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Australian Govt Holding Secretive Anti-Piracy Talks
daria42 writes "Looks like Australia's Government prefers to keep its ongoing anti-piracy discussions behind closed doors. It held an initial meeting in September last year to try to get the content and ISP industries to thrash out an agreement on how to handle Internet piracy. Consumer representative groups were explicitly blocked from attending the meeting, and attendees are not allowed to reveal what was discussed behind closed doors. Now a second meeting has been held, and again, no information has been revealed about what's being discussed. Quelle conspiracy?"
the excuse was child pornography. Now it's piracy. The effect is to gain control over speech.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Get them there sooner. Stop buying their shit. Don't download it, don't stream it, don't swap it, don't buy it. btw - downloading isn't pirating... semantics? not really.
Tell them that until they stop treating 99.9999% of their customers like they were criminals, that we will not buy their shit, period.
I stopped going to movies, stopped buying/renting movies, stopping buying music altogether. I disconnected the cable/satellite service. And now my leisure time is spent in books and online.
Until content producers provide a quick, easy and legal means to download content as soon as soon as it becomes available consumers will keep getting their media from "alternative" sources.
It's inevitable that the media giants are going to get their way, or most of it, eventually. The reason is simple: They have the will and resources to keep flinging bills at the figurative wall until one sticks - and it only takes once - whereas the public has to continually be on their guard trying to stop these things. It's like being followed by a hyena... No matter how long you keep your guard up or how many opportunities the hyena misses, you're going to lose eventually.
the excuse was child pornography. Now it's piracy. The effect is to gain control over speech.
I would argue that gaining control over speech is actually the very goal of all these secret talks, not just some ancillary effect.
The powers that be are justifiably scared by all these plebes being able to say whatever they want, and becoming more aware of just how short their end of the stick actually is. The Arab Spring, Occupy, Anonymous... these are but the tip of the potential iceberg, and the rich and powerful are putting some serious effort into chilling these movements right back into frozen immobility.
Knowledge is power, cliche though it may be. And the ability to control what knowledge people have access to, that's power yet again. And that's what makes the internet quite so disruptive.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
speaking from the other side...
buy independent stuff. buy their DVDs and their downloads.
they (I, We) really don't give a shit about anti-piracy campaigns. we put the AFACT trailers on our discs because AFACT would like us to (or we pay a fee to them if we want them to help us when our stuff gets pirated, when and if we decide that has affected us). it's that or pay their goddamn protection money.
download if you want. if you like it, buy the disc when it comes out (yeah, thanks to the OFLC/COB/whatever classfication body, we're a month behind demonoid, but that can't be helped). just courtesy, you know?
of course, if you have more important things to spend money on, go do that. i have a baby, there's no way in hell i'm going to JB hifi to blow my pay on DVDs and blu-rays. but then i don't have time to watch them anyway. funny that.
it's a luxury item industry, and as purse-strings tighten, the luxuries go first. it's not like most of us aren't aware of that.
In place of leaders, we have the children that are more interested in calling each other names than actually sitting down and working through issues. As both sides just stand there screaming about how the other is going to ruin the economy, any discussion on "minor" issues such as civil liberties gets drowned out. (By minor, I mean that the vast majority of Australians seem to follow whatever Parliament is screaming about, be it gambling reforms, the carbon tax, etc and remains ignorant/indifferent towards everything else). Unfortunately, the laid-back attitude that typifies our culture also extends to our view on politics... Many Australians at the last election chose to donkey vote rather than choose between either of the major parties, instead of looking at the variety of independents that were on offer and picking one of them.
Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.
Those people can GET FUCKED.
They don't represent me. They represent Hollywood, a part of America, which despite appearances is not Australia just yet.
The talks do nothing to further my interests (I don't give a shit about piracy, in fact it helps me a lot), and in fact are actively working against me.
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... until they get what they want.
Just like the EU referendum in Ireland. The government made it clear that they would keep holding referenda until they got the "correct" result. Spending taxpayers' money to fight the will of the people, that's the way governments work. Was it different in the past?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Stop buying their shit. Don't download it, don't stream it, don't swap it, don't buy it. I stopped going to movies, stopped buying/renting movies, stopping buying music altogether. I disconnected the cable/satellite service.
These are seen only as a reduction in sales. No reason is attached to a non-sale. They will blame the loss of sales on piracy. By not buying, you are merely reinforcing their assumption that you are pirating their product, whether you are or aren't. You can't win their game, you can't quit their game. The only way is to change the game. And IMO, encouraging piracy is actually the best strategy, even if you, yourself, have no real desire to. Help make it mainstream, help make it easy to do, encourage another generation of kids (and their grandparents) who just see downloading as "using the internet".
btw - downloading isn't pirating...
No, uploading is piracy. ^_^`
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Where do you live Mr AC?
