Slashdot Mirror
DMCA Amendment Proposed For UK
Grumbleduke writes "During today's debate in the UK's House of Lords on the much-criticized Digital Economy Bill, the unpopular Clause 17 (which would have allowed the government to alter copyright law much more easily than it currently can) was voted out in favor of a DMCA-style take-down system for websites and ISPs. The new amendment known as 120A sets up a system whereby a copyright owner could force an ISP to block certain websites who allegedly host or link to infringing material or face being taken before the High Court and made to pay the copyright owner's legal fees. This amendment was tabled by the Liberal Democrat party, which had so far been seen as the defenders of the internet and with the Conservative party supporting them. The UK's Pirate Party and Open Rights Group have both strongly criticized this new amendment."
Worse, it's in the ACTA treaty:
Their goal is to conclude the ACTA agreement by the end of 2010. Countries involved are Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States (US) - and others will be pressured to join afterward.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
Sigh, it's another kind of super injunction and of course there's a catch all, meaning it can be used not just against copyright infringment but "any issues of national security" or "any other matters which appear to the Court to be relevant". So Mr. Billy Footballer could seek an injunction to block a website because it has a photo of him snorting coke on it, probably.
From TFL:
97B Preventing access to specified online locations for the prevention of online copyright infringement
(1) The High Court (in Scotland, the Court of Session) shall have power to grant an injunction against a service provider, requiring it to prevent access to online locations specified in the order of the Court for the prevention of online copyright infringement.
(2) In determining whether to grant an injunction under subsection (1), the Court shall have regard to the following matters—
(a) whether a substantial proportion of the content accessible at or via each specified online location infringes copyright,
(b) the extent to which the operator of each specified online location has taken reasonable steps to prevent copyright infringement content being accessed at or via that online location or taken reasonable steps to remove copyright infringing content from that online location (or both),
(c) whether the service provider has itself taken reasonable steps to prevent access to the specified online location,
(d) any issues of national security raised by the Secretary of State.
(e) the extent to which the copyright owner has made reasonable efforts to facilitate legal access to content,
(f) the importance of preserving human rights, including freedom of expression, and the right to property, and
(g) any other matters which appear to the Court to be relevant.
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
What do you mean since 1998? I'm pretty sure music producers have been in limbo of lost revenue since the invention of the home recording devices like the compact cassette. And the music performers have been in severe limbo of lost revenue since the invention of the phonograph.
But as Lawrence Lessig already pointed out, this hasn't killed culture or entertainment, but resulted in new forms of entertainment (and income through other means).
Bollocks. Make better, less formulated music, don't compress the hell out of it, and sell it online so people can use it in their iPods and in-dash MP3 players. As for doing nothing, that's what you want to do, right? Not change? Your old business model doesn't work any more, so man up and deal with it. Improve your marketing and online distribution, stream it from your site for a taste, and sell CDs and whatnot online. Christ, you bitch about lost sales but you don't even have a link to your website in your profile!
You'd rather fuck the entire online communication revolution because you can't compete? No. We (the entire technically literate world under 40) won't let that happen.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
I had been contemplating voting Liberal Democrat as they seemed to have at least one MP who actually has a clue (Vince Cable) - which is one more than the other parties can muster. I'll go and read up on this and if they did table this then that's my vote going somewhere else... of to check the Pirate Party site to see if they are going to have a candidate here at the next general election.
The problem with these laws are that they pretty much cover anything and can easily be misused and breaking an injunction costs $$$ which means these laws favor corporations not consumers. A government is supposed to protect it's citizens and not play into the hands of large corporations.
A better solution would be for the record industry to realize CD is DEAD!!! Try to embrace the internet not fight against it, adapt or die a simple darwinian principle.
If you need a law like this make sure it's specific and that it target's real problems. The current problem with Piracy is born of record companies inadequacy to adapt and offer an alternative. Apple store is one of the few that exists and even there the record companies don't really like it.
I agree piracy is bad, but also it's like civil disobedience it points out there is a problem. There are lots of examples of civil disobedience that have inspired good change instead of more fear mongering and draconian rules.
