion. If not, you'd expect the various religions to have more disagreement about what constitutes "good". Since they are in fairly close agreement on the topic, one might infer that "good" is something that people mostly agree on, and religious leaders are merely laying claim on something that is inherent to the human psyche (except for a few psychopaths).

Similarly, as others have pointed out, some anti-religious leaders have induced their followers to commit great evils. Stalin and Mao come to mind, and we have recently examples such as Rwanda and Cambodia to the list. So we clearly can't blame all of the world's evil on religious leaders. On the other hand, we seem to have a lot of historical cases in which the political leaders that instigated great evils were supported (tacitly or openly) by the religious leaders. Again, we could get into a discussion of cause-and-effect, and those religious leaders have typically done just that. And again, there's an alternative hypothesis: Evil is also inherent in the human psyche (except for a few saints). We also have evidence that it has a strong social component, since we have many documented cases of organizations (governments, corporations, whatever) that have perpetrated evil against the clear wishes of (most of) their members.

The whole story can get rather complex. Starting about 1500 years ago, most of Europe's classical civilization was destroyed, and much of the evidence supports the claim that the primary agent of destruction was the church. The religious leaders encouraged destruction of all "heathen" classical learning, and discouraged literacy in all but their priesthood. But a great deal of the classical learning was preserved - by the church's priests and monks, many of whom understood its value.

Similarly, in the 1500s, Spain conquered Central America and wiped out all but a trace of its "heathen" written history. The people were reduced to illiteracy, and only a handful of tomes from their libraries survived - because Spanish priests smuggled them back to Europe. We've only recently relearned to read Mayan writing, which also exists on those thousands of "stelae" that litter the Central American landscape, and which are mostly historical markers. So we again have a case of the soldiers destroying a society for religious reasons, while (a few of) the religious leaders helped save at least some of it.

In general, we have an obvious "null hypothesis": A society's religious beliefs or lack thereof have little if anything to do with the amount of "good" or "evil" in that society. Religious people will responsibility for the good, but do little to actually justify that claim. Meanwhile, religious debunkers assign responsibility for the evil to the religious leaders, again with little evidence to support their claim. Perhaps religion is morally neutral, and it's the people and their society that are the real source of good and evil. The religious people are just going along for the ride, making a living by consoling the people, running a central meeting place for social events, and teaching morality to the people by whatever approach they seem to understand.

I wonder how we'd find real evidence, or whether we'd even be permitted to carry out the studies out of fear for what we'd conclude. After all, as long as

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Acuiring someone elses SS is theft using it is fraud big difference. If you have a collection of SS you get charged with theft not fraud. If you use them you get charged with theft and fraud. If I stole your car would you call it fraud?

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[dwye]

The problem with the House of Lords is that the vast majority of people have no idea as to the real work that they do.

Surely, that is the problem of "the vast majority of people" not the House Of Lords? That may have been the problem of the hereditary peers, in the sense that their poor PR job allowed Labor to do what it has wanted to since its founding.

Also, I doubt that Blair's actions increased the likelihood of bribery; the average income of Life peers was greater than that of hereditary peers, according to the reports that I read at the time. Increased the likelihood of Labor peers going along with their Common party's ideas, despite possible reservations, perhaps.

However because the chamber is unelected [...] people see it as undemocratic

It is undemocratic. That is not always a bad thing -- are people convicted by majority vote of representative samples, like they were in Socrates' Athens, or a unanimous vote of a small group? Counting warm bodies is not Vox Deii, pithy Latin sayings notwithstanding.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[DarthVain]

The appointments are political, but the people don't have to be. I could really like my doorman of my building, and if I become PM I can appoint him to the Senate for the rest of his life...

Maybe the MINIMUM age for a Senator should be 75, then at least we might get more turn over.

Don't get me wrong, some people that are appointed, do very meaningful work, and take it seriously. For others, I am pretty sure it is just a "favor" bestowed on them so they can get paid to play golf for the rest of their lives.

In short I think having an unelected body isn't necessarily a bad thing, however as such the selection of which should be a lot more stringent than "The PM says so".

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

But I never said I infringed on anyones copyright a false accusation is a false accusation. And I am not going accept guilt for something I don't do even if it is the easy way out.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[VJ42]

You were the one who said it was and I quote "For the courts to decide". I just pointed out that they had, but in the opposite direction to the one you originally suggested. I didn't comment on the decision itself, so how you can infer that:

People like you are what give companies excuses to try and control our software and the internet.

from what I said, I don't know. My actual opinion is thus: I don't personally wilfully infringe copyright, however I support copyright reform as I feel the current lengths are far too long; I think that a standard length of 10-20 years is probably about the correct limit. As such I am a Pirate - a member of the Pirate Party UK, that is.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[mcgrew]

Point taken.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright infringement is [...] immoral.

That very much depends on whether the current copyright terms are moral, which, in the opinion of this anonymous coward, they are not.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[mr_matticus]

Steal (v): to appropriate without authority or right; to take or acquire surreptitiously; to pass off dishonestly as one's own; to deprive the property of another.

Only one of many applicable definitions refers to deprivation or tangibility. So yes, you can steal a number.

You can't then be charged with theft, though, because theft is a crime of personalty. But while theft is always stealing, stealing is not always theft. This is not a terribly complicated point, though it sadly seems so lost amidst the demagoguery.

There are dozens of forms of stealing at law, both criminal and civil, and few of them are confined to personal property. Those are theft, trespass to chattels, larceny, and some types of conversion. Even theft does not necessarily require deprivation of use by the true owner (for that you need larceny).

There are many additional forms of stealing, including burglary, robbery, misappropriation, trespass, infringement, theft of service, identity theft (statutorily independent from fraud in many jurisdictions), fraud, unjust enrichment, adverse possession, the remaining types of conversion, and so on that do not require removal of anything tangible.

The difference really shouldn't be that hard to understand...

It really shouldn't, but the meme will never die here.

It is a pointless and circular argument that only comes up when it's a copyright story involving media consumption. It never comes up in discussions about GPL violations, where the comments are brimming with "stolen code" references that go untouched.

The basic reality is that "stealing" is a term of no legal significance carrying a broad colloquial meaning far beyond what you attempt to winnow it down to: a 1:1 equivalence with the crime of theft of personalty. It hasn't meant solely that for five centuries, and it never will.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[thickdiick]

Senators represent the people. It would be utterly incomprehensible to make them "not respond to the whims of the populace."

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[NotBornYesterday]

1. You think humans didn't have any form of social order before religion, as if we had no idea murder and rape were wrong before the ten commandments.

That's actually not what I meant at all. Social order and religion intertwine and affect each other. For instance, American Catholic perspective is different than French or German Catholic perspective. Even within the same religion, there are differences, many of which can be traced back to the previous social/tribal customs of those who practice it.

If you have to be told how to behave then YOU aren't really moral at all. You're just a robot following commands.

I don't think anyone is fully formed in a moral sense without society's assistance, whether that society is secular, religious, or some of both.

Religion is, more often than not [...]

Really? You did a comprehensive survey of all human actions and came to that conclusion? Or are you reiterating a speculative nugget of someone's bigoted agenda?

