There has been some discussion about having a similar system in Sweden. However, the finer details made it clear that while it would be legal to download via BT, it would still be illegal to upload, so you could still be dragged to court for doing something you are paying to be allowed to do. I didn't see any mention of whether or not the Canadian version would allow people to upload as well. Does anybody know?
And let's face it: if you are only allowed to download there is no point is paying the fee since you can be busted for having uploaded the files via BitTorrent.
True: I have got the details wrong, but to me it looks like I can't get anywhere without registering my work. It appears I need a lawyer to get payed for the use of my picture, and without registering it I can only get payed what I would have charged had I been asked before hand. IE I cannot get payed for the extra expense of having a lawyer. To me that adds up to making a loss by looking after my rights. By registering the work I seem to be able to get a whole lot more than I would have charged had I been asked before hand.
I might try the DMCA-route, I haven't thought of that possibiliy before.
From my strictly personal point of view, this list is of little importance (actually no importance at all). At least until the US cleans up it's act.
Let me explain: at the moment US copyright laws demand that you register your work with some federal agency (or similar), if you want to have a decent chance of getting any money should someone inside the USA infringe on your copyright. This is all fine and well. EXCEPT for people who live and work outside the USA! I see no reason why I, neither living nor working in USA, should have to pay the USA money to get the same level of protection for my work that inhabitants of the USA get for free in my country.
Just to prove my point: use Google to search for a picture with the description "footprints in the snow". Add "site:wordpress.com" to narrow the search. One of the pictures in the result is mine (currently picture number six on page two). Now change the search to "footprints snow mentor". You will get another result, but one with my picture on it, in a cropped version (currently number one in the results). This is not hosted on any server where I have put it, and it is used as decoration on a website used to advertise the services sold by an individual (or small company). The way the law seems to work I cannot get this particular individual to either stop using my image or pay me for its use. (I have contacted Apple, who seem to own the server the offending webpage is located on, with little result).
Therefore, as long as the USA expects foreign residents to pay for the protection afforded for free to "americans" in other countries, the USA is not credible in matters of copyright infringement.
Note to readers: although I use myself as an example here, I very much doubt I am the only one in similar circumstances. Further: I have nothing against Google indexing my websites, no matter where they are hosted. I have nothing against Google making and serving thumbnails of my pictures. It is when my pictures are used to advertise the products/services of other people/companies I think I should be payed.
I find the article very light on details, other than very general things. Could it be because most of the "issues" the users have with the Linux systems and programs is that they look different than what they were used to? If this is the case, I wonder what they do when they buy a new car, do they retake their driving licence?
I was into a store in Canada, and was asked a bunch of questions about my satisfaction with the store, and one along the lines of "How likely are you to visit an XXX-store again?". Quite honestly I answered "Highly unlikely, in fact it's quite possible this will be my only visit ever to an XXX-store". I got a surprised look from the clerk (I had indicated I was quite satisfied with the store), and felt I should explain: I have several thousand kilometres between home and the closes XXX-store.
On topic: what's the problem with memorising a ZIP-code to somewhere other than where you live? Granted, you shouldn't have to, but if you feel the store is asking for info they don't actually need, just lie to them. When enough people lie to them, they will stop asking for this info, as it doesn't get them anything usefull.
In a company the size of MS and Intel there must be somebody who can see it. That's not the problem. The problem is convincing your boss that doing something that will severely damage another branch of the company is a good thing. If I were an executive and wanted to advance in my career, I would find it very hard to take that step.
There is a book about this problem: "The innovators dilemma". (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Innovators-Dilemma-Technologies-Cause-Great/dp/0875845851/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295358384&sr=8-1).
Shortening the entire book into one sentence, it says that when something new (tablets) comes along, the leaders in the old business (PCs) often have problems adapting to the new market.
I agree with you: JA has done what I think he can be expected to do to help the authorities. When first the case arose, according to Swedish media at least, he stayed in Sweden a number of days (maybe a few weeks) until he got official word he could leave the country. Once he left the country, they couldn't wait to get their hands on him...
