Australian Gov't To Streamline Anti-Piracy Lawsuit Process 121
daria42 writes "Remember how the mass piracy lawsuits common in the U.S. are now coming to Australia? Of course you do. Well, now Australia's Government has come out backing the legal process which makes them possible — and is even promising to streamline it. Anti-piracy organisations will be jumping for joy — but I'm not sure how popular the move will be with the rest of the population."
Hmm... (Score:1)
Suddenly I have something to protest about in the occupy wall street movement's local activities...
For a few dollars a month (Score:2)
I can buy a seedbox to bypass all of this nonsense. Even better, I can open up my WiFi for some plausible deniability. Eat your heart out AFACT.
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(God, take away the free shit and the Joos pitch a bitch don't they!?)
Re:For a few dollars a month (Score:5, Insightful)
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Defiant to the end
So what part of disobeying the government rule and doing what this law forbids is NOT defiant? Eventually the government will learn to stop F$%# ing with its' people and stop this stupid crap.
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No, unacceptable. That only encourages their behavior. One who lives upon others; a pertinacious and indolent dependent; a parasite; a sponger to the end.
FTFY. The honourable action to take is to boycott them, but that would require you to have a sense of honour and some self-control.
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Andrew Ryan, didn't I put a golf club through your head?
Who the f*** is Andrew Ryan, and why should I care?
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That would be the Randtard antagonist in the game Bioshock, of whom you sound like you are quoting.
That's kind of funny, considering I am a bit of a Randroid. I'm not a gamer at all, but thanks for steering me away from bioshock anyway. 'Sounds abysmal.
Still, you are putting words in my mouth. My argument could just as easily be interpreted as advocating a boycott, given that I did not mention piracy at all, only that buying from them was rewarding their extortionistic use of the legal system. You could have understood that perhaps, if you were less confrontational and rude.
I could have interpreted it to be a Caeser salad, but it might have been simpler for us both for you say what you meant instead of hoping I'd just muddle through and get it inspite of that.
I do advocate boycotting them, though I know it'll make little difference, and I agree with your "extortionate use of the legal system" bit. The *AAs are the real pi
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I'm not a gamer at all, but thanks for steering me away from bioshock anyway. 'Sounds abysmal.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, Son. This shit isn't going to fly. I won't read anything else you say until you take that back.
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I'm not a gamer at all, but thanks for steering me away from bioshock anyway. 'Sounds abysmal.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, Son. This shit isn't going to fly. I won't read anything else you say until you take that back.
Sorry pal. My computer game is *nix; way the f*** more interesting to me. You're welcome to gaming, but I won't go there. I classify it as fritterware; it lets you to fritter your life away. I do like "Go", though. [That reminds me, "apt-get install cgoban". :-)]
Besides, I'm still in mourning for dmr, so get off my case, er, lawn.
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You're welcome to gaming, but I won't go there.
Should you ever change your mind, I do recommend Bioshock, if only for the somewhat philosophical and artist aspects to it.
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It's not that I don't agree with what you've said, but the problem is that this behavior encompasses far more than just people committing copyright infringement.
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Please explain, Sifu.
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the evil pirates
Evil by whose standards?
The problem is that for 99.99% of the fucks out there, they just want free shit
Interesting. How do you know the motivations of 99.99% of all pirates?
steal
I'd just say "copy."
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If people aren't paying for their products AND they're not consuming it, only then will we see the end to these lawsuits and see some real change.
Two words for that - 'bailout legislation'. You honestly think the media companies don't pay enough bribes^Rcampaign contributions to make sure the public doesn't cough up every last dime possible by making sure copyright never dies? Remember what happened when GM went crying to Washington that not enough people were buying their cars and too many were defaulting on those GMAC loans? Remember when the banks went crying to Washington about all those Fannie Mae loans and bad South American debt burned them
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It's common decency to share what you have with other people. Especially when you can do it so cheaply.
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It's common decency to share what you have with other people.
It's also common decency to leave others' stuff alone.
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It's common decency to share what you have with other people.
It's also common decency to leave others' stuff alone.
Yes, no one is disputing that.
Re:For a few dollars a month (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey mr content producer, you start selling the content I want here in Australia (on DVD preferably) and I will stop pirating your content from YouTube and BitTorrent and start paying for it.
I cant find ANY of the Yahoo Serious films on DVD in any local store for example. Nor can I find any seasons of The Real Ghostbusters past season 1. Nor can I find many of the cool documentaries (both film and TV) that I want to buy on DVD (such as those from the History Channel).
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I'm sure the US side games will be surprised that it will cost me $90 - $120 (US dolalrs too) to buy a new release, non Collector's edition game.
And don't even get me started on the retail prices of some DVDs.
Re:For a few dollars a month (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't mean to be impolite...but, you could start...paying for things
Actually, you often can't. The content industry has pushed for region coding, meaning that you can't import US DVDs and watch them in Australia. Australia is Region 4 - most DVDs get a Region 1 release, then a Region 2 release a bit later, and maybe a Region 4 release if the content producers can be bothered.
One of the changes that I would love to see made to copyright law is a refusal to distribute count made a valid affirmative defence for non-commercial copyright infringement. Copyright is a bargain between society and the creators giving them exclusive distribution rights (for a limited time) in exchange for publishing their work. If they refuse to publish it, then they should not be given the protection of copyright. This would give the content industry a very strong incentive to start making worldwide downloads available as soon as their work is ready, rather than releasing DVDs in the USA 6 months after a film shows, in Europe a year after, and in Australia eventually (maybe).
Re:For a few dollars a month (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the changes that I would love to see made to copyright law is a refusal to distribute count made a valid affirmative defence for non-commercial copyright infringement.
To make this fully effective, you need to make the legislation quite complex, or there will be loopholes. If it applies only when they fail to distribute it in your region, they'll just release it on Betamax. If they have to release it in a common format, they'll release it on DVD, but crippled somehow: unskippable 30-minute intro, Swahili-language-only, etc.
Two simpler alternative changes to copyright law that accomplish the same goal:
* Allow commercial format-shifting. So someone can start a business buying US DVDs, ripping and re-burning them as region-free, destroying the originals, and exporting them to Australia. For extra credit, allow modification, so the business can remove unskippable intro sequences, etc.
* Compulsory licensing. Anyone can start a business selling DVDs of a movie, provided that they give 50% of their revenue to the copyright holder. Album covers already work much like this.
Either of these allow new businesses to bring copyrighted works to untapped markets (which ensures that someone will do it), while still giving the content creators a cut.
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Allow commercial format-shifting. So someone can start a business buying US DVDs, ripping and re-burning them as region-free, destroying the originals, and exporting them to Australia
You'd be amazed at how many people, even Slashdotters, are opposed to this sort of thing. When this story came up [slashdot.org], there was a a lot of support for the director to do exactly what he/she wants with the movie.
And that is why so many people in the general public support copyright: they believe the creator ought to be able to control his creation.
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... they believe the creator ought to be able to control his creation.
I agree with them. However, as long as I'm not ripping their creation and burning copies that would interfere with that creator's future sales, the creator's control of his/her creation ends once money's changed hands in a legal sale. That creator's got no moral or ethical right to tell us what we can do with what was purchased legally.
If the law says otherwise, the law's an ass, and I will happily ignore it.
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Don't mean to be impolite...but, you could start...paying for things
Actually, you often can't. The content industry has pushed for region coding, meaning that you can't import US DVDs and watch them in Australia.
Really? I get DVDs sent to me from friends in Europe all the time as gifts. I've no trouble playing them. On my Linux box, of course. They, of course, won't play in my DVD player box, but Linux/FLOSS doesn't give a rat's ass about Region Encoding garbage.
Don't use a Broken By Design operating system on your computer, and you can too. We Linux fanbois have been screaming this at you for close to two decades!
[Methinks you really ought to change your .sig now too.]
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Don't mean to be impolite...but, you could start...paying for things
Actually, you often can't. The content industry has pushed for region coding, meaning that you can't import US DVDs and watch them in Australia.
Really? I get DVDs sent to me from friends in Europe all the time as gifts. I've no trouble playing them. On my Linux box, of course. They, of course, won't play in my DVD player box, but Linux/FLOSS doesn't give a rat's ass about Region Encoding garbage.
Don't use a Broken By Design operating system on your computer, and you can too. We Linux fanbois have been screaming this at you for close to two decades!
technically, what you are doing is just as illegal as torrenting the movie.
Then the law's an ass, and I can't help with that. The DVDs were legally purchased. I'm not pirating. The person who sent them to me didn't pirate them. I'm just finding a way to play stuff that was sent to me as gifts. If that's infringing or illegal, that's insane.
The producers are stupidly asserting rights they've no moral or ethical right to assert. Why should anyone give a flying !@#$ about them and their insane rules if that's the way they think it ought to work? They're clearly attempting to r
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On your second point re: leaving your wifi open, you'll probably find your end legislation looks similar to what we've had put in in NZ, where you, as the 'account holder' are responsible for all activity under your account, so "My wifi was open. It was someone else", won't work.
The seedbox though, yes.
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An unofficial "Political" Party that can't run in elections. PPAU has unfortunately become little more than a blog of media releases.
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According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], they couldn't run due to registration requirements. It turns out they tried to register but this wasn't completed when the election was called.
According to Pirate Party Australia's website [pirateparty.org.au] joining the party is free of charge at the moment, so if you agree with their constitution, by all means, do sign up and even better: become an active member. As far as I know Australia doesn't have the undemocratic "first past the post" system so, just like in Berlin, you actually have a change to
Who do the AU government represent (Score:1)
How do I get Aussies to riot. It seem we will put up with anything like whipped dogs.
We are so whipped people will agrue with me.
Re:Who do the AU government represent (Score:4, Funny)
How do I get Aussies to riot.
Replace all their beer with Coors.
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That would be really low, maybe even borders on cruel and unusual punishment and probably violates more than a few human rights laws in several countries. Don't do it.
Re:Who do the AU government represent (Score:5, Funny)
How do I get Aussies to riot.
Replace all their beer with Coors.
We want them to riot not start World War 3!!!
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The same way you get anyone else to riot. Wait until they have to have nothing else to lose.
Who is this government? (Score:2, Interesting)
Really who is this government? Not the one we voted for that's for sure. We voted for the Labor party not the Coalition, not the party that supports corporations, not the party that supported bigger governments, and best of all the party that said quite plainly there will never be a carbon tax.
Why is it not possible to fire a government that has flat out lied on every question posed to them in their job interview?
Re:Who is this government? (Score:5, Insightful)
You are actually right - one of the conditions of the mostly one sided "free trade" agreement with the USA was to let some of the broken US copyright laws in.
I don't hate the USA, I just hate that Australian IP disputes are now subject to what happens in East Texas.
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It's the same no matter which party is in. (Score:2)
Excellent idea! But I think that's what people thought they were doing in 2007 when we ditched the coalition. I thought the two parties were pretty hard to distinguish in the last election; but I told myself I was just being cynical... now, it's plainly obvious that current politics involves this sick competition between the two parties to be as utterly, completely, and hopelessly exactly the same as each other.
I've never voted for either of t
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You might want to read up on Australian political history and how the system works.
The current Labor government having support of the Greens and the Independents to govern is perfectly legitimate. Add up the primary vote for Labor, the Greens, and the 3 Independents and you'll find it totals to over 50%. The Labor party generally supports bigger government than the Liberal Nationals. And finally, the alleged "carbon tax" that is coming in is actually an Emissions Trading Scheme. Which Labor has had a policy
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Re:Who is this government? (Score:4, Funny)
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Isn't being a con a point of pride in Oz?
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Uh huh. And how are you going to account for the situations like the one we have now, where the lack of a majority can require a compromise implying someone has "lied" ?
Apparently Australians have gotten so used to be ruled by a single party, they get confused and scared when it's not the case.
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The problem is that there is no compromise. There is only bargaining between a few key independents. We have mostly the greens to thank for things like the carbon tax. Thanks to our two party preferred system the independents had to side with one of the major parties. Julia Gillard basically bent over backwards to accommodate their wishes so that she could retain the top job of PM.
Labor is not the party in power, the independents and greens are, and to accommodate them lots of questionable legislation is be
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Apparently Australians have gotten so used to be ruled by a single party, they get confused and scared when it's not the case.
No, they just forget that liberal party governments are actually a coalition government between the libs and nationals.
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It is possible to fire a government, usually. You'd have recall elections, petitions, etc. if anyone would get off their asses.
Alternatively, you could fire at your government, but considering it's Australia that would consist of slingshots and crossbows (if they haven't been banned yet).
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It is possible to fire a government, usually. You'd have recall elections, petitions, etc.
Governments can be fired by the head of state, or by the elected parliament. A "recall election" makes no sense as governments are not directly elected.
Yes, slingshots and crossbows are somewhat banned. Gun ownership is still high outside the cities, but here we prefer to use them for sport than for killing people.
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Is a government not the politicians and government employees?
Citizens don't have much in the way of direct control over anything other than their congressional senators and representatives. If they don't do what we want them to do, if they can't solve the problems we need them to solve, then it's entirely possible to recall most or all of them. The Heart of the American government is still ultimately Congress (which makes the laws). Replace enough of Congress and you can get something done.
Honestly, if we e
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Is a government not the politicians and government employees?
No, the government does not include opposition politicians or public servants who remain in place with a change of government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government [wikipedia.org]
Replace enough of Congress and you can get something done.
But you replaced the whole federal executive in your last election, and almost nothing changed.
Judging by the complete lack of prosecutions on Wall St, the same people still hold the real power.
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Nearly every "civilized" society has resorted to violent revolution at one point or another in their past, usually because the government was either oppressing them, not providing for them, or was outright ineffective. We're getting closer to the point where the American government fucks up and/or abuses us so badly that we start getting violent every day.
No need to reply to me and use up some more of your 25 MB data cap.
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Labor - the ones who are building the great firewall.
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That's very last year thinking. With key independents and the greens against the idea, and an opposition who wouldn't be caught dead voting for an idea raised by the governing party there's no chance in hell they're going to build their great firewall.
Right now its at the point of voluntary filtering by two ISPs who quite frankly offer the least competitive products on the market anyway.
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Mandatory internet censorship is a Labour policy. The politics of other parties are irrelevant, labour have never backed down from it.
I say this is great news! (Score:2)
Is it great news because I support the entertainment industry? No, of course not. It great news because things need to continue to get much worse before people will finally get off there collective asses to do something about it.
You can already see more and more common folks starting to make noise. What we need is that extra push to get the common man to say, "OK, enough is enough" and actually stand up.
The western governments are out of control in general and they need to be taken back. News like this just
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It great news because things need to continue to get much worse before people will finally get off there collective asses to do something about it. You can already see more and more common folks starting to make noise.
Judging from every third world country that's suffering from really massive and direct corruption, I don't think so. It's a catch 22 where people support the system because it works and the system works because people support it. If the people at the top are just lining their own pockets then that'll spread downwards and once the system becomes so dirty that corruption is the norm rather than the exception then it's extremely hard to scourge. Everybody is looking to screw the system because the system is ob
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You can already see more and more common folks starting to make noise. What we need is that extra push to get the common man to say, "OK, enough is enough" and actually stand up.
The western governments are out of control in general and they need to be taken back. News like this just brings the day closer....I hope.
Not gonna happen that way. The only way I can see to clean things up ain't gonna happen either: do away with all campaign contributions and replace them with Federal/state funds you qualify for by applying for the office you're running for. Show a petition for, say, 20,000 verifiable signatures for president of the US and you qualify for Federal campaign funding to run for president. Pay for it the way we do now, only, instead of a check mark on your W-4, the government earmarks 2 bucks taken from what y
the aus government... (Score:2, Funny)
Retards (Score:5, Insightful)
We the people don't want to 'steal', otherwise KMART would have uzis at the door instead of some bored chick.
Give the people an easy way to download everything at a reasonable price ($5 new release , $1 for back catalouge), and most of piracy will go away overnight.
Making war against the consumer of your product is not a long term business strategy.
Unfortunatley, most of the MPAxx's of the world seem to be run by retards.
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We the people don't want to 'steal', otherwise KMART would have uzis at the door instead of some bored chick.
Give the people an easy way to download everything at a reasonable price ($5 new release , $1 for back catalouge), and most of piracy will go away overnight.
Making war against the consumer of your product is not a long term business strategy.
Unfortunatley, most of the MPAxx's of the world seem to be run by retards.
The physical shop is a poor analogue for piracy. Most people know that stealing an object is wrong, and through good character or fear of consequences they don't steal. Downloading is different. I wouldn't dream of stealing from a shop, even if I knew I could get away clean; I do however occasionally grab a torrent.
Making stuff conveniently available and cheap (seriously, 10 euro for a 10 year old album?) will help but will not eliminate most piracy. The major downloaders I know have decent jobs, and could
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You're right, of course. There are some people who could easily buy things but still choose to pirate them, and there always will be. The proper response to those people is to ignore them. We just established that they will not be turned into customers, so the only other choice is to turn them into criminals -- which may feel good, but not only reflects badly but probably costs far more than it ever returns.
