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Swedish ISP Vows to Protect Users From a Piracy Witch Hunt (torrentfreak.com)
Ernesto Van der Sar, reporting for TorrentFreak: Swedish Internet service provider Bahnhof says it will do everything in its power to prevent copyright holders from threatening its subscribers. The provider is responding to a recent case in which a competing ISP was ordered to expose alleged BitTorrent pirates, reportedly without any thorough evidence. At the birth ground of The Pirate Bay, media outfit Crystalis Entertainment received permission from the court to identify several BitTorrent users, based on their IP-addresses. The case, which could be the first of many, was filed against the local ISP TeliaSonera who handed over the requested information without putting up much of a fight. This prompted the competing Internet provider Bahnhof to issue a warning. The company notes that the copyright holder in question doesnâ(TM)t have a very strong case, and it criticizes Telia for caving in too easily.
Seriously,
While I applaud this ISP for waking up and smelling the sewer, this is what happens when unfettered power is given to any group of people with an interest and a will to enforce it against others.
You can think about it this way:
The copyright holders and their shell organizations were initially granted a boon from society in exchange for continuing to produce new works. This boon gave them legitimate grounds to assert that society owed them something. This initial boon was not enough for them though, and through various methods, they have incrementally demanded, and obtained more and more from society, and society so far has accepted the increased demands.
We are now to the point where the demands are absurd.
The copyright holders and their satelites act like you are trying to put them into a sweatshop if you suggest that they have overstepped what they are actually owed by society, while simultaneously taking unilateral and extrajudicial action against society to obtain what it wants.
I propose that the next time they demand copyright reform, we give it to them, but actually reform it so that this abusive relationship is properly reset and expectations are forced back into the realm of reality.
Writing a book does not make you entitled to a heredetary estate. The purpose of copyright is to keep your lights on, your bills paid, and food on your table so that you can continue to write. Nothing more. It is not a free ride for either you or your children. It is not providence for limitless profits by a corporate body either, and any corporation profiting from copyright is going against the foundational concept of copyright as an allowance between authors and the rest of society. (EG, to extract a profit from the situation resulting from properly maintained copyright allowances, the corporations would have to be taking food off the author's table, and making him unable to pay his bills, because that is all the more copyright protections should be providing to authors.)
The actions of this ISP are laudible, but it is too little, too late on that front.
What needs to happen is for the copyright cartels to get busted into the stoneage for vigilanteism, racketeering, and barratry, followed by REAL copyright reform.
All they're asking for is that their works not be stolen. In many cases, this is legitimate. I have trouble caring about it in the case of mass media, who are not concerned with long-term interests so much as selling trivial products on the basis of novelty. It would be a positive thing for society if Hollywood, television and pop music were to fade away by being unprofitable. These industries were never a good thing to begin with, and now they are parasitic in a different way from what you mention: they help people stay addicted to distraction and reality denial.
It seems to me that what you are saying here is that the punishments are too extreme. There I agree. I think the original idea was that people who infringed on copyright or trademark (as in the Spiderman event) could be sued, and that took care of the problem. Now the police state is being used to protect these properties, and yet Hollywood is having bumper years despite shipping absolute mental goo (Batman vs. Superman) and its claims of being wounded by piracy. You know the old saying: "the entertainment industry cries as it hits you."
I don't find it convincing either. But one of the biggest culprits here is that much of this stuff is hard to locate and, given the level of technology we have, there is no reason it should not all be on-demand online for a reasonable price (e.g. not $10/movie).
Not, "How high?" but rather, "How long should I stay up Sir!"
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
Or you can pay like $3 a month for a good VPN service and be done with it.
Additional bonus is that it offers extra privacy and the ability to bypass silly regional restrictions on some websites.