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UK Bill Introduces 10 Year Prison Sentence for Online Pirates (torrentfreak.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The UK Government's Digital Economy Bill, which is set to revamp current copyright legislation, has been introduced in Parliament. One of the most controversial changes is the increased maximum sentences for online copyright infringement. Despite public protest, the bill increased the maximum prison term five-fold, from two to ten years. Before implementing the changes the Government launched a public consultation, asking for comments and advice from the public. But, even though the vast majority of the responses urged the authorities not to up the prison term, lawmakers decided otherwise. As a result, a new draft of the Digital Economy bill published this week extends the current prison term from two to ten years (PDF). The relevant part amends the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and simply replaces the word two with ten. Copyright holders have lobbied for this update for a long time. According to them, harsher penalties are needed to deter people from committing large-scale copyright infringement, something the Government agrees with.
I'm as sceptical as anyone about the abuse of penalties for IP-related behaviour, but you're way off on this objection. The laws in question were created to fight large-scale, commercial copyright infringement, that is how they've actually been used in practice, and it is extremely likely that those profiting from infringement in that way are effectively stealing real profits from the legitimate rightsholders since people were actually paying for copies of the works that they may well have assumed were lawful. The penalties are akin to those for fraud.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Five years maximum if you stab someone (without killing them): http://www.inbrief.co.uk/offen...
Average prison sentence length for rape: 8 years: http://www.publications.parlia...
in the US:
14 years (1790), 28 years (1831), life + 50 years (1908), 75 years (1976), life + 70 years or 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation (1998), 50 years for broadcasts (2008).
I am curious if the UK had similar increases in copyright duration. I am certain these increases reflect the nature of commercial lobbying and is not the will of the people.