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.

Comments

It's inevitable

[taustin]

Now if they're impose the same criminal penalties for interfering with fair use, we'd be all set.

Re:It's inevitable

[Archangel Michael]

The Real Piracy is the wholesale stealing of our government by the rich, powerful elites, who conspire to get away with crimes others are rotting in jail for.

Re:It's inevitable

[hawguy]

The best way to avoid the fair use problem is to create your own original content rather than building off of someone else's copyrighted content and claiming it as your original.

Too bad that would eliminate many of the best creative works ever created, nearly all great artists built on previous works.

The entire Disney empire was built on someone else's stories. And they are doing everything they can to keep someone else from doing the same.

Yes

[PRMan]

Because this is obviously just as bad as threatening to kill someone or administering poison with intent to endanger life, which both have 10 year sentences in the UK...

Ignoring 98% consensus

[Anonymous Coward]

When the government ignores consensus of 98% the population, this is not a democracy. If not corporatocracy, the government has at least been corrupted by large financial incentives or threat.