UK MP Says ISPs Must Take Responsibility For Movie Leaks, Sony Eyes North Korea 216
An anonymous reader writes that the recent IP advisor to Prime Minister David Cameron has laid some of the blame for the recent Sony hack at the feet of ISPs. Meanwhile, it's reported that Sony is close to officially blaming North Korea. As the fallout from the Sony hack continues, who is to blame for the leak of movies including Fury, which has been downloaded a million times? According to the UK Prime Minister's former IP advisor, as 'facilitators' web-hosts and ISPs must step up and take some blame. Mike Weatherley MP, the recent IP advisor to Prime Minister David Cameron, has published several piracy reports including one earlier in the year examining the advertising revenue on pirate sites. He believes that companies with no direct connection to the hack or subsequent leaks should shoulder some blame. 'Piracy is a huge international problem. The recent cyber-attack on Sony and subsequent release of films to illegal websites is just one high-profile example of how criminals exploit others' Intellectual Property,' Weatherley writes in an email to TF. 'Unfortunately, the theft of these films – and their subsequent downloads – has been facilitated by web-hosting companies and, ultimately, ISPs who do have to step-up and take some responsibility.' Weatherley doesn't provide detail on precisely why web-hosts and ISPs should take responsibility for the work of malicious hackers (possibly state-sponsored) and all subsequent fall out from attacks. The theory is that 'something' should be done, but precisely what remains elusive."
I wonder who bought him (Score:5, Insightful)
How typical of a politician, and ESPECIALLY one in an English-speaking nation, to insist that everyone, everywhere has to shoulder the responsibility for everything that ever goes wrong.
Re:I wonder who bought him (Score:5, Insightful)
How typical of a politician, and ESPECIALLY one in an English-speaking nation, to insist that everyone, everywhere has to shoulder the responsibility for everything that ever goes wrong.
Except them.
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ISPs should take partial responsibility if Mr. MP adviser takes partial responsibility for all the crime facilitated by the public roads and sidewalks.
1% responsibility for movie hosting vs 1% responsibility for 600+ murders a year.
Re:I wonder who bought him (Score:4, Insightful)
How typical of a politician, and ESPECIALLY one in an English-speaking nation, to insist that everyone except him has to shoulder the responsibility for everything that ever goes wrong.
FTFY
Re:I wonder who bought him (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I wonder who bought him (Score:5, Interesting)
Next he'll be saying the Highways Agency need to takes some responsibilities for bank jobs.
I want the petrol station to be responsible for my speeding ticket!
Re:I wonder who bought him (Score:5, Funny)
I want politicians to be responsible for everything.
Re:I wonder who bought him (Score:5, Insightful)
One step at a time... I want politicians to be responsible for anything!
Re:I wonder who bought him (Score:5, Funny)
I want the petrol station to be responsible for my speeding ticket!
Don't give them any ideas. If they find out that it is possible to grade fuel based on how much energy it provides, and provide fuel so crappy that you cannot break the speed limit unless going downhill, I'm sure that at least one politician will demand just that, and another will pipe in with how it will make school children safer and bring jobs to the north.
Re:I wonder who bought him (Score:4, Interesting)
If they find out that it is possible to grade fuel based on how much energy it provides,
They already do that. Higher-octane fuel runs in higher-compression engines that produce more HP per liter. My first car was a 1960 Dodge Dart which came with a 318ci big block with, no shit, 12:1 compression. I had to run octane booster on top of premium fuel to feed it in California. It would run OK on just premium if you kept your foot out of it, though. That bad boy made 240hp and 340lb-ft... in 1960. That was pretty great for 5.2 liters, back then. Today you'd only expect 400 and 400, or so, but the engine would have to be able to do it on 91 octane gasohol.
Of course, fuel taxes take a gigantic shit on the whole concept when unevenly applied...
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Thing is, with E10 (10% alcohol) they manage to increase the octane rating while providing less energy per volume of fuel.
But why stop there? Find something other than ethanol that has even lower energy, and make it mandatory. Decreased risk of cars being able to exceed the speed limit, and everyone is happy... Well, except drivers and car manufacturers, but who cares about them as long as they pay their taxes!
Speaking of speed limits ... I have noticed that they've dug down speed sensors in more and mor
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Ethanol, by itself, has an octane rating of about 129. The octane rating isn't about the energy content of the fuel, but rather its tendency to ignite under compression ("detonate") as compared to iso-octane.
Those tube-shaped sensors can probably measure a bit more than speed. I don't know what is used where you are, but I recently completed the design for a dozen automatic vehicle classification stations. They measure speed, count axles, and of course, count vehicles. I doubt that the sensors you're ta
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I doubt that the sensors you're talking about are for speed enforcement: That's easily done with radar and photos.
In many countries fixed-base speed traps are built using inductive loop detectors (the pneumatic ones aren't that good). One of the reasons is that radar-detectors won't work...
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Or again typical of a politician - "Something needs to be done", "'This' is something, therefore THIS has to be done" never mind whether 'This' is the best thing to do, or even appropriate.
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Whether or not the law accomplishes diddly squat, the politicians can then sit back and run their thumbs underneath their suspenders ("bracers" if you're British, bet you got a laugh out of that) and smugly say, "There, problem all fixed.. we did something about it". Which is also annoying because making legislation is often much easier then th
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Their wielding of power requires that others are responsible. You can't pass a law against someone unless you've laid some blame at their feet. And it's not necessarily the goal to pass the law, either. Maybe just a friendly reminder that ISPs aren't making enough campaign contributions and might want to reconsider before the next legislative session comes around.
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and the tube and roads are responsible for murders (Score:2)
because, hey, the killers took them once.
grow up, man. learn something. it's not too late.
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Because ISPs are like the roads. Are the companies that have paved the UK roads responsible for the bank job?
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You're missing the part where ISPs already have systems in place to block it. They don't fucking work, because what you and other morons like you think they should be doing is several orders of magnitude more difficult than you like to pretend it is. Which is why the "roads" analogy is far closer to reflecting reality than is your retarded "getaway driver" analogy. You're either clueless or knowingly bullshitting. Which is it?
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...what you and other morons like you think they should be doing is several orders of magnitude more difficult than you like to pretend it is...
Who said it was easy? I certainly didn't. It's not easy for banks to identify financial transactions that relate to criminal activity either. But they try, and, over time, get better at it. 10% enforcement is better than 0% enforcement. 20% enforcement is better than 10% enforcement. When did a cry of, 'It's too hard!' ever become a reason to give up on something? Should we stop looking for murderers who leave a scant trail of evidence, for example? Are you scared of progress?
You can make a reasonable argum
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>10% enforcement is better than 0% enforcement.
That depends entirely on the cost of enforcement. If you can stop $1,000 worth of criminal activity for a cost of $1,000,000, then everybody would be better off if you just accepted the original $1,000 as the cost of doing business and didn't wastefully extract the other $999,000 from the economy. And we're not just talking dollars here - one of the costs of your ISP becoming an enforcement agency is them doing far deeper and more invasive monitoring of th
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>10% enforcement is better than 0% enforcement.
That depends entirely on the cost of enforcement...
Of course. So this becomes a question of pragmatism. If it can be demonstrated that the cost of enforcement is lower than the cost to society of the criminal activity, presumably you agree then that ISPs should be required to support law enforcement?
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The problem with your thinking is that if they start to monitor traffic, they'd have to disallow HTTPS. They'd have to disallow anonymising proxy use. They'd have to watch every packet to see if it might be used for any kind of illegal activity for any country worldwide.
Once you make an ISP responsible for policing for one law, they become responsible for any law breakage, which would essentially shutdown the internet entirely.
I send an e-mail with a joke that includes a rough drawing of Mohammed - boom - Islamic Radicals attack the ISP for allowing it to go through.
Your falacy would also have to be applied to all of the backbone operators globally, which would halt internet traffic in it's tracks.
There would be no need to watch every packet; there would simply be a need to put in place risk-based, technically achievable procedures that would have a reasonable chance of detecting activity that is against UK or international law. It's not against UK law to send a joke about Mohammed, so ISPs would have no responsibility for that. HTTPS is not easily inspectable at a packet level, so there would be no responsibility for that, either - although it might be reasonable to other matters associated with HTT
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Yes, I can explain why ISPs are different. They are simply the carrier, and should not be a policy enforcement point. Government is very interested in having ISPs be a policy enforcement point, because government can control big ISPs (sort of) much better than government can control a vast number of endpoints.
Most of the businesses you reference above (banks, fertilizer distributors, munitions retailers) are not common carriers. Haulage companies are a form of common carrier, but their responsibility wi
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Banks are common carriers of money. Most money transmission is legitimate, but all banks are required to have systems in place to detect whether any particular transaction is associated with criminal activity. If banks do not have these systems in place, their directors are subject to personal fines and possible prison sentences. The rules are rigorously enforced by the FCA.
How is an ISP's common carrier service conceptually different from what banks do?
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From the other side: Banks keep money in vaults; jewelry shops are required to take valuables out of window displays and secure them when the shop is closed; so
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Can you explain why money transmission should be subject to laws that require criminal use of the service to be identified, while information transmission should be exempted from any such requirement?
Can you explain why those money transmission laws have been used to take money away from totally innocent small businesses who happen, by sheer coincidence, to make a few deposits of just-under the "reporting" limit? (Which obviously means that the stated reporting limit is NOT the real reporting limit.) Can you explain, at a more basic level, why it's acceptable for banks to be reporting legal transactions to the government, when it's so much easier for a real crook to deal in cash?
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Re:I wonder who bought him (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure you would find it hard to prosecute some taxi driver just because he drove some murderer around after a murder... or drove someone to a "commonly known drug location"(piratebay). by the analogy the taxi driver should have performed a search on the client for bloody knives or drugs as normal procedure - or that the isp should start banning people for using WOW update or other torrents.
anyways, it's EU wide attitude that the isp shouldn't be looking at your packets and email. it's criminal to do so, so why would another protocol be ok? you got complaints about some crime you think that happened YOU TAKE IT TO THE FUCKING POLICE and not ask some service provider to bill some random guy.
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If you sat in the back of a taxi and casually wiped blood off a dripping knife, the taxi driver would probably be prosecuted as an accessory to your murder. A great deal of criminal activity on the internet is just as flagrant.
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Agreed! (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree totally, we should also make sure to hold the government responsible for every road used to commit a crime, as without those roads it would have been difficult or impossible to commit some of these crimes. When are we going to have the government and road transport departments step up and take responsibility for issues that are clearly caused by their roads!
Re:Agreed! (Score:5, Funny)
These crimes used computers, and these computer use software, the software companies are to blame for aiding and abetting these hackers and pirates!
And those computers also use power which is generated by utility companies who need to step up and accept their responsibility for this criminal behavior!
Heaven help the soft-drink company that makes whatever beverage these criminal masterminds used to quench their thirst during their reign of terror! Hopefully they will have the moral rectitude to admit that they must also shoulder the blame!
Re:Agreed! (Score:5, Funny)
Look, without the movie companies making movies, we wouldn't have movie leaks.
It's clear the movie companies themselves are to blame.
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Look, without envy, people wouldn't be downloading movies illegally.
It's clear God himself is to blame.
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You joke, but IMO, they are largely responsible—a lot more so than ISPs who merely failed to prevent the normal use of their networks by people doing nefarious things. After all, these movies were stolen off of the movie studios' machines, which means they clearly didn't take security seriously enough.
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I don't know how the monsters who make Mountain Dew can sleep at night.
Re:Agreed! (Score:5, Funny)
More so, if a bank robbers getaway vehicle went on a toll road then the roads operator should be charged with profiting from the proceeds of crime, they clearly facilitated the crime.
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More so, if a bank robbers getaway vehicle went on a toll road then the roads operator should be charged with profiting from the proceeds of crime, they clearly facilitated the crime.
Actually, the QE2 bridge / Dartford tunnel in Essex, England are the perfect spot to catch criminals in a car and have been used that way. Close the toll booths and there is just no way to escape. Bit inconvenient for everyone else.
Yes, make it work like the roads, we say! (Score:5, Insightful)
You jest, but the police in this country created a massive surveillance network watching our major roads with image recognition cameras. Their favourite excuse for this not-at-all-creepy step? "Denying criminals the use of the roads." Because the criminals always use real licence plates on their getaway cars, you see.
That operation was started without initial formal debate or authorisation from MPs, but has effectively been condoned since. In fact, it has been developed further, by co-opting cameras installed for other purposes despite explicit promises that this would not be done. Fortunately no innocent people have ever been issued with automated fines for something they didn't actually do, because it would probably cost those people more to fight such tickets in court than just paying up.
Basically, looking at how the road network is handled, the people running the show here really do seem to think the way forward for our society is universal surveillance and automated mass penalties for minor infringements of laws based on dubious evidence with no cost-effective means of defending yourself if you are wrongfully accused.
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For serious crimes it might well be a stolen vehicle anyway, so the plates won't help no matter how many cameras see them, unless as you say the vehicle used can be identified and tracked fast enough for actual police officers to catch up with it while the perps are still inside.
Meanwhile, the concern with cloned plates is not only the escape of the guilty party but also the innocent person whose plates were cloned, who is probably about to get numerous automated penalties for speeding, not paying congestio
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I'm sorry to hear that. I've never been in that position, but I've been in court as an independent witness after I saw a car crash. What the person being prosecuted (and ultimately found not guilty) went through, and for how long before the case was finally resolved, was absurdly disproportionate to the offence they were charged with. As far as I can tell, under our current system you also don't get any sort of automatic compensation for all the time spent and distress suffered, even if you do eventually wi
Re:Agreed! (Score:5, Funny)
We should hold ISP's responsible for lies told by politicians. If a politician is caught lying three times, ISP's should refuse to carry any internet traffic involving their campaign ads.
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(Not sarcasm...)
close to officially blaming North Korea (Score:2)
Oooo... That will make them officially guilty... I bet they're officially peeing their pants..
Oh, no. (Score:5, Funny)
The movies were stolen? Now they're going to have to film them all over again!
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The movies were stolen? Now they're going to have to film them all over again!
I wouldn't steal a car, but I would download it.
So, lets say... (Score:5, Insightful)
I initiate a hack via social engineering over the telephone. I get ahold of some passwords and information which allows me to access super secret data, and leak it. I suppose the phone company is at fault, also?
What kind of nonsense. Politicians should not directly talk about IT related issues - but rather, allow some representative who isn't ridiculously uninformed to do so on their behalf, save them lots of face.
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Re:So, lets say... (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you implying that phone companies don't have the capability to record or analyze phone calls?
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Post offices and phone companies aren't even ALLOWED to inspect the content, bar a few very specific cases. For postal companies this means: undeliverable and without return adress.
And neither should ISP's be. They are no different so why should they be allowed to inspect the contents of a package?
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You really think anyone that doesn't work for the movie/music industry is going to be voting in favour of this kind of political fluff talk?
Really?
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You really think anyone that doesn't work for the movie/music industry is going to be voting in favour of this kind of political fluff talk?
No, but some people will always vote for a candidate with a stronger, better-funded campaign, and where does that funding come from?
Nice... (Score:2)
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Yes, but who is more evil?
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We can only hope it turns nuclear.
Back on topic: As noted by another poster, Mike Weatherley has a conflict of interest on this topic.
I would say that he's corrupt, taking bribes and betraying his constituents but as that could be libellous I shall merely state that he's a Conservative MP.
Roads (Score:4, Insightful)
In other news: construction workers building and maintaining city streets and highways are now held responsible for high speed chases.
Trumpeting their ignorance for the world to hear (Score:4, Insightful)
MPs conflict of interests (Score:5, Informative)
Bare in mind this MP has a massive conflict of interests on this subject so anything he says should be ignored as it is not anything close to impartial
Look at his parliamentary declared interests http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/24889/mike_weatherley/hove#register
Re:MPs conflict of interests (Score:4, Informative)
I'd rather not bare this MP at all, in mind or otherwise.
But I'll bear your suggestion in mind.
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I've already posted so can't moderate, but the parent AC post is something everyone reading this discussion should know, so I hope others will upvote it accordingly.
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I would agree that ideally it should be something everyone considers, but I think we both know that not everyone will unless it's pointed out front and centre...
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We shouldn't ignore him, we should publicise his conflict of interest as much as possible.
Blame the roads for bank heist (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is it that the method of transport is suddenly to blame here? If we always use the car analogy to describe technology concepts then should the roadways be inspecting the contents and destination of all travellers to prevent or detect crimes?
So in this analogy we have criminals who committed the crime and the bank (Sony) where the locks were found to be insufficient and the guards were not watching the right doors. Why does the blame need to extend beyond those parties?
Of course the governments would probably jump at the chance to inspect all traffic and the contents of all vehicles on the road if they thought they could get away with it. To protect the people of course, no other reason.
We need to hold these road builders to account (Score:2)
WTF? (Score:2, Interesting)
Who honestly cares who is responsible for a large company not having adequate security measures in place. They are externalising the underlying problem of them being slack. Don't want your movies leaked before release, don't put them on the Internet. Problem solved. I've very little sympathy for Sony here and simply do not trust the "officials" who are going to allocate blame to another country.
Sony could have easily avoided this -- send only physical media around and make sure everyone has a non-networ
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The involvement of ISPs (Score:2)
ISPs are to blame to the degree that they facilitate the transfer of data between individuals, which is about the same level of involvement that oxygen has in the ignition of gunpowder. In other words, blaming ISPs for file sharing is about as sensible as blaming oxygen in shooting deaths.
Do you understand (Score:2)
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it wouldn't be so sad if in living in the west already didn't mean paying taxes to the media companies on stuff like recordable media based on the assumption that you're going to do something illegal with it. like, in some western countries there's an assumption that a photocopier is used to copy pages from books so you need to pay per page if the copier is in an institution. it's fucking ridiculous. if I'm living in the west I'm already shilling out so much to whoever is the top radio play for the year tha
In related news ... (Score:2)
Employees say Sony must take responsibility for formulaic, mundane movies; some eye Adam Sandler [gawker.com]
Please Russia, Korea, Santa Claus (Score:2, Funny)
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I saw the bits of "The Interview" that were on the news because apparently NK are upset about it. "intellectual property" seems a bit strong ;-)
"The theory is that 'something' should be done" (Score:3)
Although the thought of all those Sony employees filling out paper forms with typewriters is kinda humorous...
