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Victory For Irish File Sharers Dashed By Government Report

2phar writes "The Irish Government is 'to publish an order early in the new year to allow music publishers, film producers and other parties to go to court to prevent ISPs from allowing their customers access to "pirate" websites.' The government has 'written to music publisher EMI Ireland confirming the order will be published and incorporated into existing legislation in January ... EMI Ireland recently warned the Government that it would take legal action against the State if the Government did not address the problem.'" This is a response to a ruling that Eircom's current "three strikes" rules were illegal due to privacy issues.

27 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. Go green. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Ireland. You're now our bitch. Bend over and take it like the sissy you are.

    -RiAA

    1. Re:Go green. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Ireland. You're now our bitch. Bend over and take it like the sissy you are.

      -RiAA

      Ireland. You're now our bitch. Bend over and take it like the sissy you are.

      -RiAA

      Yep.

      In particular this gobsheen: http://twitter.com/seansherlocktd

      The "technology fella in de government who looks after the mp trees and de music pods" who made the decision, pushed it through, and is defending it so as to "fix" the ruling in the previous court case.

      He was spokesman for agriculture prior to getting into government and being given this new role.

    2. Re:Go green. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Dear RiAA,
                        We recognize that you prevent a world full of honest musicians from making a living by monopoly of industry. You give intangible songs value and charge for them while those not chosen as slaves by you languish, barely able to scrape a living in pubs if at all. In a working world, there is no "music industry" and all musicians promote themselves by giving away music to increase their publicity and charge for performances. By charging for what God gave us for free, you have gagged the worlds musicians ability to promote themselves on a level playing field, thus reserving profits for yourselves while not actually adding any value to the world. The RiAA can expect a visit from the IRA soon.
                  Don't eat any ticking potatoes.

                                                  Love Ireland

  2. It wasn't a victory for "File Sharers" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    "File Sharers" has a bad connotative definition, justly or not, because of the marketing against 'file sharing' being bad.
    Email, IMs, text messages, VOIP, regular phone calls, are all forms of "file sharing", depending on how you look at it. ...but back on point....
    The previous court finding was a victory common sense, good judgement, and for those in power having a basic understanding of how technology works.

    1. Re:It wasn't a victory for "File Sharers" by neokushan · · Score: 2

      "hacker" has the same connotations these days - often it comes from someone either missing the point, or attributing the negative actions from a few people to the entire demographic.

      --
      +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
  3. There's always proxies... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Looks like TOR and other proxy/tunneling services and procedures are about to get a lot more popular in the Republic of Ireland...

    1. Re:There's always proxies... by GameboyRMH · · Score: 4, Informative

      Don't use TOR for torrents, it bogs the network down while some guy is trying to leak info from China before the government goons bust the door down. Use I2P if you want to run torrents over a darknet.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  4. New corporate overlords by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > EMI Ireland recently warned the Government
    Ok, so now corporations not only sue people, they openly threaten governments of legal action, and governments chicken out and pass laws that restrict people's freedom. Can we yet declare a new feudal regime?

    1. Re:New corporate overlords by myowntrueself · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I wonder how Irish election campaigns are funded?

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
    2. Re:New corporate overlords by Pecisk · · Score: 2

      "Make suing the government/country illegal"

      Not sensible, but suicidal. Also so far I have seen no country (except North Korea and Stalin time USSR) who would not allow it's peers rise issue in highest constitutional court. Sorry, but you can't have it both ways. You can't cherry pick restrictions in normal working democracy. Sooner or later they are thrown out.

      Also you couldn't be part of any normal treaty, as they require issues to solve in different international courts. No treaty, no exports, no money from taxes. And quite possibly no credits too.

      "Counter sue the company (under it's own laws)" - again, maybe not so smart idea. What you will counter-sue for? Because they "blackmailed to sue"? Law doesn't work that way. Of course, if company have done bad things according to law - no problem, sue it out of existence.

      "Make the company illegal" - I won't even mention about international fallout and isolation what will follow.

      I would suggest better such things as (for this specific scenario):
      a) making copyright law sane again. Make it balanced (like 20 years), make it less restrictive and leave criminal charges only for very serious mass copyright infringements. EMI and friends of course will shout to the sky, as it would remove their privilege to talk about copyright law as something belonging to them (not to mention suddenly term 'IP' will sound silly). People would cheer for you. And maybe saner countries would follow and finally bring some sanity for copyright world;
      b) better inform people about copyright infringements and what that means. Not in "you are a pirate", but "artist is given 20 year privilege to this work, please, respect that. But 20 years". Problem with people ignoring copyright is these insane terms. Remove them and people will see reason why work is protected for some time;

      --
      user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
    3. Re:New corporate overlords by hitmark · · Score: 2

      Meh, i don't think the punk part of cyberpunk was ever about the music and fashion.

      I think we find a clearer meaning of it in "the street finds its one use for things". This in that kids with a lot of smarts, and not much fear of the authorities beaten into them, will take technology and use it in ways never intended by the powers that be.