Lots of people use social badges as cover for their weaknesses. "I'm a (lawyer, policeman, alderman, whatever), I would never do xyz" is common. It is part of being human, not a part of religion.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[NotBornYesterday]

FWIW, I don't find your reply trollish.

Yes, lots of evil happens in the name of religion. I still say that that is an example of people perverting something good to serve their own purposes.

If I were in Soviet Russia in the time of Stalin, I probably would have anointed him too. I'd have to imagine that there was a big quid-pro-quo there. The guy didn't give a shit about religion. He wanted the peasants to follow him through fear, God, or whatever it took. I imagine the Orthodox church there wanted to avoid having their churches taken, closed, destroyed, their followers persecuted, etc. Church leaders have to play a lot of earthly politics.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[NotBornYesterday]

I'm all for questioning religion in general, but I was reacting to the parent poster's implication that the GP was either misguided or insincere with his assertion of religious guidance helping him in some way.

It's interesting that the Crusades, which were a rather unenlightened endeavor, served to relight the flame of learning in Europe, as middle eastern writings were brought to Europe, bringing with them novel ideas such as arabic numbers.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Three facts remain...

1. Religion isn't necessary for morality.

2. You can't prove we would be worse off without religion.

3. Religion causes a lot of harm.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[NotBornYesterday]

1. Religion isn't necessary for morality.

But that doesn't mean that religion and morality are mutually exclusive.

2. You can't prove we would be worse off without religion.

Can't prove a negative. Right. Just like you can't prove that God doesn't exist.

3. Religion causes a lot of harm.

So do automobiles. But they're still worth having.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actors, artists and sportsmen already have way too much influence in society. The House of Lords is the stinking rotten corpse of Monarchism that should be thrown into the dustbin of history. They should have an elected Senate like Australia has.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

this is actually bull and Lord Lucas should get his facts straight.
The cases are being brought by through a UK law firm representing a loose alliance of content owners , mainly the games and porn industry.
The record industry withdrew a month ago after one person who was asked to paid £500 or be sued embarrassingly turned out to be a 87 year old man, his alleged crime was downloading porn.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[MacWiz]

I'd like to ask them what the hell is the difference in me stealing a CD from a music store and me "making unauthorised copies" of a friends CD?

The music store can notice it has a CD missing and file a police report identifying the stolen property. If you copy a friend's CD, he doesn't lose his original.

Both give ME, the same net result, which is obtaining a product or property without paying, and therefore FOR PROFIT

You have no more money after making a copy than you had before. Plus you used up a blank CD and probably a jewel case, so you had LESS than before you did it. It's not "for profit" unless you sell it -- priced to recover your minimal costs and then a little extra for geekmux.

But really, the "for profit" part doesn't seem to have a lot of significance anyway. A lot of the people who were sued in the US were seemingly ignorant about what the hell file sharing was, much less trying to make a profit on it. They got sucked in because the software's default was to share and they had no idea of the significance of that setting.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[s0l1dsnak3123]

As such I am a Pirate - a member of the Pirate Party UK, that is.

As am I. I believe those in the UK who stand for the beliefs the average slashdotter believes in should consider supporting the pirate's cause.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[geekmux]

They're treated differently because they are different. With theft, you have deprived the music shop of a product. With copying, you have not.

If you still can't see the difference, repeat the same action 10,000 times. With theft, the music shop would go out of business, having lost all its stock to, erm, theft. With copying, no-one would be any different, expect that you would be better off by 10,000 albums.

You may still not believe that copying is morally right, but saying it's somehow "the same as theft" just looks dumb.

Sorry, but your music store example is a bad one. Let me stand outside the music store and make 10,000 copies of the ONE CD the store sold me, and I'll offer them for free to anyone that was coming into the store looking to buy it. I haven't deprived the store of product, but I have deprived it of business, yet either action will likely lead to the same outcome; a business owner being affected.

If that's the only product that store sold, chances are they WOULD go out of business.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

But that doesn't mean that religion and morality are mutually exclusive.

Non sequitur. I never claimed that they are and that's irrelevant to my point. The fact remains, morality doesn't require religion. Some forms of religion actually make genuine morality harder because it causes doubt as to whether you're being moral because you want to or because you'll get rewarded/punished otherwise.

Treating others fairly because you want to is being a moral person. Treating others fairly so it will benefit you in the afterlife is not being a moral person. It's being selfish.

Can't prove a negative. Right. Just like you can't prove that God doesn't exist.

It's trivial to prove a negative. One of the laws of logic is a negative: a statement CANNOT be both true and false at the same time. See how easy that is? I think what you meant to say is that Science can't prove something doesn't exist. That's true. The problem is though, that Science doesn't prove anything. Science doesn't work like. Science is based on probabilities. If you see 1 million black crows everyday for 20 years, that doesn't prove that all crows are black. It only means that it's probably the case that they are all black. Of course, we have, in fact, found white crows.

In common speech, most people mean "provide strong probable evidence" since that's all Science can do.

So do automobiles. But they're still worth having.

Ahh, but see above. I can definitely prove we would be worse off without automobiles. All the deaths from slow travel to and from hospitals alone would make up for it.

Automobiles offer fast transportation that can't be gotten elsewhere. What does religion offer, nothing that we can't get from secular societies.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[NotBornYesterday]

Some forms of religion actually make genuine morality harder because it causes doubt as to whether you're being moral because you want to or because you'll get rewarded/punished otherwise.

Ideally, we would all be interested in doing the right thing for altruistic reasons rather than selfish reasons, but your assertion here is as applicable to conventional social constructs (courts and justice/penal system) as for religion.

One of the laws of logic is a negative: a statement CANNOT be both true and false at the same time.

Neils Bohr was credited with saying something to the effect of "The opposite of a simple truth is a simple falsehood, but the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth". I'm not trying to be pedantic, but I'm trying to illustrate that there are profound paradoxes and mysteries in life to which simple logic does not apply. That has more to do with the true reason for religion - the stuff that falls beyond our ability to rationally sift through it.

What does religion offer, nothing that we can't get from secular societies.

Only if you look at it from an atheistic point of view. If indeed there is a God and we are spiritual creatures, wouldn't it be important to find out more about Him (or Her)?

Even if we do consider it from an atheistic point of view, religion helps many people find peace from problems which might otherwise cause problems (anxiety -> mental/physical health issues). Studies have found that religious people tend to live longer than non-religious people.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[jakykong]

Giving away CDs in front of a music store would be analogous to bashing a restaurant's food while standing outside their door. If you're not on the restaurant's property, that behavior itself is probably legal. Rude, to be sure, but on public property, the expression of opinions is perfectly legal, valid, and accepted as a basic part of our freedom of speech. The restaurant would nevertheless be adversely affected by your actions. The lesson: Being affected by someone's actions on its own doesn't make that action illegal.

Now, particular to the music store example, you would probably have violated copyright law, and the production of those CDs would be illegal. By cavorting the business's customers, you might be breaking some other laws (IANAL, not sure the details there). But in any event, while it is probably illegal, it is not theft.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if you look at it from an atheistic point of view. If indeed there is a God and we are spiritual creatures, wouldn't it be important to find out more about Him (or Her)?

Religion is man-made, regardless of the existence of God (for which there is no reason to believe in).

If God exists, "he" never writes.

Studies have found that religious people tend to live longer than non-religious people.

Studies have also found that "RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide".

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article571206.ece

Living longer isn't that great when it's a living Hell. It's funny how dearly the religious cling to life though. One would think they would be eager to enter eternal paradise.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[jakykong]

I think the point he was trying to make is reasonable limits. Although it is true that 1 download != 1 lost sale, that analogy is far closer to reality than the 1 download == lost sales that the penalties for copyright violations seem to imply.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[thetoadwarrior]

Because the odds of you having a collection of SS numbers and theft not being involved are nearly zero.

If I memorise your SS number after you handed me your SS card and then you go tell the police they aren't going to do anything about it so just knowing the number isn't illegal.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[NotBornYesterday]

Sounds like a hatchet job with shaky "facts".

The paper that article was based on was one-sided. Criticism and a more comprehensive view can be found here.

His conclusions were based on an examination of scatter-plots for a small set of nations with no attempt to consider alternative explanations nor to encompass the research in the larger body of sociological theory and research on the topic.

Another response is here.

The private organizations in the US (that I am familiar with) that are doing the most to help others are generally either a) religious, or b) secular, but staffed by religious-minded folks.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a hatchet job with shaky "facts".

I'm shocked, SHOCKED, that you have a problem with a study that disagrees with your beliefs.

His conclusions were based on an examination of scatter-plots for a small set of nations with no attempt to consider alternative explanations nor to encompass the research in the larger body of sociological theory and research on the topic.

In other words, perhaps religiousness is causing poor societal conditions, which is what the paper concludes or perhaps it's the other way around, poor societal conditions push people towards religiousness. Perhaps it's something more complex altogether. Whatever the causal links are, it's definitely not conclusive. What cannot be doubted, however, is that a strong correlation between religiousness and poor societal conditions exists.

It's definitely not evidence that religion is good for societies.

The private organizations in the US (that I am familiar with) that are doing the most to help others are generally either a) religious, or b) secular, but staffed by religious-minded folks.

So what? The largest charitable donation ever made (~$30 billion) was made by an atheist. This proves exactly nothing. I have no idea what your point is anymore. You've failed to make any kind of point so far.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Kavafy]

They're treated differently because they are different. With theft, you have deprived the music shop of a product. With copying, you have not.

If you still can't see the difference, repeat the same action 10,000 times. With theft, the music shop would go out of business, having lost all its stock to, erm, theft. With copying, no-one would be any different, expect that you would be better off by 10,000 albums.

You may still not believe that copying is morally right, but saying it's somehow "the same as theft" just looks dumb.

Sorry, but your music store example is a bad one. Let me stand outside the music store and make 10,000 copies of the ONE CD the store sold me, and I'll offer them for free to anyone that was coming into the store looking to buy it. I haven't deprived the store of product, but I have deprived it of business, yet either action will likely lead to the same outcome; a business owner being affected.

If that's the only product that store sold, chances are they WOULD go out of business.

No, you're changing the premise. You didn't say "making copies and then giving them to other people, at the entrance to a music shop". You said "making copies". If I make 10,000 copies, just make copies and nothing else, then the music shop is not affected in any way.

either action will likely lead to the same outcome; a business owner being affected.

Weasel words. The question was whether copying is different from stealing, not whether or how business owners are "affected" by either or both.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[NotBornYesterday]

In other words, perhaps religiousness is causing poor societal conditions, which is what the paper concludes or perhaps it's the other way around, poor societal conditions push people towards religiousness. Perhaps it's something more complex altogether.

Exactly. Correlation != causation, and the interaction between a society and the religions its people follow is far more complex than "religion = bad".

I have no idea what your point is anymore. You've failed to make any kind of point so far.

Simply, I don't believe that religion is a net evil for society. I base this on what I have seen and experienced, which is that if I look at the religious people I know on one hand, and the non-religious on the other, I see more good done by more religious people than the other way around. Now, I know that ad-hoc personal anecdotes are not "evidence", but I'm not trying to have a formal debate to try to change your mind, just trying to explain my personal position.

Either way, the single largest donation isn't what I find compelling, since the question is how religion affects society as a whole, not just one person. I'm more curious how the average believer stacks up against the average non-believer. The Generosity Index is a better indicator of personal generosity, and shows a strong correlation between low income/rural/religious regions and greater charitable giving. Again, correlation!= causation, so obviously this hardly constitutes conclusive proof any more than Gregory Paul's study, but like his study, it provides food for thought.

It seems that we are each attached to our beliefs. Fair enough.

For what it's worth, here's a little humor for you.

As a revival meeting as hitting a fever pitch, the preacher called out to a woman in the front row "Do you want to go to Heaven?"
"Yes! Yes, I want to go to Heaven!" she replied.
"Hallelujah!" yelled the crowd.

"Do you want to go to Heaven?" the preacher called to a man in the front row.
"Yes! Yes, I want to go to Heaven!" he replied.
"Hallelujah!" yelled the crowd.

"Do you want to go to Heaven?" the preacher called to another man in the front row.
"No, not really." came the unenthusiastic reply. The crowd went silent.

Dumbfounded, the preacher looks at the man. "Son, did misunderstand you? Don't you want to go to Heaven when you die?"
"Oh, sure, reverend," the man replied. "For a minute there I thought you were getting up a bunch to go now."

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Eivind]

True enough, not everyone who downloaded it from you, would have bought the song.

That wasn't my point though, my point was that if the fines where SANE, then those people who honestly believe themselves innocent could afford to fight the battle.

If losing the battle costs 5 years salary, whereas you can settly for $1000 -- can you really afford to fight it ? Even if you think you're 90% likely to come out as innocent ?

That's what enables the blackmail: a situation where not even those who are likely innocent, can afford to fight.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[mcgrew]

Nowhere in my comment did I accuse anyone of infringing copyright, but now I'm accusing you of having poor reading comprehension.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Cowpat]

well, yeah, they're not some anti-democratic cabal running the country as they see fit (I'm not suggesting that you said that they were, I'm just expressing the point again). They keep an eye on the elected house when they start proposing legislation which they have no particular mandate to propose. There was an interesting question raised about a year back as to whether the Lords would block a law which was the direct opposite of what the government had put in its manifesto. I don't remember the outcome though.

To which Lord Vader of the RIAA replied,

[sqrt(2)]

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Re:To which Lord Vader of the RIAA replied,

[$RANDOMLUSER]

I felt a great disturbance in The Force...

As if millions of /. readers cried out "DUH!!" and were suddenly silenced...

Re:To which Lord Vader of the RIAA replied,

[Anonymous Coward]

Vader? I think you mean Mandelson.

Re:To which Lord Vader of the RIAA replied,

[Soldats]

Oh good so I'm not the only one who thought George Lucas when I read that headline.
.
.
.
right?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
guys?

Re:To which Lord Vader of the RIAA replied,

[Rakarra]

I'm sure right now George Lucas's mind is blown.
Tomorrow, he'll be trying to figure out what he can do to become a Lord.

Re:To which Lord Vader of the RIAA replied,

[L4t3r4lu5]

Sorry, we already have Sith Lord in parliament

Re:To which Lord Vader of the RIAA replied,

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you mean Jeff Vader?

Re:To which Lord Vader of the RIAA replied,

[Anne Thwacks]

Vader? I think you mean Mandelson.

Are they not the same person?

New labour: Government by the Mandleson, for the Mandelson

Re:To which Lord Vader of the RIAA replied,

[Whalou]

To late for him. The first step to becoming a Lord is not thinking Jar-Jar was a good idea.

Re:To which Lord Vader of the RIAA replied,

[hughk]

Oh you mean the honourable member for the media and mafya...

Re:To which Lord Vader of the RIAA replied,

[Anonymous Coward]

I read George Lucas first. Then I reread it and thought that they were making fun of George by calling him Lord, and then I realized there really is a Lord Lucas.

Re:To which Lord Vader of the RIAA replied,

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a feeling this is the name that George Lucas makes his wife and kids call him...

sane copyright laws?

[theheadlessrabbit]

"Hopefully, at the very least, the fact that parliament has realised this fact will mean that copyright laws will get a little more sane"

mod summary +1 funny

Re:sane copyright laws?

[gaelfx]

Gonna have to agree there. There is no universe in which I could ever participate in which copyright.laws=="sane" returns true.

Re:sane copyright laws?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you mean
laws.Copyright.Sanity == SanityType.Sane ? =P *sigh* I'm bored...

Re:sane copyright laws?

[theheadlessrabbit]

If you follow my sig, it would be something like this:

RANDOMIZE TIMER
copyrightsanity% = INT(RND * 255) + 1
IF copyrightsanity% = 0 THEN copyrightissane = 1: ELSE wereallfucked$ = "very yes"

Always another way

[AHuxley]

Flood you local MP and legal watch dogs with "due diligence" claims.
Make the ambulance chasing legal teams feel the heat of well written complaints to all MP's in the area.
Write to the local press. get on radio, tv, youtube, name the lawyers.
Protest outside their offices and public events demanding legal reform.
Make a web page with the legal teams letters to attract many others.
Make it out rank their own site in google searches.
If they sue you, go to court.

Re:Always another way

[L4t3r4lu5]

You forgot the last two parts.

...
Declare bankruptcy, get laughed out of court by well funded and backed solicitors / media companies, and live without any possibility of credit, mortgage, or a management position for the rest of your life.

Re:Always another way

[Xest]

"If they sue you, go to court."

Problem with that one is anyone that has said they're willing to go to court over it has had the case dropped, and there's no recourse, or way to force them to put their money where their mouth is. They just rely on the people who are scared to death at the idea of the court costs and so just settle regardless of innocence or guilty because as Lucas says, the music industry's "evidence" is being treated as proof of guilt when it's anything but.

Re:Always another way

[CharlyFoxtrot]

There ought to be a file-sharers union with a legal defense fund. I'd donate to that.

Re:Always another way

[AHuxley]

Also think like a lawyer - the ambulance chasing kind.
They need clients and standing in the community.
Sit in his or her car park, follow their clients back to their house/office/ company.
Using your letter, describe the 'quality' of legal representation they have hired to all the staff.
If they like to be seen doing community work, tell the other people donating their time about your lawyers day job.
Use the "evidence" letter - its yours :)
Any modern art competitions? Scale it up and enter it - big time.
Send out press kits with ready made tiffs.

Re:Always another way

[AmiMoJo]

You could take them to Small Claims Court to recover costs incurred by their hastily abandoned legal threats.

Say you had to spend a few hours checking your PCs and wifi to make sure they really had made a mistake, and then write them numerous letters until they gave up. How much is your time worth? £100 per hour? Pretty cheap by legal standards. If you can show that you lost out financially (e.g. you could have spent that time earning money, but even letters, stamps, paper and ink all have value) you can then use SCC to recover the money. You can ever recover interest on that money.

The best thing is that a claim costs £30 to enter. You don't need legal representation, you just do it all yourself. It's you, the judge and maybe someone from ACS Law if they actually bother to turn up (because the case will be heard at your local court so they have to come to you). When you win that £30 gets tacked on to the amount you receive.

Re:Always another way

[L4t3r4lu5]

Can you imagine a better list for MediaSentry (or whoever does the dirty work now) to get hold of?

Re:Always another way

[Xest]

You'd struggle to claim for your time unfortunately, it's not that easy.

When I was with Demon internet and they dropped me to 128kbps for a month with no notice stating I'd crossed my monthly allowance which was never in my contract and which I'd never agreed to I took them to the small claims court. They didn't turn up to defend, however I was still only granted things that were provable- i.e. XBox live, Dark Age of Camelot were unusuable for the month, also I was allowed to recoup the cost of my subscription with Demon (as they'd broken the contract), as well as setup costs for a new ISP, and the small claims court cost itself. I wasn't however granted the cost of my time in having to deal with the replacement ISP and such.

The issue is, you have to be able to prove the time you spent cost you actual financial harm- if they take it to court for example and you win then yeah you could claim a days lost wages, but if you instead have time to sort it on an evening in your spare time it's really not provable and can't be claimed. It's not enough to say you could've been earning money in that time simply because you weren't. As I understand it it's because you can't simply judge what someone's spare time is worth, it is not necessarily worth as much as their day job- sure you can get paid say £40k a year to work 9 - 5, mon-fri, but could you really get a job paying the same on 5pm - 9am mon-fri and on weekends- i.e. during your spare time? If you dealt with it in work time, you'd have to have your company back you up that you weren't paid for this time and hence there was actual financial loss for you.

Really, the best you could claim is the cost of correspondence, but as much as it sucks, is it even worth spending £30 and even more of your time just to get that £30 plus maybe at most a couple of pounds back if you can even claim for such a small amount?

The real solution I'd argue is to spend the time and money writing letters to MPs, Lords, the media and so forth and pressuring there.

Re:Always another way

[jecblackpepper]

You can also complain to the Legal Complaints Service about the solicitors who sent you the letter, rather like ACS Law who are currently being investigated for their alleged threatening behaviour. Once a few solicitors are struck off for this then they'll begin to think twice.

Re:Always another way

[Kijori]

And, just to add a shameless plug in there, sign the DigitalWrong letter!. You write what you want to say to Mandelson they get it printed up on some big paper with everyone else's and go and try to give it to him. More effective than writing a letter and you don't even have to pay for a stamp.

Re:Always another way

[AmiMoJo]

When I took Royal Mail to SCC over a lost overseas signed-for package I was awarded costs for my time. I had to take a couple of hours off work and since I sell stuff on I make in my spare time I got costs for that too. Add on travel expenses, letters, stamps, phone calls, the cost of sending the item in the first place, interest and the cost of the SCC claim and it ended up costing RM about £100 more than it would have just to settle.

Grrr....mind trick

[whovian]

This wasn't the Lucas I was looking for.