Because I can guarantee you that it's not as bad as you think. The police state mentality here is a long, long, long way behind the US and there are far fewer speed cameras than you'd think.
here in Perth we just got our first one. Somebody shot it.
Here's the thing - here on /. you hear an awful lot about genuinely crappy proposals that various parts of the Australian government make. 99.99% of these never see the light of day.
one wonders what the US govt actually spends its money on if it can't even get those right.
Guns. Big ones, little ones. Ones carried by men, ones carried by trucks. Gun on ships and guns on planes.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
look up the port arthur massacre. none of us have guns anymore because of that.
Actually gun ownership numbers are higher now than before Port Arthur. A bit under 5 million registered firearms, and god knows how many unregistered.
You just can't legally own auto or semi-auto rifles, or some large calibre handguns and high capacity shotguns. Manual-action rifles and small-calibre handguns are fine, and we import about 80,000 each year, 40,000 rifles, 10,000 shotguns, 20,000 handguns (Yes I know there's a missing 10,000, no I don't know what it is.)
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Or you could grow a pair and cope, not everywhere is the US, you lot have not invaded everywhere yet, give it another 100 years of MPAA rule and you'll probably have your wish though.
Well, to be fair, the stuff you read about Australia on here is often exaggerated, missing crucial pieces of information that add context or background, or are just plain wrong. Not to say they are completely made up - no, they do relate to things that are actually happening. But they are reported on in a particular way that makes things sound worse than they are (usually).
To take one of your examples: speed cameras. What makes Australia unique in this regard? Virtually every developed country has speed cameras. I've travelled extensively and I don't think there are any more or less on average than other places. Certainly less than in the UK and much of Europe. Probably more fixed speed cameras than in the US (though, on the flip side, you do see a lot more cops parked in the median trying to catch speeders 'manually' in the US than in Australia). You'd have to be kinda dumb to get caught by a fixed speed camera in Australia anyway as in most states they are marked with multiple giant signs saying "speed camera ahead!" (Victoria is a notable exception to this). Irritating if you get caught? Yes ... but hardly something that warrants discussion of shooting people...
Same with this article. They can discuss things behind closed doors all they want, but eventually if they want to actually DO something it will have to come out in the open and be passed through Parliament like any other law. Until that happens (or looks likely to happen), no point in overreacting. Think back to the internet filter stuff a year or two ago - it never actually happened because there was widespread opposition to it. But Slashdot didn't really mention that. It phrased articles about the filter proposal to make it sound like it was a done deal, when really, it never had any serious chance of getting through Parliament in its current state. But the damage to our 'reputation' is already done. I commonly see people on here still making the assumption that Australia has a net filter (when it doesn't and isn't likely to for the foreseeable future since the first one was never even introduced into Parliament, let alone passed).
I suppose what I'm saying is that Australians aren't really any different than Americans in this regard. Only some are politically interested in the first place. A smaller proportion of those still care about IT/media/communications issues enough to raise a fuss. And when things start to look bad enough, people do react - the defeat of the net filter is evidence of that. So at this point some closed-door discussions are taking place about piracy, sure, but until something concrete is revealed, there's no point in overreacting. As someone that works with Australian Government departments every day of the week as a contractor, I can tell you that 90% of discussion, proposals, ideas etc. never get off the ground.
The other factor is that life here is very good. We're a forgotten little corner of the world in some ways, so the world doesn't think about us much. But the economy is booming, the financial crisis that crippled so many others barely touched us (we were the only OECD nation that didn't go into recession), we have very low sovereign debt, a pretty good universal health care system, very low violent crime, unemployment is low, we have generous working conditions, guaranteed 4 weeks vacation + 10 public holidays, a $16 USD/hr minimum wage etc. and a culture that values work-life balance. People simply don't have much to complain about. Things like speed cameras and anti-piracy discussions simply don't rank that high on the care factor for most people. (And frankly, big media's product these days mostly sucks - they will kill themselves with their antiquated business practices before they die due to piracy anyway)
So do pay us a visit, you might be surprised to find that things aren't as bad as what you think (remember: things on Slashdot and the wider internet generally are designed to attract eyeballs and hits, so are phrased in the most provocative way)
Guns. Big ones, little ones. Ones carried by men, ones carried by trucks. Gun on ships and guns on planes.
"In his later years, Dr. Seuss became increasingly... unstable."
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
yes. because the US invented the *english* language.
The current government is suffering from deep popularity problems and will be very nervous about further antagonising an already angry and disillusioned public. They will be aware of what happened with SOPA and what is happening with ACTA right now in Europe.
So make some noise, damn you. Stop telling us these people don't represent you, and start telling your government.
Write letters, emails, tweets, Facebook updates:
- tell everyone you know about this - if they are even slightly interested (or skeptical of your claims) be prepared to explain the situation and issues to them politely and without frothing at the mouth
- write to newspapers, comments on on-line news articles, generally increase the amount of negative feedback in places where strangers will see this
- for god's sake, write to your local MP and state senators. You may think it doesn't change anything, but if they get enough letters they get nervous, and when they get nervous they apply pressure on those in control of their party's agenda. I suggest telling them: that you voted for them last time and might vote for them but won't if they keep this up; that you are prepared to protest about this and will do everything you can to spread the word about it; that you will be agitating for a change of policy in every forum you can think of.
- write/email/tweet to the Liberal Party telling them this issue is important and you feel betrayed by the Labor government, and ask them what their policy is and what they are going to do about this
- write to the minor parties and tell them you are concerned and want them to raise this issue in parliament
- see if there is an organised campaign via GetUp, EFA etc and get involved - give them money, at minimum, actively help if you can in other ways
Our system isn't properly representative, but our politicians are driven by self-interest. You will notice that the net filter went on the back burner and never came back - the same can be achieved with this issue.
What doesn't achieve anything is complaining about it to a bunch of people who agree with you!
Read Pynchon.
The current (minority) Australian government is ruled by the Labour Party, which is left-wing. As a rule, right-wing parties are more favourable to participatory democracy, while our left wing parties prefer a "nanny" state, controlled by an oligarchy. Their secrecy is a natural outcome of this, as they believe they know what is good for us.
What absolute crap.
For starters, Labor is centrist or perhaps slightly right of centre on most social issues.
Secondly, the previous (right wing) government favoured authoritarianism and money-as-power and introduced things like: indefinite detention of refugees; harsh anti-terror laws, including detention without trial; scrapping cross-media ownership to reduce diversity and allow corporations to control the media; stacking the independent public broadcaster with right wing loonies to shut down objective news reporting; vilifying minorities; supporting the torture and detention of foreigners and Australian citizens via the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; etc etc etc.
Labor isn't much better. But the Liberal Party is about as anti-participatory democracy as it gets.
Read Pynchon.
In Holland we had the referendum, the voters (across all parties) rejected it and it got passed regardless. The D66 which claims to want more referundum couldn't ditch the results of the first referendum ever in Hollland fast enough. Democracy sucks for politicians because those silly voters just don't know how to vote correctly.
It must be a highly annoying job. You as a politician clearly know what is right but can the plebs see it? No!
It isn't just copyright, see the whole EU debate, the Greek debt crisis, immigration. Democracy by a lot of politicians is seen as some holy grail that will make everything alright. Pity it allows grubby mean spirited selfish people to vote who are tired of paying through the nose for content, tired of constantly paying for more EU nations who are corrupt as hell and whose only contribution is a new load of ciminals, tired of paying for Greece a country that hasn't contributed a single penny to the EU in its entire history, tired of boat loads of immigrants who don't want to live among their own culture anymore for whatever reason and then try to establish the same culture in their new country.
Not nice? Not PC? Well, that is how the common voter thinks, don't like any of those things? Then you don't like democracy. Democracy ain't good, democracy is the dictatorship of the common man and the common man ain't all that nice.
Either you have full democractic rule and risk the majority voting to re-open the gas chambers OR you have ACTA and the EU constitution. Choose wisely... oops there is that democracy thing again, better hope everyone chooses wisely, or at least a majority. And sucks to be you if the majority thinks different.
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You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Everyone knows that torches are containers for dead batteries that live at the bottom of kit bags.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
And then they're surprised that we distrust them. Seriously?
The common theme I see behind all the recent political issues is transparency - and not of the "we need more surveilance" kind, but of the "you are supposed to be our representatives, not our masters, so start treating us as the real boss" kind.
I personally think that we need something like an amendment to the western constitutions that makes it clear that the phrase "we, the people" or "the people are the souvereign", etc. that appear in one form or another in all of them includes the fact that the souvereign has the right to know what his representatives are up to at any time.
As with all things, exceptions are invitations for abuse. There are a few cases (immediate danger) where a delay seems useful. Terorrist attack? Well, think again. If it were all over the evening news that terrorists plan to hijack four airplanes tomorrow and fly them into buildings - what do you think their chances of success have just become?
There are very few cases where secrecy is actually warranted in politics, and we need a strict full-disclosure afterwards policy for those. And by "afterwards", I don't mean 20 years, I mean "before the next election".
It's time these jokers are told again that they govern us, not rule us. Because in a democracy (or republic, for the nitpickers), the people rule.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
and btw, please stop calling flashlights torches.
Only if they flash. If it emits a steady light rather than flashing, torch is a more appropriate word. As you noted when you were in that cab you "saw what a 'torch' really is." I've no idea, now you know what a torch really is, why you want us to use the incorrect word.
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