As far as I am concerned, someone in the prosecutors office needs to loose their job, and they needed to loose it yesterday!. At least one person, maybe more.
Please notice, though, that I live in Sweden, and this may have warped my view on the matter.
As a funny side note, I can pass on an anecdote from our legal system. Sometimes they do actually do "the right thing", as they did with Ioan Ursut, a Rumanian (?) criminal in Swedish prison. When he had two weeks (!) left of his 10-year sentence, he was pardoned. The media started asking questions about this, and the truth eventually came out: he was wanted by Italy, on bank-robbery charges. If IU had served all his ten years the Swedish law requires that the autorities actually let him go. By giving him a pardon just short of full term, they could keep him locked up till they cleared up the paperwork needed to extradite him to Italy...
I don't really think it is the case, but just maybe this idea stems from a percieved "need" of raising a generation or two of hard-core hackers, people who will be able to circumvent pretty much any type of security that can be thrown at them. For when they learn to circumvent a porn filter, why should they not take steps to ensure their communication is unreadalbe by anyone except the intended recipient?
The court can decide to have the "doors closed". This means only the court itself and the people involved in the case see the evidence. Any witnesses called will hear/see nothing other than their own evidence. Further, the court decision can be stamped "Secret" in parts or in its entirety. If things are really sensitive, you will never find out there has even been a trial....
I believe that one of the most often used reasons to close the doors and/or label the court decision secret is to protect the victim of the crime. This means that if JA is found guilty, the rest of the world might never get to examine the evidence, since it has been withheld to protect the interests of the victims.
Let's see if I get this right: the guys make a little over 4M dollars, get fined 10K dollars and can "keep" the rest because they have already spent it? If this is true, I'm in the wrong business!
I may be a bit off here, but I will guess that this move, if it becomes a reality for most, it will have the effect of teaching students how to use encrypted file-sharing protocols. The reason is simple: as a student you don't have much moeny, but plenty of time and lots of friends with the right knowledge. Add it all up and it can really only be one thing...
Have the politicians learnt nothing from the mistakes committed by others? Or does the European parliament have, as a requirement for being elected, an IQ under 75?
Not long ago Sweden enacted some laws designed to make it easier to find and identify file sharers. While I see nothing wrong with this in principle (let's face it: most file sharers share stuff they shouldn't...), the discussion before the laws were enacted made it abundantly clear that the people weren't going to take this without counter-action. So now the situation is that a lot of the traffic that we would like to stop is encrypted, and the law enforcement cannot find out what it is.
If this Italian idiot manages to get enough support for his stupid ideas, all he will accomplish is teaching the citiens of Europe how to encrypt their traffic, to use proxies outside Europe and in general make life for the authorities miserable! If my internet traffic is to be analyed or stored by the authorities, I am going to do something to foil them. And if I find a reasonably priced proxy in (just as an example) Russia, nothing the European Parliament decides will affect my proxy!
We have something called IPRED, that means that copyright owners can, via a court decision, force ISPs to reveal who has had a certain IP number a certain time. This person can then be sued for copyright infringement, if the copyright owners suspect them of it. This law is something the EU has thrust upon us, unfortunately it looks like a former Swedish minister of Justice was a major advocate of the EU directive.
And not long ago, the Swedish police talked to the current government, and told them that this law is giving them problems. Since no ISP wants to loose customers, a lot of them have stopped storing the information about who gets assigned what IP number when. So even if you know beyond any doubt what IP address has been doing illegal, you cant find the person "owning" the IP address.
And also, people are learning to encrypt their traffic, and to use anonymising services (proxies and/or TOR). Together with the ISPs not storing much information for long, the end result is that the Swedish police have lost the ability to track people who distribute eg child porn on a massive scale.
The Swedish politicians were warned of this potential development before the law was passed, but seem to have chosen to not listen. And now they are left with a population that has learnt to conceal itself on internet, so that even if they remove the law, the police will still be left trying to deal with anonimised and encrypted traffic....
I think the Australians would do good to talk to Sweden before they take any steps they cannot untake later....
As I read TFA, it is the recording of video/audio (or both) that is illegal. Thus, there is possibly a legal hole to use, although I must admit it strikes me as being most unpractical.
Suppose I see some police officers doing something they shouldn't and point my video camera at them. Only my camera does not do any recording, it just broadcasts whatever it sees and hears. In a location where it is legal, somebody else records the signal my video camera transmits. As I see things, this would be legal. Does anybody know?
When it comes to traffic accidents I think many countries have laws requiring you to help, as far as your knowledge will let you. Therefore, not helping is against the law and you can get fined. It would be very interesting, though, to know what law was used to fine this "perpetrator".
IANAL, and more specifically, IANAL in Germany, so my thinking might be off by several galaxies, but here goes anyway...
As far as I know, you cannot be fined unless you do something illegal. In other words, there _must_ be at least one law you have broken with your actions or lack of actions. The obvious question then: _is_ there a law in Germany demanding that you secure your WiFi? Or is some law being extended to cover this situation?
In my country laws are usually interpreted very strictly: if they mention (just for example) print media, the law is not usually assumed to include digital media as well. This is normally a good thing: actions/things that are not explicitly illegal are automatically legal.
That's part of the problem: many of the people making these threats would never "degrade" themselves by watching Western "crap" like South Park, or any other TV-show. So they judge the Western world by what they hear from others! Think back a few years, to the furor surrounding Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verse": how many of the many thousand protesters do you think had actually read the book, and knew what they were demonstrating against? My guess is none....
I have not claimed it would be easy to send a few bucks to your favourite artist. And if you want to do it avoiding the record company altogether it's harder still. But I think the degree of difficulty varies with the country you live in: in my country I can find out a persons street address (the address I would send snail mail to) from the comfort of my desk chair. All I need to know is the artist real name, which often appears in the Wikipedia article.
I am assuming the artist in question does not have their information protected. And getting such protection is possible only if there is a clear threat to a persons life: simply being famous is not enough for the authorities to deny the public access to your basic information. Some of my country's most famous artists have their information (full name, street address, birth date, and partner) accessible by anyone with the will to know it and an internet connection.
In your position I would pirate everything, and send a couple of bucks straight to the artist I like. And for the artists, it might very well mean _more_ money, since they only get peanuts per sold CD anyway... For the record companies, though, it will mean _less_ money. I am not sure that is a bad thing though;-)
In a criminal case, both sides can appeal, no matter what the verdict is. Although usually, if the verdict is an acquittal, the prosecutor will need more evidence for the next level of court*. This means that if you are acquitted the prosecutor can still drag you through at least one more trial before a final verdict.
In the case of TPB "everybody" here thinks we will not have a final verdict until the trial has been through all three national levels, and maybe even once through the European court. This is because of the immense importance of the case in setting a precedent for the future.
FYI: I live in Sweden, but am not a lawyer.
* Sometimes this extra evidence is actually found while the first trial is still in court.
Nobody knows yet, whether or not the three founders of TPB and their financer will do prison time: the first court did indeed sentence them to prison, but the verdict was appealed. The next court has yet to start proceedings. Once that court is done we still have to wait for the Swedish Supreme court to have it's say (I have no doubt the verdict will be appealed by the loosing side...). We might even have to wait for the European Court to say something in the matter, before anybody actually has to do any time.
As I remember it, concensus amongst geeks here in Sweden was indeed that TPB could not be convicted in court unless there was a conviction for copyright infringement first. At the moment, nobody knows whether this still stands or not, since there is a mighty mess about the case: the verdict from the first court has been appealed, and has not arrived in the next court yet.
I fear the PRS would simply start asking for payments from companies who _own_ equipment that _can_ be used to listen to radio stations that fall under the PRS licence rules. Whether or not the equipment actually _is_ used to listen to said radio stations is something the PRS could disregard completely.
