UK Government Proposes 10-Year Copyright Infringement Jail Term

An anonymous reader writes: According to a BBC report, the UK government is proposing increasing the jail term for copyright infringement from the current two years to 10 years, which they say would "act as a significant deterrent." "The proposed measures are mainly targeted at the distributors of pirated content — the people creating copies of movies, sometimes before release, and uploading them to be downloaded by thousands upon thousands." Another reader notes a related court ruling in the UK which has once again made it illegal to rip lawfully-acquired CDs and DVDs for personal use. "A judge ruled that the government was wrong legally when it decided not to introduce a compensation scheme for songwriters, musicians, and other rights holders who face losses as a result of their copyright being infringed."

Comments

This is outrageous

[Anonymous Coward]

These jail terms are higher than an armed assault theft, or murder...
All this indicates excessive lobbying or even corruption.

Re:This is outrageous

[Harold Halloway]

No, murder still attracts a life sentence. That sentence will be at least 10 years before parole is even considered. But your point is valid: this victimless crime attracts a potentially higher prison sentence than many violent crimes.

Re:This is outrageous

[Anonymous Coward]

Crown Prosecution Service sentencing guidelines give 10 years as the starting point for raping a child, 8 for raping a teenager. These are, of course, the starting points for rapists "who do not meet the dangerous offender criteria."

So, copyright infringement is now basically the same as child rape. I wonder if copyright infringers fit the description of a "dangerous offender."

Re:This is outrageous

[Anonymous Coward]

This victimless crime undermines the asset value of intellectual property. While it is true that "intellectual property" is entirely imaginary, the fact is that many wealthy people have a significant investment in it. Its free distribution reduces its value (based on how they appraise it), and so they see it as a threat to their wealth.

Throw aside all concepts of justice, and the issue becomes perfectly clear. They see copyright law as a means of protecting their wealth. Further, this is a greater threat to them than muggings, assault, etc., because they already have effective means of protecting themselves against those threats. So, they are focusing their political power on the task of protecting their wealth against what they see as its greatest threat: you.

It doesn't matter that physical violence causes more harm to an actual person...that is a problem largely for poor people so they don't care about it. But you taking their wealth away is something they absolutely will not tolerate....and unlike you, they have the political clout to do something about it.

Your only option is to overwhelm them with numbers (politically speaking). You either accomplish this, or you live under their laws.

Re:This is outrageous

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

this victimless crime attracts a potentially higher prison sentence than many violent crimes

These penalties are the ones aimed at criminal copyright infringement. That typically means large-scale, commercial activity where someone really is completely ripping off all the people who actually worked to produce the movie or game or album just to make a quick buck for themselves.

If you think that is a victimless crime, I invite you to carry on working at your normal job for the next year, but sign all the pay cheques over to some random criminal who did literally nothing to deserve that money. Oh, and sign over those of all your colleagues as well.

Of course copyright laws are widely abused. Of course it's absurd that there are legal technicalities squeezed in through shady EU level shenanigans that mean the UK government lost the case over compensation in exchange for the private copying exception. But it's important to separate advocating reasonable usage rights for normal people from advocating lenient penalties for organised criminals who make large amounts of money at the direct expense of the people who actually did the work. Don't compare large-scale commercial copyright infringement with a crime of violence against an individual, compare it with something like large-scale commercial fraud that costs thousands of people their pensions.

Re:This is outrageous

[spire3661]

Imaginary property does not deserve this level of protection. I dont care what kind of infringement is going on, or how much money is lost. 10 years for 'stealing' essentially THOUGHTS is insane. The point of Copyright is to encourage works and it think its quite clear by now that works do not need this kind of protection, humans will produce them no matter what. Throwing people in jail over it is absolutely repugnant. I dont think we can truly call it an Information Age until we seriously hamstring copyright, not make it stronger.

