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Legal Scholars Warn Against 10 Year Prison For Online Pirates

Posted by samzenpus on from the go-directly-to-jail dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The UK Government wants to increase the maximum prison sentence for online copyright infringement from two years to ten. A number legal experts and activists are pushing back against the plan. One such group, The British and Irish Law, Education and Technology Association (BILETA) has concluded that changes to the current law are not needed. "legitimate means to tackle large-scale commercial scale online copyright infringement are already available and currently being used, and the suggested sentence of 10 years seems disproportionate," the group writes.

1 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Won't do a thing. by BlueStrat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Mod parent up; even the death penalty wouldn't stop it, it's so commonplace that once half the population is in jail; a military coup would ensue.

    The point isn't to put everyone in jail, the point is to put anyone in jail.

    Turn everyone into criminals and you legally put anyone of them in jail when they are inconvenient for whatever reason.

    "Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

    - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

    Yeah, yeah. "Objectivist", blah blah blah.

    For being so wrong she is proving to have been remarkably prescient.

    Strat

    --
    Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.