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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.
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.
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!
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
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.
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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