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Music Industry Sues Irish Government For Piracy
bs0d3 writes "The music industry has initiated a lawsuit against the Irish government for not having blocking laws on the books; on the theory that if blocking laws were in place then filesharing would go away. On Tuesday the music industry issued a plenary summons against the Irish government which is the first step towards making this litigation possible. This all began in October 2010 (EMI v. UPC), when an Irish judge ruled that Irish law did not permit an order to be made against an ISP requiring blocking of websites. Recently several ISPs across the European Union have been ordered by courts to block thepiratebay.org through legal maneuvers."
The Irish, being a compliant group, will no doubt capitulate without a fight.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I wonder what is next? Maybe they will put the government in jail? Or as they represent the irish people, the whole nation should go to jail? ARE THESE GUYS CRAZY?
The Irish government is so broke, what is the MAFIAA going get? Ireland is judgement proof.
I support sovereign immunity is going to an issue pretty quickly.
Do good for your people; time to blow up a few lawyers...
Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
This is the case of using judicial mean to "force" changes to the law itself, which is in the legislative area.
So, what happened? I imagine this is a precursor to some sort of "treaty" or "trade agreement" with the US (since corporations run the country) and Ireland that will establish these "missing" laws.
Gee, government, not fondling the MAFIAA's nuts enough, so they hit you. Now, are you going to say "I walked into a door" and let them do it again, or are you going to man up?
You know what happens when you give a bully your lunch money? He threatens you for it the next day.
Know what happens when you give the MAFIAA a yard? They take a mile.
There is only one way to stop a bully. Stand up to him.
There is only one way to stop the MAFIAA. Cut copyright to 50 years, and tell them if they don't back the fuck off, you're going to cut it to 20 years.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
music industry is using a failing business model and costing the Irish Government lots of money in lost taxes from the music industry not adapting to the current business environment.
Change the laws: copyright on music expires after 20 days. ISP have to block websites hosting infringing copies of music 3 weeks after being given written notice of the specific file/url/whatever to block. Of course once the copyright expires the block is no longer required (since it isn't infringing anymore).
Everyone wins!
Does anyone know under what venue the summons was filed? Just wondering for my own information.
-- L8R, guitardood
It's a desperate move to replentish their supply of dead babies.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
When will the MAFIAA actually do the world a favour and go after the real pirates? I'm sure the Shipping Companies will help them with funds in their "Fight against Global Piracy" - why have they never tried to sue Somalia? Perhaps fitting out ships with big screens facing seawards which are constantly displaying FBI badged MAFIAA warnings on a constant loop would be an excellent deterrent for pirates. They should also stop making any more lame-assed movies which glorify piracy as this only encourages the masses to engage in their own acts of piracy.
The more I read about all this stuff going on, the more and more I think of Accelerando by Charles Stross. The description in the news of these companies makes them sound like organisms trying to compete in an artificial world, with less and less connection to reality. Soon their actions will be run by programs, and will eventually become sentient :P
(Book is available free online if interested, see http://www.jus.uio.no/sisu/accelerando.charles_stross/)
printf("Goodbye cruel world!\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b");
Very good summary of the situation in TFA. Ireland is popular with large global corporations for their low tax rates (maybe not quite so low anymore...) It will be interesting to see how this plays out with the potential for influence being leveraged against the Irish government by the music industry through their corporate cohorts as well as the pressures of complying with the EU copyright obligations. Here's to hoping Ireland finds a reasonable solution that keeps the legal machines at bay and doesn't require censorship or compromising the rights of their citizens.
I suppose Ireland could retaliate by severely reducing the length of copyright protection... But it would be almost as simple to just threaten to repeal this.
The crux of the case will lie in proving that there is a causal link between the lack of laws requiring ISPs to block websites, and the damages claimed. The precedent is Francovich v. Italy. However, given that the judge in a ruling against British Telecom forcing them to use Cleanfeed to block access to websites like Newzbin and TPB acknowledge that tools to circumvent the system were available. And, in fact, Newzbin has released a client allowing access to their website despite the Cleanfeed block. The same software allows access to TPB. It relies on both encryption and the TOR network. Newzbin told BBC news that 93.5% of UK users have downloaded their Cleanfeed circumvention software. This flies in the face of the judge's comment that "Even assuming that they all have the ability to acquire [the means to circumvent Cleanfeed], it does not follow that they will all wish to expend the time and effort required."
93.5% of UK Newzbin users may not be "all" people in the UK who want to use file sharing networks, but it certainly means that establishing the causal link between lack of ISP blocking remedies and damages from file sharing will be difficult. People want access to those files, and Cleanfeed has proven largely ineffective at stopping two of the main sites involved in sharing. It should also be noted that these sites are not the actual hosters of the allegedly damaging files; they are merely portals to peer-to-peer networks that have other access methods available (e.g. DHT on BitTorrent). Again, the claim that blocking these websites would prevent financial damage is rather dubious.
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
The music industry is suing a sovereign government in a court of law because of a law that does not exist ? ... hang on ... that is what they ARE doing ?!!?
...
What next, sue voters for not ensuring their revenue stream
So in their eyes I can be guilty for not successfully electing a government that ensures their income !!!
I am painting it every which way to try and make sense of this
I wish we could outlaw lawyers but considering that they would be enforcing that law, it may end the universe H2G2 style and replace it with something more bizarre.
So not only do they blame the pirates themselves (because their actions may or may not result in a loss of potential profit), but they blame people (in this case, the government) who don't try to stop them (because, if they did stop them, they couldn't do something that may or may not result in a loss of potential profit)? I guess everyone's to blame, then. Clearly the people didn't try hard enough to force the government to pass such laws. Sue everyone!
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
The American government put a prohibition on consumption of alcohol, on the theory that if anti-drinking laws were in place the drinking would go away...
Copyright is an artificial right that has been granted by the public to encourage the creation of works, with the understanding that those works will be contributed to the public domain in a reasonable amount of time. It is a bargain between creators and the general public.
We've lost the plot somewhere. 5-year copyright swelled to 7, 14, 28, 50, 75, 90, 120 years...
With each increase of copyright duration, the copyright lobbies have robbed the public of that much more creative works. We, the public, have fulfilled our end of the bargain, and we have granted a monopoly to the rights holders. They taken a tool we bought them, purchased with our tax dollars and our court system, and they have turned it into a weapon of control against us.
We have the power to take this weapon away from them any time we want--lobbyists and politicians be damned. Do not give these companies one cent. They are using what we gave them to exert ultimate control over us. Until they start giving back to the public domain, feel free to add "torrent" to any search for their creative works.
What the...? They are suing the government for not having some law? How is it even possible? :D Could i sue government for not having a law that tells them to give me some more money?
Come to think of it, who are behaving like pirates in this case?
The Irish Government or the MAFIAA & Co. ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Strange, I didn't think there were any Irish lawyers.
None of them can pass a bar.
I think that the government should block the road to and from my house so that anyone who steal my stuff can't transport it out!
It will also mean there are less cars which I will need to dodge on my bike, but that is just a side effect. :-)
When will the MAFIAA actually do the world a favour and go after the real pirates?
Whoa, waitag*ddamminit !!!
Do you want MAFIAA to sue themselves???
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Curtains and drapes are the same thing, dumbass. That's like saying "the curtains matched the curtains".
All that money you're spending on lawyers... keep it instead and you'll probably have more money when all is said and done.
Wait... are they suing a country? Please Ireland... Declare war!!!
And this is how the energy of the human race currently flows. Sustainability in a nutshell
The full article about Saint ColmCille and his fight for free access to knowledge and Copyleft is available here (PDF).
(and after all, if those lawyers working for the music industry are serious about that copyright shit, why don't they join the army and fight that battle on the front line, huh ? Hand me a banana bomb, there's a cluster of them coming our way...)
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
What parties are "the music industry" in this case?
I'd advise you to look beyond the borders of your own nation, while you still can. In the civilized world, a drape is a cloth that covers furniture, not a window.
That's a bit like suing someone on skid row nowadays.
Imagine the entire populous of the US suing the government for not resolving the job situation? Or how about the copyright laws themselves? Maybe even suing for giving such a huge bailout to Wall Street and their ilk? It'll be pretty interesting to see what comes of this.
-- L8R, guitardood
You got it wrong anyway, the expression is "the carpet matched the curtains" or a close variant of that. You can argue about the definition of drapes, but the established home decor metaphor for pubic hair is certainly carpet. For example, lesbians are often referred to as 'carpet munchers.' Neither meaning of drapes makes for a good comparison.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
So they say file sharing is killing the music industry. Even if they're right (and that's by no means a given) ... so what? People can still record and distribute music without any music industry. With computers and the Internet it's easy and pretty cheap. But even if somehow all musicians decided to stop recording and distributing ... again, so what? We can live without recorded music. All the money people currently spend on CDs would be spent on other entertainment instead, such as live performances.
Copyright is a tool for the benefit of society, not a natural right of artists (or the parasites who trick them into lopsided contracts) to make money. As far as music goes, there's just no measurable benefit to society to justify any significant effort or expense on copyright enforcement.
I say the proper response to this demand is to declare music to be outside the scope of copyright. Entertainers, learn your place and watch your step.
You got it wrong. Females dà not have pubic hair.
Music is no longer a "product"; it is becoming a "service". (Streaming, downloading, etc). Music has actually been a service throughout most of human history, i.e., before recorded music you had to go where the musicians were to hear them. The "record business", starting around 1905, turned music into a product -- records, then cassette tapes, then CDs. The product is essentially "containers" for music that require a distribution infrastructure. But today we no longer need those containers and distribution costs nothing. How the "record companies" initially got so much power over the musicians is a sad story. Imagine if the people making wine bottles had control over what wines got made!
They are suing them for allegedly not implementing EU copyright laws correctly. Sadly, they have a chance to win this one.
The mature (fun) ones do. You need to stay away from little girls; it's illegal.
actually i can't remember last time i saw girl with pubic hair, and i am dating ones 25-30 years old, all are shaven these days (it is in fashion)
I can see how someone without biology education could assume that all girls are naturally hairless
wouldn't it be easier for the irish government to call their bluff and introduce some legislation similar to
US RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) act.
That might scare the be jesus out of them
The Irish have the legal high ground on this.
The EU recently banned the implementation of EU wide filesharing laws, there is a loophole that allows individual countries to implement their own law on this.
But then the UN said that they were looking into banning such laws by making Internet access a human right.
Even if the MAFIAA win, what would they do? how will they enforce anything? this is the ***Government*** we're talking about here, they could tell the judges, if they rule in their favour, they're fired! and refuse to pay anything to the MAFIAA with very little or no consequences.
But I'd find it highly amusing if the government the music industry sued to force laws on to their books would officially declare war on the music industry.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Am I the only one thinking that they don't want money, they want precedent?
Really, can a corporation really sue a government for not passing a law and win??!
That's not even wink&nod bribery, that's outright treason!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
EMI is also suing God, for not affixing "copying is stealing" to His commandment "thou shalt not steal". In addition to monetary compensation, they are asking that the court order God to smite thepiratebay.org.
A government declare war against a corporation?
"The Irish government recognizes any employee or person affiliated with the RIAA or MPAA as an enemy of the Country and will be killed on sight. We ask the United states government to allow us to run a military operation and bomb the corporate locations of all RIAA and MPAA operations, their lawyers offices, and anyone that claims affiliation with them."
They are terrorists just like Al-Quieda, why cant a freedom loving country declare war against them?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
O RLY?.
who will cut copyright to 50 years ?
Read radical news here
Why are you sawing up women, are you a fucking magician?
What's THAT?!
I just don't understand why there is no world wide movement for requesting setting back copyright terms to 20 years?
so you dont understand why there is no worldwide movement for correcting 'copyright issue' ?
maybe because people dont give a shit because they are not only poor, and struggling to survive, but also undereducated and culturally deficient ? (85% of america only does with 15% of national wealth/income - 7% gulps 72% of it).
people are fighting for survival. some are working on two jobs. some start working in high school to support their family. and no - you cannot expect everyone to overcome 'great odds' and dedicate their entire lives to not only pulling their family and themselves out of the 15% wealth/income share hell to a measly middle class existence AND educate themselves and become enlightened members of the society in the meantime. 0.1 - 0.3% of society who have been able to do that does not make a usable rule for the rest.
so therefore, people have more pressing matters than copyright. you can bet that none of them know what copyright exactly is, even if they know the word 'copyright'.
solution ? you need to save people from depths of poverty induced by a dog eat dog system. only then they will become aware of, and care for things like 'copyright'.
but instead, a third of you are ridiculing movements/reactions like ows, a third of you opposing it, a third of you are lukewarm about it.
noone is going to descend from the skies and fix your problems. you need to start somewhere. and you need to support those who started somewhere, even if the start is makeshift.
