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Irish Supreme Court Upholds 3-Strikes Rule For Copyright Violation
An anonymous reader writes with this news from The Irish Times: "'The Supreme Court [Wednesday] upheld a challenge by four music companies to a notice of the Data Protection Commissioner which they feared would effectively unwind their 'three strikes and you're out' agreement with Eircom aimed at combating the widespread illegal downloading of music.' In the ruling it was found the original High Court trial judge correctly concluded there was 'a complete absence of reasons' and therefore, the notice was unlawful and made in breach of Section 10.4 of the Data Protection Acts. Makes you wonder whether the High Court would have upheld it, had the Data Commissioner given reasons ... which seemed quite justified: 'In September 2011, the Commissioner told Eircom the complainant subscriber had restated his original complaint and alleged Eircom's monitoring of his internet use breached his data protection rights.'"
The big Irish ISP Eircom monitored subscribers at the behest of Big Media. After a complaint, a Commissioner determined that ISP customers had to consent to such monitoring, so it was halted. Big Media went crazy, took it to court, won a victory, faced an appeal, then the High Court found (on very narrow, legalistic terms) that the Commissioner had not given proper reasoning for WANTING TO PROTECT THE FREEDOM, LIBERTY, AND PRIVACY OF EIRCOM CUSTOMERS, and so was therefore wrong. Big Media wins again.
This is going to take quite a few Giuinesses (and maybe quite a few Old Bushmills too) to rid Eircom customers of the bad taste.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
Which is more serious, the traditional high crimes like murder and rape, or illegally copying a DVD.
Select from tblFriends where interesting >= 4;
What a newsflash... Court sides with big business. Who just happened to give everyone involved some free stuff.
I wanna be a corrupt judge. Looks like a good deal. Screw people over. Get stuff.
Fuck around all day "my word is law!"
Yup. looks like hard work.
Princess Leia: The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
Governor Tarkin: Not after we demonstrate the capabilities of this station.
Assuming several ISPs are being roped into these agreements one way or another it's still up to the consumer to vote with their feet.
I for one am quite interested in how many subscribers will simply leave or terminate immediately when threats to cut off their internet are made (1st strike 2nd etc)
Imagine your child downloads some stuff and all of a sudden there's a risk that your favorite internet movie streaming service is cut off. Will you put up with ISPs that do this?
Somewhere out there is an ISP small enough or honorable enough to protect its' customers.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
Simply just wait until you have to file taxes through the internet. Here in the Netherlands taxes can only be filed through the internet, you can no longer fill in forms. Therefor here in the Netherlands Internet is a requirement for citizenship. If three strikes rule would be allowed here, then people who are cut off can no longer file taxes.
I am pretty sure you can sue the country, saying that you would like to file your taxes.
They're magically judicious!
We must mention Guinness and Whiskey! ...prick....
Don't throw a paddy over it
All generalizations are either false or useless, except this one.
why not one and then toss the fuckers over board eh?
NSA spy buddies in hollywood are sure getting there way...
you fuckign world govts all over look like a bunch a USA bend overs....
might as well have all your world leades get down on there knee and give the usa all your tax money and everything else.....
make all your alws the same and let 300 million people tell you what the fuck to do. WHOM will spy on you to make sure you bend right over to there fat overweight gay whims
Why can't people found guiltyliable of copyright crimetorts go to a public library to file their taxes instead of using home Internet access?
Two and a half years ago, when eircom agreed to implement this 3 strikes rule, Big Media offered eircom a sweetener, which was a free music streaming site for their customers. This was just announced to be closing, so much for the 'carrot' part.
The 3-strikes 'stick' part of their approach is effective, people that have gotten a warning letter have changed their behaviour.... to the point of using less detectable technology such as VPNs or f2f Retroshare
Ireland has a vibrant community of artists and musicians, many of whom are crowdfunding their first releases giving them a direct connection to their fans. People here show a willingness to pay for legal content, itunes (easy to use) and netflix (good value) have both had a big impact here, and globally of course.
These court battles are becoming less and less relevant. We know now that sharing communities and technology will always outpace the enforcers, and also that people will pay for content when it's judged to be affordable and easy to use. Big Media will simply have to learn that lesson and evolve. Those that won't will fade.
If the ISP is actively monitoring the information carried and acting upon it, then surely they should lose their common carrier status and be liable for damages.
eg. Why only monitor & block copyright sites and not trojan/malware sites?
Just VPN to another juristiction.
It is a privacy tax, of sorts, but there are all sorts of affordable options. It's not going to give you complete anonymity, of course, but what it does most certainly give you is a very effective adminstrative and legal barrier for anyone attempting to sue you to deal with.
Sooner or later someone will launch a satellite for this purpose..
..don't panic
Is it 3 convictions or 3 accusations.
No, it has nothing do do with PC. Nor the little girl. Its all about the money. *Total* content control is the goal, if some poor child gets in the way, the media giants could care less.
It could have been worse, he could have mentioned Whisky!
You can DL song by song by song, month after month, or, go to a friend's house and copy his hard drive in a few hours. I have 45,670 songs. Come by with a bottle of wine. We'll hang. We'll laugh, we'll get boozed up. By the time we're done - the songs are copied and you get to go home with a lifetime of music...
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
When Ireland gained its so-called 'independence' (in reality, it was no such thing and the Irish could still come to any part of the UK, no questions asked, no passport required, and live and vote just like any other British citizen) the fist thing the courts of Ireland did was place the people under the absolute control of the Catholic church. Even today, the church has exclusive control of Ireland's public schools.
Now Catholic control meant the most sickening abuses of women and children. Women could, and were imprisoned on the simple say so of her local priest, regardless of her religious affiliation. Her children could be removed at a moments notice, and sent to one of Ireland's many rape centres, where the Catholic church had tens of thousands of priest and nuns who specialised in child torture and rape.
But what about the Irish constitution, you ask. What about legal protections for the people? Well the highest courts in the land, all the way through to the 1980s, universally said that the Catholic church had complete authority over the people. Even today, the Supreme Court has stated categorically that every Irish child is the possession of the Catholic Church.
Of course, the beating of every child in Irish schools was ended a FEW years back, and the child rape centres were gradually closed down in the 1990s. The Irish government held a few limp investigations into the historic abuse of hundreds of thousands of Irish people, giving complete immunity to every member of the Catholic Church and previous Irish governments before the inquiries began. After the investigations ended, and a handful of 'apologies' were issued to the people, the Irish Supreme Court oversaw the DESTRUCTION of all the evidence that had been gathered documenting the decades of abuse.
Ireland is not, and never will be a first-world nation. No true theocracy ever can be. The incredible numbers of Irish that flooded mainland Britain AFTER independence were escaping an abusive regime unlike any other in West Europe at the time.
what about the rest of them? stereotypes are way quicker than other forms of learning!
We must mention Guinness and Whiskey! ...prick....
Yes, we all know about the elaborate, world wide advertising extravaganzas that Guinness hopes will forever stop people from equating Ireland with their product. Keep up the fight.