Re:This is outrageous

[TWX]

Copyright and other intellectual-property laws have always been about protecting the income of the content owner. In the short-term I actually agree with them; I don't think that it's wrong for those who create content to make a living off of that content as they produce it. My biggest complaint is the trend of indefinite copyright where works that have influenced culture aren't eventually released into the public domain, as it gives too much a degree of control over our very culture to powerful entities that own the works that have helped define that culture, further empowering them. It'd be one thing is most copyright was held by the people that created content and if that copyright ended some set duration after their deaths, but when media companies can hold copyright for the better part of a hundred years that's just getting ridiculous.

The other side of it is the challenge in calculating how much financial damage is done to a copyright holder when unlicensed copies of their work are distributed and 'consumed'. Case in point, older movies that are available on the Internet that weren't popular releases when they initially debuted. If someone watches Spaced Invaders for free simply because they have access to it, who wouldn't have paid any amount of money to watch it however small, is Disney/Touchstone actually out anything? If the viewer would never have watched it to begin with then it's hard to say that Disney is financially hurt by someone watching it without paying for it.

Re:This is outrageous

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Imaginary property does not deserve this level of protection.

All property is imaginary. The natural state of things is that if you have something I want, it is mine if I have a more powerful weapon or a bigger gang.

The idea of having a civilised society with laws and recognised rights and due process is to try to avoid descending to the ethical level of a caveman.

10 years for 'stealing' essentially THOUGHTS is insane.

The people these laws are aimed at aren't "stealing thoughts". They are directly defrauding the rightsholders, and ultimately everyone who works in creative industries and earns their living contributing to these works, of staggering amounts of money. We are talking about organised crime here, not little Suzy sharing her latest Taylor Swift MP3 with her friend from school.

Throwing people in jail over it is absolutely repugnant.

I wonder if you'd feel the same way if, say, the person responsible for managing your pension fund took risks they weren't supposed to, lost, and left you with no savings. It's only financial crime and no-one got hurt (directly). Should we just fine them the money they will never have to pay back everyone's pension fund?

You can't make some things good after the fact, particularly things where the actual damage is likely to be substantial but is hard to measure objectively, so all you can do is try to create a legal framework that discourages the behaviour in other ways.

Re:This is outrageous

[AK Marc]

All property is imaginary.

So the shoes I'm wearing aren't there? Or are you saying that ownership is imaginary? Because that's unrelated to the question of the thing being claimed as owned being imaginary.

The people these laws are aimed at aren't "stealing thoughts". They are directly defrauding the rightsholders, and ultimately everyone who works in creative industries and earns their living contributing to these works, of staggering amounts of money.

Either there are no laws against "fraud" in the UK, or this isn't about defrauding anyone. In a sane world, the person making copies, 1 or 10,000, would get a fine of no more than 3x retail value of the loss (that's the US standard for punitive damages), and if they were making a separate transaction of selling the song for profit, that'd be one fraud case per transaction, as they would be presenting themselves as having the "right" to sell that. So those that sell copies can go to jail for fraud, and those that copy with no financial motive could be fined for more than any "loss" they caused the copyright holder.

But that's too sane and logical for the 1%, who want to rain down vengeance on all those who oppose their quest for profit.

I wonder if you'd feel the same way if, say, the person responsible for managing your pension fund took risks they weren't supposed to, lost, and left you with no savings.

That's a form of fraud here. Not sure about the UK.

It's only financial crime and no-one got hurt (directly).

So taking $1 from someone and giving them back $0.50 doesn't harm them in any way? By your logic, muggings don't hurt anyone.

Re:This is outrageous

[jedidiah]

Except copyright is not a free market. It's a state sanctioned monopoly. Of course it's going to have some of the defects of a monopoly. The trust in question may or may not realize this and adapt to the situation. They don't have to really. The monopoly they have insulates them somewhat from market pressure.

Re:This is outrageous

[gnasher719]

So, copyright infringement is now basically the same as child rape. I wonder if copyright infringers fit the description of a "dangerous offender."

Ten years is the proposed _maximum_ for copyright infringement. For most crimes, there is a huge range of how bad the crime is. For example, growing pot: You might have a flower pot full, or you might have a 100 acre farm. Surely the maximum sentence should be fitting for the one using a huge farm to grow drugs. With copyright infringement, you might make a copy of a CD for a relative, or you might run a major operation with multi-million dollar revenue. You want a maximum sentence that fits the multi-million dollar operation.

Now of course it needs to be made clear which sentence is appropriate for which level of offence. For example, with copyright infringement there is probably a factor of one million in severity between the most harmless and the worst possible offenses.

Re:This is outrageous

[Anonymous Coward]

But you taking their wealth away is something they absolutely will not tolerate....and unlike you, they have the political clout to do something about it.

Your only option is to overwhelm them with numbers (politically speaking). You either accomplish this, or you live under their laws.

No, there actually is another option. Stop giving them any more wealth. Don't buy the CDs. Don't buy the DVDs or the Blu-Rays. Don't pay for streaming music or streaming video. Don't go to their movies, and don't go to their concerts.

Don't misunderstand me -- I'm not saying steal any of this stuff as opposed to buying it. Neither steal it nor buy it. Go without. Do. Not. Participate. Give them neither the pounds sterling from your pocket nor the attention of your ears or eyeballs that they can sell to advertisers. Ignore them and their products.

But getting large numbers of people to even imagine going through their day, let alone their entire life, without music or video to distract and entertain them, is a nigh impossibility.

Re:This is outrageous

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Or are you saying that ownership is imaginary?

Yes. Ownership of anything -- a physical object, a certain exclusive right, a theoretical amount of money that lives as bits and bytes in a database somewhere -- is just a concept we have invented to help society function, like any other legal or financial instrument. We might all agree (or at least most of us would, I hope) that physical ownership is a useful concept and we should respect it and not commit theft, but ultimately that is just a social norm, enforced through other social norms such as laws and courts.

So those that sell copies can go to jail for fraud, and those that copy with no financial motive could be fined for more than any "loss" they caused the copyright holder.

Right, and that is broadly what the UK legal framework does. Non-commercial infringement is basically a civil offence, punishable in a civil court through damages, and under UK law those would normally be actual damages, not the dramatically overstated hypothetical or punitive sort. But professional copyright infringement, where you're actively ripping off works for substantial profit, can be a criminal matter, punishable in criminal courts with fines and jail time. And that's what we're talking about here.

So taking $1 from someone and giving them back $0.50 doesn't harm them in any way?

It harms them to about the same extent as ripping a copyright work with a market of two paying customers so that you sell one copy to a paying customer for your own profit and the legitimate rightsholder then sells only one copy to the second paying customer.

Copyright is a reasonable economic instrument, in my opinion, at least until we find a better model for incentivising creative work that does at least as good a job. Likewise, infrigement of copyright causes economic damage, more like fraud or misleading advertising than theft of some physical item. But the claim that professional-scale copyright infringement causes no actual damage at all is about as likely as the claim by the other side that every illegal copy represents a lost sale. Those professional infringers are sure making a lot of money doing something that supposedly doesn't cost the legitimate rightsholder anything.

Re:This is outrageous

[Anonymous Coward]

You want a maximum sentence that fits the multi-million dollar operation.

No, I don't want that. If someone's actually making millions of dollars off copyright infringement, it's a sign that there's high demand for his services as opposed to what the music industry is providing. It's a sign that copyright laws are hindering the market from squeezing out bad service. In that case, we're just punishing a better entrepreneur.

Instead of jacking up the penalties on copyright to further protect bad business models, we should eliminate copyright. I won't weep for the sudden demise of lousy pop and rap megastars that won't be profitable anymore nor for the parasitic industry surrounding them. Once the market clears and the dust settles, the artists that survive and emerge will be the ones who make music because they enjoy doing so -- just like it was before the twentieth century's industrialization of culture -- and culture will be free to share, with some modest profits for those who provide actual benefits to consumers and who develop business models not centered around imposing artificial scarcity on a freely copyable good.

Re:This is outrageous

[stoatwblr]

"Stop giving them any more wealth. Don't buy..."

This is happening in spades. Numbers are in constant decline.

