DMCA Amendment Proposed For UK 208
Grumbleduke writes "During today's debate in the UK's House of Lords on the much-criticized Digital Economy Bill, the unpopular Clause 17 (which would have allowed the government to alter copyright law much more easily than it currently can) was voted out in favor of a DMCA-style take-down system for websites and ISPs. The new amendment known as 120A sets up a system whereby a copyright owner could force an ISP to block certain websites who allegedly host or link to infringing material or face being taken before the High Court and made to pay the copyright owner's legal fees. This amendment was tabled by the Liberal Democrat party, which had so far been seen as the defenders of the internet and with the Conservative party supporting them. The UK's Pirate Party and Open Rights Group have both strongly criticized this new amendment."
Actually, most of the world's getting it (Score:4, Informative)
Worse, it's in the ACTA treaty:
Their goal is to conclude the ACTA agreement by the end of 2010. Countries involved are Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States (US) - and others will be pressured to join afterward.
Re:Actually, most of the world's getting it (Score:5, Insightful)
Seeing zero reporting on this in the media (apart from the excellent interviews professor Geist linked on his blog [michaelgeist.ca]). Big media all for this. The majority of "big media" business models are based on artificial scarcity [wikipedia.org]. That is, big media charge for the packaging and distribution of bits and bytes as a if these things are scarce commodity. Note that I am not talking about the actual artistic content creation, but only the packaging and distribution. Packaging and distribution are certainly value adding exercises, but when talking about digital media, the cost to reproduce and distribute is a fixed cost or as close to fixed as you can get (see wikipedia article reference - "duplicated billions of times over for a relatively cheap production price (an initial investment in a computer, an internet connection, and any power consumption costs; and these are already fixed costs in most environments)").
It is physically impossible to maintain the current (substantial) profit differential between charging for the packaging and distribution of each digital item as if it is a scarce commodity, while running that part of their operation at or very close to fixed cost (The most profitable and central part of big media). Any other business model that embraces the digital medium for what it is (a fixed cost medium for duplication/distribution), and not based on artificial scarcity simply could never maintain the same levels of profitability they currently enjoy.
They only have one choice if they wish to maintain their currently profit levels: Legislate scarcity into the digital medium (hence we see secret ACTA treaties and other morally questionable political clout being thrown about in favor of this goal)
If we actually talk about the artistic content creation part of the business model, that could be considered and entirely different issue. Big media obviously pay artists to produce content. The interesting "moral high ground" issue that both sides of the debate are claiming revolves around the question of if Big Media should also be allowed by society to charge for artificial scarcity well into the future (even well beyond the original artists death!) because they also happened to contract the artists to create the work to begin with. Big Medias defense so far seems to me to be a "muddy the debate" tactic, ignoring the artificial scarcity issue entirely and just shouting "your damaging the artists" in an effort to maintain the moral high ground.
Who can you trust? (Score:3, Insightful)
The supposingly "defenders of the Internet" turn out to be the one who table the bill.
Who else can you trust?
Internet is indeed the whipping boy of the political scums !
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not exactly surprising.
Now all that have to do is slap a copyright notice on anything embarrassing.
Next time someone leaks the MP's expenses or some other embarrassing piece of info they can just send a takedown to have it blocked.
The DMCA has a few half decent elements like the safe harbour stuff and a lot of awful crap.
I just wish that when other governments try to copy the idea they'd learn from others and at the very least try to magnify the good and cut out the crap.
Instead they do the exact opposite,
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Had to look this one up for it to make sense.
For others who may be confused, in the USA "to table a bill" means basically to dump it. In the UK, "to table a bill" means to begin discussion of it.
This *must* be better than the old proposal (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, the reaction to this seems to be wildly missing the point AFAICS.
The old version would have allowed a government minister, acting on his/her own authority without the usual oversight/consent from Parliament, to set penalties for all kinds of things. That was how we got the danger of people being completely cut off from the Internet because someone with whom they shared a connection had been merely accused of infringement three times. And yes, the current minister is unelected, and seems to have adopted
Re:Actually, most of the world's getting it (Score:4, Insightful)
A very good point. I have a sinking feeling about the whole matter.
I've grown up in a world where items of negligible value are price-inflated through packaging, advertising and pointless distribution channels. I have had enough. Now when I buy something, be it a movie, music or a game I seem to own nothing less than the packaging, whereas the items I desire remains the property of those who sold it to me and I am denied any freedom in it's usage.
This is a hypocrisy of greed.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
One thing that totally clarifies this point for me is the fact that any sequence of bytes can be thought of as a number. If the byte stream is large (long ?) then admittedly we're talking about a huge number but it's still effectively just a number. The fact that this number can be interpreted by software and hardware to represent music, film, images, words etc. is very nice but doesn't change the fact that it's just a number.
