Slashdot Mirror
UK Police Launch Campaign To Shut Down Torrent Sites
An anonymous reader writes "City of London Police inform TorrentFreak that they have begun targeting sites that provide access to unauthorized content for 'criminal gain.' The initiative is part of a collaboration with Hollywood studios represented by FACT and the major recording labels of the BPI. In letters being sent out now, police accuse site operators of committing offenses under the Serious Crime Act. The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau further warns that the crimes carry a jail sentence of 10 years."
Seriously, this will in no way keep people who pirate from pirating some more. If anything it just wastes tax money and time. What could they possibly try to be achieving by doing this?
Yeah giving them the same sentence as a rapist. That seems reasonable. This shit should be a civil matter not criminal.
Things which need media attention.
I am still uncomfortable with the fact that this action is yet another example where the police, who are publicly funded and granted extensive powers in pursuit of their public duty, are essentially (mis)using their powers to protect the private property rights of a select few, i.e. copyright owners.
Copyright owners who, incidentally, are rich enough to pursue their own civil action against alleged pirates. Then again, making the public pay is better for their bottom line.
police accuse site operators of committing offenses under the Serious Crime Act
When sharing information about shifting bits of data across a computer network is considered a serious crime, the corruption in the system is not only obvious but blatantly so.
Even though neither site is located in the UK, police believe that sites’ operators are committing crimes there.
Wonder how the UK police would feel if China, Iran, or North Korea accused them of commiting crimes against them... even though theyre in the UK
Once you understand that this is being done by the City of London then it should be clear that this is not the actions of a municipal authority based on a desire to protect citizens, but rather a government of a tiny yet separate legal entity within what we usually call London. This tiny legal appendix (the City of London) is home to only about 10,000 people, but is actually a state within a state owned and operated by large multinational corporations and so its governance reflects what is good for business. Not good for the public, not good for England or Britain, but good for keeping money rolling in.
watch this and you'll understand why this is nothing more than monied interests trying to protect their own. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
A sentence of 10 Years? What are they trying to do? Get folks to take up the less illegal crime of muggings?
Specially it's the parliament, which is elected by the people.
I wonder what percentage of the British population believes that Parliament is representing their interests well and voting with those concerns in mind? Here in the United States, only 11% of the population approves of the job that Congress is doing. That's a lot of unhappy people. What is the approval rating of Parliament? I'd be surprised if it's much higher.
Linking is not (yet) illegal in UK, no matter what these tosspots say. Also, they are misrepresenting themselves as those in a position of authority. So, in response, I suggest the reply given in Arkell v. Pressdram.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Copyright infringement is only criminal if done on a commercial scale. In other words you have to be making a significant profit from it.
That's how the BPI tricked the police into raiding the owner of Oink's Pink Palace. They claimed he was charging for access and raking in the cash, but it was shown in court that he only accepted donations to cover the cost of running the site. The case collapsed, wasting vast sums of public money and police time but at least the BPI got some free publicity.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Yes---the police have been going under privatisation, and this is not a good thing.
However, the City of London police, and the Corporation of London (aand its polive force) are not good places to look as indicitave of the whole. The Corporation is a very odd beast: for a start, it's older than a unified England and it's charter has been lost (but that's OK, since it was given another charter in 1067).
It's always been semi-private and not really part of the government.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Such data is gathered by the YouGov surveys, which happen very regularly. Here's the latest report. Unsurprisingly given the sort of policies associated with the coalition government, the approval rating of Parliament splits strongly down party lines. Overall the government is unpopular with a 25% approval rating, 61% disapproval and 14% don't know. However this average disguises the fact that amongst conservative voters approval is 75% and amongst Labour voters approval is only 5%.
These sorts of figures are what you might expect from the UK. The situation is not comparable to the USA where the approval rating of Congress reflects a more deep rooted feeling that corruption is rampant and all the parties are fundamentally the same. This can be seen in the fact that disapproval of Congress is almost identical regardless of voting intention. The problems in the UK reflect a strong north/south division every bit as strong as the city/rural division in the USA, where the richer and more conservative south tends to approval of austerity due to a less systematic dependence on welfare and public sector jobs. The post-industrial north is dominated by Labour voters who never made the transition to the service/knowledge economy and where quality of life is highly dependent on government spending.
I don't have time to find more precise stats, but I suspect if you examined UK voters beliefs more closely, people would not feel that democracy itself was particularly broken. Especially not over something as trivial as piracy - only in places like Slashdot and amongst the people who read it does piracy become some kind of moral imperative. Everyone else I know treats it as a naughty pleasure. They know they're breaking the law and won't get caught, but they don't have any desire to make a big moral campaign of it.