Read radical news here
... The MPAA and RIAA have sued world governments for not requiring anti-piracy shock collars on all citizens. They claim that, were anti-piracy shock collars in place, piracy would disappear and people would go back to their rightful activities - buying music and movies. Critics charge that the shock collars inhibit freedom of speech... or at least they used to until they had shock collars put on them. Now they're all for the idea. Personally, I think that anti-piracy shock collars are horrib... *BBZZZZZTTT* WONDERFUL idea!
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Ask for back taxes on the property they've been keeping hold on.
And since abandoned property or property not kept in reasonable condition can be taken summarily by the government, they ought to investigate this option too.
AFP - Flash: MCP Records sues all citizens everywhere for not buying Justin Bieber albums.
Now I should she the government for not having a law that required anyone driving in front of me to step aside and let me pass. Lack of such a law is causing me to loose precious time that I have in my limited life.
I hear in the US that you can only sue the government, if the government allows you to. Does Ireland or the EU have any rules like that? Can Ireland just tell the music industry to get lost? Can I sue Ireland for not passing laws I like? (I'm pretty sure I'd make more money if Ireland had a law requiring its citizens to pay me a fee whenever they bought beer.)
they should retaliate by repealing their copyright laws
I buggered an irish girl once. Said she had a fire crotch, she did. Aye, that she did. Course, I was supposin she only meant her quim hair was red.
Twasn't but a day later and me own crotch was on fire too!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Irish Government sues music industry for piracy FOR YOU!
Maybe there should be enforced a block of coin supply for the music industry management. They acting more and more in hybris.
We had music be for we had the wheel; culture existed before copyright. Besides, we have more than enough PAST music that little new is being created. This protectionist system is not adding much benefit to society.
Nobody has a right to a job doing whatever they want to do. Industries must be allowed to die when their time has come! This isn't about car company bail outs, we still need cars. This is more like banning teleporters because it'll put the airlines out of business.
The greed mentality is what it is always about; take everything away from you as possible and make you pay somebody who controls it. We've gone so far as to privatize ownership of WATER, including the rain and make people pay for the water collecting naturally in their own backyard- literally. It has been done and that evil thinking continues to spread; as CRAZY as that sounds the issue will come to your area someday in the future unless trends change. Privatization has always been about handing power to the politically connected so they can leverage that power into profit and it never has anything to do about helping anybody. Copyright has NOTHING (today) to do with helping the "starving" artists and everything about control.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
That would just push lobbyism to another level: see you either vote for this law or we will rip you apart in a court of law.
why does anyone feel a need to pirate music?
Perhaps all that is needed is to educate the pirate (or perhaps its the music industry itself ignorant?) about online radio like Pandora, Grooveshark, Jango, etc..... and hey there even be LiveIreland.com
So what is the problem?
This calls for an Obama lead beer summit. The Music Execs can bring cocaine if it would make them more comfortable.
They have to prove that the Irish government infringed on their property. If they can't, then the Irish government gets to sue them back to the stone age. Actually if all they are looking for is a law, then no problem: We allow copyright holders the very generous length of 7 years for copyrighted works. Patents, likewise, are good for 7 years. Neither can be sold or traded in a financial transaction. Attempts to do so violate the terms of the agreement, and the work becomes public domain. Computer software is not patentable, nor is any other machine readable instruction. You can copyright it, again, for a single 7 year term. Its a very reasonable term for copyrights, and has a balance between content creators and the general public. Its not like some stupid draconian contries that allow 70-1700 years *after* the death of the authors great-grandson. Actually anything more than a generation (20 years) is draconian. 7 years is more reasonable.
It seems that more music companies have been listed on the case on the Irish High Courts website. Take a look here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8230342/ScreenClip.png
Really, can a corporation really sue a government for not passing a law and win??!
Someone above suggested they're suing because Ireland's not holding up their end wrt the Berne Convention.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Cancer has enormous costs associated with treating it (expensive drug cocktails, radiation therapy etc) even if all it does is extending the life expectancy of the patient a few more years.
Also associated with smoking are high blood pressure and heart disease. Which are not necessarily fatal but costs a lot of money to treat.
Every miserable stinking lawyer working for the MAFIAA must be outed and made public pariahs with no quarter given to thier privacy. Their parents and children must be asked every fucking day why their children / parents are wilfully destroying the Internet and societies in general all for thirty pieces of silver. Stronger measures are left to the conscience of the reader.
I no longer go to movies or buy CD's even thought the 5.00 bin of re release's had me looking.I just said no.
I bought used stereo equipment I listen to the radio. I dont even watch much TV any more, cut the cable TV off. Damn I have a lot of money left over every month.
Really F them It was easy for me.
That's right music industry, kick them while they're down! Next on the list, Greece and Portugal.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
"Long copyrights aren't to protect older works, they are designed to protect newer works from having to compete with older works."
This is exactly the point of current copyright law - to maintain a monopoly on media for the oligarchy. It is amazing how few of the analyses of copyright issues identify this fundamental motivation, as they go on and on about whether 20 years more or less would increase or decrease the production of content.
ehm... Suing the government for not making something illegal... This fight, even if it might be immoral to do some of the stuff, just sounds strange...
Even the most "cynical/daring" comments on this topic really don't get it. Ireland has not been run as a normal state since 1998 or so, and there was every indication from back then that the music industry - in the mid 90's perhaps the biggest in the world pro capita - began to be used for the creation of huge scams
We can start with the admittedly labyrinthine narrative on
http://seanonuallain.com/id2.html
To summarize; musicians start to notice that their song copyright registrations are altered when they attempt to repatriate them from Britain and the USA to the nascent Irish music "rights" organization (IMRO). Companies close to the government suddenly "own" part of the songs. The musicians check further, and notice that they are credited with writing songs that don't exist, often spelled in Gaelic with a letter missing.
They get the police involved; one of the police is made a job offer he can't refuse, but parliamentary questions keep the investigation going. It is possible that the government simply wanted to find out what we knew.
Then someone in IMRO's London counterpart panics and - lo and behold! - it is revealed that Shay Hennessy, chair of IMRO, HAD STOLEN HUNDREDS OF COPYRIGHTS AND WAS USING IMRO TO PERPETUATE THE THEFT. Quis cutodies cutodiet? AS it happens, the police investigation was aborted with a leak to the papers
http://www.politics.ie/forum/current-affairs/36672-corruption-dpps-office.html
It is important to remember that, when referring to Ireland 1997-2011, we are not talking about a modern democracy; it is a third world country, with the prime minister paying a fortune of taxpayers' money to promote the musical and other "artistic" careers of his daughters and their partners, including the horrible "PS I love you".
U2, among many others, took advantage of the artists destroyers' exemption, which allowed them trade with dissolved companies and steal at will from far better musicians than them;
http://davemarsh.us/?p=951
Btw, I'm neither anonymous not a coward.
http://seanonuallain.com/id2.html is my website, and Hennessy has sued me - unsuccessfully
GO FUCK YOURSELF.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Nothing new here, isn't it? In the past few months entire countries (Italy and Greece) were overthrown by the "international market". And off course nobody even wonders who the "international market" is.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
My uncle was in the music industry moffia. He thought he was being setup as a possible fall guy so he got out and lost millions he could have had managing a country music star (who wasn't yet a star.) Maybe he was paranoid and lost out or maybe what he saw going on could have been pushed onto him.
What people do not realize is that the honest people are easy to frame up because they do not have the necessary paranoia to proactively defend themselves against an unknown attack. A crook is guilty of something and is already in the proper defensive mindset. He learned to be paranoid from his experiences and he was not naive enough to think innocent people have nothing to worry about; he saw plenty of that one being proven wrong!
He says its all about control. The new artists are scammed into a massive DEBT and they have to make good to ever get out of the debt to the label; that new found wealth they get early on is fake, it is a loan (with interest.) Then afterwards, the deal is extended usually lawyers get involved so the 1st deal is the best deal. Plus, the company can write off artists who don't pay off as a loss (somehow even when they repo back some of the money... its not a clear game they use complex games to milk everybody involved.) Other shady games go on. Sexual favors do go on. Whole football teams have been bought and sold merely to get some singer (and the sports world is totally clueless to the real motives) and it may have nothing to do with good business...
Its all "good" business-- the goal is to get monopoly level control so you can set your price as high as possible so you can have more money and therefore more power.