      --
      comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
  5. The lesser of two evils by Thnurg · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So you're not going to be hauled over the coals through a three strikes system - WIN!
    Certain sites may be blocked - Meh.

    If you really want to get to a site you'll get to it either via tor, running your own DNS, or via a VPN. I'd take this system over a three strikes any day.

    --
    The months are just too short. I can count the number of days on one hand.
    1. Re:The lesser of two evils by funkatron · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Fuck ALL evils!

      --
      "Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
    2. Re:The lesser of two evils by Ihmhi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'd take this system over a three strikes any day.

      Why take any system at all?

  6. Sovereign immunity? by Fjandr · · Score: 2

    I guess Ireland has no concept of sovereign immunity, or is this a result of how the EU is structured?

    1. Re:Sovereign immunity? by Xest · · Score: 2

      Blame the US' puppet organisation the WTO for this sort of thing, not the EU.

    2. Re:Sovereign immunity? by Targen · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Blame the WTO's puppet organisation the US for this sort of thing, not the EU.

      Fixed that for you.

    3. Re:Sovereign immunity? by Xest · · Score: 4, Informative

      The US created the WTO to enforce US style IP laws across the globe because WIPO wasn't playing ball due to the fact it was democratic and the small African nations wanting cheap drugs to keep their people alive outvoted the US and it's strong IP law lobby.

      WTO is very much the US' puppet organisation and not vice versa. This is also why the US pushes countries to sign up to it and adhere to it's rulings, whilst simultaneously ignoring rulings against it by the WTO itself.

      I'm not sure how one could claim the WTO is in charge of the US when the whole US the WTO exists is to push US trade policy and the subvert the previously more rational, fair, and democratic nature of WIPO. They're both shit now though, in order to avoid becoming obsolete, WIPO is now adhering to the US line, which is just what the US wanted.

  7. Unethical to buy music by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think the music-industry is hostile to free speech. It is not ethical to buy their music. Use creative-commons or small, independent labels instead.

  8. Wait, what? by Robert+Zenz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    EMI Ireland recently warned the Government that it would take legal action against the State if the Government did not address the problem.

    "We'll sue you if you don't change your laws"?! On what basis? Did I just misunderstand that sentence?

    1. Re:Wait, what? by Pecisk · · Score: 2

      International agreements, like "protection of investment", also you can base your claim on constitution.

      They can sue government (aka Ireland) for this. No one says they would win. But as it seems these threats are quite enough for government.

      --
      user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
  9. Re:freedom of speech... by hawkinspeter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm glad I don't live where you live where fundamental freedoms can just be revoked on the whim of a law-maker. If someone tries to legislate my freedom away, they'd better be ready for a fight.

    Just imagine if the progress of science was bound by "intellectual property" - we'd still be in the dark ages. Human culture has always revolved around the sharing of culture, whether that means singing songs around a campfire or viral youtube videos, sharing is in our nature.

    --
    You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
  10. Re:freedom of speech... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So.... where do you live? If you answer United States i'm going to piss myself laughing so hard.

  11. Brilliant News - We need this. by bedwards · · Score: 2

    File sharing technologies have been evolved to provide the maximum amount of convenience to as many users as possible. An inconvenient system results in too few users for a file share network to be sustainable. The goal of organisations is to reduce the number of users. The goal of sharers is to increase it.

    The "Three Strikes Law" enabled organisations to state that they will catch people file-sharing and cut off their connection. We have to persuade users (most being non-technical) that the technology we produce to evade detection (encryption etc) keeps them safe. This is difficult when they are also being told it does not work by our opponent organisations.

    This regulation against ISPs creates a technical problem without recrimination for solving it. It essentially results in an inability to trust the security and reliability of the network technologies at the lower end of the OSI model (controlled by the ISPs). This results in more inconvenience for the end user but no fear.

    This plays straight to our hands. Not only are the developers of communication systems used to dealing with unreliable networks, we can now go to people with our tools (Tor,Free DNS etc), but instead of having to persuade them that it protects them from punishment, we just have to show them the tools remove their inconvenience - resulting in more users using encrypted file sharing technologies and tor.

    As a bonus, we can help users hide and encrypt everything by default, creating a culture of protected information amongst ordinary people. This not only satisfies the goal by the file sharers, but also reduces the effectiveness of every other regime and organisation from governments down who want to censor the information people share.

    If we play this right we will be telling our children we were there when we took away control of the internet.

  12. Re:freedom of speech... by JasterBobaMereel · · Score: 3, Funny

    So you don't live in the USA - Where laws allowing companies to do this were created?

    Or Europe - where they apply

    Or any other 1st world nation - who have signed up ...

    Or Any 3rd world nation who owe enough to bow to the corporations

    which leaves repressive dictatorships...

    So you don't live on Earth ? - Life does exist on other planets ...!

    --
    Puteulanus fenestra mortis
  13. EMI aint broke? by sgt+scrub · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you have enough money to go round suing governments, piracy must not be cutting very deep into the bottom line.

    --
    Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
  14. Re:freedom of speech... by hawkinspeter · · Score: 2

    The UK - so you'll probably still have a good laugh.

    --
    You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe