Slashdot Mirror
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."
He might just be blackmailing the record companies in his own way. (Pay me and I'll shut up.)
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.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
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.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
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.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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.
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.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me