So would it make sense to have a business model that tried to charge people mone
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Anything bar a physical entity can be replicated as a number (if others have a means to interpret it) including novels, music, blueprints and medical formulas. The entire premise that limiting the unauthorised distribution of anything without a physical form is punishing people for using maths is pure and utter nonsense.
If you don't think people should have a right to control anything other than a phy
Re: (Score:2)
Anything bar a physical entity can be replicated as a number
Not everyone is sure of the "bar a physical entity" [wikipedia.org] either.
Re: (Score:2)
So would it make sense to have a business model that tried to charge people money for telling each other a number ? Obviously not.
Try telling that to the horse racing punters, they have essentially being doing that for years
Re: (Score:2)
Re: The world's getting it! Like it or not (Score:2, Informative)
This may be a disturbing observation but Big Media is pulling off a stunning achievement here.
Not content to work with the laws of various countries, they bought the cooperation of powerful legislators and created a mechanism to force adoption and compliance to a very restrictive set of laws.
These laws will work to penalize movement and use of copyrighted works but at the same time will have a chilling effect on the internet as a whole. They will probably force ISP's to block many services they will now be
Re:Actually, most of the world's getting it (Score:5, Interesting)
Your assuming that a decrease in price point won't increase sales, by a similar ratio. In other words if they cut the cost by 50% and the sales increase by a little over double( double would assume that the cost to them was 0 per copy), then the profit margin would not change.
That is only based on the assumption that only "they" can distribute the media - so we are back where we started - legislating artificial scarcity into the unlimited copies, fixed cost distribution medium so that only those who are allowed by law to distribute can profit - everyone else cannot benefit from the Internets innovation. In the "normal" scarce goods model, distributors (companies running trucks, boats...) all take their cut of the profits for moving the physical goods around (and employed people outside of big media in the process). Big Media does not need those distributors anymore, at least not like they needed them before to before move CD boxes around. However In the Internets fixed cost distribution medium *anyone* can distribute, and redistribute for fixed cost. Without ACTA and legislation there is no massive profit for moving bits and bytes around. The power to reach people goes back to the artist and is no longer solely in the hands of of a few big media companies who used to be the only ones who could facilitate the distribution of their artistic works to the masses. However the artist can't try and ride on the next to free fixed cost distribution but charge for artificial scarcity either - profit is no longer in distribution (without ACTA and strict laws forcing artificial scarcity into the internet, that is).
Re: (Score:2)
Anyway, I look forward to Every. Single. Search Engine. being blocked by Every. Single. ISP. because they all link to infringing content. Hell, Google Images is the largest database of copyrighted images on the internet.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Listening to Spotify
Playing WoW
Watching programs on iPlayer / 4oD etc
Patching my OS
Reading webcomics
Reading the news
The only one which might be affected is the last one. Last time I checked, Wikileaks was on the darknets / Freenet anyway.
I lose nothing.
Copyright doesn't just affect musicians (Score:3, Insightful)
Profits can be made selling merchandise and playing live.
I really wish people would stop auto-repeating this line. It might be true (or it might not) for professional musicians, but how is an author, or an artist of the drawing/painting/photographer variety, or a software developer supposed to make a living in those ways?
Re:Copyright doesn't just affect musicians (Score:4, Insightful)
It might be true (or it might not) for professional musicians, but how is an author, or an artist of the drawing/painting/photographer variety, or a software developer supposed to make a living in those ways? I really wish people would stop auto-repeating this line. It might be true (or it might not) for a media creator to have their business model propped up by the law, but how is an IT worker or an accountant, mechanic, or teacher supposed to make a living in those ways?
Boy, I sure wish my choice of career was backed up by draconian enforcement of 100 year old laws based on a technologically and educationally outdated age. God forbid a "content creator" should have to do something else if their products don't sell.
(By the way, if people are willing to buy buy a copied disk of your product for $2 in a Thai market, maybe they should reconsider your pricing structure. It's obviously not worth what you think it's worth, and you don't get to pick the price I pay. Before the internet, you'd just go bust like every other business with a product too overpriced for the market.)
N.B. Any instance of the word "you" is not directed personally at the parent, just as a way of saying "someone other than myself, as I'm not in that situation."
Re: (Score:2)
Guess what! If people ain't buying it, it's not worth what you're charging to those people. Find a new market, or GTFO (find a new career).
Re: (Score:2)
The current copyright model provides a plausible economic basis for making works that are expensive to create, yet sharing the cost between many beneficiaries who each contribute only a small share of the total. This is how you can download a music track that cost thousands to produce for a dollar on iTunes, or you can buy a book that took the author and everyone working in production and editorial months or even years to produce for just a few dollars on Amazon.
