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German Court: ISPs Must Hand Over File Sharer Info
itwbennett writes "The German Federal Court of Justice has ruled that ISPs have to turn over to rights-holders the names and addresses of illegal file sharers, but only 'if a judge rules that the file sharer indeed infringed on copyright,' said the court's spokeswoman, Dietlind Weinland. The ruling overturns two previous rulings by regional courts and is significant because the violation doesn't have to happen on a commercial scale, but applies whenever 'it is possible to know who was using an IP address at the time of the infringement,' the court said."
But copyright holders have a right to pursue their rights
Why? Where does that notion come from? The very existence of copyright is a choice by society, it is not supported by any natural law. In fact, as Thomas Jefferson figured out almost 200 years ago, ideas are fundamentally incompatible with the concept of ownership and private property. You have no right to control how your ideas are used, spread, or altered after they leave your own mind. The only way you can protect an idea from being spread is to keep it to yourself. Once it's out, you can't put it back, you can't take it away from people whom it has spread to. An "idea" can be an invention, a song, a novel, just about anything that is the product of human imagination or ingenuity (not in physical form).
"Intellectual property" is a fiction. It's a mass-delusion. It's a choice. It is not inevitable, it is not necessary, and it has not been an aspect of civilization for most of human history. We've accepted it because it was a useful compromise for a long time, but it is rapidly losing relevance and efficacy. As you can plainly see, attempts to maintain the entrenched system are leading to abuses of civil and privacy rights in the name of enforcing copyright law. It's no longer an enabling force for human creativity, it has become a threat to human freedom.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
No it does not. I am not liable if the car I loan to my neighbor is used to commit a robbery (unless I knew they were going to commit a robbery and I still loaned my car them of course). I am responsible for losing the car, if my car gets stolen with the keys. The insurance, would probably not pay me. But I am not responsible for what ever is done using the car (murder or robbery or whatever).
However, and especially in the context of the every increasing ease by which media can be reproduced, until we can devise a new system which suffers from none of the evils and still ensures reward of intellectual labour, our best hope is to point out how badly the system has gone wrong and attempt to steer it back towards health.
The problem is that "to steer it back towards health" for the most part equals "turn back time". As long as you have the following four components, IP is doomed:
1. Computers
2. Internet
3. 1st amendment
4. 4th amendment
Computers means we can create digital copies that can be copied infinitely without loss. Maybe getting our hands on the first copy may be complicated by breaking DRM or recording through the analog hole or whatever, but it's break once play everywhere. Internet means we can have the technical means to distribute it to everyone as an increasingly faster and faster flash mob. While the 1st and 4th amendment doesn't protect copyright violators, it means you generally can't prevent people from communicating in private. The public sites are a convenience but if you'd like to kill piracy you have to take away one of those four. Either turn it into an appliance-only Internet, shut down the Internet or take away some of the Bill of Rights. Or you can accept that technology has moved forward and that the "good old days" are never coming back.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings