Cameron's IP Advisor: Throw Persistent Copyright Infringers In Jail

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from TorrentFreak: "During a debate on the UK's Intellectual Property Bill, the Prime Minister's Intellectual Property Adviser has again called for a tougher approach to online file-sharing. In addition to recommending 'withdrawing Internet rights from lawbreakers,' Mike Weatherley MP significantly raised the bar by stating that the government must now consider 'some sort of custodial sentence for persistent offenders.' Google also got a bashing – again." The article goes on to say "Weatherley noted that the Bill does not currently match penalties for online infringement with those available to punish infringers in the physical world. The point was detailed by John Leech MP, who called for the maximum penalty for digital infringement to be increased to 10 years’ imprisonment instead of the current two years."

Comments

Ob frosty

[Hognoxious]

John Leech? I take he doesn't seed back, then?

Re:Ob frosty

[RaceProUK]

He's my MP, but I'm afraid I can't report on his file-sharing habits.

And to lend some context to his words, from TFA:

“The discrepancy I mentioned is a source of great frustration. For example, the private prosecution by the Federation Against Copyright Theft of Anton Vickerman, who was making £50,000 a month from running a website [SurfTheChannel] that facilitated mass-scale copyright infringement, saw him convicted of conspiracy to defraud and sentenced to four years in prison,” Leech explained.

“This level of sentence would not have been possible if he had been prosecuted under copyright law, but FACT was able to prove conspiracy in his actions. Without proof of conspiracy, a serious criminal could have been left subject to a disproportionately low maximum penalty.”

In a way, I do agree with his point; those making that sort of money from infringement do need to be punished properly. However, it'll be all too easy to abuse this sort of measure, and end up with the disproportion going the other way.

Re:Ob frosty

[NotSanguine]

He's my MP, but I'm afraid I can't report on his file-sharing habits.

And to lend some context to his words, from TFA:

“The discrepancy I mentioned is a source of great frustration. For example, the private prosecution by the Federation Against Copyright Theft of Anton Vickerman, who was making £50,000 a month from running a website [SurfTheChannel] that facilitated mass-scale copyright infringement, saw him convicted of conspiracy to defraud and sentenced to four years in prison,” Leech explained.

“This level of sentence would not have been possible if he had been prosecuted under copyright law, but FACT was able to prove conspiracy in his actions. Without proof of conspiracy, a serious criminal could have been left subject to a disproportionately low maximum penalty.”

In a way, I do agree with his point; those making that sort of money from infringement do need to be punished properly. However, it'll be all too easy to abuse this sort of measure, and end up with the disproportion going the other way.

The crime here was fraud. The guy sold something he did not have the rights to sell. Kind of like someone selling your house without your knowledge. IANAL, but as I understand it, we have laws (as was seen in this case) that address these issues. Sending someone to prison for ten years (or at all) for downloading the latest episode of some crap TV show or movie for their personal use is ridiculous. That is and should be a civil matter, IMHO.

Re:Ob frosty

[Goaway]

In a way, I do agree with his point; those making that sort of money from infringement do need to be punished properly.

You're behind on the trends. These days, making big money off the work of others makes you a hero. Just look at Kim Dotcom!

Re:Ob frosty

[Nerdfest]

No, he's still pretty much an asshole, but he was also the victim of some fairly serious abuse of process, involving governments across at least two continents. As with many laws, you have to defend people you don't like.

Re:Ob frosty

[RaceProUK]

These days, making big money off the work of others with their express consent makes you a hero.

FTFY

Re:Ob frosty

[RaceProUK]

Sending someone to prison for ten years (or at all) for downloading the latest episode of some crap TV show or movie for their personal use is ridiculous.

It is, and I believe I hinted at this possibility with the following:

However, it'll be all too easy to abuse this sort of measure, and end up with the disproportion going the other way.

Re: Ob frosty

[Anonymous Coward]

It costs the taxpayer £40000 a year to put someone in prison. Not going to be very good for reducing the deficit (Maybe they only pretend to care about it.) Either way direct bribes are not as easy in the UK as the US (None of the campaign contribution nonsense.)

Re:Ob frosty

[noh8rz10]

The crime here was fraud. The guy sold something he did not have the rights to sell. Kind of like someone selling your house without your knowledge.

dude, that's a sweet idea. hey, want to buy a house? or a car? no problem whatever you want. cash only. or bitcoin.

Re:Ob frosty

[Anonymous Coward]

"Facilitated". You never have to stop, when a word like that weasels its way into law. Is your ISP "facilitating" copyright infringement? How about your computer manufacturer? Gosh darn it's just so confusing, just trust that your politicians will never, ever, abuse a law that has a word like that in it. Oh. What do you mean it's happening all the time?

Re:Ob frosty

[Dunbal]

No, the crime is copyright infringement. THAT is what infringement is, not someone downloading an episode of Downton Abbey because they missed it the other day.

Re:Ob frosty

[RaceProUK]

If only I'd said

However, it'll be all too easy to abuse this sort of measure, and end up with the disproportion going the other way.

Oh, right, I did already.

Re:Ob frosty

[DocGerbil100]

Just to clarify, the crime Vickerman was prosecuted for is Conspiracy to Defraud, purely for running SurfTheChannel, a streaming links site.

This is quite a different law from Fraud, it's vaguer and much more prone to abuse - it seems to be FACT's go-to law whenever they realise a suspect they've spent time and money investigating isn't breaking any actual laws.

Without it, Vickerman would probably never have been prosecuted for anything, although civil action would have been likely, IMO.

If some defendant somewhere ever gets an appeal up to the ECJ, I think it quite possible they'll shoot the law down in flames, just for being so badly written.

More information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_to_defraud
http://torrentfreak.com/surfthechannel-owner-sentenced-to-four-years-in-jail-120814/

Re:Ob frosty

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because the RIAA don't have the legal right to collect fees for people who aren't signed up with them, leaving those people to chase them for their share.

Re:Ob frosty

[NotSanguine]

No, the crime is copyright infringement. THAT is what infringement is, not someone downloading an episode of Downton Abbey because they missed it the other day.

I don't recognize copyright infringement as a crime. At best it is a tort, IMHO. Yes, I am aware that various governments have criminalized "copyright infringement." That doesn't mean I have to agree, or incorporate it into my worldview.

Re:Ob frosty

[NotSanguine]

Just to clarify, the crime Vickerman was prosecuted for is Conspiracy to Defraud, purely for running SurfTheChannel, a streaming links site. This is quite a different law from Fraud, it's vaguer and much more prone to abuse - it seems to be FACT's go-to law whenever they realise a suspect they've spent time and money investigating isn't breaking any actual laws. Without it, Vickerman would probably never have been prosecuted for anything, although civil action would have been likely, IMO. If some defendant somewhere ever gets an appeal up to the ECJ, I think it quite possible they'll shoot the law down in flames, just for being so badly written. More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_to_defraud http://torrentfreak.com/surfthechannel-owner-sentenced-to-four-years-in-jail-120814/

An excellent point. Thank you for correcting me. Civil action is appropriate in these situations. Unfortunately, content owners have co-opted our system to benefit themselves at the expense of the rest of us -- hence the criminalization of copyright infringement

Re:Ob frosty

[Applehu Akbar]

And ten years in prison for filesharing? That's almost as heavy as the British penalty for self-defense.

Re:Ob frosty

[tomtomtom]

Interestingly, digging a bit deeper and looking at the average sentences (in 2009, the most recent year available) for those given immediate custodial sentences (which is not all of those convicted), the statistics say 33.6 months was the average for robbery and 48.7 months for sexual offences (which are statistically the longest sentences on average). Of course the lengthiest of sentences for those offences will have been much longer but as a taxpayer the cost of jailing this guy Vickerman for 5 years for what was, after all, a non-violent crime doesn't sit well with me in context (although admittedly I know nothing about the details of the case). See here, page 40 for the stats.

This brings up an interesting division in how people think about crime. Some (many?) people would say that stealing a penny each from 5 million people is a crime for which a lesser punishment is justified than stealing £50,000 from one individual, despite the monetary amounts involved being the same (and the first scheme being more audacious). The debate over whether harsh penalties for infringement of IP laws are justified (leaving aside the issue of whether the existence or persistence of the IP in question is in itself just) is really another version of that debate. I wonder if perhaps a generational difference in attitudes about this aspect of morality (ie older legislators and executives appear to view infringement so much more seriously than younger people).

Re:Ob frosty

[Xest]

Even fraud isn't foolproof for them though, the OiNK admin was tried for that and got off completely , so it seems fraud prosecutions for this sort of thing are on very shaky ground, it really is clutching at straws.

I don't know if the SurfTheChannel guy is or has appealed but if he hasn't there's a possibility it'll be overturned there anyway.

Re:Ob frosty

[Goaway]

Do you actually think that anyone but the tiniest sliver of a fraction of all the people whose works he made money off had given any kind of consent for it? That is pretty absurd.

Re:Ob frosty

[RaceProUK]

Do you really think I was talking about Kim Dotcom?

Re:Ob frosty

[Goaway]

You were quoting a line where I was talking about him, and saying you fixed it, so I kind of assumed you were?

Re:Ob frosty

[RaceProUK]

Not at all - seems I should have finished that post before actually posting.

Re:Ob frosty

[Anonymous Coward]

To my knowledge the Swiss parliament has voted YES on a law that permits individuals to download non-free content for personal use only.

A more healthy approach to copyright issues than in many other countries ,incl USA and UK. The content industry to date has been stuck in the past (meaning pre-internet era) and this has now been acknowledged by members of Swiss parliament .

rights

[Ragzouken]

"withdrawing [...] rights from lawbreakers" I don't think that's how rights work?

Re:rights

[i kan reed]

Yeah, it sort of is. Rights, as we know them, are derived from the social contract, and withdrawal of one or more of those rights(such as freedom of movement) is necessary to preserve the benefits of the social contract to everyone else. It shouldn't be done unnecessarily(like this) or to unreasonable extremes(like removal of right not to be tortured), but protection of rights is done with the understanding that you won't use your rights to infringe the rights of others.

*You can make the argument that rights are natural or divine in origin, but that's an unprovable derail I'd prefer not to go down.

Re:rights

[SuricouRaven]

No, that's how it works. It's generally accepted that withholding rights from some is required to ensure public safety or other collective benefit. That's why prisons exist. It just has to be done with suitable safeguards (Right to legal advice, right to a fair trial, right to see the evidence against them, etc) to make sure that no person is falsely convicted. Doesn't always work out so well in practice, but no society has found a better solution yet.

Re:rights

[Kjella]

I'm fairly sure prisons withdraw quite a few rights, parole somewhat less but unless it's "cruel and unusual punishment" - sorry, wrong country - the court can do pretty much as they want. I do believe hackers and others convicted of other serious offenses can already be banned from using computers.

Re:rights

[Megol]

It is in the land of the free. Removing voting rights for people that have committed some crime skews the democratic process but it's what is done. :/

Re:rights

[Anonymous Coward]

No. If you want to infringe upon someone's fundamental rights (such as freedom of speech), you need to screw off. If you want to infringe upon 'lesser' rights, then you need a damn good reason to do so (the death of thousands). Otherwise, screw off. The social contract is useful, but fundamental liberties must reign supreme. You could point out that freedom of speech can infringe upon others' rights, but it is the actions of people (not even necessarily the speaker) that do so, not the speech; if people believe nonsense that 'harms' someone's intangible reputation, that's their own fault for believing it, and any actions they take as a result of that that harm the victim is their own fault, not the speaker's.

Trading freedom for safety (whether real or fake) is not a road I want to go down when we're talking about fundamental rights. I've had enough of that with the TSA, the NSA, copyright, patents, suspicion-less border searches, free speech zones, protest permits, DUI checkpoints, and constitution-free zones. Those are problems in the US, but a few of them are problems in other countries, too.

Re:rights

[allaunjsiIverfox2]

It's generally accepted that withholding rights from some is required to ensure public safety or other collective benefit.

In some cases, I feel that infringing upon certain rights is unacceptable no matter what. Copyrights and patents will always be absolutely disgusting to me because of their effect of private property, and copyright's effect on freedom of speech.

Re:rights

[shentino]

If you can withdraw it, it's a privilege.

Re:rights

[shentino]

You don't have an unconditional right to freedom. What you do have is the right to due process before it is taken away.

Re:rights

[rolfwind]

There are no rights. Contracts need to be consented to, otherwise there is no contract, just terms dicated to the individual whether he agrees or not.