Whenever the principle of copyright comes up,
Re: (Score:2)
If the content creators worked at a viable market rate on that basis, then only artists who were independently wealthy themselves, supported by wealthy benefactors, or able to collaborate with large numbers of other artists to produce a work of common interest would be able to share professional quality work with the general public. If you don't think that reverting to a predominantly patronage/voluntary model would hit the number and quality of works available to the average member of the public, then I've
Re: (Score:2)
While I don't disagree I think you are missing one of the most important points here - media companies use copyright to make money out of crap that otherwise wouldn't sell.
When you get something for free you have no reason to listen to/watch/play it other than it being good. If you paid £50 for a game you are going to play it for a while even if it's rubbish. You are invested in it. If you downloaded the game and your only cost was the DVD-R you burned it to then you will probably give up after ten mi
New Zealand has started already (Score:4, Insightful)
ACTA Jr has been introduced to Parliament [creativefreedom.org.nz] in New Zealand a week ago. It includes 3 strikes, and responsibility for the ISP to keep IP address records.
We've had a few talks about it at work, and the general consensus is that it's a joke, with so many ways to render the IP addresses "evidence" questionable... and subjective application of the disconnection criteria and fines... but it's one we have to stop. You don't lose your phone if you break a law with it, and you shouldn't lose your internet connection (email, facebook, skype, etc) for the same.
links the the relevant pages (Score:3, Informative)
page 27 requires that "the online service providers act expeditiously, in accordance with applicable law, to remove or disable access to infringing material or infringing activity upon obtaining actual knowledge of the infringement" - i.e. upon receiving a cease-and-desist letter.
Page 3 [swpat.org] has the current working text about "n order to a party to desist from an infringement" and which the EU wants to be written as "The Parties shall also ensure that the right holders are in a position to apply for an injuncti
Re:Actually, most of the world's getting it (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Actually, most of the world's getting it (Score:5, Insightful)
Stay on public property and expose them.
Never drive to an event, they will note all car license plates in the area.
Read out the laws they are working on in your name in dark places.
Speak some truths at their next walk about, meet and greet, mall trip or suburban town hall meeting.
Have a few friends around you to film the response of their public security and party helpers.
If they allow you to protest, keep on showing up.
If they get physical you have some great clips for the local news, youtube and keep on showing up.
File complaints about your mis treatment, turn up in court with video evidence and a real lawyer.
Always ask for the collar numbers/shoulder number/badge number of anyone without it on display.
Make sure your friends record the reaction.
... shall have regard ... to any other matters (Score:4, Informative)
Sigh, it's another kind of super injunction and of course there's a catch all, meaning it can be used not just against copyright infringment but "any issues of national security" or "any other matters which appear to the Court to be relevant". So Mr. Billy Footballer could seek an injunction to block a website because it has a photo of him snorting coke on it, probably.
From TFL:
97B Preventing access to specified online locations for the prevention of online copyright infringement
(1) The High Court (in Scotland, the Court of Session) shall have power to grant an injunction against a service provider, requiring it to prevent access to online locations specified in the order of the Court for the prevention of online copyright infringement.
(2) In determining whether to grant an injunction under subsection (1), the Court shall have regard to the following matters—
(a) whether a substantial proportion of the content accessible at or via each specified online location infringes copyright,
(b) the extent to which the operator of each specified online location has taken reasonable steps to prevent copyright infringement content being accessed at or via that online location or taken reasonable steps to remove copyright infringing content from that online location (or both),
(c) whether the service provider has itself taken reasonable steps to prevent access to the specified online location,
(d) any issues of national security raised by the Secretary of State.
(e) the extent to which the copyright owner has made reasonable efforts to facilitate legal access to content,
(f) the importance of preserving human rights, including freedom of expression, and the right to property, and
(g) any other matters which appear to the Court to be relevant.
Re: (Score:2)
97B Preventing access to specified online locations for the prevention of online copyright infringement
Which can be roughly translated as... torrent index sites and commercial BT proxies, They can't ban a protocol but they can ban some of the popular index hosts and anonymizers, so that's what they're doing.
The best part is they can use this legislation to block foreign hosts quite easily, so whether or not TPB is legal in Sweden has little bearing on whether you in the UK, USA, Canada, NZ, Aussie, Japan, Korea, and others can access it. No, you can't find your favorite free-to-air TV programme (or Japanese
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed, and there are "technical" ways around all of the legislation and take-downs, but they're not trying to block the hardcore geeks, they're trying to block the masses... the folks who have never heard of IRC, and to stop them reaching the biggest index sites like TBP, Mininova, etc.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sigh, it's another kind of super injunction and of course there's a catch all, meaning it can be used not just against copyright infringment but "any issues of national security" or "any other matters which appear to the Court to be relevant".