Disclaimer: I live in Sweden, not the UK.
But we have got something very similar: our version of the BBC has started making a lot of its material accessible via the web. So suddenly everybody who owns a computer and has an internet connection is required to pay the TV-reciever fee....
Slashdot Mirror
There has been some discussion about having a similar system in Sweden. However, the finer details made it clear that while it would be legal to download via BT, it would still be illegal to upload, so you could still be dragged to court for doing something you are paying to be allowed to do. I didn't see any mention of whether or not the Canadian version would allow people to upload as well. Does anybody know?
And let's face it: if you are only allowed to download there is no point is paying the fee since you can be busted for having uploaded the files via BitTorrent.
True: I have got the details wrong, but to me it looks like I can't get anywhere without registering my work. It appears I need a lawyer to get payed for the use of my picture, and without registering it I can only get payed what I would have charged had I been asked before hand. IE I cannot get payed for the extra expense of having a lawyer. To me that adds up to making a loss by looking after my rights. By registering the work I seem to be able to get a whole lot more than I would have charged had I been asked before hand.
I might try the DMCA-route, I haven't thought of that possibiliy before.
From my strictly personal point of view, this list is of little importance (actually no importance at all). At least until the US cleans up it's act.
Let me explain: at the moment US copyright laws demand that you register your work with some federal agency (or similar), if you want to have a decent chance of getting any money should someone inside the USA infringe on your copyright. This is all fine and well. EXCEPT for people who live and work outside the USA! I see no reason why I, neither living nor working in USA, should have to pay the USA money to get the same level of protection for my work that inhabitants of the USA get for free in my country.
Just to prove my point: use Google to search for a picture with the description "footprints in the snow". Add "site:wordpress.com" to narrow the search. One of the pictures in the result is mine (currently picture number six on page two). Now change the search to "footprints snow mentor". You will get another result, but one with my picture on it, in a cropped version (currently number one in the results). This is not hosted on any server where I have put it, and it is used as decoration on a website used to advertise the services sold by an individual (or small company). The way the law seems to work I cannot get this particular individual to either stop using my image or pay me for its use. (I have contacted Apple, who seem to own the server the offending webpage is located on, with little result).
Therefore, as long as the USA expects foreign residents to pay for the protection afforded for free to "americans" in other countries, the USA is not credible in matters of copyright infringement.
Note to readers: although I use myself as an example here, I very much doubt I am the only one in similar circumstances. Further: I have nothing against Google indexing my websites, no matter where they are hosted. I have nothing against Google making and serving thumbnails of my pictures. It is when my pictures are used to advertise the products/services of other people/companies I think I should be payed.
I find the article very light on details, other than very general things. Could it be because most of the "issues" the users have with the Linux systems and programs is that they look different than what they were used to? If this is the case, I wonder what they do when they buy a new car, do they retake their driving licence?
I was into a store in Canada, and was asked a bunch of questions about my satisfaction with the store, and one along the lines of "How likely are you to visit an XXX-store again?". Quite honestly I answered "Highly unlikely, in fact it's quite possible this will be my only visit ever to an XXX-store". I got a surprised look from the clerk (I had indicated I was quite satisfied with the store), and felt I should explain: I have several thousand kilometres between home and the closes XXX-store.
On topic: what's the problem with memorising a ZIP-code to somewhere other than where you live? Granted, you shouldn't have to, but if you feel the store is asking for info they don't actually need, just lie to them. When enough people lie to them, they will stop asking for this info, as it doesn't get them anything usefull.
In a company the size of MS and Intel there must be somebody who can see it. That's not the problem. The problem is convincing your boss that doing something that will severely damage another branch of the company is a good thing. If I were an executive and wanted to advance in my career, I would find it very hard to take that step.
There is a book about this problem: "The innovators dilemma". (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Innovators-Dilemma-Technologies-Cause-Great/dp/0875845851/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295358384&sr=8-1).
Shortening the entire book into one sentence, it says that when something new (tablets) comes along, the leaders in the old business (PCs) often have problems adapting to the new market.
I agree with you: JA has done what I think he can be expected to do to help the authorities. When first the case arose, according to Swedish media at least, he stayed in Sweden a number of days (maybe a few weeks) until he got official word he could leave the country. Once he left the country, they couldn't wait to get their hands on him...
As far as I am concerned, someone in the prosecutors office needs to loose their job, and they needed to loose it yesterday!. At least one person, maybe more.
Please notice, though, that I live in Sweden, and this may have warped my view on the matter.
As a funny side note, I can pass on an anecdote from our legal system. Sometimes they do actually do "the right thing", as they did with Ioan Ursut, a Rumanian (?) criminal in Swedish prison. When he had two weeks (!) left of his 10-year sentence, he was pardoned. The media started asking questions about this, and the truth eventually came out: he was wanted by Italy, on bank-robbery charges. If IU had served all his ten years the Swedish law requires that the autorities actually let him go. By giving him a pardon just short of full term, they could keep him locked up till they cleared up the paperwork needed to extradite him to Italy...
I don't really think it is the case, but just maybe this idea stems from a percieved "need" of raising a generation or two of hard-core hackers, people who will be able to circumvent pretty much any type of security that can be thrown at them. For when they learn to circumvent a porn filter, why should they not take steps to ensure their communication is unreadalbe by anyone except the intended recipient?
I believe that one of the most often used reasons to close the doors and/or label the court decision secret is to protect the victim of the crime. This means that if JA is found guilty, the rest of the world might never get to examine the evidence, since it has been withheld to protect the interests of the victims.
Yes, I live in Sweden, but no, I am not a lawyer.
Let's see if I get this right: the guys make a little over 4M dollars, get fined 10K dollars and can "keep" the rest because they have already spent it? If this is true, I'm in the wrong business!
Don't worry, eventually the metric system will take over the USA, inch by inch.
I may be a bit off here, but I will guess that this move, if it becomes a reality for most, it will have the effect of teaching students how to use encrypted file-sharing protocols. The reason is simple: as a student you don't have much moeny, but plenty of time and lots of friends with the right knowledge. Add it all up and it can really only be one thing...
Have the politicians learnt nothing from the mistakes committed by others? Or does the European parliament have, as a requirement for being elected, an IQ under 75?
Not long ago Sweden enacted some laws designed to make it easier to find and identify file sharers. While I see nothing wrong with this in principle (let's face it: most file sharers share stuff they shouldn't...), the discussion before the laws were enacted made it abundantly clear that the people weren't going to take this without counter-action. So now the situation is that a lot of the traffic that we would like to stop is encrypted, and the law enforcement cannot find out what it is.
If this Italian idiot manages to get enough support for his stupid ideas, all he will accomplish is teaching the citiens of Europe how to encrypt their traffic, to use proxies outside Europe and in general make life for the authorities miserable! If my internet traffic is to be analyed or stored by the authorities, I am going to do something to foil them. And if I find a reasonably priced proxy in (just as an example) Russia, nothing the European Parliament decides will affect my proxy!
We have something called IPRED, that means that copyright owners can, via a court decision, force ISPs to reveal who has had a certain IP number a certain time. This person can then be sued for copyright infringement, if the copyright owners suspect them of it. This law is something the EU has thrust upon us, unfortunately it looks like a former Swedish minister of Justice was a major advocate of the EU directive.
And not long ago, the Swedish police talked to the current government, and told them that this law is giving them problems. Since no ISP wants to loose customers, a lot of them have stopped storing the information about who gets assigned what IP number when. So even if you know beyond any doubt what IP address has been doing illegal, you cant find the person "owning" the IP address.
And also, people are learning to encrypt their traffic, and to use anonymising services (proxies and/or TOR). Together with the ISPs not storing much information for long, the end result is that the Swedish police have lost the ability to track people who distribute eg child porn on a massive scale.
The Swedish politicians were warned of this potential development before the law was passed, but seem to have chosen to not listen. And now they are left with a population that has learnt to conceal itself on internet, so that even if they remove the law, the police will still be left trying to deal with anonimised and encrypted traffic....
I think the Australians would do good to talk to Sweden before they take any steps they cannot untake later....
As I read TFA, it is the recording of video/audio (or both) that is illegal. Thus, there is possibly a legal hole to use, although I must admit it strikes me as being most unpractical.
Suppose I see some police officers doing something they shouldn't and point my video camera at them. Only my camera does not do any recording, it just broadcasts whatever it sees and hears. In a location where it is legal, somebody else records the signal my video camera transmits. As I see things, this would be legal. Does anybody know?
(And FYI: IANAL)
When it comes to traffic accidents I think many countries have laws requiring you to help, as far as your knowledge will let you. Therefore, not helping is against the law and you can get fined. It would be very interesting, though, to know what law was used to fine this "perpetrator".
As far as I know, you cannot be fined unless you do something illegal. In other words, there _must_ be at least one law you have broken with your actions or lack of actions. The obvious question then: _is_ there a law in Germany demanding that you secure your WiFi? Or is some law being extended to cover this situation?
In my country laws are usually interpreted very strictly: if they mention (just for example) print media, the law is not usually assumed to include digital media as well. This is normally a good thing: actions/things that are not explicitly illegal are automatically legal.
That's part of the problem: many of the people making these threats would never "degrade" themselves by watching Western "crap" like South Park, or any other TV-show. So they judge the Western world by what they hear from others! Think back a few years, to the furor surrounding Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verse": how many of the many thousand protesters do you think had actually read the book, and knew what they were demonstrating against? My guess is none....
I am assuming the artist in question does not have their information protected. And getting such protection is possible only if there is a clear threat to a persons life: simply being famous is not enough for the authorities to deny the public access to your basic information. Some of my country's most famous artists have their information (full name, street address, birth date, and partner) accessible by anyone with the will to know it and an internet connection.
In your position I would pirate everything, and send a couple of bucks straight to the artist I like. And for the artists, it might very well mean _more_ money, since they only get peanuts per sold CD anyway... For the record companies, though, it will mean _less_ money. I am not sure that is a bad thing though ;-)
In a criminal case, both sides can appeal, no matter what the verdict is. Although usually, if the verdict is an acquittal, the prosecutor will need more evidence for the next level of court*. This means that if you are acquitted the prosecutor can still drag you through at least one more trial before a final verdict.
In the case of TPB "everybody" here thinks we will not have a final verdict until the trial has been through all three national levels, and maybe even once through the European court. This is because of the immense importance of the case in setting a precedent for the future.
FYI: I live in Sweden, but am not a lawyer.
* Sometimes this extra evidence is actually found while the first trial is still in court.
Nobody knows yet, whether or not the three founders of TPB and their financer will do prison time: the first court did indeed sentence them to prison, but the verdict was appealed. The next court has yet to start proceedings. Once that court is done we still have to wait for the Swedish Supreme court to have it's say (I have no doubt the verdict will be appealed by the loosing side...). We might even have to wait for the European Court to say something in the matter, before anybody actually has to do any time.
As I remember it, concensus amongst geeks here in Sweden was indeed that TPB could not be convicted in court unless there was a conviction for copyright infringement first. At the moment, nobody knows whether this still stands or not, since there is a mighty mess about the case: the verdict from the first court has been appealed, and has not arrived in the next court yet.
I fear the PRS would simply start asking for payments from companies who _own_ equipment that _can_ be used to listen to radio stations that fall under the PRS licence rules. Whether or not the equipment actually _is_ used to listen to said radio stations is something the PRS could disregard completely.
Disclaimer: I live in Sweden, not the UK.
But we have got something very similar: our version of the BBC has started making a lot of its material accessible via the web. So suddenly everybody who owns a computer and has an internet connection is required to pay the TV-reciever fee....