There is just a list of revokable privileges and it gets shorter every year.

Re:rights

[i kan reed]

Right, so what are prisons then? Proof that every single thing we call a right is secretly a privilege? I'm sorry they're not true Scotsmen.

Re:rights

[i kan reed]

Ugh, read some goddamned John Locke. Depriving people of rights to continue a condition that allows rights is an inevitability, not just a choice.

Re:rights

[i kan reed]

Requirement of consent to contracts is a right deleniated by the social contract. The natural condition is doing whatever you want, like clubbing rolfwind's head in. A social structure creates the idea of respecting consent, not the other way around.

Dense fucking libertarians, trying to use their derived concepts as a basis for themselves.

Re:rights

[Goaway]

So which is it: Do you oppose putting anybody in jail, or do you think freedom of movement isn't a fundamental right?

Re:rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Once a person has shown that they have a blatant disregard for the rights and property of others and the proper functioning of society, why should they be allowed to determine how society functions?

Re:rights

[causality]

So which is it: Do you oppose putting anybody in jail, or do you think freedom of movement isn't a fundamental right?

Generally this is resolved by only depriving people of civil rights with due process (but the US government is increasingly finding ways around that pesky little detail...).

Likewise, there is too much ignorance about the purpose of juries. The purpose of a jury is not merely to determine if the person transgressed a law. The purpose is also to determine if that law should be enforced. If I for one were ever on a jury and the accused is on trial for a nonviolent marijuana possession charge, I would acquit him or her even if I were certain that they did in fact do the deed, because I fundamentally believe that regulating the consciousness of adult people is beyond the scope of government.

Jury nullification is an interesting read, though if you are familiar with it and make this known, you are not likely to be selected for a jury. This demand for mindlessly applying a set of rules with no judgment is a sure sign of a broken system.

Re:rights

[causality]

It's generally accepted that withholding rights from some is required to ensure public safety or other collective benefit.

In some cases, I feel that infringing upon certain rights is unacceptable no matter what. Copyrights and patents will always be absolutely disgusting to me because of their effect of private property, and copyright's effect on freedom of speech.

Copyright wouldn't be nearly so bad if it stuck to its original term of (IIRC) fourteen years. That's fourteen years, during a time when movable type was one of the most advanced information dissemination technologies available. Now we can reach many, many more people in much less time, resulting in much greater distribution (and sales) of a work than anything that was possible in the late 18th century. Logically, achieving a similar balance would now mean a shorter copyright term, but instead it's been ridiculously extended. This is why so few people respect it anymore; it simply isn't respectable and hasn't been in a long time.

It's disgusting and maybe no reform would ever satisfy you. I can't speak for you there. As for me, I think a reasonable copyright term of say, 5-10 years, would remove nearly all of the problems with it. I also think that would put a bigger dent in piracy than any unreasonable new laws.

Re:rights

[BronsCon]

Felons are not allowed to vote in this country. Involuntary manslaughter is a felony. You can be convicted of involuntary manslaughter if someone runs into the street 2 feet in front of your car, while you're driving along at a little under the speed limit, and dies because there was no way in hell you had time to react to that and avoid hitting them. Were you doing anything wrong? No. Were you disregarding the rights or property of the moron who ran out in front of you? No. Why should you lose any right to anything, then? But that's the reality, here; and until that reality changes and we quit applying "revocation or restriction of rights" to people who've really and truly done nothing wrong, we need to be extremely conservative in which rights we revoke or restrict.

Re:rights

[amalcolm]

Doesn't your selective application of the law make you as bad as any criminal? The law is, in theory, decided by all of us, so you don't get to pick and choose, IMHO

Re:rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Ugh, read some goddamned John Locke.

Ugh. Stop appealing to random philosophers of the past; it's an overrated eyesore. I am free to disagree with anyone I want.

Depriving people of rights to continue a condition that allows rights is an inevitability

You are describing reality. "This is going to happen." Well, of course, but I'm more principled than that.

And there is no reason to think that not limiting fundamental rights would somehow make it so no one has any rights. Just nonsense.

Re:rights

[i kan reed]

"Oh yes, let's ignore the man whose writings were the primary basis for most modern systems of governments and the very idea of rights when discussing rights"
Can do.

I can also ignore you because I value your opinions even less than his.

Re:rights

[i kan reed]

Uh, no selective application of the law is the entire purpose of trials. Using circumstance, evidence, and judgement to determine whether the law can and should apply.

Re:rights

[SuricouRaven]

Don't forget that it's practically unenforceable. An unenforceable law is soon made a mockery of.

The UK recently extended our copyright term from fifty years to seventy for music. Mainly to make sure the Beatles stay covered - it's important to make sure their property rights are protected, or they might not make any more music.

Re:rights

[beelsebob]

Right, just like you have the right to freedom, and the government can never take that away, even if you break the law... wait...

Re:rights

[causality]

Doesn't your selective application of the law make you as bad as any criminal? The law is, in theory, decided by all of us, so you don't get to pick and choose, IMHO

What I described is in fact laid out by the US Constitution, the highest law of the land. Jury nullification is a civil right protected by the Constitution. So no, I'm not being selective.

Look, if you're hostile to the idea that's fine, tell me why you dislike it. But don't make shit up just to find fault with it. Let's have an adult conversation instead.

Re:rights

[causality]

Don't forget that it's practically unenforceable. An unenforceable law is soon made a mockery of.

The UK recently extended our copyright term from fifty years to seventy for music. Mainly to make sure the Beatles stay covered - it's important to make sure their property rights are protected, or they might not make any more music.

Heh that's hilarious and I appreciate the irony you're spelling out (or I could act like a typical Slashdotter and assume I'm the only one who got it because everyone else is so stupid). Of course, the entire purpose of a short-term copyright that expires is that the artist has an incentive to make NEW works, not continuously profit from old ones.

The real problem with unenforcable laws that are widely broken is that they give the government an excuse to target someone they don't like. Many of these laws would require a police state to enforce, something the political class is only too happy to provide ("think of the children!"). Look at the way the idiotic War on (some) Drugs has destroyed the 4th Amendment for an easy example.

You end up with all kinds of mental-gymnastic nonsense just to let them do what they wanted to do anyway. A police dog is a device used to perform a search. Using a dog's nose to search a vehicle is no different from using the police officer's hands and eyes. It performs the same task for the same purpose. It's merely more efficient. Yet it's legal to have roadblocks with police dogs that effectively search everybody in a given area, with no warrant and no probable cause, and if the dog gives an indication (after using its nose to search) then that's all the excuse they need. That's just one example. It's insane. We're willing to give up fundamental liberty in the name of making sure adult people don't smoke weed.

If this society thrives and continues to prosper, it won't be because it deserves to.

Re:rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Because then you won't probably do it again the next time.

Re:rights

[i kan reed]

Jury nullification is a civil right ruled to be protected by the constitution, implicitly not explicitly. It's not like there's a line in the 6th amendment that says "juries can decide laws aren't right."

Re:rights

[causality]

Jury nullification is a civil right ruled to be protected by the constitution, implicitly not explicitly. It's not like there's a line in the 6th amendment that says "juries can decide laws aren't right."

... and if I had ever claimed it was explicitly declared, then I would understand the point of your post.

Re:rights

[i kan reed]

I just like clarifying.

Re:rights

[Anonymous Coward]

If I for one were ever on a jury

Don't worry, now that you've posted this, you won't ever find yourself on a jury.

Re:rights

[BronsCon]

Probably won't do what again the next time? Obey traffic laws while driving? Be unable to stop my vehicle in less time than it takes me to react (barring physics and reality from the equation, of course)? Or do you mean next time I won't leave witnesses? Because that's what would have prevented the unjust conviction in my hypothetical scenario; murdering anyone and everyone who saw the moron run out in front of me.

If that's what you're advocating, then it is you, my anonymous friend, who shouldn't be allowed to vote.

Re:rights

[SleazyRidr]

You are indeed free to disagree with people, but you should be aware that in many cases, you will be wrong. You have freedom of speech to be wrong all day, but the rest of us also have freedom of speech to tell you that you're wrong.

Re:rights

[MrBigInThePants]

Yes.

Re:rights

[MrBigInThePants]

It seems to me you just like to go down swinging...

Re:rights

[davester666]

yuk. I really don't want Yoko to stand in for John. And you know she would insist on it.

Re:rights

[davester666]

where 'due process' = 'spend every penny you, your parents, your children and your friends have'

Re:rights

[i kan reed]

Who was I disagreeing with?

Re:rights

[JesseMcDonald]

"Due process" doesn't mean much by itself; the process needn't be fair or just, merely consistent. Rights don't end just because some arbitrary process was followed. On the contrary, you have your rights so long as you respect the rights of others. The moment you act in a way which violates someone else's rights, you implicitly take the position that those rights do not exist, which frees the other party to act in the same way toward you. Due process is about establishing that this has taken place for all to see, vs. just going off and punishing someone on your own without any public proof of wrongdoing.

Re:rights

[Anonymous Coward]

it's important to make sure their property rights are protected, or they might not make any more music.

They might want to be a bit more careful then.

If it's 10 years in prison to download an artists music, but only 12 years to murder that artist, that might just get some people thinking "2 extra years and there will be no one left to sue once I download ALL of their works"

Just sayin...

Re:rights

[SuricouRaven]

But no major-label artist owns their own copyright. The labels do.

Re:rights

[MrBigInThePants]

Throw the towel in rocky, throw the Towel in!

You could have been somebody!

Re:rights

[Anonymous Coward]

You can be convicted of involuntary manslaughter if someone runs into the street 2 feet in front of your car, while you're driving along at a little under the speed limit, and dies because there was no way in hell you had time to react to that and avoid hitting them.

I'm sure you can provide us with hundreds of examples of that happening.

Re:rights

[VortexCortex]

Now, consider that the citizens can withdraw the government's right to imprison them.

Once you've done that enough times you'll soon see that freedom does exist in the absence of punishment or laws or 'rights', but laws do not exist without punishment -- application of force against another's will.

In the natural lawless state we have the freedom to do whatever our moral compass allows. Not all laws are immoral, but history is full of examples. It's better to err on the side of caution and have as few laws as possible, and thus the most freedom.

In the age of information Copyright is artificial scarcity of infinitely reproducible information -- It's propping up a business model akin to selling ice to Eskimos. There is no evidence that Copyrights are beneficial for society. It's terribly dangerous to run the world on untested hypotheses. We should do the experiment and see if the laws that grant 'rights holders' monopoly of information should exist. There is only evidence to support the null hypothesis: That copyrights and patents are not required for innovation or social benefit. The fashion and automotive industries sell primarily on design, are very profitable, and have no copyrights or design patents.

Information is not scarce. Market that which is scarce: The ability to create new information. Sell the labour to create new information instead, and you'll get more art. If you get paid once for your work to build a home, fix a car, make a song, etc. then you have to do more work to make more money.

Re:rights

[Rakarra]

I think your story would carry a little more weight if you could provide proof of that actually happening: while obeying traffic laws, someone ran directly in front of the car and were struck despite the best efforts of the driver, resulting in felony convictions.

Re:rights

[thunderclap]

Congratulations, I do believe you have guaranteed that you will NEVER be selected for a jury. Millions have in what you have succeeded in.

Re:rights

[tomtomtom]

Actually in the UK we do (at least in theory) have an explicit right to a "fair" trial under Article 6 of the ECHR which is incorporated into English law via the Human Rights Act 1998.

Re:rights

[TapeCutter]

citation required

Re:rights

[BronsCon]

Hypothetical; could happen. I may have the charge wrong, but the fact is the scenario I laid out does align with at least one on-the-books felony.

Re:rights

[BronsCon]

I never said it's happened, though I'm sure it has. The facts of the scenario really only matter when your lawyer is better than the prosecutor, so if you can't afford one, all it takes is for the public defender assigned to your case to not point out clearly to the jury that you were paying attention, were not speeding, intoxicated, or texting, and that you didn't run a stop sign or red light, or commit any other non-felony offense, because if they decide you may have been doing something else wrong when you hit and killed the pedestrian, that's involuntary manslaughter right there.

If you want to know whether it's happened or not, do your own research; I was stating that it could, hypothetically, happen, and you've made no argument to the contrary.

Re:rights

[BronsCon]

What do you need a citation on? That it could happen, or that it has happened? I ask because I never said it *has* happened, so if that's what you're after, do your own research (I'm sure it's out there).

Read the law and realize all it takes is for a cop to think you maybe, possibly, might have been doing something else wrong when you hit the pedestrian and from there it's up to the prosecutor or DA whether or not charges are filed. If the victim's family pushes hard enough, they get a say, as well. From there, all it takes is for the prosecution and any "witnesses" (e.g. family members who weren't actually there) to convince the jury that you may well have been committing some other minor civil infraction at the time of the accident and, if you can't afford a decent lawyer and are stuck with a public defender, you're most likely being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

Re:rights

[mjwx]

Hypothetical; could happen.

The same as my hypothetical date with Seychelles Gabriel?

Hypothetically I could have one... want to guess about reality.

There's a lot of myths about laws like this. Automatic charges. A lot of it is taken out of context, I.E. in Australia whenever a person is killed in a motor vehicle accident it is investigated with manslaughter being one of the possibilities. This has evolved to be the common myth that if you kill anyone in an accident you're automatically sent to jail for manslaughter. In reality when there is an accident where there is a fatality it's investigated and if the police can find no wrong doing (horrible coincidental accidents do happen), there isn't even a charge laid.

Re:rights

[shentino]

It does have to be fair AND consistent.

The first part is substantiative due process, the second part is procedural due process.

This is also checked by the clause regarding cruel and unusual punishment.

Re:rights

[BronsCon]

Where did I say it was automatic? All it takes is one cop having a bad day to decide it looks like you were on your phone or maybe you ran that stop sign (maybe a "witness" -- really a family member of the victim who wasn't even present at the time - "saw" you run the sign) and you're facing charges. Can't afford a good lawyer? Your public defender isn't gonna lift a finger to prove you were in the right, he wants to believe you're guilty so he can get on to a better, career-building, case.

Re:rights

[causality]

It seems to me you just like to go down swinging...

Tempered with good judgment, this is an admirable trait.

The only part of it I reject is this culture of disclaiming things that were never actually claimed and the expectation that I should embrace this practice. If I stop short of saying something, there was a reason for that. A reader who mentally inserts words that were not present has a problem with his or her own imagination, not with anything I said.

Re:rights

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can withdraw it, it's a privilege.

A common misconception. Since all rights necessarily have limits there is no meaningful or useful distinction between a right and a privilege.

Re:rights

[Goaway]

Generally this is resolved by only depriving people of civil rights with due process (but the US government is increasingly finding ways around that pesky little detail...).

The discussion here is about withdrawing rights after due process.

Re:rights

[Rakarra]

All it takes is one cop having a bad day to decide it looks like you were on your phone or maybe you ran that stop sign (maybe a "witness" -- really a family member of the victim who wasn't even present at the time - "saw" you run the sign) and you're facing charges

Whoa! Ok, now we're talking about something completely different, the breaking of the law and reckless driving. Sure, if a cop falsifies or "misremembers" information, you could pretty much be charged with anything under any situation, but I think that's a different discussion from a felony for a non-at-fault accident where the victim was 100% at fault.

And in my experience, a cop needs to have more than "a bad day" to do this, as it would require the officer provide his testimony in court later.

Re:rights

[BronsCon]

You're absolutely correct, two completely different things, until you realize that, in order to get to Point B, you must start at Point A.

The only solution

[Kardos]

is not to play the game. The rise of creative commons and the like will end this oppressive copyright regime. Free software and free culture is the only way to go.

Re:The only solution

[SuricouRaven]

No, it won't, for a number of reasons:
- The power of marketing. Commercial interests can throw enough money at promoting anything to make it popular, at least for a time. Who wants to go see Obscure Indie Horror Flick that they read about on facebook when there is massive television advert promotion for Buckets of CGI Blood VII - and it's being featured on talk shows, endorsed by celebrities, and appears on billboards?

- Incidential infringement. It happens, a lot. The greatest source of clipart today is google image search. People frequently grab popular songs to remix or dub over their own videos for youtube. Typically this is done by people who just don't care about copyright and know next to nothing about it.

- Closing the wagons. If creative commons every seriously becomes a threat to entrenched interests, do you expect them to just take it lying down? No, they'll use every dirty trick in the book! You'll probably find informal agreements abound to exclude the upstarts, making it very difficult for them to be promoted outside of social networking. Radio stations will likewise refuse to play creative commons music, for fear of being blacklisted by the major labels they depend upon a lot more heavily. Same goes in software - look at the measures Microsoft has taken over the last twenty years to fight linux with deliberate incompatibilities and aggressive business tactics, and continues to take with such measures as Secure Boot. They've not been entirely victorious, but they've certainly made linux advocates and developers fight hard for every scrap of ground they have gained.

CC may well bring on a real revolution in popular culture, but it's certainly not inevitable.

Re:The only solution

[interkin3tic]

Nonsense, there's always more than one way to skin a cat. For instance: skinning public officials who consistently value the rights of people who give them money over the rights of the public. Torrent the last season of game of thrones for instructions on that method.

Re:The only solution

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a fart in a wind storm.

Re:The only solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. With laws that allow someone to copyright a public domain or CC protected work just because they broadcast it, a work can be "tainted" very easily, so a Shakespeare poem can get someone 10 years just as a Justin Bieber track would.

Re:The only solution

[Runaway1956]

Oh, cry me a river. Companies bending over backward? Wooo-hoo. You're hallucinating. THE COMPANIES HAVE YOU BENT OVER A BARREL, AND YOU LIKE IT!

The thieves are those who have gone to Congress to get copyright law changed, so that copyright will never expire. In effect, they have bribed congress to grant them a monopoly on music into perpetuity.

Re:The only solution

[stealth_finger]

I'd love to see these people who try to justify being a thief at least put some skin in the game so when their content is ripped off they'll have a taste of what they're dishing out. A lot of "if I made music I'd let people trade it" happening and not a lot of "I make music and I've released it for free" going on.

I love the way it's always thiefs.

Bottomline is, the people that are going to buy it will. They may pirate it first but that will mostly be followed by a sale unless the product is not as good as expected and even then in the case of collectors etc it may get bought anyway. The people that aren't going to buy it won't. They may also pirate as well but only because they can, they get it because it's there but if it wasn't then no big deal.

Obviously there are the minority that are going to pirate everything they can for whatever reason they choose, but they haven't deprived anyone of any property so nothing has been thieved anyway.

Re:The only solution

[allaunjsiIverfox2]

that just taking it is a fine alternative.

It would be problematic if people were actually taking anything, but that's not the case.

Maybe the real problem is that people (and the government would agree, sadly) feel that they're entitled to monopolies over ideas and procedures that are enforced by the government. Of course, this leads to censorship and the infringement of people's real private property rights, so these monopolies are intolerable.

The bottom line is that no price beats free.

In a free market, it's up to you to figure out how to profit. If you can't do that, then too bad for you.

I'd love to see these people who try to justify being a thief at least put some skin in the game so when their content is ripped off they'll have a taste of what they're dishing out.

Your ad hominems are worthless and don't serve to debunk any arguments. "You'd agree with X if you were in situation Y!" is not a logical argument.

Re:The only solution

[cdrudge]

- Incidential infringement. It happens, a lot. The greatest source of clipart today is google image search. People frequently grab popular songs to remix or dub over their own videos for youtube. Typically this is done by people who just don't care about copyright and know next to nothing about it.

I don't think that it's that they don't care about it, it's just that they don't view it as copyright infringement. They think of it more as fair use. It's not, but in their eyes and minds since they aren't "commercially" releasing it to make money off of it, or calling it their own work, then it's all good.

Re:The only solution

[NotSanguine]

Changes in the business models made every one of their excuses invalid and as much as companies bent over backwards to get these people to be honest customers the trend just continued.

Chris Dodd, Is that you?

Re:The only solution

[Anonymous Coward]

You can use creative commons all you want, and you'll still get copyright claims against you which will close your online accounts, now with the possibility of automatic jail time in the UK. All it takes is someone to use a creative commons audio track in a copyrighted work, then Content ID will flag all creative commons works using that track as infringing.

Even having a word contained within a popular movie title as a filename in an archive, will automatically get you a DMCA complaint.

We can obey the law all we want and use Creative Commons, and we'll still get slammed down as infrigers.

Re:The only solution

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be problematic if people were actually taking anything, but that's not the case.
 
There is overhead involved in music production. If you're using the product without putting money up to support that production then you are, indeed, taking something without paying for it. It may not be physical but it still is "something."
 
  Maybe the real problem is that people (and the government would agree, sadly) feel that they're entitled to monopolies over ideas and procedures that are enforced by the government. Of course, this leads to censorship and the infringement of people's real private property rights, so these monopolies are intolerable.
 
Yes. As a society we have agreed that there is a limited right to monopoly over content. It's called copyright. If society was dead set against it you'd have the free-content utopia that you guys flap your lips about so wildly. Laws can be changed. The fact that copyright was allowed to be extended (at least in the USA) shows that the masses have nothing against this monopoly power.
 
  Cite the infringements you speak of and their relation to IP or it's a moot point.
 
  In a free market, it's up to you to figure out how to profit. If you can't do that, then too bad for you.
 
Society by-and-large has decided that free markets aren't needed here and that's why you have copyright law. Even you pointed out that it is a monopoly situation. Monopolies don't exist in industrialized nations without the backing of government powers. This is called regulation. Regulated markets are not free markets no matter how much you want to scream and kick and cry to make it seem like they are. Your point is a non-starter.
 
  Your ad hominems are worthless and don't serve to debunk any arguments. "You'd agree with X if you were in situation Y!" is not a logical argument.
 
And presenting fallacies like free markets and uncited censorship does not serve to prove a point either. You may consider some of it a false dichotomy but you've done nothing to prove it as such.

Re:The only solution

[MozeeToby]

Piracy is a fraction of the level that it was before decent distribution channels and lower prices were available. Just because a vocal 2% keeps complaining doesn't mean that nothing has changed.

Re:The only solution

[BronsCon]

Honestly, that's how it should be. And if YouTube puts ads on their video, they're the ones commercializing it, let them work out the licensing and pay royalties on it.

Re:The only solution

[Anonymous Coward]

The people who were sharing back in the glory days of Napster are still ripping off content today.

I think I see what's going on here: you're fixated on a totally irrelevant minority. Those people don't matter. Forget them. It's the spending customers who matter, and whose money needs to keep flowing. Doing things to stop that flow, is going to be bad. The IP industries need more revenue.

Music differs from video in two interesting ways: first, it went digital far sooner, back in the 1980s. Second, DRM never really got established in the first place. Sure, there were a few experiments, but hardly anyone ever bought them (and when they did, the reviews ("it didn't work in my car's CD player!") were incredibly toxic, that they didn't last).

Result: I never pirate music, because I never need to. I still buy the CDs and they still work just as well as they did 20 years ago. I can literally count on one hand, the number of CDs (all of from from around 2004, give or take a year) where I was defrauded into buying a nonstandard CD. Napster was never of interest to the music market, because the culture of needing pirate releases (or cracking software, to do it yourself) just to be able to play it, never got started.

Video isn't anything like that. They didn't start digital distribution until a little over a decade later than music, and right from the beginning it had CSS. When that was cracked, sales picked up, and people were able to illegally play the DVDs they bought, but it required that illegal step. Many of us continued spending money, but the fact that you had to commit a crime to make the discs work, made it less convenient, slighty scary (some people think in those terms) and made players harder to acquire. Then with HD, they abandoned the easily-cracked CSS and being a customer became downright difficult even for a typical geek. Unless you are really dedicated to it (you're a capper in some release group) your pretty much have to depend on release groups' output, just to be able to watch anything. So sales really are endangered, and fewer people are buying stuff than did a year ago.

Every time they tell paying customers "fuck you," some customers stop paying. And every time customers stop paying, they start shouiting "fuck you" a little bit louder, resulting in more people leaving.

I think customers leaving the market, is very bad for it. Failing to acquire new people (e.g. the former napster users) is regrettable, but not anywhere near to the same degree and losing what you've got.

This is what I'm getting at when I say we ought to be focusing on paying customers. When the industry takes paying customers and turns them into non-customers, that's the industry's fault. With music, that didn't happen so much. There are non-customers in music too, but they were never customers, so no loss occurred. With video, we have a serious industrial suicide problem. If Cameron is sincere about using government power to combat it, then there's really only one thing that makes sense: he should advocate outlawing the suicide. That is: outlaw DRM. If someone uses "technological measures" to prevent themselves from acquiring or keeping customers, put them in jail as a warning to the rest of the people in the industry, that we won't tolerate them undermining the industry anymore.

Think about it. When Louie C.K. says YES to paying customers, he shouldn't have to worry about the MPAA training people to become pirates, making bittorrent (and other means) more necessary, attractive, and habitual. He should be selling in an environment where it's normal for people to buy the files, not where that's considered an exception or where "don't tell 'em to fuck off" is considered a novel experiment. WTF.

I'd love to see these people who try to justify being a thief at least put some skin in the game so when their content is ripped off they'll have a

Re:The only solution

[allaunjsiIverfox2]

There is overhead involved in music production. If you're using the product without putting money up to support that production then you are, indeed, taking something without paying for it. It may not be physical but it still is "something."

So you're not taking anything. Potential money is not tangible, and you can't lose it; you never had it. Furthermore, it was never yours.

Yes. As a society we have agreed that there is a limited right to monopoly over content. It's called copyright.

Just like, at one point, society allowed slavery. I disagree with society, and society can be wrong. I believe it's wrong in this case. All this demonstrates is that people don't actually care about rights, free speech, or principles; that's sad, and especially so in a country that's supposed to be the land of the free.

The fact that copyright was allowed to be extended (at least in the USA) shows that the masses have nothing against this monopoly power.

Nonsense. I know that many people want at least some form of copyright, but not in the form it's in today. It's just that we have a two-party system and people keep voting for the lesser of two evils, but that does not mean they agree with these 'representatives' on all issues.

Even you pointed out that it is a monopoly situation.

I pointed it out because I disagree with it with the monopoly situation, obviously.

And presenting fallacies like free markets and uncited censorship

Neither of which are fallacies. The censorship comes from the enforcement of copyright. What happens when a website facilitates copyright infringement or infringes upon copyright itself? As we've seen... the 'solution' is often censorship.

There isn't even any proof that copyrights/patents are effective. Even if they were, I'd still be 100% opposed to them, but there isn't any. All you people do is speculate about what the world would be like without them, and that's not proof in any sense of the word. Since you're limiting rights here and proposing policies/laws, the burden of proof is on you. Sadly, our system doesn't care about proof, as is apparent to anyone who's been paying attention.

Thankfully, even if copyright remains, the government will never truly be able to stop any of it. Hopefully it'll all collapse at some point.

Re:The only solution

[Anonymous Coward]

There used to be a great deal of common land in England. Commoners had usage (grazing, wood collection etc) rights. All it took was the Enclosure Acts and most of that land went into private ownership and the commoner rights were removed.

In much the same way the moment the commons develops to the point that vested interests could profit from controlling it, just watch how quickly the law changes.

People want to be Free/free, ideas ought to be Free/free but regardless of that its seldom more that a limited time offer.

Re:The only solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's my thought process as I'm in the supermarket:
"I'm next to the box of DVDs now, let's quickly browse to see if there are any films worth spending money on"
"Ooh I like this one"
"No, wait, it has that blue box--it's not a DVD but a Blue Ray. Screw it. I don't own a player and from what I hear what hoops you have to jump through, it's too much bother anyway."

Re:The only solution

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're not taking anything. Potential money is not tangible, and you can't lose it; you never had it. Furthermore, it was never yours.
 
It's not potential money. It's labor.
 
  Just like, at one point, society allowed slavery. I disagree with society, and society can be wrong. I believe it's wrong in this case. All this demonstrates is that people don't actually care about rights, free speech, or principles; that's sad, and especially so in a country that's supposed to be the land of the free.
 
And the laws involving slavery were changed. Feel free to go for it yourself. Aside from that what you "believe" has little to do with the reality of the situation.
 
  Nonsense. I know that many people want at least some form of copyright, but not in the form it's in today. It's just that we have a two-party system and people keep voting for the lesser of two evils, but that does not mean they agree with these 'representatives' on all issues.
 
Again, if the masses were that set against it the system would change. The fact that people are sticking with the two party foolery is just proof that they're not dead set against anything but rocking the boat.
 
I'm just as much if not more so against the two party lie but that doesn't mean that the law doesn't apply to me or something that makes perfect sense to me is the will of We The People. This doesn't mean I don't think people shouldn't try to bring about change but the current method is not a valid form of protest and is only hurting whatever your end goal may be involving the question of IP. It sucks but it's the truth of the matter.
 
  I pointed it out because I disagree with it with the monopoly situation, obviously.
 
It still doesn't change the fact of the matter. I pointed it out that you pointed it out because at least you are grounded in the reality of what it is from a legal and social standpoint. With that in mind you have to realize that your ideas on the situation mean little in the grand scheme of how society as a whole deals with a subject. I'm just trying to ground this debate, if you will, in some form of reality. What each of us thinks and feels about a particular subject means little until enough of us act on it to make a real change. This isn't happening in the question of how IP laws should be reformed or even if they should be.
 
  Neither of which are fallacies.
 
Yes, they are. Sorry but I've pretty much proven that the free market concept you speak of is a regulated market. If it weren't we wouldn't even have this discussion. I requested you to cite how it leads to censorship but you neither cited anything nor gave a concrete example. If you really think this is a first amendment issue feel free to combat it on that level. Good luck. You'll lose because it's not.
 
  There isn't even any proof that copyrights/patents are effective. Even if they were, I'd still be 100% opposed to them, but there isn't any. All you people do is speculate about what the world would be like without them, and that's not proof in any sense of the word. Since you're limiting rights here and proposing policies/laws, the burden of proof is on you. Sadly, our system doesn't care about proof, as is apparent to anyone who's been paying attention.
 
No, the burden is on you as the laws in question are already in place. There is a legal way to alter these laws. Again, feel free to do what you can. Don't cry if what you do is illegal by the greater social contract of legislation and you suffer for it. You know what the law is and if it is in someway unjust there are ways to take it on without ending up fined for it.
 
Thankfully, even if copyright remains, the government will never truly be able to stop any of it. Hopefully it'll all collapse at some point.
 
Wish in one hand and crap in the other...
 
Good luck and good bye.

Re:The only solution

[allaunjsiIverfox2]

It's not potential money. It's labor.

If you're talking about the labor they put into it, then that's already been "spent." No one can take it from them. And since that was their own choice and no one else's, it has nothing to do with the people sharing files.

And the laws involving slavery were changed. Feel free to go for it yourself. Aside from that what you "believe" has little to do with the reality of the situation.

What I believe is relevant because I'm speaking of morality. As for changing laws, well... people are trying. I vote for candidates that I feel would represent me (no democrats or republicans) and write to my so-called "representatives" about issues like these often. I join protests when possible. I try to remind people of freedom. Sadly, it's probably not enough.

Again, if the masses were that set against it the system would change.

Not if they're preoccupied with 50,000 other issues that the One Party distracts them with. It's easy to divide and conquer when there are only two parties. All issues that the majority doesn't think are "top priority" get ignored and the One Party can do practically anything it wants with regard to those issues.

I'm just as much if not more so against the two party lie but that doesn't mean that the law doesn't apply to me

I recognize reality and that the law applies to me. I just don't respect the law.

It still doesn't change the fact of the matter. I pointed it out that you pointed it out because at least you are grounded in the reality of what it is from a legal and social standpoint.

I don't see why you bother with this. I know that copyright exists and people don't care about freedom at the moment. You don't need to keep pointing it out. I'm saying it's wrong. Saying that it exists misses the point and is completely useless.

Yes, they are.

Saying that a certain market should be free is not a fallacy, which was my intention. Not specifying how censorship is at work is also not fallacious.

No, the burden is on you as the laws in question are already in place.

Wrong. The onus of proof does not suddenly change hands just because someone forces policies and laws on people. The burden of proof is still on the people infringing upon people's rights and advocating that these policies/laws remain in place. I'm not talking about the legal onus of proof, but principle. The law is often illogical.

Re:The only solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I make software, and I've released it for free.

Re:The only solution

[SuricouRaven]

The point is that creative commons are competing with commonly if illegally used commercial works, which are much more heavily promoted.

Imagine how many more linux desktops there would be if there was no way to pirate Windows.

Re:The only solution

[msobkow]

I'd love to see these people who try to justify being a thief at least put some skin in the game so when their content is ripped off they'll have a taste of what they're dishing out. A lot of "if I made music I'd let people trade it" happening and not a lot of "I make music and I've released it for free" going on.

Funny. There seem to be thousands of open source projects like mine (MSS Code Factory) where people have done exactly that: put in years of work and released it for free.

Furthermore, while I do torrent movies and music, I've also spent in excess of $60,000 so far in my life on media. There comes a point where you realize it's just an insane amount of money to be spending on entertainment. Particularly as I've watched a whole two movies to the end in the past year, giving up on most after 20 minutes as being an utter waste of time to watch such drivel (and that includes a number of "big name" block busters like the latest "Star Trek" drek.)

Most of the music I do download is music I already own. It's easier to download it than to go rifling through the boxes to find that particular CD. And ripping 5,000+ CDs would just be a royal pain in the anal sphincter. Not to mention requiring an obscene investment in hard drive storage.

Sure I end up getting some albums I never owned and checking them out. But with a collection my size, I don't feel I've "ripped off" the media industry in any size, shape, or form. They've gotten more than their fair share out of me.

I worked it out once. What I've spent on media so far is the equivalent of paying a $100/month "streaming fee" for my entire life, from birth to expected death around 72 years old. And that's just what I spent on physical media -- it doesn't include movie tickets or cable and satellite fees, nor the massive numbers of movies I rented over the years.

Nope. I'm pretty guilt fee about my "theft" nowadays. They've been paid, paid, and paid again over the past 49 years.

Re:The only solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, that's how it should be. And if YouTube puts ads on their video, they're the ones commercializing it, let them work out the licensing and pay royalties on it.

Ads on videos are opt-in. The person posting it has to say they want to make money from posting the video to trigger ads being added to it.

Re:The only solution

[Anonymous Coward]

"The power of marketing. Commercial interests can throw enough money at promoting anything to make it popular, at least for a time. Who wants to go see Obscure Indie Horror Flick that they read about on facebook when there is massive television advert promotion for Buckets of CGI Blood VII - and it's being featured on talk shows, endorsed by celebrities, and appears on billboards?"

Not me, maybe I am different from most people, but I don't give a flying fuck what celebrities endorse, ditto for billboards and ads in general, they're all just noise that gets filtered out.

Friends on Facebook on the other hand are usually more credible and can be more informative than a mindless one sided ad which only serves to market said material.

On saying that, people are stupid and will buy anything that celebrities put their name to, I thought I would never compare people to lemmings, or flies to shit but I find myself drawing parallels with society now.

Sad world.

Re:The only solution

[Kirth]

"The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the words of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living. "

-- Thomas Babington Macaulay, Speech to House of Commons, 1841

http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~...

Penalty Doesnt Match the Crime

[number17]

Weatherley underlined that he did indeed mean prison should be an option not only for those running sites, but those who keep on downloading despite the warnings.

Is this guy a martyr or do we just chalk this up as another politician with crazy ideas that won't pass the majority test? Perhaps his boss doesn't give him enough work to do.

Re:Penalty Doesnt Match the Crime

[gstoddart]

Is this guy a martyr or do we just chalk this up as another politician with crazy ideas that won't pass the majority test?

You seem awfully confident it couldn't get passed into law.

I'm less certain of that. The copyright owners and their lobbyists are working to chip away at our rights to make them secondary to theirs -- because they essentially want all digital technology to be controlled and used as they allow us.

I fear this could be something which happens eventually. And I fear that they will be pushing this exact same agenda elsewhere.

Case in point, the FBI gets called in because someone was wearing Google Glasses in a movie theater, even though he wasn't recording. And ICE and DHS do domain takedowns of places suspected of violating copyright (or facilitating it).

Governments are increasingly becoming tools of corporations to enforce their wishes on us.

So what you and I is becoming irrelevant, it's what the big corporations can pay for. And they have far more money than we do.

Re:Penalty Doesnt Match the Crime

[rts008]

Well, actually it was Dept. of
Homeland Security that was called in, the 'suspected copyright infringer' was under the mistaken impression they were FBI agents at first.

But that really doesn't detract from your insightful comment, I just like things to remain factual/accurate when possible. :-)

Re:Penalty Doesnt Match the Crime

[gstoddart]

Really? As it was reported (fairly widely) it was FBI.

Still, the irony of DHS doing this makes the agency as draconian as the name initially suggested it would eventually be.

I'll try not to trigger Godwin's law, but ...

Re:Penalty Doesnt Match the Crime

[rts008]

Yeah.
I actually RTFA when this came out on /., and in the interview with the man arrested, he stated that he thought they were FBI, but it turned out to be the DHS.

Also, when I went back to the the /. article there is now an update:

Update: 01/21 21:41 GMT by U L : The Columbus Dispatch confirmed the story with the Department of Homeland Security. The ICE and not the FBI detained the Glass wearer, and there happened to be an MPAA task force at the theater that night, who then escalated the incident.

It was another typical bad/inaccurate summary by the submitter, and again, typically, not caught by the /. editors.

Yeah, I thought of the Stasi(Ministry for State Security of East Germany.) when they announced the formation of the DHS, and announced it's intended mission.

And if we thought J. Edgar Hoover's FBI was bad, we are in for a rude surprise. This is already much worse; J. Edgar was a piker compared to this.

Re:Penalty Doesnt Match the Crime

[gstoddart]

It was another typical bad/inaccurate summary by the submitter, and again, typically, not caught by the /. editors.

Not that I normally defend the /. editors ... but all of the major news agencies were reporting it as FBI initially.

So it was a pretty widespread thing.

In all honesty

[Anonymous Coward]

there is no such thing as "intellectual property". It's a farce designed to protect companies from competition. I'm all for no patents, no "IP". Compete on pure, raw likes and dislikes from customers. Full stop. Stop this wanking about with asinine laws. Bloody lawyers...

Re:In all honesty

[NMBob]

You're right. I would have no problem handing money straight to Bergman/Bogart/Henried/whoever for a copy of Casablanca, but who gets the money now (even though I have two legal, VHS and DVD, copies)? All of the principle actors are dead. No one should keep getting money for their performances. Same for books and this crap revolving around the BBC show Sherlock. Everyone else that worked on the movie was paid a salary. Digitize the ultimate version of it, give it to the Museum Of The Moving Image for free distribution and STFU. I wish as much effort was expended on investigating the party in Benghazi as they expend worrying about this crap. If it's good people will buy it, once, if it's not people won't.

Re:In all honesty

[the grace of R'hllor]

Patents work, and are necessary for research.

If Samsung spends $10 billion researching holographic displays, and all their competitors could just then reverse engineer the technology and build their own devices with holographic technology, then no one will ever have incentive to work out a way to get it done. Except for the 'cool' factor, but the 'cool' factor doesn't gather $10 billion in support unless a US president sets it as a goal and makes room in a governmental budget.

Re:In all honesty

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, customers want "smart" things. Build it, show a compelling reason why it works and I don't give a monkey's toss who make it. Everyone else is the same. I don't care about "your" R&D. R&D is the cost of doing business. It should never be passed on the customer.

Re:In all honesty

[Anonymous Coward]

there is no such thing as "intellectual property". It's a farce designed to protect companies from competition. I'm all for no patents, no "IP". Compete on pure, raw likes and dislikes from customers. Full stop. Stop this wanking about with asinine laws. Bloody lawyers...

Patents are by far the lesser evil. The alternative is trade secret under which anyone doing R&D will intentionally obfuscate the functional details of their innovations to prevent fast followers from killing them off. With patents the methods are publicly disclosed and the monopoly is only granted for a limited time. You can even patent an improvement to someone else's patent (you'll need to license their patent to go into production).

Trademark is fairly important for preventing mimicry from making it impossible for the consumer to buy based on quality. without trademark law you research the product and after making a decision about which one to buy you then have to distinguish between the genuine ones and the ones that are crap but perfectly mimic the packaging of the real deal. Not to mention the nose generated from reviews by people who fell for the mimicry.

Copyright is intended to be an alternative to patronage. Without it artists either need to do all their work for hire (commissions, having a job as part of a larger company, etc.) or to give away their art and hope it builds a reputation they can leverage for a future for hire/crowed funded work. In practice this will mean most art is corporate funded. So unless the Coca-Cola logo is you idea of art, don't expect abolishing copyright to be helpful. The only alternative is DRM well in excess of anything that's been used to date.

Now, copyright reform is probably a good idea. The current copyright terms are more than a little excessive, and with modern communication systems much of the current paradigm is not enforceable. But that is a far cry from abolishing all intellectual property.

Re:In all honesty

[the grace of R'hllor]

"R&D is the cost of doing business. It should never be passed on the customer."

Uhm, absolutely ALL costs are passed on to the consumer, otherwise you're operating a business at a loss.

An example:
Right. So I spend my life's savings. I build a smart thing, and show a compelling reason why it works. You want it. So I sell it, at a price that will replenish my life's savings and make me some money, ie materials cost + R&D cost offset + profit.

Then Eve comes along, sees my idea, figures out how it works by spending a few afternoons tinkering, since she has a working prototype at marginal cost. She has no R&D costs, and can immediately start undercutting me.

You don't give a monkey's toss who made it, so you buy from Eve, and I end up poorer than I was for being foolish enough to invent something.

Knowing this in advance, I'll save myself from researching it and making myself poorer.

With patent law, I know I have, say, 12 years to make money off the patent. So I know that if I spend $12000 on R&D, I need to make at least $1000/yr margin just to break even from sales, plus some actual profit. If I license the tech out to Alice, Bob and Carol, and I don't want to set up manufacturing, I can license it for $4000 and be in the clear and still sell the product. Each of them has an R&D investment of $4000, so the product becomes cheaper (in a more crowded marketplace).

TFA reads like a political fundraising letter

[Anonymous Coward]

One MP advocates extreme measures... so what.

"So everybody better get off their butt, stand up and oppose these crazy people RIGHT NOW!" OK maybe, but let me check my email and do a few other things first.

Impractical?

[MeesterCat]

Because our prisons are already nearly full...

https://www.gov.uk/government/...

Re:Impractical?

[gstoddart]

Because our prisons are already nearly full...

Then you're doing it wrong.

Prisons are supposed to be a massive, for-profit industry to allow corporations the maximum opportunity to leverage synergies and enhance shareholder value, and your justice system is meant to feed as many people as possible into it.

Sheesh, don't you guys know anything?

*sigh* If only that wasn't apparently true.

Re:Impractical?

[SuricouRaven]

That's more the American model. UK prisons are still mostly government-owned and -run.

Re:Impractical?

[0123456]

No problem. They'll just let murderers and rapists out early to make room for the real criminals.

Re:Impractical?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's more the American model. UK prisons are still mostly government-owned and -run.

So privatize them. You'll get to spend more, generating economic activity, prisoners will be treated worse, which voters love because they will never be in prison and the new prison owners will donate to politicians and judges who promised to send people away for years for minor infractions. Win, win, win all around! /sarcasm

Re:Impractical?

[TapeCutter]

The US leads the world in the number of prisoners per capita, the UK would need roughly seven times the number of prisons it has to catch up.

Wrong approach

[Peter Simpson]

The only way to fight personal, noncommercial "sharing", is to provide a one-stop download center with reasonable prices. It has worked for Amazon and Apple, but the media companies stubbornly refuse to cooperate and make their complete catalogs available in one place...so Pirate Bay does it for them.

The market is speaking as loudly as it can, but the media companies refuse to listen.

Re:Wrong approach

[Anonymous Coward]

They are not refusing to listen, they are pushing the courts to further distort the markets in their favour.

Get a law like Canada recently passed with a max penalty of $5k for ALL non-commercial infractions as a starting point to address the issue.

Next, as you point out perhaps rather then having the courts protect their "horse and buggy" business they should learn to adopt (although history shows they never have without a fight).

Re:Wrong approach

[Anonymous Coward]

Another problem is wealth inequality, for the average 'middle class' income $8 for a movie ticket, or $20 for a new release DVD may seem fine. And the studios stand to make more from 'that price point/class' than lowering it to be within range of lower income.
Speaking as someone who is retired and on low income(with liberal values on copyright) with lots of time to watch media, I don't bat an eye copying a movie/TV, when I come across movie/TV DVD's on clearance for a couple of dollars, I'll often buy them,even if I have a downloaded copy already, cause they are finally within budget.

intellectual property is not 'real property' and since no actual physical item is stolen I don't believe the end user should be punished. Anyone reselling for a profit, that is being taken from original creators, well thats another matter.

But politicians and law makers will do as they do;

-- When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

Re:Wrong approach

[serviscope_minor]

And add to that no DRM.

Yeah they love the DRM for some reason I can't quite work out. But basically it makes the product crap. It's either "streaming" in which case you need a decent, wired internet connection (how's your 3G data usage doing...?) or it's locked to some device in some way which means playing it on a decent screen or another portable device will suck.

The problem is not competing with "free" it's competing with "better".

Of course, most people don't really know about DRM. But that doesn't matter because they are at least vaguely aware of the effects. The pirate bay is better because:
* Excellent search engine.
* Nice one stop place for all media.
* Excellent choice in download clients (can prioitise, batch up, etc)
* You can use your favourite media player.
* You can play on any devices you own.
* You can copy from your laptop to your phone, tablet, other laptop, builtin player in TV
* You can transcode to a smaller file for your phone
* You can shove it on a USB stick and go to a friend's house for movie night
* You can play on any screen you own.
* Generally good download speeds, excellent for popular stuff.
* Generally a good choice of different size/quality
* Available in your country right now.

The fact that's is free is at worst icing and best actually a minor disincentive since a good number of people don't like the idea of being a freeloader.

Re:Wrong approach

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. This is the reason that The Beatles are still the most pirated group of all times... If iTunes just let me download their stuff for a reasonable price and DRM free...
 
Oh, wait...
 
Seriously, I'd agree with you 100% if the number one downloads coming off of PB were things like bootlegs of Pink Floyd's Meddle tour or some old Benny Carter recording that is no longer in print but when it's stuff that has never been out of print or is riding the tops of the charts today? Your argument fails. Simply fails. While you may have been modded up there isn't a single rational person here who doesn't see it as shallow "justification" for simply not paying for a product that you're using.

Re:Wrong approach

[Anonymous Coward]

-- When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

No one fears the people more than a tyrant does.

Re:Wrong approach

[Twinbee]

With ever increasing HD sizes, and smaller real estate in meatspace, I'd love to buy a film to download, instead of purchasing the DVD.

Re:Wrong approach

[Kjella]

What I can't really understand is what they think they're gaining by it, how could giving their paying customers a DRM free version hurt when it's trivial to get one from anywhere. All the TV/movie services have said even offline mode is out of the question, not even Steam or Spotify is that anal. Honestly, if you compare music piracy before and after DRM can you even tell the difference? It was available on torrents before, it's still available on torrents now, it's less hassle for the customers but overall the people who wanted to pay pay and those who want to pirate pirate. Or like me, I pay for HBO Nordic and download from my one stop torrent shop because there's zero compelling reasons to use their service. The only value they contribute is the production, they could just as well put up a private torrent with a paywall.

Re:Wrong approach

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, did you ever (with some trepidation) give your credit card details to some Moldovan Agriculture Bank account, in exchange for credit on an internet company in Archangel'sk which established the optimum price point for songs? (pricing per kilobyte transmitted; approx € 0.20 per song IIRC, for 192k Ogg Vorbis quality)

They claimed to pay royalties to the artists according to Russian radio broadcast rules.

There were rumors, that Russia was only allowed to join the WTO, after they'd wrung that Archangel'skii company's neck.

Now probably the MAFIAA owns that domain name, to entrap and catch copyright infringers.

All your MP3 are belong to us.

Re:Wrong approach

[Peter Simpson]

I'd happily pay $1.98 for each and every torrent I download from Pirate Bay. Upload anything you like, the download fees are split amongst the media companies on the basis of what percentage of the downloads are "theirs". Set it up a an open exchange, everyone wins.

Just do *something*, please, to give people what they want. For some reason, media companies think that witholding content is to their benefit. Look, if someone wants to pay you for something, shouldn't you just let them have it and take their money? I pay for Netflix, but every time I search for a movie, it's not available. So, I head for Pirate Bay. I'd rather not do this, and I'd rather pay for the movie, but I just can't. I don't want to buy a DVD, I just want to watch the movie...once, and right now, without going to a bunch of subscription-only apps to find it.

Example: Sherlock, season 4: shown last month on BBC, already available on Pirate Bay. Not available on Netflix. Why the delay?

Re:Wrong approach

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yeah they love the DRM for some reason I can't quite work out"

Monopoly. The rise of MMO's and F2P games are all about turning games into monopolies and extracting rent from the stupid. Businesses don’t make money by taking risks, they make money by having monopoly power with respect some desired good or service.

non violent offenders in prison = overcrowding

[Joe_Dragon]

Just look all of minor pot / marijuana offenders in jails / prisons.

also what the cost to keep people locked up as well

Re:non violent offenders in prison = overcrowding

[Anonymous Coward]

Just look all of minor pot / marijuana offenders in jails / prisons.

also what the cost to keep people locked up as well

It does cost too much to keep them locked up - let's just shoot the motherfuckers!

just say NO to drugs, or kiss your ass goodbye

Re:non violent offenders in prison = overcrowding

[afxgrin]

Or we could just vote out these politicians who try to pass asinine laws that are basically an extortion scheme on the entire populace. Sounds like a much easier solution and moral solution than resorting to murdering or locking up people.

Re:non violent offenders in prison = overcrowding

[pslytely psycho]

Good point, before we legalized it, WA state for the last several years put pot on the very low end of enforcement. If you weren't dealing, or carrying a large amount, you could only get popped for weed if you had it and got arrested for another offence. It was not a primary arrestable offence to simply be 'in possesion.'
I read during the debates leading up to legalization that the state saved $100 million a year by not busting people for mere possesion of a harmless weed.
Sanity at the state government level...who would of thought that possible.........maybe there is some hope.

Re:non violent offenders in prison = overcrowding

[pslytely psycho]

OOPS....forgot to quote who I was replying to for clarity, meant to post:

"Just look all of minor pot / marijuana offenders in jails / prisons.

also what the cost to keep people locked up as well"

Good point, before we legalized it, WA state for the last several years put pot on the very low end of enforcement. If you weren't dealing, or carrying a large amount, you could only get popped for weed if you had it and got arrested for another offence. It was not a primary arrestable offence to simply be 'in possesion.'
I read during the debates leading up to legalization that the state saved $100 million a year by not busting people for mere possesion of a harmless weed.
Sanity at the state government level...who would of thought that possible.........maybe there is some hope.

Re:non violent offenders in prison = overcrowding

[pete6677]

Although I'm all in favor of marijuana decriminalization, I also don't believe that prisons are full of people who have done nothing more than get arrested with a little bit of weed. Groups like NORML tend to exaggerate this a lot. They claim someone is locked up "just for pot" when in fact they had enough to be considered a dealer along with an illegal firearm. Quite a bit of difference.

Re:non violent offenders in prison = overcrowding

[causality]

Although I'm all in favor of marijuana decriminalization, I also don't believe that prisons are full of people who have done nothing more than get arrested with a little bit of weed. Groups like NORML tend to exaggerate this a lot. They claim someone is locked up "just for pot" when in fact they had enough to be considered a dealer along with an illegal firearm. Quite a bit of difference.

In many US states, an otherwise perfectly legal firearm becomes an illegal firearm the moment a person is in possion of both it and some weed.

So yes, more drug-war insanity.

Re:non violent offenders in prison = overcrowding

[dkman]

If the **AA are also shareholders in "for profit" prisons then it's a win win (for them)

They've made it clear that they don't care about anyone else.

Re:non violent offenders in prison = overcrowding

[weilawei]

Why the hell would you care how much someone had? It should be legal. Why can't you grow it in your garden out back? Why can't you have a jungle of it? Being a dealer should not be criminal. Make it legal and then insist that they pay their income tax like everyone else. Worked to get Al Capone. (Oh, but then the economy would stagnate and we'd lose all this prison revenue! Can't have that happen...)

As for that firearm, causality addresses that point:

In many US states, an otherwise perfectly legal firearm becomes an illegal firearm the moment a person is in possion of both it and some weed.

exporting american exceptionalism

[nimbius]

not to point out the obvious, but im sure its quite clear whos funneling cash to the Cameron administration when it comes to the policy of Imaginary Property.

What astounds me the most is that most foreign governments can simply choose to ignore the mpaa/riaa. future trade agreements with the states may be coloured by ones choice in dealings with them, but the large reality stands that no major disruption will occur if you pay them no regard as is evidenced by China. the problem stands that most foreign govrenments are chaired by a handful of plutocrats or career politicians that will gladly accept funding for continued operation in the contrary interest of their constituents that have comparatively no funding. A tipping point is reached at some point but by then the ruling class doesnt care; it was all just a game. They leave politics and become advisors or consultants, pad the lining of their pockets just a few dollars more, and retire comfortably in obscurity having not even the slightest notion what a 10 year prison sentence looks like outside of a newspaper article they once inspired during their tenure.

Re: exporting american exceptionalism

[SuricouRaven]

Most countries have some national counterpart. Here in the UK, we have the BPI - our counterpart to the RIAA, and just as involved in lobbying.

Re: exporting american exceptionalism

[RaceProUK]

Don't forget FACT, which is (sort of) our MPAA equivalent.

How about jail for copyright enforcers?

[melikamp]

UDHR article 19:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Since enforcing copyright against people who share information online non-commercially is clearly a violation of a human right according to UDHR, to which UK is a signatory, how about throwing copyright enforcers in jail instead? How long is the public going to put up with this oppression?

Re:How about jail for copyright enforcers?

[Anonymous Coward]

The UDHR is not considered to be binding under international law.

However, the ICCPR (international covenant on civil and political rights), which is binding on signatories, might cover this issue.

Re:How about jail for copyright enforcers?

[melikamp]

Thanks! Indeed, it's almost word for word:

1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.

2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

3. The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:

(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others;

(b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.

But unlike UDHR, this is merely lip service. They give it with one hand, and with the other hand they take it away completely. If a state gives out exclusive distribution rights, then third parties have the right to censor any kind of sharing (3a). Anything but pure flattery can be construed as disrespecting someone's reputation (3a). Anything at all can and have been construed as threatening national security: in particular, any kind of political speech (3b). Sadly, this document does nothing to protect the right to freedom of expression.

Re:How about jail for copyright enforcers?

[Anonymous Coward]

More importantly, the European Court for Human Rights can enforce the European Treaty on Human Rights, which is a superset of the UDHR. Not that it really matters, though: sharing of information is not an absolute right, and can be limited. For instance, if such sharing would be with criminal intent. And obviously industry lobbyists will have little problem showing that "Persistent Copyright Infringers" had criminal intent - "persistent" takes away the defense of accidental violation of copyright law.

Re:How about jail for copyright enforcers?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The state" is not giving out rights at all in Europe; it is fundamental to transnational law in Europe that national law must *recognize* that certain rights exist in everyone from the moment that they are born, and that the freedoms of conscience and expression are among those. 3(a) and (b) must be read in that context.

Additionally, there aren't many strict textualists practising law in Europe (or most other democracies outside the USA), and most of them are only at the level of courts of first instance and are unlikely to be promoted to superior courts.

It is pretty clear that 3(a) is not a carte blanche for governments to restrict press freedoms arbitrarily; it is just a recognition that there were already restrictions in place that could be dealt with by courts in terms of things like copyright, incitement to riot, requirements to not to lie in legal proceedings, and so forth.

The structure of the Council of Europe (and the UN, although the former is more relevant) suggested to the authors that a full codification and consolidation of human rights law would be impractical at the transnational level because of differing legal systems, but that a compromise would not support your position, which is a pretty classically American Federalist Papers one.

At the level of the ECtHR and most member-states' top appeals courts, there would invariably be litigation and/or inquiry about whether any claims made under 3(a) fit "only be such as provided by law" -- and the law must be clear, specific, and published and in force before the relevant events, and "necessary", which is a much higher bar than mere reasonableness. Indeed, it is such a high bar that the UK has been desperately trying to craft a non-statute that might survive a necessary test in the UK's own systems of courts, and has arrived at a clever "charter" which, because its very nature gives directions to courts, is unlikely to actually work should one of the parties covered by in (or indeed one of the more obvious parties that are not) decide to litigate with human rights arguments.

"Sadly, this document does nothing to protect the right to freedom of expression".

It's not meant to; the governments and the people who subscribe to the document are supposed to protect those freedoms. The document is more an attempt to arrive at a common set of boundaries that adversarial parties with conflicting interests should not cross. There is no legal positivism in play whatsoever.

Will plagiarizing speeches count?

[sandbagger]

Given how often his colleagues have been found to be using other peoples' speeches, this could thin out the Tory caucus.

Re:Will plagiarizing speeches count?

[MickyTheIdiot]

Of course not. This only applies to people that don't have political power. Non-politicians and non-corporate class.

I'd give these guys til the next election...

[moodboom]

before they are voted out. They may have powerful corporate backers, but these are the kinds of things that the younger generations just aren't going to put up with much longer. At least that's my hope.

Re:I'd give these guys til the next election...

[gstoddart]

They may have powerful corporate backers, but these are the kinds of things that the younger generations just aren't going to put up with much longer.

And as long as you convince the older generations (or the wealthy) that you're being tough on crime, doing your best to cut taxes, and cutting social spending ... they'll keep voting for you. Because they don't give a damn about much else.

And, as we saw from the Occupy protests ... they'll just turn the national security forces against them, and either deem them to be terrorists, or actively work to find other ways to make sure they can't get very far -- which is easy when you monitor everyone's communications just in case you need to single someone out later.

Even democracies suffer from those in power trying to keep the world the way they want it, and there's a huge imbalance of power.

I agree with your hope. I'm just far less confident in it.

Re:I'd give these guys til the next election...

[SuricouRaven]

There's plenty of precedent. Just about all the major figures in the US civil rights movement, for example, were under government monitoring - they had quite the file on MLK, considering him a dangerous subversive.

Re:I'd give these guys til the next election...

[moodboom]

You're probably right, it's a long play hope. You have to wait for old folks to die off, and young folks to start caring enough to vote. In my mind, it's an inevitability. Circa 2100. Any sooner is probably wishful thinking.

In the mean time, I think Kardos had good advice recommending creative commons.

Re:I'd give these guys til the next election...

[gstoddart]

You have to wait for old folks to die off, and young folks to start caring enough to vote. In my mind, it's an inevitability. Circa 2100.

By which point they'll have passed even more terrible laws, and there will be several new generations of people in government invested in keeping things the same.

Re:I'd give these guys til the next election...

[moodboom]

Yeah there will be some of that for sure. But even following the most pessimistic line of thinking... eventually when it gets as bad as it can get, there is always the option of revolution. In the meantime, unlike Russell Brand, I'm going to keep voting, glass-half-full style. :-)

Re:I'd give these guys til the next election...

[weilawei]

Ask the Ukrainians how that's going. The Berkut have been attacking infirmaries, Red Cross aid stations, shooting medics, and kidnapping patients. They took a boy and raped him with a knife in his ass. Another video shows a man being forced to pose naked in the snow in different poses, surrounded by jackboots taking pictures and jeering. They shot a young man with an armor piercing round not intended for humans. Snipers have shot protestors. The Berkut have set ambushes, including fake calls for help, where they would attack the responders. The death toll continues to climb. This is all going on RIGHT NOW. You can watch videos of these things on YouTube, you can watch live feeds from local TV crews online.

This is your future.

Re:I'd give these guys til the next election...

[moodboom]

That's awful, pretty closer to "as bad as it can get". I hope that the protesters can manage to elicit real change in the face of such brutality but you've provided a stark example of how difficult it can be.

Looks like the pro-EU protesters are still fighting tho...

plea bargain

[k6mfw]

I can see it now, someone arrested for copyright infringement accepts a plea bargain for a violent crime conviction to get less jail time.

Re:plea bargain

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't have plea bargins in the UK.

Re:plea bargain

[Anonymous Coward]

"May as well be hanged for the sheep, as for the lamb..."

Now where did they put the home addresses of the MPAA members... If chainsaw-flaying people carries a lesser fine than copyright infringing, may as well be put away for chainsaw-flaying people.

Throw cameron in jail

[oo_00]

It would solve many real and all imaginary problems. Just like that.

Corporate sycophants in office.

[MickyTheIdiot]

We have it in the U.S. too. People with extreme pro-corporate positions making it to office...

In the U.S. we've got people under surveillance because they have spoken up against Fraking. That's what happens in a corporate state.

Yea!

[Anonymous Coward]

And traffic cam violators need to be hanged!

We need some fucking order and respect for the law!

Soon it'll be cheaper to kill an MPAA stooge

[Anonymous Coward]

than to copy a movie, regarding the prison-term. I think this may be a matter where you want to be careful what you wish for.

That is fine...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you increase the penalty for drink/drive accidents that make injuries to the same time.