ACTA Jr has been introduced to Parliament in New Zealand a week ago. It includes 3 strikes, and responsibility for the ISP to keep IP address records.
We've had a few talks about it at work, and the general consensus is that it's a joke, with so many ways to render the IP addresses "evidence" questionable... and subjective application of the disconnection criteria and fines... but it's one we have to stop. You don't lose your phone if you break a law with it, and you shouldn't lose your internet connection (email, facebook, skype, etc) for the same.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
The supposingly "defenders of the Internet" turn out to be the one who table the bill.
Who else can you trust?
Internet is indeed the whipping boy of the political scums !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I'm disapointed with the Lib Dems (which are the 3rd largest party in the UK) but not overly surprised: they have pretty much adopted the style, dialetics and posture of the two major parties.
This probably goes a long way to explain why, at a time when people are very disapointed with politicians in the UK (and one would expect that the two main parties, being more visible, would bear the brunt of it), the Lib Dems are not increasing their share of the vote.
The sleazy salesmen in designer suits have taken over the party and the result is that people, instead of going for them as an alternative, are just not voting at all or voting for more fringe parties, especially younger people.
Honestly, even though they are a bit of a "one issue" party, the UK Pirate Party are more in tune with what matters for the Internet generation than any of the "traditional" parties. If I could vote for the UK Parliament (i'm not a UK or Commonwealth national, so I can't vote in those elections) they would have my vote.
How is anyone going to take you seriously with a name like that?
page 27 requires that "the online service providers act expeditiously, in accordance with applicable law, to remove or disable access to infringing material or infringing activity upon obtaining actual knowledge of the infringement" - i.e. upon receiving a cease-and-desist letter.
Page 3 has the current working text about "n order to a party to desist from an infringement" and which the EU wants to be written as "The Parties shall also ensure that the right holders are in a position to apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe an intellectual property right."
Page 30 contains the Japanese proposal which is the current working text: 3 ter. Each Party shall enable right holders, who have given effective notification to an online service provider of materials that they claim with valid reasons to be infringing their copyright or related rights, to expeditiously obtain from that provider information on the identity of the relevant subscriber.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
Hey! I resent that! I won't let that happen too!
A technically literate over 40.
Bullshit.
Take this from someone who sees 100+ concerts a year & buys alot of CD's:
Piracy is NOT the problem, quality is.
About 99% of current music simply sucks monkey balls, they would have to pay m to even listen to me
Ripping off customers: Why do cd's feature different numbers of tracks for different countries?!
Artificial scarcity: Some cd's don't see a release in this or that country for no logical reason, or are unavailable for sale because, well, they stopped making them
No means of listening to the whole cd before actually buying the bloody thing
That said, i'm a big last.fm user, and i still buy a lot of cd's at concerts directly of the bands (whom tend to be smaller bands mostly), but sampling a cd before buying it requires piracy.
Bollocks. Make better, less formulated music, don't compress the hell out of it, and sell it online so people can use it in their iPods and in-dash MP3 players.
Wrong. This is exactly what the majority of consumers want. Case in point, American Idol. Lady Gaga, etc.
Sure, they spend an asston on promotion and create the hype, but people happily eat it up. No, they can't help but eat it up or feel like a loser because it's been drilled into them that they NEED to hear the next throwaway artist or risk not being hip and cast out of society.
No offense intended! Age is not a factor, and indeed I have some more senior IT colleagues who will also object strongly to this ACTA nonsense. Importantly, I expect that the 40+ group is likely to be taken more seriously by the politicians.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
The usual keywords like "crack" "moderators" "on".
Re-arrange into a well know slashdot saying.
Eventually people will start realizing that infringing is illegal and it prevents many of us (music producers) from making a living.
Why should I care whether you can make a living or not?
I might care about the continued production of content (the music itself), but you most certainly are not necessary for that to continue. You might believe you are and you might believe you are entitled to make a living doing what you've always done, but that in no way makes it so. Many industries have changed over time and left people out of work and their old roles redundant -- we didn't legislate to keep those industries in limbo and those old roles viable -- nor should we legislate to keep your industry in limbo or your role viable.