You appear to be misreading it. These aren't reasons why an injunction should be granted. They are things that a court must consider before deciding whether or not to grant it. "Any other matters which appear relevant" is actually a way for the court to *avoid* issu
Re: (Score:2)
I think most courts now realise that you can't keep anything secret any more, thanks to the internet. In fact widespread knowledge of something is a reason they give for not granting an injunction.
This is all about big media companies trying to turn back the tide and protect their business models. It won't help keep information out of the public domain.
Re: (Score:2)
they might as well make a law, "everything that should be not be legal is illegal."
Please, stop feeding them ideas !!
One lost vote for the Liberal Democrats then (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:One lost vote for the Liberal Democrats then (Score:4, Insightful)
For goodness sake let them know what you've just told us. A polite letter explaining that you were seriously intending to support them, but won't now, will do more than you might expect.
Re:One lost vote for the Liberal Democrats then (Score:4, Interesting)
For goodness sake let them know what you've just told us. A polite letter explaining that you were seriously intending to support them, but won't now, will do more than you might expect.
Even an email via http://www.writetothem.com/ [writetothem.com] makes a big difference. I know my MP has answered me every time I've emailed her. Hell, my MP even responds to my tweets to her twitter account, she's a Lib-Dem and I was going to vote for her as we won't have a Pirate Party member standing in my constituency.* It now depends on her response to my email about this vote.
*I'm a member, but don't think I would want to stand myself.
Parent modded troll? WTF (Score:2, Insightful)
The usual keywords like "crack" "moderators" "on".
Re-arrange into a well know slashdot saying.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm of the same feeling here, I was certainly a Lib Dem voter until I read this. However, I do intend to seek clarification- is this just some Lord going off on his own little journey, or does it have party support?
The summary makes no fucking sense either, it seems to imply the Conservatives support the Lib Dems stance of challenging large parts of the bill. This is outright false, the Tories have only agreed to challenge clause 17 which gives Mandelson full control over copyright law with no parliamentary
Re: (Score:2)
Not a big majority and in a seat that I suspect will have a lot of strong feeling on this topic (particularly students). For £500 it might be worth standing as a Pirate myself..... :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Lord Clement Jones has replied to critism of the ammendment
http://www.libdemvoice.org/digital-economy-bill-web-blocking-lib-dems-18165.html [libdemvoice.org]
To sum up he argues that; this is only an addition to existing power of copyright holders in the UK and simply clarifies their role in the process.
I do think he misses the point however that this ammendment puts emphasis on the ISPs which provide any service that can access this material rather than those which host the material. It's one step closer to to a great firewa
A Lords Amendment Doesn't Mean Party Policy! (Score:2, Insightful)
Note that this is happening in the House of Lords. Of course yes, as a Lib Dem voter I am horrified by this, but it's important to work out whether this amendment actually came from official Lib Dem party policy, or was an amendment put forward by Lib Dem and Tory Lords.
From the link, all it shows is an amendment proposed by a Lib Dem Lord. A Lord can propose what they like (this is both the advantage and disadvantage on the system - they're not tied to party policy).
Please don't throw away your vote for yo
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately, the answer is probably no. We don't have the funding to run more than a handful of Pirate candidates at the upcoming election. There's a £500 fee to get a name on the ballot paper, and running a campaign on an absolute shoestring budget adds another thousand to that.
You can help though, through donations, membership fees, and if you really care about this and have the cash to spend, by standing under the pirate banner yourself.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Mark Thomas [markthomasinfo.com] (who does do publicity stunts) is not Mark Thompson [wikipedia.org], the DG@BBC.
The Beeb is being told to cut back on a lot of commercial activities (e.g. merchandising), which means a loss of revenue, which means cut-backs are inevitable. It would be nice if a start point was to stop paying rich folks quite so much in salaries, but that's only going to be a drop in the ocean for this, and there's a risk that they'll do a BA [bbc.co.uk].
Hmmm... could backfire (Score:2)
Someone somewhere will have published a novel about a bunch of lying thieving scumbag politicians working only to enrich themselves who bring in a load of legislation and powers that enable a police state. That person can then issue takedown notices against ALL government servers.
Blanket law (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with these laws are that they pretty much cover anything and can easily be misused and breaking an injunction costs $$$ which means these laws favor corporations not consumers. A government is supposed to protect it's citizens and not play into the hands of large corporations.
A better solution would be for the record industry to realize CD is DEAD!!! Try to embrace the internet not fight against it, adapt or die a simple darwinian principle.
If you need a law like this make sure it's specific and that it target's real problems. The current problem with Piracy is born of record companies inadequacy to adapt and offer an alternative. Apple store is one of the few that exists and even there the record companies don't really like it.
I agree piracy is bad, but also it's like civil disobedience it points out there is a problem. There are lots of examples of civil disobedience that have inspired good change instead of more fear mongering and draconian rules.
Not so surprising (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm disapointed with the Lib Dems (which are the 3rd largest party in the UK) but not overly surprised: they have pretty much adopted the style, dialetics and posture of the two major parties.
This probably goes a long way to explain why, at a time when people are very disapointed with politicians in the UK (and one would expect that the two main parties, being more visible, would bear the brunt of it), the Lib Dems are not increasing their share of the vote.
The sleazy salesmen in designer suits have taken over the party and the result is that people, instead of going for them as an alternative, are just not voting at all or voting for more fringe parties, especially younger people.
Honestly, even though they are a bit of a "one issue" party, the UK Pirate Party are more in tune with what matters for the Internet generation than any of the "traditional" parties. If I could vote for the UK Parliament (i'm not a UK or Commonwealth national, so I can't vote in those elections) they would have my vote.
Re: (Score:2)
I am and I still can't vote for the UK Pirate Party. I would if I could, but they don't have anyone standing for election in my area. It's like some kind of pseudo-democracy.
Re: (Score:3)
No suitable candidate in your area? Stand yourself. That is how democracy works.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And due to our insanely large number of MPs (625 IIRC, more than the US senate and house of representatives combined) in order to put a candidate in every ward you need 300K which is well outside the finances of all but the very richest of people.
OTOH, I'm not sure there would be anything to be gained from the Raving Monster Loony Party standing in every seat and very long ballot papers would probably mean people accidentally voting for the wrong person.
I don't think there is an easy answer.
Tim.
Re: (Score:2)
You also need the backing of a certain number of voters from the area.
You need ten nominations; not exactly a restrictive number.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I am and I still can't vote for the UK Pirate Party. I would if I could, but they don't have anyone standing for election in my area. It's like some kind of pseudo-democracy.
Want to stand as a candidate in the general election? Get in touch with us.
Re: (Score:2)
So are the Pirate Party seriously looking for candidates? I live in Edinburgh North & Leith.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Cool - I can just imagine the question "So, how did you get into politics"... "I replied to a posting on Slashdot"
So are the Pirate Party seriously looking for candidates? I live in Edinburgh North & Leith.
No; the correct answer is "I found out about that the Pirate party were looking for candidates from one of my favorite internet sites, and I already supported their principle, and it snowballed from there." or something similar, that shows the power of the internet and the power that the Party has in reaching the demographic that uses it most. Disclaimer: I'm a Pirate party UK member. It's only £10 a year join!
Re:Not so surprising (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes.
- Andrew Robinson, party leader, Pirate Party UK.
(hey look, politicians can give a straightforward yes or no answer... when the slashdot filter lets them).
Re: (Score:2)
I had a look at the PDF in question, and I think the summary may be somewhat wrong tbh. I'm not convinced this amendment has party support.
The layout of the PDF is confusing, it's hard to tell which names support the amendment, but if it's the ones before it, then the names listed are simply both the Lib Dem and the Tory ministers for culture and sport- i.e. those who are always most closely lobbied by the music industry.
If it's the names after, then it's still the Lib Dem culture and sport minister, couple
Pirate Party? (Score:3, Insightful)
How is anyone going to take you seriously with a name like that?
Re:Pirate Party? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
How can anyone take you seriously when your mascots are an elephant or a donkey?...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And how do you garner support with a name where almost half of your audience goes "is this like the beer-drinker's party", and almost the other half goes "so you mean, you want to get everything for free at the expense of
Re: (Score:2)
IMHO, the "Open Rights Group" has a far better name than the "Pirate Party".
Creative Freedom should merge with Pirate Party but keep the CF name. It keeps the intent but creates an image of supporting creative professionals, eg artists.
Re: (Score:2)
There's sarcasm in the name? Everything I'd read makes it look like it is rather literal (using the media's definition) because they quite literally seem to want everyone to be able to download everything for free. They're possibly closest to my leanings because they realise that things like "fair use", "sensible legislation", "privacy" and "right to format-shift" make sense, but basically destroying/ignoring copyright (which is what FOSS is based on) takes it too far IMO.
As for the "open rights group", I d
Re: (Score:2)
but basically destroying/ignoring copyright (which is what FOSS is based on)
Wait, what? FOSS is founded upon copyright. Without copyright and the concept of intellectual property, it wouldn't work.
Re: (Score:2)
On the contrary—isn’t Free Software in fact a creative way of using a copyright licence to secure a creative commons, to enforce the preservation of a public domain rather than a traditional proprietary copyright?
Not really. If it were about preservation of the Public Domain, then why not simply put the work in the Public Domain? The fact that it isn't released as Public Domain means that the authors want to retain control over the work. Now, that control may be retained "for the greater good" but it is control nonetheless.
I think the biggest problem with your argument is that there's really no such thing as "proprietary copyright." Sure, copyright can be used to protect proprietary code, but it is also used to prot
Re: (Score:2)
They're possibly closest to my leanings because they realise that things like "fair use", "sensible legislation", "privacy" and "right to format-shift" make sense, but basically destroying/ignoring copyright (which is what FOSS is based on) takes it too far
The current Pirate Party UK policy draft* is five years plus another five if you register, along with decriminalising personal copyright infringement. I think that a ten year copyright period is far from abolition.
*It was still draft last time I checked & whilst I'm a PPUK member it's been a couple of months.
Re: (Score:2)
Basically abolishing copyright, then, for all intents and purposes that relate to the majority of the population. How much do people spend on creative media versus how much companies spend? I doubt most big corps buy anywhere near as many CDs as music-buying teens.
Re: (Score:2)
...along with decriminalising personal copyright infringement.
PPUK can't be pushing for this, because personal copyright infringement isn't a criminal offence in the first place. It is a civil offence which, in the UK, means significantly lower standards of evidence, fewer protections for the defendant and much bigger fines and legal fees.
Having said that, that policy is just a draft and is subject to change when it goes to a member vote over the next week or so.
Re: (Score:2)
While you could, in theory, "swipe it back" in a copyright-free world, you wouldn't get the requirement for access to source code. I see the GPL as a use of the rights granted by copyright to keep things open, rather than a subversion of a mechanism that it is completely at odds with.
MIT/BSD-like licenses would be unaffected in as much as people could still use the code as they wanted, but without copyright then I'd also expect that attribution requirements are also lost (after all, without a claim to copyr
Re: (Score:2)
No-one standing for plagiarism assumes that people have some kind of moral grounding, rather than the more likely (and already existing) situation of people not caring about morals as long as they they can get their grubby little mits on some free stuff.
The Swedish pirate party doesn't stand for plagiarism. It wants to keep the moral parts of the copyright law intact. And I sincerely hope that Pirate Parties in other countries are intending the same.
Of course, I can understand the confusion, since many other countries such as the US currently don't have the concepts of commercial and moral copyright and instead bunch it all together into a a single group of laws, making it difficult to explain how you could reduce the right to commercial exploitation while
Copyright crazies getting everything they want (Score:2)
It seems that every single day we are getting rammed by new legislation and international agreements that are so insane and ridiculously out of touch with where technology is actually taking us, mere words fail to properly describe my feelings on the matter. The quicker we are able to share/sync the entirety of human culture the less useful copyright becomes for the well being of the human race. How useful will copyright be for our race once the complete collection of all human
Re: (Score:2)
Say your a law student with political dreams
Political parties have their feeder staff on the look out to tap any new talent.
Expect to filtered out in university by the topics you select and papers your write, then by the types of early cases you represent.
If you are not exposed by your early legal life will be invited to join the ruling elite.
At parties in cities or
I don't pay for my music, my software, or my movie (Score:2, Interesting)
For my software, I use FOSS all the time and rarely need to use proprietary software (I'm a student).
I am a HUGE movie pirate. Why? Well, for starters movies are just too damn expensive-
Sigh... (Score:2)
Are they simply forgetting that the whole purpose of copyright law is to stimulate creativity?
Here's some points that would actually work in that direction:
I did actually write to the Lib Dem Party (Score:4, Informative)
I said I was disgusted with the proposal etc. and here is their reply; from the horses mouth no less.
Thank you for your email yesterday. Please see Lord Clement-Jones' justification for his amendment here:
"The Digital Economy Bill, as currently drafted, only deals with a certain type of copyright infringement, namely peer-to-peer file sharing. Around 35% of all online copyright infringement takes place on non peer-to-peer sites and services. Particular threats concern “cyberlockers” which are hosted abroad.
There are websites which consistently infringe copyright, many of them based outside the UK in countries such as Russia and beyond the jurisdiction of the UK courts. Many of these websites refuse to stop supplying access to illegal content.
It is a result of this situation that the Liberal Democrats have tabled an amendment in the Lords which has the support of the Conservatives that enables the High Court to grant an injunction requiring Internet Service Providers to block access to sites.
The amendment (amendment 120A) has generated some concern on the internet in the last few days.
Amendment 120A makes an explicit reference to human rights implications being taken into consideration by the Courts whilst they consider the imposition of an injunction. Such a safeguard is paramount to our concerns.
The intention is also for the injunction to only be possible for sites where there is a substantial proportion of infringing material that is either hosted by that particular site or is accessed through the particular site in question.
The injunction will only be granted where copyright owners had first requested ISP’s to block access to the site and where they had also requested the site operator to stop providing access to the infringing material (either by removing the material itself or removing the ability to access the material).
There already exists a remedy under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (section 97A) which grants copyright owners a broad power to apply to the Court for an injunction. Therefore, all amendment 120A does is enhance this power by giving copyright owners a more clearly defined route.
Site blocking is not a new phenomenon, the most well-known being the recommended list of sites to block provided by the Internet Watch Foundation
Clause 17, the Government’s completely objectionable power to enable the Secretary of State to attempt to amend copyright law at any time is deleted by the joint Lib Dem and Conservative amendment.
Unlike Clause 17, amendment 120A depoliticises the process. The amendment will ensure any action will be heard before the High Court. The liberal principle of equality before the law remains intact allowing both sides to make their case before a judge, not by appeal to the Secretary of State.
Before making an injunction, under the amendment the Court has to have regard to whether the copyright owner has made reasonable efforts to facilitate legal access. This is designed to ensure that copyright owners continue to develop innovative ways of enabling their material to be accessed online legally, such as Spotify, before turning to legal action.
To conclude, the Lib Dems are not seeking to censor the internet but are responding to genuine concerns from the creative industries about providing a process whereby their material can be satisfactorily accessed legally."
Best wishes,
Dan Murch
Liberal Democrat Policy Research Unit
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Thanks, interesting - although it doesn't really tell us much. I'd like to see what the Lib Dem MPs say about their party policy on this matter, not handwave the issue over to what that Lord has to say. Do they support it, or not?
"Site blocking is not a new phenomenon, the most well-known being the recommended list of sites to block provided by the Internet Watch Foundation"
Ah yes - which blocks (potential) child pr0n. Leaving aside that they can't even get that right (remember Wikipedia?), extending censor
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's an interesting reply, but I think it misses the major problem with the idea behind this legislation, which proposes to ban access to any site where some unspecified majority of content is infringing (the required amount presumably to be established later by courts in the case law on the issue). The problem with this is that many of these sites also contain useful non-infringing content that can often be difficult to acquire elsewhere, e.g. I've come across a number of small free/shareware software aut
Some utterly unconnected facts (Score:5, Interesting)
Lord Clement Jones "is paid £70,000 in respect of his services as Co-Chairman of DLA Piper's global government relations practice" according to http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldreg/reg06.htm [parliament.uk]
DLA Piper works on behalf of the MusicFIRST coalition.
The RIAA is a founding member of the MusicFIRST coalition.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As I pointed out in my original article [pirateparty.org.uk] that response from Lord Clement-Jones just highlights his lack of understanding.
He makes a major mistake in the first sentence - I pretty much stopped reading after then - although his assurances about it involving due process are worthless as the debate (and text) made it clear that the Court is not expected to be involved and if it is, the service provider will have to pay all the costs.
The Digital Economy Bill, as currently drafted, only deals with a certain type of copyright infringement, namely peer-to-peer file sharing.
Wrong!"P2P" or even the word "peer" do not appear at any point in the current t
Not at all like the DMCA (Score:2)
> The new amendment known as 120A sets up a system whereby a copyright owner
> could force an ISP to block certain websites who allegedly host or link to
> infringing material or face being taken before the High Court and made to
> pay the copyright owner's legal fees.
This describes something which is virtually the opposite of the DMCA safe harbor, which grants immunity to ISPs who otherwise might be found liable and does not grant new powers to copyright owners.
Re:Change is coming? (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you mean since 1998? I'm pretty sure music producers have been in limbo of lost revenue since the invention of the home recording devices like the compact cassette. And the music performers have been in severe limbo of lost revenue since the invention of the phonograph.
But as Lawrence Lessig already pointed out, this hasn't killed culture or entertainment, but resulted in new forms of entertainment (and income through other means).
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Change is coming? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bollocks. Make better, less formulated music, don't compress the hell out of it, and sell it online so people can use it in their iPods and in-dash MP3 players. As for doing nothing, that's what you want to do, right? Not change? Your old business model doesn't work any more, so man up and deal with it. Improve your marketing and online distribution, stream it from your site for a taste, and sell CDs and whatnot online. Christ, you bitch about lost sales but you don't even have a link to your website in your profile!
You'd rather fuck the entire online communication revolution because you can't compete? No. We (the entire technically literate world under 40) won't let that happen.
Re:Change is coming? (Score:5, Funny)
Hey! I resent that! I won't let that happen too!
A technically literate over 40.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No offense intended! Age is not a factor, and indeed I have some more senior IT colleagues who will also object strongly to this ACTA nonsense. Importantly, I expect that the 40+ group is likely to be taken more seriously by the politicians.
Re:Change is coming? (Score:4, Funny)
Hey! I resent that! I won't let that happen too!
A technically literate over 40.
Hey, I resent that too!
A numerically literate 40-year old.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Bollocks. Make better, less formulated music, don't compress the hell out of it, and sell it online so people can use it in their iPods and in-dash MP3 players.
Wrong. This is exactly what the majority of consumers want. Case in point, American Idol. Lady Gaga, etc.
Sure, they spend an asston on promotion and create the hype, but people happily eat it up. No, they can't help but eat it up or feel like a loser because it's been drilled into them that they NEED to hear the next throwaway artist or risk not being hip and cast out of society.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Bollocks. Make better, less formulated music, don't compress the hell out of it, and sell it online so people can use it in their iPods and in-dash MP3 players.
That doesn't really seem to match reality. The worse, more formulaic music is selling more and making tons of money. There are people who make quality music and sell it online in unencumbered formats, but they aren't making nearly as much money as the "pop" producers.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't have numbers to support an argument either way. I can only express my own view, with reasons for me not buying a lot of entertainment media for many years.
However I'll also speculate that the small indies don't have ready access to certain advertising channels, specifically mainstream radio and TV, and perhaps even movie scores, It's pretty hard to get marketshare if the market doesn't know you exist... and that's something big media does pretty well, advertising and marketing (even if it's flogged
Re:Change is coming? (Score:4, Insightful)
...You didn't...
Because itunes & amazon are making a loss on their music sales, right? Am I? Or are digital music sales actually increasing?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Take this from someone who sees 100+ concerts a year & buys alot of CD's:
Piracy is NOT the problem, quality is.
About 99% of current music simply sucks monkey balls, they would have to pay m to even listen to me
Ripping off customers: Why do cd's feature different numbers of tracks for different countries?!
Artificial scarcity: Some cd's don't see a release in this or that country for no logical reason, or are unavailable for sale because, well, they stopped making them
No means of listenin
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Change is coming? (Score:5, Insightful)
Eventually people will start realizing that infringing is illegal and it prevents many of us (music producers) from making a living.
Why should I care whether you can make a living or not?
I might care about the continued production of content (the music itself), but you most certainly are not necessary for that to continue. You might believe you are and you might believe you are entitled to make a living doing what you've always done, but that in no way makes it so. Many industries have changed over time and left people out of work and their old roles redundant -- we didn't legislate to keep those industries in limbo and those old roles viable -- nor should we legislate to keep your industry in limbo or your role viable.
It's the, "but, but, we're so important" attitude that really bites my ass. No, you're not -- you're Artie Fufkin -- now bend over and ask us all to collectively kick your ass. C'mon, for a man -- do it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I did stop. I stopped buying any new music from RIAA members. I'll pick up the occasional RIAA-member-produced album used, but never new. Luckily, there are independent music publishing houses, and they are getting most of my money now.
If the copyright treaty passes, I'll make sure not to buy music from
Re:Change is coming? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have some news for you: Music is nice to have, but I value my freedom and the Internet more. If you're going to stand between me and that, you're the one I can do without. And if you somehow succeed in instituting draconian laws, I'll make sure that not a cent of my money goes to you, and will simply find some other way to entretain myself.
If you want me to buy your music, make quality, unrestricted music. Drop the awful compression, drop the DRM, and drop the bullshit. Offer FLAC for download with no strings attached, selling individual tracks, and I could be interested. Sell DRMed stuff, and I definitely won't be.
BTW, I'm surprised you complain yet miss such an obvious chance to advertise your work. What do you make?
Re: (Score:2)
The sites are around, the costs can be reduced, VISA helps.
No need to fall for DRM online tracks.
Re: (Score:2)
Took a quick look, it seems they have not made any provisions for making the block as specific as possible - if I am correct, this could turn properly silly: The entire of myspace.com blocked because someone claims that so-and-so on myspace.com infringes their copyright.
Not sure. The legislation talks about "online locations". This could be interpreted as either a domain or a single URL. Although, the single URL interpretation is a little dubious because the remainder of the bill seems to consider a sing
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't speak of the ISP having rights in this process. Does a High court tribunal give the defendant a voice?
Yes. In proceedings for an injunction at the high court, the proposed recipient off the injunction (i.e. the ISP) can make representations, e.g. if they consider the content legal and the request spurious.
How many of them will actually bother to do this is another matter.