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Digital Economy Act: Illegal Kodi Streams Could Now Land Users In Prison For 10 Years (independent.co.uk)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Independent: The Digital Economy Act has passed into law, meaning people could now face ten-year prison sentences for illegally streaming copyrighted content. It covers a wide number of areas, including broadband speeds, access to online pornography and government data-sharing. However, amid the rising popularity of Kodi, an increase to the maximum prison term -- from two years to ten -- for people guilty of copyright infringement is particularly interesting. Anyone caught streaming TV shows, films and sports events illegally using websites, torrents and Kodi add-ons could technically face a decade behind bars. However, the new law will most likely target individuals and groups making a business out of selling illegal content, FACT CEO Kieron Sharp told the Mirror. The Independent also notes in a separate report that The Digital Economy Act could allow UK police to "remotely disable mobile phones, even before the user actually commits a crime." The Digital Economy Act "contains a section stating that officers will be able to place restrictions on handsets that they believe are being used by drug dealers," reports The Independent.
Leave it to the UK to treat the movie "Minority Report" as a template to governance.
FTA "However, the new law will most likely target individuals and groups making a business out of selling illegal content,"
No, it will be used against average people if prosecutors find it in their interest. It simply becomes another tool in the toolbox. Just like terrorism laws. I am willing to bet that anti-terrorism laws are used far more often to elevate ordinary crimes (or even non-crimes) than they are used to prosecute genuine acts or threats of terrorism. I had a family member sit as a juror on a trial where a disgruntled employee making a drunken threatening phone call to a boss was charged with "Conveying a terrorist threat."
So lets get this right, you watch something illegal and get 10 yrs. Kill someone and get 7 yrs and out in 3 yrs for good behaviour.
How dare there be a punishment for doing something illegal
Yep, thanks for summarising the situation for everybody. There are two and only two positions.
ONE: Nobody gets any punishment for doing something illegal.
TWO: Watching a copyrighted work on a stream without paying gets you ten years in prison.
You just announced you're an idiot, incapable of nuanced thought. Good going.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
How dare there be a punishment for doing something illegal
There was a punishment. 2 year losing your liberty for depriving a multi-billion dollar mega corp of some extra profit on a good that has no cost of production seems more than fair. 10 years is just ridiculous.
Laws need to be proportional otherwise you have a police state, where everyone lives in fear of making one mistake and ending up in the gulag for the rest of their lives. People are not robots. They make mistakes and wrong choices. Punishment should be aimed at rehabilitation not ejecting them from society. That is what a confident, prosperous and mature society would do.
"a punishment", sure. But you know the legislators have gone off the rails when pirating a movie potentially carries a stiffer penalty than going into a store, threatening and physically harming the shopkeeper with a weapon, then making off with the physical DVD. (a quick google reveals UK sentencing guidelines of 7-12 years for a robbery with the highest category of harm and culpability)
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Ask yourself: 2 years of prison. Imagine this, just for a moment.
Now imagine 10 years of prison.
Now answer me one question: Do 10 years of prison really scare you more than 2 years? Does it? If so, you probably already know what prison is like and only worry about losing more time of your life. For everyone how hasn't, probably the threat of spending a DAY with hardened criminals is already scary enough to make them ponder.
Does anyone honestly think that the average copyright infringer's train of thought goes "For 2 years I'll watch that show, but for 10, hell no!"?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
For 10 years prison, I could beat someone into a pulp with lasting, permanently disfiguring and crippling injury.
Come to think of it... where does the idiot that initiated this law live?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That will teach them to not become pirates or witches! When they have no eyes, they can not watch our Holy Movies without a ticket! On topic: for the last 20 to 15 years for the first time in history we are witnessing a deterioration of the human state and human states. Fought for freedoms have been lost and while media has become much faster and could be much more powerful, we see that a lot of media is actually knowingly or unknowingly part of a propaganda-machinery and most of them are no more than vehicles to deliver commercials to the viewer. These are harsh times. A modern black age.
There is nuance, the maximum prison term has increased but it doesn't mean you will get 10 years for watching your favorite TV series on a illegal streaming website. Judges are not complete morons, and when minor copyright cases go to judgment, the sentence typically ends up being a reasonable fine.
I believe the point isn't what should happen with these laws, it's what can.
Here in the US we have the DMCA, which was intended to keep people from copying movies. And is now currently being used by John Deere to keep anyone other than John Deere from fixing tractors.
You have to consider when you make a legal ruling that is broad exactly how it might be abused. If it is possible to get 10 years for watching TV illegally, you know that someone will get 10 years for it eventually. Judges are like any other group of people. Gather a few dozen together and it's a safe bet at least one will be an asshole.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
No, you'll be threatened with 10 years watching your favorite TV series on a illegal streaming website when you're given the "opportunity" to settle/plea bargain, and if you don't think the threat of ridiculous penalties doesn't cause people (criminals or innocents) to agree to seemingly insane things then you need to get out of your cave a lot more often.
Log in or piss off.
Plea bargaining is illegal in the UK. If you were offered a lenient sentence for pleading guilty that means that you are not getting a fair trial. You are saying that people should be punished for claiming to be innocent. That sounds like a police state.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
I was speaking generally about what it means to be a police state. But if you want to go back to the narrower topic at hand, that's fine too:
Oh it's that easy, eh? I'm not sure I agree.
First of all, consider the fact that pretty much everything on the Internet is copyrighted. That means -- technically -- this law applies even to web pages as much as it does audio or video.
Second, remember that this doesn't just criminalize knowingly uploading something without authorization, or even downloading it and knowingly keeping the local copy without authorization; it criminalizes mere "streaming." Consider the fact that in many cases, you have to "stream" something (i.e., download it to your temporary cache, without intending to save it permanently) -- such as a web page -- just to see what it is. You literally can't know if a particular act breaks the law until after you've done it!
Third, copyright infringement cannot be determined just by looking at the act of streaming itself the mere fact that a copyright on the content in question exists, but instead hinges entirely on whether you have permission from the copyright holder or not. In many cases, even seemingly-legitimate downloading could turn out to be copyright infringement. For example, even mainstream, legitimate sites like Youtube have infringing content uploaded to them all the time and there's pretty much no way for you as a third-party to know whether the uploader had permission from the copyright holder or not. Moreover, even if you're downloading/streaming from a site controlled by the copyright holder himself (which you would think should imply tacit permission), you might be violating something in the fine print of the ToS which revokes your permission and thus criminalizes you.
And sure, you might say -- like the copyright-maximalist quoted in the article does -- that "the new law will most likely target individuals and groups making a business out of selling illegal content." But the fact remains that this law could be used to nail pretty much anyone to the wall for a 10-year prison sentence, if the prosecutor was pissed off at them enough. And that's fundamentally unjust.
To illustrate my point: if you're in the UK, you are now a felon. Why? Because of the following:
Too bad you had to commit the crime to find out about it, huh?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz