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Comments: 183 + - Your Rights Online: UK Internet Filtering Bill Watered Down on Tuesday March 16, @04:48AM
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superapecommando writes in with news that in the UK, Liberal Democratic peers will soften their filtering amendment to the Digital Economy Bill, to allow those wrongfully accused of illegal filesharing to sue the rightsholders in court. The previous version of the Bill had drawn instant criticism from some of the world's largest technology companies, including eBay, Google, and Yahoo, who signed an open letter against the filtering proposal. Blogger Glyn Moody summed up opposition to the Bill, stating that in its previous form, it was "utterly one-sided, where the only winners are a music recording industry too lazy to change, and the losers are everyone else."
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Story already out-of-date (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, this story is already out-of-date. The Government denied the Liberal Democrat peers the ability to amend the amendment, saying that they'd sort it out themselves during "washing-up", the period just before the General Election when ministers and last-term backbenchers rush through last-minute legislation with minimal debate while the majority of MPs return to their constituencies to campaign.
See this Guardian article [guardian.co.uk] for more information.
It wouldn't work anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
Who can afford the lawyers? Now if they really wanted to make this work (don't forget that all parties in england have to pacify the media/content owners. Do you want to upset the content producers and then be ridiculed forever in every piece of content? Go ahead, suggest the BBC should be privatized, see how long your public image survives. Yesterday the BBC aired an entirely self serving copyright program that showed only the content owners point of view. How suprising)
If this was to work, then the content owners should setup a fund from which lawsuits against them could be funded, they should be rate limited to the amount they could spend on lawyers and be stopped from endlessly appealing. The damages should be high enough that it is a serious detterent against endless false claims and for any succesful claim, the pot for making claims against them is doubled.
Else it is just a hollow shell. Nobody can afford to sue the media companies. Don't let the lib-dems fool you.
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Re:It wouldn't work anyway (Score:5, Informative)
Who can afford the lawyers? Now if they really wanted to make this work (don't forget that all parties in england have to pacify the media/content owners. Do you want to upset the content producers and then be ridiculed forever in every piece of content? Go ahead, suggest the BBC should be privatized, see how long your public image survives. Yesterday the BBC aired an entirely self serving copyright program that showed only the content owners point of view. How suprising)
Well, we upset the content producers by our very existence, but we still seem to be getting some media coverage -- indeed, several media organisations have contacted us in the last few hours asking for statements!
We've published a press release [pirateparty.org.uk] about last night's Panorama programme:
The Pirate Party UK has come out as highly critical of the BBC's recent Panorama programme for its disappointing coverage of the Digital Economy Bill.
Although Panorama attempted to give a fair hearing to both sides of the controversy surrounding the bill, it was ultimately considered inadequate. In particular, the BBC was criticised for its failure to get informed commentary from organisations opposed to the bill, such as the Open Rights Group, Coadec and the Pirate Party, meaning that the arguments both for and against the Digital Economy Bill were incomplete, largely misrepresented and often factually inaccurate.
...
Panorama: Separating Fact from Fiction [pirateparty.org.uk]
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Re:It wouldn't work anyway (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a suprise. Panorama is probably one of the few things I hate the BBC for. Panorama is basically the BBC's answer to the Daily Mail.
Panorama is frequently wrong, and the BBC frequently has to publish apologies, but these apologies are always hidden away, or non-obvious, and occur long after the BBC has already shown said episode of Panorama anyway. It was Panorama for example that started the BBC's push about Wifi being dangerous and giving teachers headaches, even though all of this was entirely unproven by them. It was later found that the BBC was indeed out of line, but the apology was merely published online and the damage was already done- countless schools around the country were adamant that Wifi was dangerous and started removing it from all the classrooms. I was working in Education IT at the time, and it was hard work trying to make the schools realise Panorama was wrong, even after they had issued the apology.
Panorama has similarly done shock stories full of inaccuracies on things like children using the internet too.
It's just a bad, bad TV series, and the BBC should be embarassed for even allowing it to continue. It's really a horrible stain on their otherwise generally good reputation.
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It's really sad that some of the best current affairs programmes on the BBC are the likes of "Mock the Week" and "Have I Got News for You". Panorama's nonsense, Question Time's become an irrelevant circus, especially after that Griffin debacle. You get more sense and balance out of Richard Hammonds "Should I worry about" show.
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Oh, and Newswipe, how could I forget Newswipe. Using the media's own techniques to mock them. Delicious Irony.
Re:It wouldn't work anyway (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, I don't know why the BBC struggles with serious current affairs programs so much. Particularly when you look at programs like Horizon and series like Planet Earth, and Life which are generally nothing short of outstanding. They clearly can do serious programs well, they can clearly do comedy current affairs programs well, it's not as if their news site and the current affairs stuff on there isn't generally excellent either. They just can't seem to mix it all together to provide serious TV based current affairs shows without ending up in an epic fail.
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Before you get too excited (Score:5, Insightful)
The UK legal system operates on a "loser pays" basis, so unless there's something explicitly written into the law which puts such cases in the Small Claims Court (where there is a limit to the expenses that can be claimed by either side), you can guarantee anyone threatening to sue these people will be met with a nastygram saying "If you continue in taking us to court, we will demand costs. We're up to £20,000 now, and it's rising with every letter we write."
The people who are most likely to be cowed by such a threat are exactly the people who are most likely to get such a threat in the first place - I'm thinking particularly those who can't afford a solicitor and where the parents in the household don't really understand what the kids get up to on the Internet.
Re:Before you get too excited (Score:5, Insightful)
Then sue for an amount less than £5000, where it is *automatically* Small Claims Court. Even magistrates court is "cheap"
Oh, and "loser pays" is not always the case - if you are found to have unwarranted costs (for example, retaining a QC to handle a simple copyright matter) then you may find you are told to pay them yourself, even if you win.
In essence *both* sides have a duty to mitigate costs, and any failure to do so is looked down on, usually from a great height...
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Guilty until proven innocent? (Score:2)
to allow those wrongfully accused of illegal filesharing to sue the rightsholders in court.
This is still highly lopsided.
Why does a "wrongfully accused" have to sue? Shouldn't that be that this accused has been sued already or so?
If really this way it is still that the music company just can say "you're file sharing!" without having to have any firm proof, as most file sharers will not sue in the first place because of the huge costs involved just to start up a suit.
watered down, not dropped (Score:2)
what are they doing proposing this at all? (Score:3, Informative)
The Liberal Democrats are supposed to be the heirs of the liberal tradition in the UK, supporting individual rights against government power. Their official party platform is John Stuart Mill's On Liberty. I don't really see how this fits even remotely.
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I don't know, but it's going to cost them my vote come election time. It goes against everything I thought they stood for.
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But the problem is, who do you vote for instead?
As a Lib Dem voter, this disgust me too, but I'm still concerned that they're the best option, partly because it is Lib Dem Lords that have done this, rather than the parliamentary party for which you'd be voting, and partly because the Lib Dems goal of doing away with our horrendously undemocratic first past the post system is simply more important. I think this latter point is prominent, because first past the post is the reason we have these untouchable, un
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Good advice, I'll probably be writing to my local lib dem instead, seeing as they're the one whose vote is in jeopardy. If I'm not voting Lib Dem it sure as hell isn't going to Labour or the Conservatives, though, don't worry about that.
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Same here, but my only other choices are SNP, Green, Socialist or the Christian Party.
I really only have one choice out of those...
I wonder what the Christian Party's stance on this bill is?
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I love the idea of the Liberal Democrats but I don't think they have any genuinely liberal principles any more. They seem to have been infected by the same "liberal" populist authoritarianism that's possessed the other two major parties over the last few decades, and now it is very hard to see how they offer anything different. "Liberal" in name only.
I think you can judge a party by its actions while in opposition, and in that regard, both the Cameron Conservatives and the Lib Dems have been so utterly use
3-strikes law (Score:3, Informative)
This bill contains 3-strikes and you are out law, which means that if someone is merely accused of copyright violation 3 times, their broadband connection is terminated.
I'll tell you what it looks like.
In the former USSR there was no Internet, but people listened to radio. There was no 3-strike law, you only needed to be caught once. You were not allowed to get information from the rest of the 'free' (what used to be free) world, if you tried, you were obviously an outlaw.
This is what it looks like to me, not precisely, but close enough. There is Internet, and then there is the 'free' Internet and the UK citizens are losing their free Internet.
It looks even worse than what happened in the USSR. There, they just tried to prevent people from listening to BBC by interfering with the radio waves, but they could not really know who was listening, who tried to listen.
Here they will know, they will know who is listening, who is trying. Even worse, if your connection is encrypted, I am sure that there will be in the future an assumption you are braking the law, so you will be presumed guilty for having an encrypted connection, unless it is to an approved bank or to an approved store I suppose. Which, by the way, if you think about it, is a perfect next step: eliminate bank and store competition, by only allowing encryption to a very select few. You think that won't happen?
This is worse than the USSR in terms of ability to listen and to make assumptions about who is doing what. This is still not as bad as the USSR, probably you won't go to a far away place in Siberia. Not yet. Not until UK contracts Russia out to handle its prisoners. You watch, that'll happen to: contracting brutal places out to handle your prisoners, especially prisoners that happen to be anti-policy, so they are anti-corporation, anti-government.
Shit, long time ago I though Britain could have been quite an interesting place to live for a while, now, I think I'll avoid that place just as much as I avoid the US, though I must admit, I like Florida's climate.
Liberal Democratic? (Score:2)
Liberal Democratic peers will soften their filtering amendment to the Digital Economy Bill
It's just "Liberal Democrat", not "Liberal Democratic". There's nothing liberal or democratic about these people.
Still not good enough (Score:2)
The only thing that has changed is that I can sue the rights holder if I am cut off the internet without justification. Now correct me if I am wrong, but to go through the process of finding a lawyer, communicating with said lawyer, getting forms and doing all the other things you do during a court case would be SERIOUSLY hampered by not having access to the internet. What if I can't afford a lawyer and have to read up on law...can't spend my whole life down in London at the British Library sifting throug
Re:Is the UK broken or something? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then again, Slashdot has even more stories about stupid things the US is doing, so I guess we win.
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The difference is, for every 4 stupid things the US introduces, 3 are fought and 2 are shot down. For that amount, UK introduces 2 stupid things and both pass with little or no opposition.
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The difference is, for every 4 stupid things the US introduces, 3 are fought and 2 are shot down. For that amount, UK introduces 2 stupid things and both pass with little or no opposition.
You forget the shear volume of stupid bills put up for adoption in the US compared with the UK.
Re:Is the UK broken or something? (Score:5, Informative)
What is wrong with the UK? All I ever see are stories about another stupid thing you guys are doing. Not trolling. Think about it. Slashdot is like 7% stories about stupid privacy/internet stories from the UK.
There are a number of reasons for that:
There are plenty of other countries where privacy/Internet asshattery is going on (such as France), but Slashdot isn't quite such an appropriate forum.
Anyway, all of the above doesn't diminish the fact that the UK government really doesn't have a clue when it comes to the Internet, and doesn't rate privacy very highly on its list of priorities.
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Internet Asshattery, I want to see that on one of your campaign posters, preferably Mandelson wearing some kind of mechanical arsehole on his noggin.
Re:Is the UK broken or something? (Score:4, Informative)
You'll probably notice that most of these are posted by kdawson or timmeh, who have some really deep-seated issues with the UK. I'm surprised that the "newspaper" article referenced here is from the Grauniad - normally they take an article from the ultra-right tabloids like the Daily Mail and then publish some breathless piece about how awful the UK is, without checking any facts.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
including neutral.
In the UK, our electrons need to go round in a circle of life rather than rising up to Heaven once they've completed their task (yes, yes, I know, conventional current, flow the other way, etc.). This is one of the negatives (ba dum tss) of living in a mostly atheist state.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Fine, but electrons DIDN'T evolve from monkitrons, they've been the way they are since the beginning of time.
"...in a mostly atheist state"
If only that were true... we're not very religious, but we're not really very atheist either. We have lots of people who "believe" in god "just in case", and of course, jedi.
Re:What bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Businesses and people who actually fucking create stuff
But that's the whole crux of the argument isn't it ? A long time ago, LPs and Singles had to be physically made in huge machines, tapes had to be created, CD's had to be pressed.
Despite the fact that CD's were supposed to be a cheaper alternative to Vinyl, they still milked the fuck out of it and the consumer got zero benefit.
And now, when duplication and transmission costs are essentially zero (no more physical product, no transportation costs, no distribution costs), they STILL want to charge the same gross markup they did in 1971 ?
All other businesses have to adapt or die ... why should the media companies get a free pass to continue screwing with their customers ?
If it's a case of paying 20 bucks for something, knowing that the actual artist will get 10 cents if he's lucky, then fuck them.
If it's a case of paying a *reasonable* price direct to the artist, I'll gladly pay.
There's a difference between leechers who just want a free ride (and unfortunately always will), and those of us that can actually see the wrong in a situation and stand by our principles to effect some kind of change.
If the law is in the pockets of big business, then it's people power all the way. What other choice is there ?
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Despite the fact that CD's were supposed to be a cheaper alternative to Vinyl, they still milked the fuck out of it and the consumer got zero benefit.
Wrong. The consumer got a format that was much less susceptible to damage, that didn't deteriorate in quality the more times you played it, and you didn't need an ultra-expensive hi-fi system to get pretty good audio sound from it.
Also, please don't forget that a single vinyl LP was limited to about 20 minutes of music on each side (40 minutes total) whereas a
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I'm certainly very pleased with what they're doing by remastering a whole load of classic albums and putting extra tracks on the CDs.
I, for one, am extremely unpleased with the quality of many remasters, as well as most new releases. Why? THE LOUDNESS WAR [wikipedia.org] means they are doing it without concern for sound quality or the limitations of the medium.
Re:What bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope. I remember all too well when CDs came out. We were told they were virtually indestructible, would play covered in jam & hairs and would be much cheaper than vinyl. At the time, they were around 10GBP in the UK compared to 5-6GBP for a vinyl album. We were told within a couple of years they would be cheaper than vinyl. Ten years later they were 15GBP+
The chances are that if I get jam or hairs on a CD, I can wipe it clean and it will play as it did before - unlike a vinyl LP. Besides which, if you get jam and hairs on CDs and fall for marketing hype then you probably need to be put in a cage in a zoo with a label "Greater Idiot" on it.
As for £15 CD prices - get real. Maybe if you buy everything in HMV in the high street - in which case you go in the cage also. I buy around 5 or 6 music CDs a month, I don't remember the last time I paid more than £10 for one; plus I buy a lot of remasters meaning they've got the extra tracks on them making them twice as long as a vinyl LP anyway.
Yep(ish) but you did get double LPs with glorious artwork, liner notes etc.
Yes, agreed, a lot of the great artwork hasn't survived well being knocked down to CD size, although many do have good liner notes - especially, again, on a lot of the remastered stuff. I always thought it was a missed opportunity to not put some of the old artwork and photos on the music CD as well.
That's a whole other agument. Back in the day, the A&R department might let a band put out 3-4 albums while they found themselves. Many now great bands had some dreadful early works - if we followed your rules we'd never have the good stuff. That was always the equation, the handful of uber successful groups funded the up and coming ones.
Yes, I think part of your statement is true, even to this day. I've certainly read somewhere that the Britney Spears of the world selling their trash by the millions helps to finance smaller artists - but then surely that's an advantage a record company has over a small artist trying to market themselves?
As to the first part of the statement, I'll talk about what I know. I mainly listen to classic rock & blues music from the late 60s to the present, and many artists that have been active pretty much throughout all of that period - e.g. Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin (and their solo projects), Nazareth, many others...
In pretty much all of those cases, the artists served "apprenticeships" on the pub and club circuits before making it anywhere near super-stardom. In turn this meant that many of the songs which would end up on albums had probably been played in front of live audiences for some time before, so I think this helped many bands put out very high quality initial albums.
In many ways that's changed today because artists are, in many but not all cases, are catapulted to fame instantly, just because the record companies market artists as fashionable and see a chance to make quick bucks. That's why, in my opinion, the general quality of music has dropped now.
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I always amazes what bullshit some people come out with in order to justify their continued use of BitTorrent.
My friend, stop with the politics because it's actually very simple - if it's too expensive, don't buy it. Then grow a backbone and don't copy it either.
When you start hitting these mega-corporations in their wallets, then they will start to listen to you.
Re:What bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
My friend, stop with the politics because it's actually very simple - if it's too expensive, don't buy it. Then grow a backbone and don't copy it either.
Very good advice indeed, and not only is that my approach, but I recommend it to everyone else as well. Check out sites like Jamendo. Also, donate to support those artists and corporations who have a 21st-Century approach to distribution.
When you start hitting these mega-corporations in their wallets, then they will start to listen to you.
This just isn't true. If you stop pirating, and buy their media, they decide that their increased income is because the anti-pirate measures (DRM, horrific legislation, etc) are working, so they work to get more of them. On the other hand, if you stop pirating, and don't buy their media, they decide that their decreased income is because the anti-pirate measures (DRM, horrific legislation, etc) aren't working, so they work to get more of them.
Screwed if you do, screwed if you don't.
I -- and the Pirate Party -- have absolutely no intention of "[stopping] with the politics." The erosion of civil liberties and privacy rights being pushed for by the international media cartel are totally disproportionate to the actual damage they are suffering (minimal), and are fundamentally unjust, and deserve to be fought against.
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Net result for the company and artist if you don't copy = 0.
Net result for the company and artist if you copy = 0.
If people don't buy it, they *are* hitting the mega-corps in their wallets. Copying or not is irrelevant.
Re:What bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
There is another aspect to that:
If you dont copy:
- net result for company and artist = 0
- net result for you = 0
If you do copy:
- net result for company and artist = 0
- net result for you = +1 (you 'enjoy' the art without compensating the artist/company)
Hence why copying is NOT the way to make a stand, you are just a freeloader.
Better idea:
Buy from independants via web sites:
- Megacorps net income = 0
- Artists tied to Megacorps net income = 0
- Independant artist = +1 (possibly more money than going via Megacorp per sale)
- your net result = +1
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I always amazes what bullshit some people come out with in order to justify their continued use of BitTorrent.
What are you talking about? I download software with bittorrent. You seem to be confusing the protocol with the content.
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Please don't try to confuse the argument with semantics - it's clear by implication that I meant "BitTorrent when used for the purposes of music downloads". If you're too inane to work that out for yourself, that's not my problem.
Re:What bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe you can inform us of how you 'change' to accomodate [sic] the fact that people are takuing [sic] your output for free and not paying a single penny
Except you're a troll, because:
Some good changes that the industry could make would be to, firstly, stop lying, and secondly, to stop trying to criminalise their own best customers
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People who download media illicitly are the exactly the same people who spend the most money on media, as has been shown repeatedly by studies.
Lies, I tell you, lies! I've been doing my best to torrent all I want and not pay for any of it. Come on, people, do your part to bring the big media down! DO NOT BUY!!!
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If you had a clue about the way information is processed (not just movies and music, information) you would understand that it is impossible to legislate filtering to block the sharing of files.
The best you can hope to do is block the way they are shared now, and possibly tomorrow. If you don't like it, then shut the internet down, and all which goes with it.
And BTW, try typing slower. Your text will be more readable but I doubt it will make any more sense.
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It truly amazes me how so many people like you only see "black" or "white" in discussions on this or related subjects.
Firstly, if you happen to be a big music fan like me, you want to be able to continue to buy & listen to good quality music that you consider to be a fair price. Personally, I consider £10 to be more than a fair price for a music CD I may have enjoyed for 30 years or more. Plus I may want the artist to continue producing music of a similar quality, therefore to encourage that he/sh
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I didn't discuss my privacy. I discussed the technical feasibility of stopping file sharing. I reckon I could sit down right now and invent 100 totally unique ways of exchanging files across the internet. Is British legislation going to anticipate all of those and allow for them to be stopped?
Its not possible. Forget about it. Unless (as I said) you largely shut down the internet and turn it into a way of delivering television programmes, then lock up anybody who tries to recreate it.
Do you want to do that?
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I reckon I could sit down right now and invent 100 totally unique ways of exchanging files across the internet.
Forget the Internet. For about 50p you could post a USB memory stick. It would take about a day to get to the recipient if you sent it first-class.
How long would it take to download 4GB of data? How much would it cost? Posting a 4GB USB stick would be comparable, once you've bought the (reusable) memory stick.
Re:What bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
No one cries for horse buggy makers or tanners or typewriter makers. Some times, technology makes your business model completely obsolete. The best thing is to come up with a new one, either in a totally new industry or maybe adapt to the conditions the new technology has made. Trying to legislate against the new technology is bad for everyone as it holds up progress.
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How am I supposed to make any money from buggy whip manufacture now that these infernal combustion engines are everywhere!!!
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Th industry too lazy to change?
Yes, as evidenced by your very next line:
Maybe you can inform us of how you 'change' to accomodate the fact that people are takuing your output for free and not paying a single penny?
"We haven't done any of our own thinking on the issue -- give us an answer."
Perhaps all of the very experienced business owners here at slashdot could emerge from moms basement and explain how you make a living that way with music?
laughable.
What makes you think that you are entitled to make a living from making music at all? Was the fletcher entitled to making a living from producing arrows? Or the blacksmith entitled to making a living for making horse shoes? Surely we need legislation to resurrect those industries who have suffered far longer than any perceived suffering the music industry claims. What about the baker? He's se
Re:What bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe you can inform us of how you 'change' to accomodate the fact that people are takuing your output for free and not paying a single penny? Perhaps all of the very experienced business owners here at slashdot could emerge from moms basement and explain how you make a living that way with music?
I’ll bite, even if it looks like trolling.
First we clarify the actual physics:
So the obvious consequence is, that if that information has some worth for you, and you don’t want to give it away for nothing, you have to demand something in return right at the first completely simultaneous release to x “clients”. ;)
After that, you have just shared the information with x people. Who can not be stopped from doing to it, whatever they please. If you’re not happy, tough shit, cause it’s too late! Go ahead, and fight basic physics. Next up: Gravity!
Now we must clarify something else: The production and marketing industry, the media reproduction industry and the musician industry, are three distinct things! The first two are usually combined into the “music industry”. The reproduction industry obviously lost its purpose and struggles with inevitable death. The music industry as a whole on the other hand...
The illusion is, that they would be for the musicians. Ask musicians. They will tell you, that they get around 3.5% of the whole profits. While the stupid producer gets 60!!! Plus they still have to pay the studio time from that! And as if this were not bad enough, the MI fights, to get the 3.5% even lower!
Now add the typical extortion contracts of the MI to it, and you get a mix that screams “the music industry is the enemy of the musician industry!”. Why do you think so many artist run away from than at their first chance to get out?
The same is true for every likewise industry. Films, games, books, you name it.
Finally to the basis of your arguments: The business model of the media industry.
Their fault was, that they handled information like a product. A good. Because when they started it, it always came in a container that could be a product. That was what they knew, so they ran with it. To the painful end.
All the problem are based on that single misunderstanding of basic physics of bitspace/information.
And now they are treating the artist like crap, treating the clients like crap... in a struggle to continue their delusion they walk over dead bodies (ACTA vs constitutional rights).
This all has nothing to do with taking any rightful compensation away from the artists. (The MI is working hard on that one anyway!) If the artists wanted something, they should have asked for it when they first passed it on. Now we have it, and it’? too late.
It has to do with the delusion.
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