Media companies try to paint this decline as proof that there is mass piracy going on, rather than admit they're not producing prodict that people want to buy - and the US + UK governments are falling for it, passing laws to prop up these companies, in the same way they tried to prop up their car industries rather than admit they were simply not producing what customers wanted.

Hurrah for judicial activism

[Zak3056]

It's awesome that a judge apparently created a new crime because he deicided that the legislature was wrong.

Insanity

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

10 years? You can rape and/or kill someone and not get that much time. Pure insanity.

Copyright itself is obsolete

[xenog]

I certainly hope the UK does not go down this road. It is like making manufacturing refrigerators illegal because it leaves ice sellers out of a job. This is retrograde. The industry should just start to accept that the Internet means copying things, and that is good. Ten years in jail for putting a film online? The UK is copying the bad things from the USA.

By comparision

[Anonymous Coward]

These are all UK crimes with 10 year penalties:

Burglary with intent to inflict GBH on a person or do unlawful damage to a building or anything in it (non-dwelling)
Possession of firearm with intent to cause fear of violence
Possessing or distributing prohibited weapon or ammunition (5 year minimum sentence)
Riot
Making threats to kill
Administering poison etc. so as to endanger life
Cruelty to persons under 16
Indecent assault
Engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child
Causing a child to watch a sexual act
Meeting child following sexual grooming
Indecency with children under 14
Taking, having etc. indecent photographs of children
Committing offence with intent to commit sexual offence
Trespass with intent to commit sexual offence
Burglary with intent to commit rape (non-dwelling)
Assault with intent to commit buggery
Causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent
Engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a person with a mental disorder impeding choice
Causing a person with a mental disorder impeding choice to watch a sexual act
Engaging in sexual activity in the presence, procured by inducement, threat or deception, of a person with a mental disorder
Care workers: sexual activity with a person with a mental disorder
Care workers: inciting person with mental disorder to engage in sexual act

I'm sure we can all agree that these are comparable to someone sharing a song.

Re:By comparision

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I'm sure we can all agree that these are comparable to someone sharing a song.

You make a good emotional appeal, but the reality is that someone just casually sharing a song isn't likely to be subject to these penalties at all. Even TFA mentions this, and this is only an early stage proposal, far from becoming an actual law.

What we're really talking about here is something like an organised criminal gang that systematically identifies people who might be coerced into giving up pre-release copies of major movies, then distributes those pre-release movies for substantial profit at the expense of the studio (and, indirectly, everyone who gets paid to work on movies).

Leaving aside existing penalties for other types of copyright infringement, a reasonable comparison might be large-scale, systematic professional fraud or false accounting, where CPS guidelines indicate 4-7 years for a custodial sentence. So while a 10 year maximum as reportedly proposed here seems on the high side, it's not a vast discrepancy from existing financial offences of a similar magnitude.

Re:By comparision

[BlueStrat]

I'm sure we can all agree that these are comparable to someone sharing a song.

You make a good emotional appeal, but the reality is that someone just casually sharing a song isn't likely to be subject to these penalties at all.

Unless you annoy someone in power, hold 'dangerous' or 'inconvenient' political/ideological/religious views, or for whatever reason the government wants to destroy some individual.

History teaches us that whenever government enacts a law for which they claim "it will never be used for 'X'" you can be assured that's precisely what it will be used for eventually.

Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Strat

About the latter news story...

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who lives in the UK, I think more people need to be aware of Jury nullification.

For those of you who don't know what it is, if you're ever on a trial for a victimless crime (for example, this) and the evidence clearly indicates that the person is guilty of a "crime," but you find the law unjust or wrongly applied, you can disagree with it when making your vote.

This is because you cannot be punished for the vote you make as a juror. This is why the entire concept of jury nullification exists to begin with.

Juries have more power than Judges, Magistrates and the prosecution would like them to know about.

Re:About the latter news story...

[SuricouRaven]

Jury nullification is viewed with great distrust by the legal profession in the US because it has a sordid history - it was commonly used in the south during segregation as a way to literally get away with murder. If the victim were black and the perpetrator white, the jury would often nullify regardless of the evidence.