Lets hope that this is the start...

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally a politician who acts like they have a pair, working in government to actually bring the issues faced by the Great British public to light.
The British people need more men like Lord Lucas representing them in politics. Hats off to him. Lets just hope his voice has not fallen on deaf ears...

Re:Lets hope that this is the start...

[Tim C]

He's a lord, not an MP.

I wonder if people here will now realise why a lot of us in the UK value the fact that there is a second, non-elected House that can act as a brake on the excesses of the elected one?

Re:Lets hope that this is the start...

[tomtomtom]

Finally a politician who acts like they have a pair, working in government to actually bring the issues faced by the Great British public to light.

Lord Lucas is a Conservative hereditary peer, and a "backbencher" at that - so he is not working in government at all at present and neither is he likely to be even after the election. In many respects this is a shame, because he's one of the few people who have been pointing out some of the other heinous flaws in the Digital Economy Bill (i.e. the parts apart from the copyright regime - the powers it gives the government to take over the UK Domain Name Registry for one).

Actually on the whole the politicians who act most independently tend to be the remaining hereditary peers because they owe their position and therefore "allegiance" to rather fewer people than almost anyone else in government (they are technically elected to sit in the house from amongst all hereditary peers by the existing members of the House of Lords but the pool of candidates is small and once elected they are there until death or, more likely, further reform of the House of Lords occurs).

Re:Lets hope that this is the start...

[AuMatar]

Anyone in the US should realize that, its the same job the Supreme Court is supposed to fill (and sometime even does). The problem is it can go the other way- an unelected group can put the breaks on needed legislation and good change. For a US example, see the Dred Scott decision. The trick is finding a way to assign people to that group that honestly have the best for the nation and the people in mind- not an easy task. Any system you build will eventually fail it.

Re:Lets hope that this is the start...

[timmarhy]

here's a clue why the US systems fails - it's filled with god damn lawyers!

Re:Lets hope that this is the start...

[MichaelSmith]

If they do then you are lucky but you won't be lucky all the time. Consider the behaviour of Old Rednose. All things considered I would prefer to do without arbitrary powers being granted to individuals and fall back on real democracy.

Re:Lets hope that this is the start...

[boaworm]

The supreme court is hand-picked by politicians in power and appointed for life, aren't they? Smells a bit like "i scratch your back and you'll scratch mine".

Re:Lets hope that this is the start...

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Promise to scratch some back.
2. Get appointed for life
3. Say "fuck you, I'm appointed for life, I have no reason to scratch your back!"
4. Profit!

Re:Lets hope that this is the start...

[julesh]

Anyone in the US should realize that, its the same job the Supreme Court is supposed to fill (and sometime even does).

The problem with that is that SCOTUS is strictly limited in what it can and cannot overrule, on the basis that they can only declare a law invalid if they can find some constitutional reason for it.

In the UK, the House of Lords is quite able to prevent an otherwise acceptable law reaching statute simply on the grounds that it would be a bad idea. This is forever beyond the power of SCOTUS, constitutional amendments excepted.

Re:Lets hope that this is the start...

[Cederic]

Curious, I thought the US had two houses so that one can act as the brake on the other.

This is why the UK have two houses. We also have a Supreme Court.

SCOTUS can strike down a bad law; the House of Lords' can prevent one being passed in the first place.

Re:Lets hope that this is the start...

[Cederic]

Incidentally, I'd like to apologise for the unnecessary and inaccurate apostrophe.

Hear, hear, M'lud!

[sconeu]

n/t

Outbreak of common sense!

[cbope]

What an amazing outbreak of common sense! It's about time at least some of the politicians start to acknowledge that the underhanded, shady, illegal and extremely prejudiced methods used by the media companies are a huge problem. If only the politicians in the US would get this, but somehow I doubt they will. They are too deep in the pockets of the media companies at this point to ever recover.

Re:Outbreak of common sense!

[JoshDD]

He might just be blackmailing the record companies in his own way. (Pay me and I'll shut up.)

Now, who wants to bet his words will be twisted?

[Anonymous Coward]

by the lawmakers, and in turn, will require all home networking equipment to have logging and backdoors for the UK police and the music industry hit squads to monitor your activities within your own home?

That's how I see this unfolding, someone will take into consideration what he said, and pass an archaic law like that, oh and at the cost of the citizenry too. Not complying will also result in being shipped to a prison camp.

After all, our holy masters of the music industry must be satisfied.

It is spreading....

[Asadullah Ahmad]

The sanity is finally spreading, which started from Australia. A few more of similar statements from Government officials, or even some cases appearing in media where customers were blackmailed like this, and users might not be bullied any more just because they use Internet.

Re:It is spreading....

[delinear]

Unfortunately he's more likely to be the King Canute in this instance, the solitary voice trying to hold back the tide of government jumping on big media's bandwagon. The best we can hope for is that it reaches the ears of enough of the populace that it becomes a differentiating factor between the two big parties at election time, at least then we'll have a choice. Unfortunately the populace are largely too busy watching I'm a Celebrity Fat Pet on Ice to bother about the erosion of their rights. Bread and circuses indeed.

Good things about Royalty...!?

[viraltus]

Well, since Lord and people like that are not chosen they can speak up without fear of being demoted or losing their royalty status, the average politician would fill its pockets and look somewhere else.

Re:Good things about Royalty...!?

[arethuza]

I don't think there is such a status as "Royal" in the UK system - either you are a Commoner, a Peer or the Sovereign.

Lord Lucas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, I liked Star Wars too, but come on guys :p

slammed.

[Anonymous Coward]

"the law recognises no positive obligation on any person to protect the copyright of another." - Justice Cowdrey, Federal Court of Australia, 4 Feb 2010.

Re:slammed.

[JoshDD]

Well they (the upside down people) always did have it backwards from the way the real world works.

Such optimism

[mustafap]

>Hopefully, at the very least, the fact that parliament has realised this fact will mean that copyright laws will get a little more sane."

Sadly, history indicates it wont work like that. Instead, companies will strive to lock down personal computers so we end up with limited operational rights. It will probably become illegal to own an ogg player.

DON'T PAY THE FINE IF YOU DIDN'T DO THE CRIME !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't do it !!

Lord British

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why, but for a moment, I believed Richard Garriot's first name to be Lucas (probably because of Lucas Arts).
This confused teh siht out of me for a moment, but made perfect sense on the other hand.
Besides, why is this captcha here always so "to the point" about what I write and sums that up in one word ("matcher").

Re:Lord British

[AmonTheMetalhead]

Slashcode is what will lead to Skynet, once all the bugs are fixed, wich luckally for us, will take a long, LONG time

NO !

[aepervius]

Hopefully, at the very least, the fact that parliament has realised this fact will mean that copyright laws will get a little more sane."

No it will mean even residential user will be forcwed to log everything in their system, and if they do not they will be found breaking the "private logging law" (soon to come). Seeing the power trip the UK is on, you have to be +5 insane or +5 funny to think otherwise.

Re:NO !

[jimicus]

No it will mean even residential user will be forcwed to log everything in their system, and if they do not they will be found breaking the "private logging law" (soon to come). Seeing the power trip the UK is on, you have to be +5 insane or +5 funny to think otherwise.

My fear is you may be correct. I can easily see a future where cable modems and firewalls are forced to ship with extensive logging which cannot be tampered with by the end user (probably logging to a syslog server at the ISP).

I just hope Labour don't win the upcoming election. Not that I think the Tories are much better right now, but with any luck they'll find they have bigger things to worry about.

Read up a bit more on the system

[SmallFurryCreature]

Lords like Lucas are very difficult to pressure or to get them to shut up. As a whole, the lords are a bit of a nuisance because they tend to get in everybodies way. If you are on the left, they go against a ban on fox hunting and if you are on the right they keep insisting on this bloody liberty thing. That is where they get this bad rep from, because politicians don't like to be questioned. As citizens, we shouldn't take politicians word for it that the lords are all bad.

Re:Read up a bit more on the system

[Spad]

And it's why the government have been trying to get rid of unelected members of the House of Lords for most of the past 10 years; something that I suspect the next government will continue to do.

Re:Read up a bit more on the system

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also why at times the Lords can do a very good job.

They go wrong at times. Some of us question the Lords Spiritual because we do not agree with their position as a special interest group with clout. On a whole the House of Lords can be that extra check for a government. Reading the transcripts of their debates on various topics they seem to have time to discuss things properly and do so without the party political point scoring we see in the lower house. There are some ideas that the lower house come up with for which we are glad that there is someone to get in the way and block it.

Re:Read up a bit more on the system

[williamhb]

And it's why the government have been trying to get rid of unelected members of the House of Lords for most of the past 10 years; something that I suspect the next government will continue to do.

Not quite correct. They have done a great deal to get rid of the hereditary peers, but most of the members of the House of Lords are appointed by the Government and Opposition themselves -- but still not elected. Some government MPs have proposed electing some of the Lords, but it has never looked likely to succeed.

Actually, even in the House of Commons (parliament) there is less appetite than you would think for an elected House of Lords -- if the Lords were also elected, then the justification for the Parliament Act would disappear, weakening the House of Commons. (The Parliament Act allows the House of Commons to force a bill into law against the will of the House of Lords, if it has passed a vote three times in the Commons.) The, Commons being the elected house, is considered more important/powerful than the Lords; if both houses were elected, the Lords would effectively turn into a senate and would be expected to be able to block the Commons.

Re:Read up a bit more on the system

[Anonymous Coward]

Er! "trying to get rid of unelected members of the House of Lords for most of the past 10 years;" Try since the 1906 budget...

Lord Lucas

[Hognoxious]

Didn't he disappear at the same time as a nanny was mysteriously murdered?

Re:Lord Lucas

[MichaelSmith]

Thats not the lord you are looking for.

Re:Lord Lucas

[VJ42]

That was Lord Lucan, not Lord Lucas

Re:Lord Lucas

[Anonymous Coward]

Lord(s) have mercy, explaining a joke is informative????

Re:Lord Lucas

[Ja'Achan]

Well, explaining a joke is hardly ever funny, it wasn't very insightful, it didn't provide anything new so it wasn't interesting. Leaves troll, but they were trying to be helpful, or redundant or informative. Since I didn't know about any Lord Lucan, it (arguably) was informative, and so thus not a troll.

>.>

He has been saying this for longer

[SmallFurryCreature]

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/87352/uks-lord-lucas-compares-p2p-to-sharing-a-newspaper/

If he is who I think he is, he is also a real lord, not a made one. Means he is rich, or at least of that kind of well to do family that scoffs at the typical goverment bribes as being WAAAAAAY to low.

Re:He has been saying this for longer

[Xest]

The Digital Economy bill has been in the lords of the last few weeks for debate. It's been grossly under-reported even on IT news sites, but to anyone that's been keeping an eye, Lucas has been quite the hero. He's been one of the the main people consistently questioning the logic of the bill's three strikes provision and so forth.

He's a smart guy, he seems to understand how the bill's plans run completely counter to hundreds of years worth of citizens hard earned legal and fundamental rights.

Re:He has been saying this for longer

[Anonymous Coward]

Real Lords are rich? You watch too much tv. Some are, some aren't. Many have their wealth tied to protected estates that swallow money. There's a reason it's possible to buy a title.

Re:He has been saying this for longer

[silentcoder]

And you can bet your left testicle that Rupert Murdoch would try to make sharing a newspaper illegal if he thought he could get away with it. After-all - you may have just cost him a dollar-fifty.

Re:He has been saying this for longer

[vivaelamor]

I just think it's scary that this guy is our hero. If you read the full debates then even those against the bill tend to be of the 'copying is bad!!!' sentiment.

Let the lawmakers have their fun

[bzipitidoo]

Seems the way to beat this copyright cabal is to keep on sharing, keep on using the Internet. Playing their game, trying to outlobby them, looks like a losing proposition. They can lobby for all the laws they like, but they can't rescind the facts of nature, which is that copying is inherent in the universe. This Copyright Inquisition will fizzle out eventually, the likes of Jack Valenti will go down in infamy next to Torquemada, and centuries from now this hatred, fear, and attempted suppression of copying and extreme punishment of alleged copiers will seem as counterproductive, senseless, and inexplicable as the torture of random people does now. Though I would like to see it happen rather sooner than the length of the typical copyright term.

The lawmakers for their part may choose how they want to look. Do they want to look corrupt, clueless, and irrelevant by taking the money and enacting the industry's idiotic proposals that make about as much sense as enacting a law that pi must equal 3.0? Or look good and far-seeing by not taking the money, and serving the people? Nice that this Lord Lucas is apparently opting for high road. I wish him luck.

Re:Let the lawmakers have their fun

[Kijori]

Seems the way to beat this copyright cabal is to keep on sharing

Unfortunately this is the sort of quotation that plays right into their hands.

It's been a very easy ride for the copyright holders so far - opposition to their plans has come either from ISPs (who are motivated by saving money) or file-sharing advocates; this means it's been very easy for them to dismiss the opposition as greedy, self-interested pirates. The point I'm trying to get across is that it's possible to support copyright and copyright enforcement without supporting these ridiculous measures and without giving complete power to record companies.

Copyright itself is not a bad thing. Nor is copyright enforcement - disregarding the exacting definitions that are popular on Slashdot, file sharing is, in one important way, very like stealing - you get something you want without having to pay for it. What is wrong is the idea that people should be punished based only on the accusations of the copyright holders. The fact that it is nearly impossible to get anywhere through the courts isn't representative of file-sharers being cunning and impossible to find, it's representative of the fact that it is difficult to establish, on balance of probabilities, that they have actually infringed on your copyright. Changing the law to allow those people to be punished doesn't get round the fundamental unfairness of punishing people you can't prove have done anything wrong.

Re:Let the lawmakers have their fun

[Anonymous Coward]

The similarity there is that any governing body (i.e. industry) can persecute another group to side-step their own shortcomings.

And if one looks around then you will, hopefully and very obviously, notice that the surpression and exploitation of minorities, or any other groups another might find threatening, is a LONG LONG way from being eliminated or being found unacceptable by those commiting it, which is the whole problem ovbiously, which leads to suggest that we are far from seeing an end to this issue.

The music industry missed the opportunity to embrace the new technologies because a minority of leaders wanted to protect their own interests. Now they are paying the price for that and are desperately trying, often to their own detriment, to put the blame on whoever else they can find. 12 year old girls will suffice too for that matter.

Re:Let the lawmakers have their fun

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright itself is not a bad thing.

I think everybody should agree it is a bad thing. Someone might think of it as the lesser evil (I don't) but it has many obvious downsides.

file sharing is, in one important way, very like stealing - you get something you want without having to pay for it.

No, copyright infringement is illegal, that's all. I don't pay for many things: air, sunlight, good company, jogging outdoors, learning new things. Nevertheless, I don't consider myself a thief, and gladly, the law so far is on my side.

Your approach to the topic is way off base. It's fundamentally looking at life as a game of mutual exploitation instead of an opportunity to maximize the common good.

Wrong assumption

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hopefully, at the very least, the fact that parliament has realised this fact will mean that copyright laws will get a little more sane"

This is of course based on the assumption that political processes are rational. Which they are clearly not.

Mandelson

[selven]

Well, at least this makes up for Lord Mandelson.

Re:Mandelson

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing makes up for Mandelson.

Re:Mandelson

[Ma8thew]

No he doesn't. Madelson seems to have a greater influence on the government than Gordon Brown, whereas Lucas has almost none.

Re:Mandelson

[arethuza]

And if someone had made him up nobody would have believed it.

Its prob more like

[dredwerker]

Lord Lucan:) Dyslexia rules KO Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan (born 18 December 1934[1]), known as Lord Bingham before 1964, sometimes colloquially called "Lucky" Lucan, disappeared in the early hours of 8 November 1974, following the murder of Sandra Rivett, his children's nanny, the previous evening. There has been no verified sighting of him since then. On 19 June 1975, an inquest jury named Lucan as the murderer of Sandra Rivett, the last time that an inquest was allowed to name the person they suspected of committing such a crime.[2] He was presumed deceased in chambers on 11 December 1992[3] and declared legally dead in October 1999.[4

mistaken analysis

[Doviende]

The poster here is making a big mistake about government. He is assuming that politicians are dumb and uninformed, and have made these bad decisions through ignorance. This assumption leads to the idea that "if only they knew", then they'd choose to make good, smart decisions that benefit the rest of us. If this were the case, all we'd need to do is educate them and things would get better.

In fact, what we have is a group of wealthy smart businessmen whose financial interests conflict with ours. They have made a series of decisions that benefit themselves and their wealthy friends (who will scratch their backs later when they retire from politics and need a cushy position on someone's corporate board). They are not stupid, and quite often not so misinformed as we would like to think.

Typically what is happening in one of these situations where some certain politician has one of these "epiphanies" is that he just wants to change his position on something because he has decided that it will benefit him. He makes out like he's been misinformed and has discovered the light. By implying that the opposing side is an unjust position, he's making a persuasive argument for people to support his position.

Re:mistaken analysis

[Marcika]

Typically what is happening in one of these situations where some certain politician has one of these "epiphanies" is that he just wants to change his position on something because he has decided that it will benefit him. He makes out like he's been misinformed and has discovered the light. By implying that the opposing side is an unjust position, he's making a persuasive argument for people to support his position.

You know what's the mistake with your argument? Ralph Lucas is not an electioneering politician and does not need to be. He is a hereditary peer for life.

Thank goodness for parliamentary privilege

[dugeen]

..and good to see a lord making himself useful.

Hopefully?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hopefully, at the very least, the fact that parliament has realised this fact will mean that copyright laws will get a little more sane."

Sadly, it's probably just a public notice to the recording industry that political figure rates have gone up with inflation. Until we SEE sane laws made, it's pointless to get your hopes up.

that's not what I want

[Anonymous Cowpat]

Hopefully, at the very least, the fact that parliament has realised this fact will mean that copyright laws will get a little more sane.

I don't want to see more laws, I want to see some prosecutions! Common-law blackmail is still illegal, and still carries life imprisonment & an unlimited fine, and doesn't require the thing threatened to be illegal.

Re:that's not what I want

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly enough, that is exactly why car clamping is illegal in Scotland while still a thriving business in the rest of the UK.

In Scotland it is correctly recognised as a form of extortion.

Re:that's not what I want

[Anonymous Cowpat]

actually, it's because in scotland the law against theft\robbery doesn't include the word 'permanently', so if I refuse to pay up and you remove my car until I do, you've stolen my car and you're going to jail. I think the courts also see preventing me using my car by attaching clamp to it to fall under the theft law as well.

As for south of the border, there are occasional prosecutions of wheel clampers for common-law blackmail as well, but because it's such a pain to mount such a case they usually only go after the ones who do stupid things like trying to clamp moving vehicles. I suspect that it's because of a perception amongst a large number of law-enforcement professionals that wheel clampers are somehow their colleagues, and so they give they largely leave them alone so long as they act 'by the book' (where the clampers have written the book).
Interestingly a friend of a friend was clamped on what turned out to be a public road, the clamping company claimed that they had old maps (yeah, right), and apart from having his money refunded, no action was taken, despite the enormous raft of offences which must have been committed (not least of which is under section 25 of the Road Trafic Act 1988, Tampering with a vehicle; as well as blackmail and other fun common-law stuff).

The best immediate defence that I can come up with is to always carry some thin chain and a couple of padlocks with you, and if you find your car clamped, chain your tow hook to some immoveable piece of street furniture, this will stop it being removed and leave you no more than the release fee down if you can't force them to remove the clamp through the courts (as opposed to release fee + towing fee + astronomical daily storage costs which keep ticking up even while a court case is ongoing).

Wrong. Sorry, but just wrong.

[Fantastic Lad]

You know what's the mistake with your argument? Ralph Lucas is not an electioneering politician and does not need to be. He is a hereditary peer for life.

Peers like dirty cash as well as any psychopath in power.

If a politician speaks, it's because s/he's telling a lie. There are no True Idealists in power because they all die in small airplane crashes and/or are not admitted into the power circles because they refuse to diddle child sex slaves at parties. I'm not joking even a little bit. Nobody in power circles will trust or work with you unless you share dirty secrets on each other. I've had friends whose parents were high level political figures and the inside scoop is enough to make you want to vomit and/or kill somebody. -Or most likely, get killed. These people are evil. Period.

-FL

The arguments for lords are ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

If the parliamentary process cannot stay uncorrupted due to business interests, campaign donations or lack of balls the solution is _not_ to have unelected members of parliament.

The solution is to make sure the distorting influences are removed.

seriously

[circletimessquare]

when i heard "Lord Lucas" i thought "good gosh, george has done gone from genius in the '70s, to feeble hack in the 2000s, and now into outright dementia, confusing reality with his fantasy world, imagining himself senator palpatine himself, walking around in his bathrobe and hissing at ILM underlings and trying to vivisection visiting cartoon network executives with a torchiere lamp from the reception area"

Other Lords

[nanoakron]

I've been following the upper house debates on the Parliament channel for a couple of weeks now.

The Labour lords are really taking a battering on this bill (The Digital Economy Bill) from all sides - Independent, Lib Dem and Conservative.

There are a couple of points that they (Labour) really can't seem to explain:

- Is the 'subscriber' at fault when infringement occurs, or is it the actual infringer who will be served notice?
- How do you correctly identify the guilty party (infringer), when you have only the subscriber's details?
- Why is there no provision in the Bill to force those claiming infringement to prove that they hold the copyright in the first place?
- Like the point in this article - how does an accused party prove their innocence, and why do they have to?

Two of the other Lords in vocal opposition to this bill include the Earl of Erroll and Lord Whitty (the others I forget).

Watching the Lords is quite slow and painstaking, but they have far more freedom to speak their minds and ignore the party line when it comes to scrutinising legislation.

I guess I should read more than the title....

[Mechagodzilla]

Was I the only one who thought the story was about George Lucas before reading the article?

Don't be...

[Sfing_ter]

Don't be holding your Limey breath waiting for that to happen. Me thinks the MOP is just as corrupt as the US House and Senate.

Watching CSPAN is getting to be like watching a G-rated version of Rome....

Ob. Robot Chicken Star Wars

[DarthVain]

I've altered the deal. Pray I don't alter it more.

Re:Wrong. Sorry, but just wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

If a politician speaks, it's because s/he's telling a lie.

Oh. So... as per this article and what this POLITICIAN is saying, I guess what record companies are doing is NOT blackmail, and is in fact quite all right and we should wish them the best of luck with their endeavors and hope they come to arbitrarily rape our lives and finances next in their never-ending fearmongering quest! Thanks for helping me see the light, Fantastic Lad! We need more insightful comments like yours in Slashdot!

Stupid git.

Re:Ever hear of Identity Theft dumbass...

[jdgeorge]

An encription algorythm is also a number and you can steal that as well all information stored electronically is a number. But pirate's will come up with any excuse.

I suppose the point here is that it is, in fact, hard to understand the huge difference between "theft" and "accessing information illegally" or "using illegally obtained information to commit crimes."

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Lucas

[MistrX]

Lord Lucas != George Lucas contrary to popular belief (pre Indy4).

Re:Ever hear of Identity Theft dumbass...

[Tim C]

Yeah, I've heard of identity theft; always sounded like fraud to me though.

Re:Wrong. Sorry, but just wrong.

[Fantastic Lad]

details or gtfo

Oh yeah, THAT's really going to happen. I'll be gtfo-ing, thank-you very much. Just be lucky you get any hints and whispers at all. Make the effort to do your own research and make your own contacts. The world gives up her secrets to those who put in the work. Otherwise, nobody owes you a thing, (especially when you know how to ask so nicely.)

That being said, Good Luck out there! We all need it.

-FL

Re:Wrong. Sorry, but just wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hot damn! With that, you just shot from "standard I-hate-politicians guy regurgitating unsubstantiated lines from talk radio and bad comedians" to "crazy paranoid conspiracy theorist who doesn't want YOU to know what he's thinking, oh no, because YOU might be one of THEM, I have all the knowledge and if you'd open your eyes you'd see ALL the truths, and I'M not going to connect the dots because they're SO SIMPLE THAT ANYONE CAN SEE THEM WHY CAN'T THEY SEE THEM they must've gotten to you first blah blah blah"!

Way to take up the responsibility of proving your point, buddy! Just force others to do it for you, or dismiss them entirely! But that's okay, because you're obviously so right and we're all lazy and stupid for not doing your part of the argument for you!

I agree with this article

[Anonymous Coward]

I got a I warning letter for downlading a movie and some sort of 'DVD ripper' neither of which I ever downloaded. My network security is insane (in a good way) so I'm sure no one used my network to download it. So what did they just pick my IP at random, out of a hat or something?

I'm worried that next I'm going to get sued for something I didn't do. I simply don't have the money to pay off any record company so the end result will probably be jail time, and as the article says, I have no freaking way to defend myself.

Re:Ever hear of Identity Theft dumbass...

[Golddess]

I see you've been drinking the kool-aid being dished out by the banking and credit card industries. That is actually fraud, not theft. They're only trying to call it theft in order to shift blame off of themselves for their involvement in letting someone pretend to be you.

Cue Record Industry Executive

[Opportunist]

"What? Who blundered, why didn't that guy get his monthly kickback?"

Re:Wrong. Sorry, but just wrong.

[FoolishOwl]

I wonder about this sort of thing. Once in a while, documentation comes out, and it's hard to believe. As a moderate example, there's the Skull and Bones secret society at Yale, which has an astonishing number of major US politicians as members. That's public knowledge now, though it still sounds like a bizarre conspiracy theory.

Less dramatic still, but I still found it instructive: I was peripherally involved in a campaign for city council. The candidate I volunteered for was very smart, and had outspoken views on a lot of issues and some really good ideas for improving the city's financial crisis -- the sort of views and ideas that almost never get a hearing in conventional politics. By the end of the campaign, the candidate had repressed or recanted everything in an effort to appease the local newspaper and the major-party candidate for mayor, lost the election, and concluded that it hadn't been worth the effort. Part of what was sick about the situation was that the candidate for mayor needed the support of one more member of city council in order to accomplish anything, but decided that he'd rather be completely powerless as mayor rather than support a third-party candidate.

Re:Wrong. Sorry, but just wrong.

[Fantastic Lad]

Hot damn! With that, you just shot from "standard I-hate-politicians guy regurgitating unsubstantiated lines from talk radio and bad comedians" to "crazy paranoid conspiracy theorist who doesn't want YOU to know what he's thinking, oh no, because YOU might be one of THEM, I have all the knowledge and if you'd open your eyes you'd see ALL the truths, and I'M not going to connect the dots because they're SO SIMPLE THAT ANYONE CAN SEE THEM WHY CAN'T THEY SEE THEM they must've gotten to you first blah blah blah"!

Yes, that's me. You called it exactly. Bye now.

-FL

Re:Wrong. Sorry, but just wrong.

[Fantastic Lad]

Oh. So... as per this article and what this POLITICIAN is saying, I guess what record companies are doing is NOT blackmail, and is in fact quite all right and we should wish them the best of luck with their endeavors and hope they come to arbitrarily rape our lives and finances next in their never-ending fearmongering quest! Thanks for helping me see the light, Fantastic Lad! We need more insightful comments like yours in Slashdot!

What on Earth are you going on about? How does anything I said have anything to do with record companies? The allegation was that politicians are in bed with the copyright thugs, and that what had most likely happened in this case is that the Lord in question has decided he wasn't being paid well enough for his compliance. I'm sorry if you find corruption upsetting, I do as well, but I'm not the one being corrupt.

Or are you so enamored with "Hope" that any not-stupid & evil thing a politician says you'll cling to like a drowning man? Did Obama's line of bullshit have you all excited and weepy? Sorry, but politicians LIE exactly because people are willing to believe them and not hold them accountable.

Don't shoot the messenger.

-FL