Sounds good

[EMG at MU]

Great, it should apply to everyone. Government officials, corporate execs, and the music industry itself.

The problem (besides jail time being a disproportionate punishment for copyright infringement) is that when someone in the government is found to have stolen an image or text from the internet, nothing happens. When a politician illegally uses a song for a campaign rally and the band finds out, all the politician has to do is release some press statement saying an aide made a mistake. When corporations infringe on copyrights nothing happens. When the music industry is found to have infringed on copyrights nothing happens. The only people subject to punishment are the commoner.

If laws applied to us all equally then lawmakers would stop passing asinine laws.

Re:Sounds good

[Areyoukiddingme]

Give it another three or four years. The law or something like it will pass, a bunch of teenagers will get thrown in jail, a politician will violate the law in his campaign advertising and nothing will happen to anyone. That's the time to break out the pitchforks and torches.

But of course that won't happen. The long slow slide into the kind of repressive regime normally found only in fiction will continue effectively unopposed. The majority of the population will honestly agree that "they should be punished for doing that" for basically any value of "they" and "that" which is incorporated into the propaganda machine. It's that powerful.

Re:Sounds good

[Anonymous Coward]

The majority of the population will honestly agree that "they should be punished for doing that" for basically any value of "they" and "that" which is incorporated into the propaganda machine. It's that powerful.

The Mainstream Media (MSM) might tell that story, but people aren't that stupid. If you look online, where the MSM doesn't control the message, and talk to people, you'll find they don't like or agree with the way copyright works. They also act on their opinion.

Dear Mr Weatherley ,

[Ralph Spoilsport]

FUCK YOU.

Re:Dear Mr Weatherley ,

[Ralph Spoilsport]

looks like friends of the copyright shill found me... Assholes.

Online vs real world

[gmuslera]

In online is sharing, you still have what someone that wouldnt pay for it got, in real world is stealing, you don't have anymore something. Digital "crimes" are qualitatively different from real world ones.

And over that US/UK governments are in an approved campaing of "sharing" the private IP of everyone in the civilized world, plus digitally sabotaging foreing companies/governments. That is the blue whale on the room (elephants are too tiny for that kind of analogies) that should be solved before questioning legality of what citizens do.

Re:Online vs real world

[Anonymous Coward]

There's still overhead in producing content. While the bits you download may appear to be virtually free they're not to the people who produce them. And if you weren't going to buy it then why are you downloading it?

Re:Online vs real world

[gmuslera]

Is still stealing? You still have the bits or not?

Re:Online vs real world

[jones_supa]

Well, you are stealing monetary value off the project. At some point the project is not a viable business case anymore.

Re:Online vs real world

[gmuslera]

I could be lowering the potential profit of a project, that is to be seen if would it get lower or not. But not taking out entirely the project. Stealing is that you don't have something anymore, no matter which value you put on it or not.

Re:Online vs real world

[Anonymous Coward]

There's still overhead in producing content. While the bits you download may appear to be virtually free they're not to the people who produce them. And if you weren't going to buy it then why are you downloading it?

I, liek many people, download stuff without ever using it. The free Oracle Java magazine that came out today for example. I imagine I'll read it, but I haven't read the last six, so who knows... I wouldn't buy it for a penny though. Not because it isn't worth it, but because that non-zero price is a barrier to packratting things when I'm likely to not use it.

FWIW, I've also BOUGHT* games from steam which I have yet to play.

*Bought=licensed/whatever

Re:Online vs real world

[jones_supa]

Yes, that is of course correct.

What's going on in the UK?

[Anonymous Coward]

All the time there's news about even more retarded legislation getting introduced in the UK.

Re:What's going on in the UK?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perpetual inbreeding.

Re:What's going on in the UK?

[0123456]

All the time there's news about even more retarded legislation getting introduced in the UK.

Ever heard of 'brain drain'?

The brains have been draining out of Britain since WWII. This is what happens when only the people who can't qualify for an emgiration visa are left behind.

How about applying copyright to corporations?

[RichMan]

It seems to me when politicians or corporations misuse a photo or song they get off with a "opps". Yet they want to throw people in jail.
Step #1 should be much steeper penalties to corporations and other functioning entities that should have proper procedures in place to avoid violations.

Re:How about applying copyright to corporations?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or just incorporate every individual citizen. I'm sorry I will be sure to give a stern warning to employee #1.

Re:How about applying copyright to corporations?

[Megol]

No that's #2, #1 is removing copyrights from corporations letting only physical persons own them. #3 would be severely limiting licencing of rights (it is needed in a limited format to make distribution of collaborative works possible at all).

IMHO of course.

Re:How about applying copyright to corporations?

[cdrudge]

So we want corporations to not be people for the sake of political contributions and such. But then we want corporations to be people when they infringe on copyrights? Corporations don't infringe on copyrights. The people that work and run the corporations infringe on the copyright.

How about we not assign any type of personhood to corporations and rather blame the people that should be blamed, the people responsible for making the decision and/or approving the decision.

Re:How about applying copyright to corporations?

[Anonymous Coward]

So we want corporations to not be people for the sake of political contributions and such. But then we want corporations to be people when they infringe on copyrights?

At the moment, it is the other way around.

blame the people that should be blamed, the people responsible for making the decision and/or approving the decision.

Great. Excellent. Show me one instance where that has happened.

When a politician used a song illegally, where was the trial for the person who supposedly did it? There wasn't one. There never is. Do you know why there never is? Because if little Johnny Assistant-To-The-Assistant-Manager was brought up on charges, he probably has the authorization email where he said it was likely illegal and was told to use it anyway.

Re:How about applying copyright to corporations?

[weilawei]

Personally, I feel that we should hold government employees, especially law enforcement, and corporations to a HIGHER standard, with HIGHER penalties. With great power comes great responsibility and great consequences.

I Think You're Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're very wrong. The younger generations appear to me to be well on their way to being conditioned to accept this type of thing and much worse.

Less freedom, for your safety.
Less rights, for your safety.
Less privacy, for your safety.

They all seem willing to accept it and in many cases they are demanding that it be done.

Now, granted, this is about copyright violation so, it may actually be the straw that breaks the camel's back. But, I think that the camel's back is VERY strong indeed.

Re:I Think You're Wrong

[shentino]

Monsanto has a patent on camel's backs.

The only other solution...

[Andy_R]

...is legalisation. Non commercial sharing of information isn't wrong, or bad for the economy, so the best solution is to legalise it.

Pirate Cinema (by Cory Doctorow)

[MondoGordo]

it's a cautionary tale of our future. Peeps in the UK (and elsewhere!!) really need to wake up and stop this shit before it passes.

Re:Pirate Cinema (by Cory Doctorow)

[Anonymous Coward]

This was my first thought when I read the summary as well. It's almost as if they've read it and taken it as a howto manual instead of a cautionary tale as Doctorow clearly intended it...

So, if I assaulted The Honourable John Leech MP

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sentencing_manual/common_assult/

Community Service to 6th months.

Sweet!

Yes, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Throw all those repeat offenders at GCHQ in jail for ten years.

When the world changes around you

[erroneus]

So when technology and the interests of the people and technology all change around them and their business model, the best answer they can come up with is punishment? This is the interests of a few dominating the interests and even the needs of the masses. Perhaps not the best definition of tyranny but it rather fits.

Re:When the world changes around you

[Anonymous Coward]

Scary that the masses are allowing this to happen. Almost as if they are asking for it. How do you stop the madness?

Re:When the world changes around you

[weilawei]

You speak up. Repeatedly, over and over again. You work laboriously for the Dept. of Redundancy Dept. to tell people the message you believe in, and you hope someone agrees with you. If it really is madness, it will come to a head and solve itself--so long as people are willing to speak out and persuade their fellows.

Here is a better idea:

[fredrated]

Throw persistently lying politicians in jail. It will have a better effect on society.

Making money on infringement

[WillAdams]

Is it possible to make lots of money from copyright infringement w/o breaking lots of other laws?

If that's not the case, why do we need more?

Re:Making money on infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one wasn't going to pirate anything today. But I am making it a point to hit The Pirate Bay and download whatever catches my eye. Fuck John Leech.

Re:Making money on infringement

[RaceProUK]

Is it possible to make lots of money from copyright infringement w/o breaking lots of other laws?

Probably not, but the difficulty is in proving guilt.

Disclaimer: I neither agree nor disagree with John Leech's statements, I'm just quoting for context and offering a little analysis.

Re:Making money on infringement

[RaceProUK]

To be fair, I don't think he's advocating such stiff sentences for all infringements.

Re:Making money on infringement

[Sarten-X]

Yes. Build a YouTube-like site that doesn't have any TOS language giving you a license.to redistribute, and charge for advertising. By redistributing the content that you don't have a license for, you're infringing content, even if the rest of your business is legitimate.

Re:Making money on infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

And that seems to be the way the system should work. It's hard to prove things unless you have enough evidence. What's not working as intended?

Re:Making money on infringement

[Wootery]

Aha, an excuse! Copyright-infringement time! - every 'pirate' ever

Re:Making money on infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA, he was asked, and he explictly said he is advocating exactly that

Re:Making money on infringement

[RaceProUK]

Reading comprehension fail.

Nature abhors a vacuum

[Anonymous Coward]

Piracy is filling a void that the content industry refuses to do - provide cheap, global, easy access to non-DRM content, on a VAST scale, as well as giving access to content that the copyright owners aren't currently even selling in any format.

A series of thin walls

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, my neighbor in my apartment building plays all these loud songs right? So can't I just call Homeland Security on the f&%$er?

Is There a HowTo on Tar-and-Feathers?

[patluri]

The People need a way to hold politicians accountable. Elections no longer work.

This! This! 1000 Times!

[Zimluura]

This! This! 1000 Times!

Unlike theft, when you share a file it doesn't deprive anyone of their copy, when the **AA lobbies congress to extend copyright it deprives us all of any (even unprofitable) works entering our public domain.

The certainty of all works entering the public domain after a limited time is key to understanding copyright. It was not supposed to devolve into the IP dynasty creation that it is now.

England, learn your language

[frovingslosh]

"Weatherley noted that the Bill does not currently match penalties for online infringement with...."

Are you talking about someone named William here? Or is there so much reverence to the idea of jailing someone who fights back against copyright abuse that this law is taking on god-like significance? Is there any reason at all that this reads "the Bill" rather than simply "the bill"?

Re:This! This! 1000 Times!

[Zimluura]

though I guess it should be noted that US congress passing laws for **AA only affects the UK after the WIPO says "a good reason to extend UK copyright terms are to be parallel with the US"

Copyright 1 Year?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's lobby to have copyright changed to 1 year until expiry, and settle for 10 years when the companies bitch and complain.

Re:Copyright 1 Year?

[causality]

Let's lobby to have copyright changed to 1 year until expiry, and settle for 10 years when the companies bitch and complain.

I appreciate the practicality of your idea. But once, just for once, I want to see something shoved down the copyright industries' throats that they really don't like, and watch them bitch and cry and moan when they have no choice but to bend over and take it. Just so they know what it feels like. Yes, I know it's a visceral desire that may not be the most constructive idea, but just try telling me that wouldn't be satisfying. I bet they'd throw temper tantrums like spoiled two-year-olds.

Re:Copyright 1 Year?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to consume their product, bitch. So go back to acting like an entitled little fuck. While other people put forth the efforts to produce a product you can just keep sucking off their fucking teat without an original thought in your fucked up little hurt head.
 
People who take what they want without paying for it because they feel that it costs too much are the ones acting like spoiled two year olds. What the fuck do you think gives you the right to take the fruits of another's labors?

Re:Copyright 1 Year?

[allaunjsiIverfox2]

You don't have to consume their product, bitch.

Unfortunately, we're expected to abide by the laws these greedy pieces of trash bribe our government to create. Did you forget what this very article is about? SOPA? PIPA? The DMCA?

So go back to acting like an entitled little fuck.

Oh, and acting as if you can bribe the government to create draconian laws so that your government-enforced monopoly over ideas can be better protected isn't entitled at all! It's actually one of the most entitled things I've ever seen.

Anyone with a brain would want to see these evil companies squirm.

What the fuck do you think gives you the right to take the fruits of another's labors?

Exactly. What the fuck do you think gives you the right to take the fruits of another's labors (tax dollars) to enforce your unjust little monopolies?

Re:Copyright 1 Year?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Let's lobby to have copyright changed to 1 year until expiry, and reduce to 3 months when the companies bitch and complain.

That would shut them up rather quickly.

Stealing vs. copyright infringement; not the issue

[Nukenbar]

I think most people by now understand the difference. The real question is do we want (what I will call) common copyright infringement, which is already against the law as a civil matter to be criminal fineable or jailable offense.

But now, do we want common copyright infringement infringement to be a crime?

I think most hear can agree that using someone's copyright against their will is wrong. But is it a moral wrong, a civil wrong, or a criminal wrong? Clearly those who own the copyrights don't want others using their copyrights without their authorization/compensation. But is this a battle that we want the government involved in, criminally? Some copyright infringement already is criminal. Remember all of those FBI warnings at the beginning of DVDs? If you start selling copyrighted materials as your own, you could be going to jail. And I think we call all agree that this is a crime. Clearly in large scale infringement cases, for example Microsoft using some Apple copyright, a civil proceeding is warranted and suitable.

But what do we do with individual offenders? The Pirate bay types. What type of crime is is? A moral one like adultery? (used to be a crime, but is not anymore **exceptions noted**) or should it rise to a punishable offense? What is the line between the two?

These are the questions we should be asking ourselves and as a society and not allowing special interest groups to drive the discussion.

Better plan!

[Altrag]

Since I'm assuming the average UK citizen is relatively similar to those of us in the rest of the world when it comes to things like copyright infringement, it would probably be easier to select a few square miles in some unpopulated area, fence it in and just declare everything outside of your fence as "jail."

The problem with harsh penalties to online copyright infringement is that there's just so damned much of it! I'd be surprised if the percentage of people in the developed world under about 25 who haven't downloaded at least one song or watched an unauthorized youtube video in their lifetime is above the single digit range.

Re:This! This! 1000 Times!

[causality]

though I guess it should be noted that US congress passing laws for **AA only affects the UK after the WIPO says "a good reason to extend UK copyright terms are to be parallel with the US"

There's no point in having different nations if they can't have different cultures and different laws so the world can see which thrive and which are self-defeating and (get this) actually learn from their examples.

Too long punishment

[jones_supa]

While I am myself an anti-piracy guy, I still oppose these ridiculous sentences of 10 years for something like piracy. John Leech should do an experiment where he himself goes to jail for just 1 year to discover how long time even that is.

Re:Too long punishment

[Anonymous Coward]

I propose a new law. Nobody is allowed to vote on any law that may result in people being sent to prison, unless they've spent at least 3 months in the same category of prison that they're proposing to send others to.

(Once elected, politicians may choose to do this time on a voluntary basis at public expense, but no one prison may ever contain more than 1 serving politician per wing/block at a time.)

Re:Too long punishment

[Anonymous Coward]

they do this all the time, crimes that are harder to catch or impractical to enforce have harsher sentences than those that don't, even if they do much less harm. purely because they want to make an example to those token people they do prosecute so others don't do it out of fear. because they lack the resources to prosecute everyone.

Re:This! This! 1000 Times!

[Zimluura]

I agree whole-heartedly. Just posted a followup after I remembered this was about UK law, and figured I'd bridge the gap for anyone who didn't know about this method the US politicans have of bleeding their filth into other nations*

* not to say the UK politicans are without faults, just that corruption related to IP is something of a US special(i)ty.

This is a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

It means that they've solved all other more dangerous crimes in the U.K. and now their politicians are free to serve big-business.
What? They haven't fixed all other problems?
Then WTF are they doing?

Stupid+stupid does

[Anonymous Coward]

extra cost to government 1billion pounds a year...
great economic policy right there..

Ed Zachary

[nobuddy]

That is pretty much how I use it. Slight difference: is it on netflix or hulu? No? Off to the Bay.

Not shallow

[nobuddy]

The justification comes after the decision that you want the product. How many copies of DRM free Beatles songs sell? I don't use iTunes, so another question is: are they reasonably priced? I have no problem paying $1 for a 50 year old song. If it is $10, I will probably pirate it, no need to reward stupidity and greed.

Disclaimer: I have a massive digital library on my home network NAS. I have not audited, but I would wager more than 90% of it is purchased. Any that are not purchased cannot be purchased from any source I can find.
  Many are "pirated" copies of disks I own that were torrented- the DRM makes ripping a movie take forever while the download will arrive much quicker. However, I DO own the disk. I never watch the disk, because fuck you, if I want to skip the goddamn previews who the FUCK are you to tell me no motherfucker??? (Not directed at you, personally. pet peeve. My goddamn disk, I can go to the fucking menu if I want to.)

Right idea, wrong amendment

[sgtrock]

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Why does everyone forget these two?

Re:Right idea, wrong amendment

[i kan reed]

In context, what do they have to do with anything? We're talking about a specific legal concept, considered to be created by the right to jury trial, not the intangible, intuitive rights, like the right to pick your friends.

I swear, the "you're forgetting the 9th amendment" cockroaches climb out for the places where they can be as wrong as possible. The point of the ninth amendment was to prevent people from passing laws of the form: "It's not forbidden to trod on gay rights to marry in the constitution, therefor such laws are a-okay and don't infringe anyone's rights in any way" It, specifically does not outline powers like jury nullification.

Also while we're here: the 10th amendment doesn't reserve the power of states to deny free speech or secede, it doesn't grant people the power to be "sovereign citizens." It doesn't make it so states can do whatever they feel like, as long as it's not something the feds can do(much as people like to read it as such). It just outlines the basic principle of federalism, in case some people would look at the unamended constitution and go "yep that's all there's ever going to be."

Re:Right idea, wrong amendment

[causality]

In context, what do they have to do with anything? We're talking about a specific legal concept, considered to be created by the right to jury trial, not the intangible, intuitive rights, like the right to pick your friends.

I swear, the "you're forgetting the 9th amendment" cockroaches climb out for the places where they can be as wrong as possible. The point of the ninth amendment was to prevent people from passing laws of the form: "It's not forbidden to trod on gay rights to marry in the constitution, therefor such laws are a-okay and don't infringe anyone's rights in any way" It, specifically does not outline powers like jury nullification.

Also while we're here: the 10th amendment doesn't reserve the power of states to deny free speech or secede, it doesn't grant people the power to be "sovereign citizens." It doesn't make it so states can do whatever they feel like, as long as it's not something the feds can do(much as people like to read it as such). It just outlines the basic principle of federalism, in case some people would look at the unamended constitution and go "yep that's all there's ever going to be."

If I am wrong on this, I am open to correction, but IIRC ... these Amendments were created partly out of the Founders' fear that having a Bill of Rights at all would cause some to believe that those rights specifically enumerated are the only rights anyone has. Not all of the Founders wanted any Bill of Rights for just this reason.

I'm glad they decided to have one. Finding ways to complicate language like "shall make no law" and "shall not be infringed" in order to do what they want to do anyway has slowed down the statists significantly. We'd have probably already lost the republic by now if there were no enumerated rights.

I've always thought the notion of a "Constitutional scholar" is amusing, in a sardonic sort of way. The Constitution is written in relatively plain language and is not difficult to understand. It's so simple that much complexity has to be added to it, externally, in order to find loopholes and justifications for selectively applying it.

You mentioned state power? I think the one trick the Founders either didn't think about or didn't think we would tolerate is the modern practice of manipulating the states with their own money. The federal government taxes the citizens of a state and then offers them some of their own money back if the states adopt policies the federal government finds desirable. Most states are dependent on this money and are in no position to do anything but bend over and take it. This is a direct attack against the notion of federalism and a significant power grab by the feds. It's definitely not what was intended and it's simply an abuse of power.

Re:Right idea, wrong amendment

[i kan reed]

Actually, reading up on it, it bizarrely comes from the 5th amendment, according to the supreme court. A jury finds you not guilty for any reason, you can't be retried because of double jeopardy. Even if the jury's reasoning is completely specious, courts can't ever overturn it if it's "Not guilty"

Re:Right idea, wrong amendment

[causality]

I forgot who said it, but I really like the notion "it is better than ten guilty men go free, than for one innocent man to be punished". There is going to be error; this is the correct side on which to err.

Though in my own experience of reading about trials in the news, generally if a person who probably was guilty goes free, it's because overzealous police failed to correctly perform their jobs.

Re:Right idea, wrong amendment

[sgtrock]

Sigh. I'm on your side and you just don't know it. :-)

I suggest that you go back and re-read what you wrote initially, the 6th amendment, then go read Federalist Paper #84. The 9th and 10th amendments were added precisely to prevent the sort of misinterpretation that you were railing against in the first place. The courts had to rule the way that they did specifically because the 9th and 10 amendments were added. (Not that they haven't been trampled with every increasing frequency by judges who should know better.)

Fairly unbalanced

[Anonymous Coward]

IP right were intended to provide a balance between two objectives the first being a profit incentive of a temporary monopoly and the second being society's interest in continuous low cost innovation by making this available within the public domain.
Clearly this IP adviser true to Tory's "f$^k you attitude to society" only is aware of the first objective and shows no interest at all in the second.
The problem is however more wide spread: Close before the 50 year IP on songs from the early sixties (beatles and so on) expired even the EU agreed to extent this to 70 years, which will only serve the IP holders at the cost of extortion to society.

'Murica !

[cyberchondriac]

... oh, wait ... it's not.

WHO CARES about JAIL?

[Anonymous Coward]

With prisons in the UK run by ex GROUP 4 SECURITAS, you will escape in no time, in fact they may even fall for this trick....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c5iH_SWTg0

Proof of Western Bread and Circuses Entrenchment

[Anonymous Coward]

The populace becoming so distanced from reality that jail sentences are contemplated for file sharing shows the decay of Western Civilization.

The Roman Empire declined. As did the USSR (as the USSR.)

Now it's the Anglo-Saxons turn.

These people have no credibility to make rules

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the penalty for politicians cheating the public on their expenses is going to stay at the slap on the wrist.

I can see it now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Guard is escorting a new prisoner down the hallway towards the cell block.
Guard: Stop here, this is your cell. *unlocks the door and allows the prisoner to enter*
*Prisoner look around, and sees he is sharing his cell with a scary looking guy covered in tatoos*
Newbie: What you in for?
Tattoo: Double murder. How about you?
Newbie: I torrented the first season of the Brady Bunch
Tattoo: Holy shit. I dont want no trouble. You can have any bunk you want.

Val

[Anonymous Coward]

He might have had some shady dealings, that is a given. But the service he provoded then and is providing now is probably one of the best (if not the bestt) i can get for free.
Also the US butchered the takedown process so badly that even if they have legitimate claims it's all for naught. If they would have done their work properly MU would have still been taken down and Kim would have fallen into disgrace.

Prime Minister's Intellectual Property Adviser

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does this position exist in the first place?

Yes, Prime Minister

[Anonymous Coward]

Gangsters get glorified in the streets of London after they are "murdered" by police, child rapists get week-long sentences, thieves get 60 cautions from police and not a single visit to court, murderers get far far less than 10 years... and only serve half of meagre sentences at best. But all we need is toughening on those monstrous file sharers, the plague, the disease eroding British society.

I'm waiting for a 7-year old kid who downloaded latest Crappy Boys Band album to get 10 years in prison and her parents 200000000 pounds fine, then at last we shall know justice and peace.

The article is based on a false premise...

[DrStoooopid]

..Internet usage is not a right. It's a paid for service.

I am one of those people....

[Chozabu]

Right over here. I made "Wheelz" for android. Put it up on Demonoid (great torrent site now killed by murica) and my sales *doubled*.

some stats:
free (supported by ingames ads) downloads ~4million
pirated: ~400,000
paid: ~20,000

I got a disproportionately high reward. copyright did not help - it's to stop people from copying for free - which people were doing and seeming to increase my sales in the process. To be frank - the system is mad, if copyright terms were closer to ~5 years

A Much better model than copyright is kinda obvious. Collect enough money to do the job in advance - it's getting even easier these days. We could do with a decent "OpenStarter" - Like kickstarter but more democratic - resulting on only FOSS, and without taking such a cut (0% cut with a p2p openstarter).

Problem is - many people make money off copyright think stuff like "yes, this is wrong, but I like money, and it is socially acceptable - so lets keep it this way!" There is also alot of thought along the lines of "Wow, I've earnd loads of money! I must be amazing - look at all the stupid people working hard for less reward" and many more streams of thought along similar lines.

Minimal copyright has some merit - our system today has evolved to increase disparity in wealth and get the majority to work for the gain of a few, thanking them for it at the same time. A much more advanced system to get people to do your bidding than directly threatining them (which happens too).