So, kids, learn and adept

[Opportunist]

From now on, if you want songs or games and you can't afford it, get a club, crack some skulls and grab a few wallets, then buy the songs you want with the money you just stole.

If you get caught, you'll be doing much less time.

Re:Corrupt or retarded

[dhaen]

In this rare instance the government did the right thing. They introduced a new law clarifying that personal use was ok. It was a recent court case brought by the Musicians' Union and industry representatives that caused a judge to repeal it.

Looks like I'll have to uninstall iTunes immediately...

The monied interest

[Ice Station Zebra]

want to make everything you do a crime if you aren't paying them money.

Re:The story on the BBC is bollocks..

[ledow]

1) Your stats are bollocks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The UK is 100th based on incarceration rates. US is #2. Some tiny British colonies in the middle of nowhere are higher than the UK but nowhere near the US. Technically only the Seychelles is worse, but that's because the only fair measure is incarceration per population, and they have a tiny population.

2) "Most censored"? Bollocks. Please go look at some proper British broadcasting. We have shows that only exist to take the piss out of politicians, in doing so risk libel suits almost every time, and yet it's shown on prime time by the BBC themselves. The same shows that basically made a mockery of "super-injunctions" live on air for several entire episodes and regularly take the piss out of the BBC themselves. Fuck getting away with that in China or Korea or even the US.

3) Your "actual" imprisonment figures? Probably about right. But murder won't see you out in 5 at all. Nearer 10. Think half the prison sentence if you're a good boy, and murder carries higher prison sentences than firearms offences alone. However, don't forget that many "murder" charges are the same incident that results in a separate firerarms charge too. (P.S. It's called rehabilitation. A significant portion of US income comes from prison work, however. We don't have that shit. You're in prison to rehabilitate... if you don't, 10 years is 10 years. If you make the effort to, yes, you can be out in less if you keep your nose clean).

4) The UK does not allow firearms in private hands without a licence, so our firearms laws are MUCH stricter. Which results in significantly reduced instances of firearms offences and deaths.

5) Humans Rights Act / holding cells? Then sue if the cells are not lawful. Where's the legal definition of a holding cell is and where it's banned? It's not hard to find a lawyer willing to take on such cases. The fact that it's not really happened means it's bollocks.

6) Maggie Thatcher? Fucking really? I wasn't born on the day she came into power, yet I'm middle-aged. Give it fucking up already. You're talking about things over 35 years ago. Back then Jimmy Saville was hosting prime-time TV and Jim Davidson was still considered funny.

The rest? It's opinion and you're entitled to it. But making up bollocks that's one Google away from being revealed as a lie, and dragging out Maggie fucking Thatcher destroys your credibility, which is why no-one listens, cares or understands you.

The fucking US has more censored TV. They don't even show other Olympians winning when you they show the Olympics. They have more backwards firearms laws, and much worse incarceration conditions and rates, not to mention that shit going on at the moment with officers shooting beating people for no reason whatsoever.

If you think the UK is bad, please fuck off out of it (if you're in it).

The other, other side. Corps stealing, too.

[Frobnicator]

The other side of it is the challenge in calculating how much financial damage is done to a copyright holder when unlicensed copies of their work are distributed and 'consumed'.

There are still other "other sides" of it. Most posters are focusing on when individuals infringe on corporate productions. Big groups steal images from small-time photographers and artists all the time, usually without consequence.

Clickbait sites are notorious for stealing images and are among the worst infringers. Does this mean when an image goes viral and is used in a corporate blog, or when a photo gets used in a clickbait site like buzzfeed, the government prosecutors will be going after the corporations for criminal copyright infringement?

Even mostly-reputable groups like Forbes is notorious for lifting images online without permission. Images from Wikipedia get cited as "From Wikipedia" without regard to the license or the actual photographer. Images get lifted from personal web sites with or without attribution, but rarely with permission. Will the editors at Forbes UK office be imprisoned for their copyright infringements?

Yeah, didn't think so.

Unless these same laws are used to prosecute corporations and corporate officers when they also commit the crimes, it's just a tool to beat down the common citizen.