Rather, the people a company needs to reach are the ones who want to buy the product but can't,
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Second hand works too, as long as it's not one of those games which require paid reactivation.
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Lets see them try to judge someone who lives on less than $35 a day for downloading copyrighted material instead of buying it.
Now that its going to be endorsed by a political party, all hell will break loose in the polling booths and maybe we can see a Pirate Party in power in Australia.
This will also endorse the behaviour of riots against American corporations, and could affect more than just sales of music or movies.
Thanks for shooting yourselves in the foot fellow majority political parties!
so... what planet do you live on?
What else is the NBN for? (Score:1)
What else is the NBN for other than using copious bandwidth for digital content? I sure as hell ain't gonna get a Telstra T-Box and be forced into watching movies and TV shows on their pathetic schedules, and most likely be forced to watch advertising without being able to skip through it. Or, what's worse, being forced to select from the paltry range of good TV shows from overseas and have to watch locally-produced content which is mostly rubbish. No thank you.
This government has got to go. Make no mistake
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Will the real pirates please stand up (Score:1)
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My grandfather survived Aufsbourne.
Did you mean Anschluss?
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It appears that Austria is going back to it's roots.
I was unaware that Austria had ever been a prison colony. Thx.
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Kill someone. ... Make them fear for their lives and the lives of their families, 24/7, and you will make a difference. If you're not prepared to kill in order to preserve internet freedom, then you do not deserve it.
You first. Holy hyperbole, Batman! Premeditated murder to protect your right to be a leech? That's your answer?!?
[WRT your .sig: I'd consider it an honour to be given the chance to beat the crap out of the likes of you.]
What's happened to them? (Score:1)
They used to be cool, but now it's like they'v been annexed by the fucking Nazis again.
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They used to be cool, but now it's like [they've] been annexed by the fucking Nazis again.
Jeebus. Cf. Anschluss [wikipedia.org] and Australia [wikipedia.org]
Do you always get that drunk this early, or is it only on Saturdays?
Help me out here.. (Score:1)
Is it Das, der oder die whooshen?
Anti-civilians laws (Score:2)
I doubt the people of australia want this type of laws. Probably hare bought by corportations. If that is true, the political system on australia need a huge change. The 1% has corrupted the system there too.
The Model is broken (Score:3, Interesting)
The copyright model is broken and has been massaged by large corporations into a licence to print money. Copyright should only apply to individuals and for limited periods of time. Nothing created while my father has lived has ever gone into the public domain which was one of the key reasons why copyright was granted. How does 25 years for individuals and 5 years for companies sound? That way the price that they pay for copyright protection is and end date to protection, if the corporations don't like it they can use proprietary mechanisms and once they're broken they can't claim copyright. It would also force companies to licence copyright management from individuals rather than buying them outright.
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The model is indeed broken.
One discussion is about what a reasonable copyright term is. I think it should be obvious to anyone that the digital/Internet age brought the printing press and the record factory and the photo labs from big brick buildings in the industrial area right on everyone's desktop. This makes copyrights suddenly relevant to everyone, not just to a few shady characters operating an unlicensed vinyl pressing/cassette tape duplication/CD pressing plant. This also made the public domain rele
Waah! (Score:2)
What does it matter what the "rest of the population" wants? It's the anti-piracy organizations that are the "job creators" and they're the ones that are putting dollars in the pockets of our politicians instead of paying taxes and they're the ones who are THE BOSS OF YOU so shut the fuck up you whiny-ass titty baby. Get with the program AND GET ON YOUR KNEES, AUSTRALIA.
-T
the rest of the population.... (Score:2)
Since when do their needs or opinions matter? Your opinion only counts if you can pay.
Malicious copyright groups (Score:1)
Copy (Score:2)
The internet is basically a copy machine. I realized this writing an IP stack. It might as well be called the interCopy or the big copy. This word may also make it clear for the distributor that if you put your stuff in the interCopy, it will be copied. That is what the interCopy does. If you do not want your stuff copied, just don't put it in the interCopy.
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I'm Australian. The two things that make the news at the moment are this new Carbon Tax and illegal immigration by sea.
As much as I'd like to see this make the news, it won't.
Consider writing some emails? Newspapers, radio & tv stations, your elected reps, the loyal opposition, the local uni student's union, EFF Australia (if it exists?), & etc?