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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?"
Do good for your people; time to blow up a few lawyers...
Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
ARE THESE GUYS CRAZY?
They're filthy rich and entitled and want to be more of both.
I was actually going to post something about that, but I looked it up and apparently Ireland doesn't have sovereign immunity.
This is the case of using judicial mean to "force" changes to the law itself, which is in the legislative area.
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
> I wonder what is next?
After suing their customers, suing a sovereign country was the next logical business move. After Ireland, they will sue the United Nations, only to learn they have less money than Ireland. So then they'll sue Portugal and Greece. Then God.
Then they'll come back to Earth and sue their distribution chain, then their singers and songwriters, and finally, in a final act of desperate cannibalism, they'll finally sue the Master of all Piracy - Weird Al.
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.
ARE THESE GUYS CRAZY?
If there was any doubt before now, it has been removed.
If they weren't completely batshit insane they would have sued a government with some money.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
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!
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");
Well I know cigarette companies have been threatening to sue the Australian government because the government wants to force cigarettes to be sold in plain paper packaged boxes. It's actually been pretty interesting to follow.
I could probably make a witty comment about the similarities between music labels and cigarette corporations, but everyone knows that they are both scum, so I won't bother.
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
I'm no friend of the tobacco lobby, but the two things are like chalk and cheese. The tobacco companies are suing because of legislation that limits freedoms. They feel they are being harmed unfairly. The music industry is suing because legislation that limits freedoms does not exist. They feel that everybody else are not being harmed unfairly enough!
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!
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.
Strange, I didn't think there were any Irish lawyers.
None of them can pass a bar.
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.
Sorry, U2 isn't an option - they've already moved their publishing business to the Netherlands, after the Irish government capped the tax exemption on artists at a mere €250,000.
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.
MAFIAA: They should pay damages for our fictional 70 trillion lost sales from piracy!
Judge: Ok, you can have the fictional pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
It's fair to say that the tobacco companies probably feel under continuous assault nowadays so are going to fight any legislation aimed their way. Even seemingly harmless things turn out to be the thin end of a painful wedge.
I'm not saying that tobacco companies are innocent but it's interesting how _everybody_ feels qualified to take a swipe at them and regularly does. In the UK we often have headlines about how smokers cost the NHS huge sums - some guesstimates range as high as £5 billion. That's a huge amount of money and a serious drain on central coffers.
Except for the fact that smokers paid (roughly) £10.5 billion in tax in the UK last year. That means for every pound they used up, they put in 2. If the government decides to not put that money into the NHS (and paying for that bill is one of the reasons they use to explain their putting up tobacco taxes every year) then it's not the smokers' fault.
And no, I'm not a smoker, I'm an ex-smoker. I just hate lies and lazy statistics.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
The mature (fun) ones do. You need to stay away from little girls; it's illegal.
Sorry, U2 isn't an option - they've already moved their publishing business to the Netherlands, after the Irish government capped the tax exemption on artists at a mere €250,000.
Err, I don't know the full story, but is there a tax exemption on programmers ? Potato growers ? Brewers ? Slutty fat chicks ? WTF, does being an 'artist' make you above the tax code now ?!? That's a hell of a superpower.
That cap seems absolutely fine to me. Even at 25000 it would be fine. Actually I think 0 is the better number.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
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
The thing about that number is that someone did an analysis of it and called it bogus because smokers on average die at a younger age and, even when you take into account the things they die from (that are often caused by smoking). this results in them costing the government less than those who live healthy lifestyles.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
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.
Of course, you can sue a ham sandwich for being a ham sandwich. Dunno if you'll win - but that never stopped the "music" biz.
If you can sue the government for not having a law, you can sue for anything. That's pure absurdity. If you can win, precisely because there is no law making something illegal, you can win anything.
You could probably even win a suit against the government for not ruling you win.
Obviously any legal system must have either immediate decisions preventing the state from spending more than a second dismissing truly absurd attempts like this one. Better yet, it should allow the time waste, and simply decide in court to not just dismiss the suit, but also permanently ban any lawyer who brought the stupendously frivolous case, and charge damages in the amount of the cost to the government, plus punitive damages to inhibit truly rich fools from just buying up the government's time.
Then we could destroy the "music" biz, and hordes of frivolous lawyers, at once. Finally some good from the modern "music" industry.
--
make install -not war
Each songwriter who signed copyright over to the music company has a copy of the original song in their memory! How can these illegal copies be allowed without proper licensing and fees?
Those songwriters better pay up, or get in line for a lobotomy.
You should do some research. I'll break it down for you.
Being in an enclosed space with a smoker = bad. Being within four feet continually of a smoker outside = bad. Walking down the street and passing a smoker = not bad. As much as the haters would like to get x banned. For any reason they can come up with. Even one that make no sense scientifically. They keep using it anyway. All the other things are bad. No one will notice if i include something that is not bad.
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.
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