Just a thought

[fyngyrz]

Perhaps the government -- ours, the UK, whomever -- ought not to consider over-punishing someone for a minor infraction in order to deter others.

It seems to me that this is the real flaw in the entire mindset at work here.

Does society want to deter people from breaking a law? Sure. And yes, I agree, individuals violating copyright on a "I copied this work to use for myself" level is antisocial (but less so than spitting on the sidewalk is -- IOW, "meh.")

But do we want impose draconian and absurd punishments on peaceful and almost entirely harmless people?

Fuck. No. Because that's obviously unfair and unreasonable -- and stupid.

I'll go even further: A reasonable punishment is making the infringer pay twice what it would have cost them to pursue the legitimate path. For instance, you copy a CD that retails for $19.95, you get fined $39.40 which goes to the injured party, plus court and enforcement costs. Etc. And then you get after enforcing it, so that copyright violation becomes a no-win situation. So it would hurt, but it wouldn't generally wreck your life, your family's life, and screw up anything else that depends on your input, presence, or support.

People do this not because they are evil, but because (a) they are cheap, (b) the abstraction that someone actually put some valuable time into the work is too abstract for them to grasp, and (c) it is actually easier than purchasing the work.

We can't fix (c) because technology. It's only getting easier. I suspect it's likely to continue doing so, too.

We can't fix (b) because people grasp their rationalizations like a life ring in a storm-tossed ocean regardless of how close the shore is. Even really smart people. I refer, of course, to the idiotic but seductive "information wants to be free" meme. Information is held in people's heads unless they want to take it out of their heads, and a tangible reward is an excellent motivator to encourage them to do so. Doesn't mean you can't make free stuff; it just means that we'd like to tangibly reward those who want to do these kinds of things as a life pursuit -- or even you, doing it as a hobby, if you'd like to exchange your work for some reward of a more factual nature than "makes me feel good" and/or the cliched and mostly worthless "5 minutes of fame", if that's how you'd like to roll.

But we can sure as hell leverage (a) reasonably -- which is a damn sight better than trying to scare people by the equivalent of beating the shite out of someone for simply looking at you wrong.

Fucking lawyers and bureaucrats. There are days when I think they all need to be made to go home. System needs a reset.

Why stop there?

[fredrated]

Capital punishment is a significant deterrent, with a guarantee of no repeats!

Re:Election results?!

[SuricouRaven]

Both the US and UK use districting systems, which means that in many areas the outcome of the election is almost a foregone conclusion - if you live there, the chance of your vote actually affecting anything is so slim as to be for all practical purposes zero. It's only if you live in a borderline area - what the US calls a swing state, and the UK a marginal constituency - that your vote has any chance of mattering at all.

It's a MAXIMUM of 10 years, just bear that in mind

[wonkey_monkey]

A lot of people seem to be flipping out over this without understanding that 10 years is the maximum sentence. 10 years for ripping a DVD? No, that's not going to happen. 10 years for flogging a few knock-off DVDs at the local street market? No, that's not going to happen either.

10 years for getting hold of studio-quality raw data and selling access to it for £5 each to thousands of people, which eventually floods the market and ruins a studio's sales? That might get you on your way.

Re:Confused

[bzipitidoo]

I disagree that copying is antisocial. Copying is a natural right, and has a long history. It is only our current customs that push the idea that copying is harmful, and attempt to regulate it and restrict it by fiat. I agree that artists deserve some kind of compensation. Artists can be compensated in other ways. It is not necessary to try to clamp down on all copying for purposes of imposing a toll that ideally is used, in part, to pay artists. It's actually bad to restrict copying. Might as well argue that children should not receive the fruits of knowledge that our civilizations have produced over the millennia, without paying for the "privilege". Just because something is valuable doesn't mean it should be hoarded, and denied to the poor, most especially when the thing in question is not scarce, To allow, and worse, aid a few privileged, moralizing, greedy leeches to perpetuate a wholly artificial imposition of scarcity for what they claim is the good of artists and us all, but which claim is simply not true, is evil.