It's the, "but, but, we're so important" attitude that really bites my ass. No, you're not -- you're Artie Fufkin -- now bend over and ask us all to collectively kick your ass. C'mon, for a man -- do it.
Thought thinks itself.
For my software, I use FOSS all the time and rarely need to use proprietary software (I'm a student).
I am a HUGE movie pirate. Why? Well, for starters movies are just too damn expensive-- and the quality of movies has been steadily declining for years. I pirate to avoid annoying DRM, but most importantly: I pirate so that the few quality movies I have the pleasure to watch can get all of my money. When I see a good movie, and I know I'll want to watch it again, I buy the fucking DVD. Shitty movies don't deserve my money, and good movies deserve all of my money that I would plan to spend normally.
I would LOVE to see a theater with a membership sort of deal; I enjoy going to the theaters, but paying $10 a ticket is unreasonable. I would pay $30 a month to see 10 movies. That way, the theater would get $360 a year from me instead of the $35 they're getting now. I feel like the entire entertainment biz is giving us the finger-- they routinely produce shit, at a low cost to them, and act surprised when people stop paying for it. Instead, people begin to pirate and rarely spend their dollars on such inferior goods.
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
Hey! I resent that! I won't let that happen too!
A technically literate over 40.
Hey, I resent that too!
A numerically literate 40-year old.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
I have some news for you: Music is nice to have, but I value my freedom and the Internet more. If you're going to stand between me and that, you're the one I can do without. And if you somehow succeed in instituting draconian laws, I'll make sure that not a cent of my money goes to you, and will simply find some other way to entretain myself.
If you want me to buy your music, make quality, unrestricted music. Drop the awful compression, drop the DRM, and drop the bullshit. Offer FLAC for download with no strings attached, selling individual tracks, and I could be interested. Sell DRMed stuff, and I definitely won't be.
BTW, I'm surprised you complain yet miss such an obvious chance to advertise your work. What do you make?
Home taping is killing music!
I said I was disgusted with the proposal etc. and here is their reply; from the horses mouth no less.
Thank you for your email yesterday. Please see Lord Clement-Jones' justification for his amendment here:
"The Digital Economy Bill, as currently drafted, only deals with a certain type of copyright infringement, namely peer-to-peer file sharing. Around 35% of all online copyright infringement takes place on non peer-to-peer sites and services. Particular threats concern “cyberlockers” which are hosted abroad.
There are websites which consistently infringe copyright, many of them based outside the UK in countries such as Russia and beyond the jurisdiction of the UK courts. Many of these websites refuse to stop supplying access to illegal content.
It is a result of this situation that the Liberal Democrats have tabled an amendment in the Lords which has the support of the Conservatives that enables the High Court to grant an injunction requiring Internet Service Providers to block access to sites.
The amendment (amendment 120A) has generated some concern on the internet in the last few days.
Amendment 120A makes an explicit reference to human rights implications being taken into consideration by the Courts whilst they consider the imposition of an injunction. Such a safeguard is paramount to our concerns.
The intention is also for the injunction to only be possible for sites where there is a substantial proportion of infringing material that is either hosted by that particular site or is accessed through the particular site in question.
The injunction will only be granted where copyright owners had first requested ISP’s to block access to the site and where they had also requested the site operator to stop providing access to the infringing material (either by removing the material itself or removing the ability to access the material).
There already exists a remedy under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (section 97A) which grants copyright owners a broad power to apply to the Court for an injunction. Therefore, all amendment 120A does is enhance this power by giving copyright owners a more clearly defined route.
Site blocking is not a new phenomenon, the most well-known being the recommended list of sites to block provided by the Internet Watch Foundation
Clause 17, the Government’s completely objectionable power to enable the Secretary of State to attempt to amend copyright law at any time is deleted by the joint Lib Dem and Conservative amendment.
Unlike Clause 17, amendment 120A depoliticises the process. The amendment will ensure any action will be heard before the High Court. The liberal principle of equality before the law remains intact allowing both sides to make their case before a judge, not by appeal to the Secretary of State.
Before making an injunction, under the amendment the Court has to have regard to whether the copyright owner has made reasonable efforts to facilitate legal access. This is designed to ensure that copyright owners continue to develop innovative ways of enabling their material to be accessed online legally, such as Spotify, before turning to legal action.
To conclude, the Lib Dems are not seeking to censor the internet but are responding to genuine concerns from the creative industries about providing a process whereby their material can be satisfactorily accessed legally."
Best wishes,
Dan Murch
Liberal Democrat Policy Research Unit
Note that this is happening in the House of Lords. Of course yes, as a Lib Dem voter I am horrified by this, but it's important to work out whether this amendment actually came from official Lib Dem party policy, or was an amendment put forward by Lib Dem and Tory Lords.
From the link, all it shows is an amendment proposed by a Lib Dem Lord. A Lord can propose what they like (this is both the advantage and disadvantage on the system - they're not tied to party policy).
Please don't throw away your vote for your MP for the House of Commons, based on what someone else is doing in a completely different House! Please write to your Lib Dem MP, let them know what you think, and hope ensure that this doesn't come Lib Dem policy (and preferably, get them to distance themselves from this amendment).
(Even in the House of Commons, sometimes you can have individual MPs proposing amendments that aren't party policy. I don't care whether you decide to vote based on your individual MP, or party policy, but deciding who you vote for based on the actions of other MPs is just throwing away your vote.)
I did stop. I stopped buying any new music from RIAA members. I'll pick up the occasional RIAA-member-produced album used, but never new. Luckily, there are independent music publishing houses, and they are getting most of my money now.
If the copyright treaty passes, I'll make sure not to buy music from any organization that sponsored it.
I'm not interested in paying others to trample a free internet.
Lord Clement Jones "is paid £70,000 in respect of his services as Co-Chairman of DLA Piper's global government relations practice" according to http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldreg/reg06.htm
DLA Piper works on behalf of the MusicFIRST coalition.
The RIAA is a founding member of the MusicFIRST coalition.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
...You didn't...
Because itunes & amazon are making a loss on their music sales, right? Am I? Or are digital music sales actually increasing?
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
Yes, the reaction to this seems to be wildly missing the point AFAICS.
The old version would have allowed a government minister, acting on his/her own authority without the usual oversight/consent from Parliament, to set penalties for all kinds of things. That was how we got the danger of people being completely cut off from the Internet because someone with whom they shared a connection had been merely accused of infringement three times. And yes, the current minister is unelected, and seems to have adopted rather strong views on this subject shortly after a private meeting with a big player in the game.
Now, a takedown system is not great: it's vulnerable to malicious false claims, it's going to impose a compliance burden on ISPs, and it isn't as strong a defence of copyright holders where they have a legitimate grievance. Even so, surely that is still better than effectively unrestricted penalties imposed without either the usual legislative or judicial oversight on the basis of a mere allegation by an industry with a history of making false accusations.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Profits can be made selling merchandise and playing live.
I really wish people would stop auto-repeating this line. It might be true (or it might not) for professional musicians, but how is an author, or an artist of the drawing/painting/photographer variety, or a software developer supposed to make a living in those ways?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
This may be a disturbing observation but Big Media is pulling off a stunning achievement here.
Not content to work with the laws of various countries, they bought the cooperation of powerful legislators and created a mechanism to force adoption and compliance to a very restrictive set of laws.
These laws will work to penalize movement and use of copyrighted works but at the same time will have a chilling effect on the internet as a whole. They will probably force ISP's to block many services they will now be responsible for as well. At the same time paid access to copyrighted material becomes one of the few practical methods to access information.
Of course enforcement will only be as good as the ISP's and their detection software, but for most internet users that will prove good enough.
I very much hate seeing what Big Media is doing here but it really is a masterful plan. There are a lot bigger and richer special interests that can't hold a candle to Big Media. And shit - it seems like it will all work.