Slashdot Mirror
Digital Act Could Spur Creation of Pirate ISPs In UK
scurtis writes "British anti-copyright group, Pirate Party UK, has predicted that Pirate ISPs will spring up across the country — promoting online privacy and allowing users to share files anonymously — in response to draconian file-sharing proposals outlined in the Digital Economy Act. The news follows reports that the Pirate Party in Sweden (PiratPartiet) will launch the world's first 'Pirate ISP.' The move is designed to curb the use of online surveillance in the country, and combat what PiratPartiet describes as the 'big brother society.'"
Next you'll be telling me draconian drugs laws could create multi-billion-dollar black-market economies that could turn streets into war zones, corrupt law enforcement, and actually bring down elected governments.
Go sell crazy somewhere else.
Even in the event that the "less than 400K subscribers" loophole doesn't manage to give people enough freedom, there's always the various darknets. And if the freedom is for copyright infringement, actual physical "sharing parties".
Really, if you don't have enough freedom to break the law, you probably don't have enough freedom. (And before the comprehension-disabled jump on me for encouraging crime, I did not imply that people should break the law --- just that they should have enough personal freedom that they could.)
I wish the people behind these anti-big-brother movements would stop calling themselves pirates. There are LOTS of good reasons to support file-sharing and a free-as-in-speech Internet, and to oppose abusive government intrusion and the commercialization of the Internet. Those who fight for this cause under the "pirate" banner are not only doing a disservice to their own cause, but to the rest of us who want a free Internet for reasons other than downloading the latest crappy summer blockbuster movie via BitTorrent.
At the very least, the word "pirate" should be avoided because that is the MAFIAA's loaded word of choice for painting file sharers as dangerous criminals. Why let your enemy frame the argument in his own terms? It's akin to the way the neocons in the U.S. frame the war debate as a question of whether or not you support the troops.
If having any privacy is outlawed, only criminals will have privacy.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
The "Pirate" movement has distanced itself from the "I want free stuff" mentality. Their platform involves freedom, privacy and individual rights, and many "pirates" that have actually thought about the issues do support their artists. The Pirate movement is using the word "pirate" specifically in an attempt to reclaim the word, which is currently used as a propaganda term by the copyright lobby in an attempt to link downloading to stealing ships, and associate it with freedom, privacy and all that other good stuff. It's all a war of words.
And the world I want is somewhere in between.
Where you have the reasonable expectation of privacy, but given sufficient evidence, the authorities can get a warrant.
You know, the kind of place that America was supposed to be?
Unfortunately this concept is rapidly loosing ground to the Police Statist agenda.
You can not fight an extremist with reasonable moderation.
If you do, any compromise will result in loosing ground.
You need an opposing extremist.
That way, a compromise may hopefully exist somewhere within the reasonable area between the two.