As to the other ways to compensate artists, there is patronage. Patronage has worked for centuries, and now, with modern technology we can do it so much better. We can crowdfund, which was impractical until very recently.

Re:Confused

[fyngyrz]

It is only our current customs that push the idea that copying is harmful, and attempt to regulate it and restrict it by fiat.

I don't know where you are, but in the US, the constitution, the very document that authorizes the government, specifically opens the door to copyright or something with its essential functionality:

Article I, section 8, "Powers of Congress": To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Exclusive rights. That's clear, right? "limited Times" is also clear, but note that it is completely open-ended, so they can do (and have done) whatever they want with the terms of exclusivity. I would completely agree that the present terms are too long, but I would not agree that congress was out of line to try these longer terms out.

So the "fiat" you refer to here is not very arbitrary, if that's how you meant it. If you just meant "by decree", yes, that's what laws are. This is, however, explicitly an authorized act (and I have to say, given the other things congress and the courts get up to, it's sort of a relief to actually be able to say that.)

You can offer public civil disobedience if you feel the approach congress took is wrong; that is a very hard path, however. Jail sucks. Fines suck (and huge fines suck more.) Court sucks. Lawyers suck like a 120 VAC vacuum cleaner powered with 220 vac. Having everyone with a stake in the current mindset turn against you sucks. But... there is great honor in it, IMHO.

You can publicly advocate for your views, explaining your position and trying to win a sufficient number of people and organizations over such that you can pressure congress directly (good luck... not personally tough, but task-wise, still tough.) I should mention just as an aside that your short exposition above has not convinced me at all, and I *really* don't like our current system, so seems like it needs work. Arguing "used to be this way" is bankrupt. You need to argue "should be this way, this is how we'd make it work, and this is why we should do it this way" and then make it happen. Also very tough. Lots of people with a finger in this pie, and they're all going to hate you with a passion -- won't be fun at all.

Sub-rosa violation of the terms under which our creatives operate simply damages the creatives and serves as a challenge to the legislators, and usually gets just the response we see here: such acts are treated even more harshly. That's not how to get things done, IMHO.

You have to change public opinion, and then you have to get it through the heads of the legislators that it has actually happened.

In the interim, I am convinced that we shouldn't be waging a war upon the incomes of the very creatives whose work product we would like to have access to.

As to the other ways to compensate artists, there is patronage. Patronage has worked for centuries, and now, with modern technology we can do it so much better. We can crowdfund, which was impractical until very recently.

Yes, well, get on that. I've written quite a bit of software -- some of it major -- and made it available for free. One large and featureful app is nearing 30,000 currently active users. Where's my check? I have Paypal "contribute" buttons, but the idea that I could actually make a living -- even a very low-profile living -- off the voluntary patronage of my users strikes me as more than a little hilarious. The fact is, people use; but they don't give back except in extremely rare cases. Of those active 30k users, 14 -- that's *fourteen* -- people have hit that paypal button. Of those, I have to say they were quite generous; the total of the donations to date is $475.00. I have spent thousands of hours on this application, and it is broadly acknowled

Re:It's a MAXIMUM of 10 years, just bear that in m

[KGIII]

How about you and I put $1000 USD in escrow and bet on this? Say, 10 years and my bet will be that nobody (not one single person) gets the 10 year penalty for civil copyright violation infractions in the whole of the United Kingdom. I will go higher than $1000 USD if you would prefer. We can use any reputable escrow management interface/site of your choosing. Withdrawing the stake early will result in a 75% loss of the staked amount with a maximum of $7500 USD loss. Case documentation must be provided and the definition of criminal or civil infractions will be determined by the UK jurisdiction representatives. Copyright will be defined per the legal definitions used in this specific act of legislation. All acts subject to the actual approval of said legislation with the time constraints being enacted immediately upon the activation of said legislation.

It is a chance for you to make a few dollars.

Re:Personal copies are local cloud downloads :D

[KGIII]

Considering this is a law concerning criminal copyright infringement and has nothing to do with civil copyright infringement there is absolutely nothing to worry yourself about and your post was entirely wasted.