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It's okay though - GCHQ watched the whole thing happening, and have totally figured out who did it. Those people will be rounded up and dealt with very soon. Yeah right.
Okay, David Cameron is a Luddite and a moron. (Score:5, Insightful)
He doesn't understand how the Internet actually works.
CAN ISPs use technology and root out more casual piracy? Probably. But this kind of inspection doesn't STOP the piracy, it just makes discovery easier. It ALSO slows down their networks and requires a substantial investment in equipment and software that IN NO WAY contributes to the company's bottom line.
As such, why should the ISPs be forced to foot the bill? Especially when we get down to brass tacks, they pass it along to the customer and now people are essentially paying to be spied upon.
Had this been a PHYSICAL theft, he'd be blaming everyone who'd seen the criminal for not making an arrest, without knowing that something had been done in the first place. Every cabby, bus driver, friend or random pedestrian on the street.
The only way to get RID of piracy is to eliminate the desire to actually consume that media. But that's like trying to outlaw water because it contributes to drowning. If you eliminate the desire to consume said media, you've just cut your own throat.
As long as there's a desire to consume this content, and there's ANY form of price or availability barrier, there is GOING to be piracy. FLAT OUT. Anyone who doesn't understand this, and that trying to pursue this sort of imbecillic goal of "stamping out piracy" is chasing a fantasy.
The best that can be done is to increase viewer options until piracy becomes too much of a hassle for the majority. The best bet for that right now are streaming services like iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, and Netflix.
And we can get there all the faster without mentally stunted individuals like Cameron stirring the pot and injecting idiocy after idiocy into the debate.
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I agree with your post, however this line is probably not true -- if the ISP does this at the behest of a politician (or any government TLA) then there is probably either a tax break or some other kind of financial boon for doing so, if not a penalty for not cooperating -- which means this almost certainly will hit their bottom line one way or another.
Also, the ISP cooperating here could give them
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Basically this structure is all finacial-penalty for the the ISP.
It's in their interests to minimize their cost outlays.
In this case, it's cheaper to grease political palms to be left alone than actually invest in a surveillance system.
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As long as there's a desire to consume this content, and there's ANY form of price or availability barrier, there is GOING to be piracy
As long as there's a motive there is going to be crime, therefore we should give up on policing crime but focus on removing motives for crime instead.
What's the weather like in cloud cuckoo land tonight?
Try actually READING what I said.
Nowhere did I say we should give up on policing crime.
But I draw the line at forcing people to pay to surveil themselves.
Or forcing ISPs into law enforcement, unpaid, when THAT IS NOT THEIR JOB.
My comment about piracy always being a factor is simple recognition of human nature.
Why? (Score:2)
Why would someone at his level be making comments on such a trivial issue? Why would he even care? Please tell me that the British system isn't as money driven as ours, and that this isn't being driven by some lobbyist?!?
Failed logic. (Score:2)
That's like blaming the phone network for telemarketers.
Blaming an ISP for movie leaks is like..... (Score:2)
Bummer (Score:2)
The postal office still transports anonymous ransom and blackmail notes.
And those are real crimes not invented ones.
Sony (Score:2)
All I know about this story is "blah blah blah Sony blah blah something bad happened to Sony" and my reaction is, good, fuck Sony, anything bad that happens to Sony is good for the world. I won't be paying attention any more. Call me back when a person or company who isn't evil has something bad happen to them.
Dear Leader (Score:2)
I'm no lover of Sony (even though I do play EQ2), but if this B-grade flick is so annoying to the Dear Butterball, the widest possible distribution of the film certainly seems worthwhile. Like Spengler said about the Nazis, "When one has the opportunity to annoy these people, one should do so."
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To all of you who are sued for filesharing, you should ask the following proofs or you are not guilty or no copyright-violation has happened at all:[...]
The claimant does not have to prove anything to you they merely have to persuade a judge that, on the balance of probability, they are more likely to be telling the truth than you.
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If a single one of these points can't be proven with valid evidence, than either it was someone else or no copyright infringement has happened at all.
Just in case anyone here might mistake the above wishful thinking for, you know, law... It is not even close to what the law actually says or how courts actually work in this country.
In England, copyright infringement is usually a civil rather than criminal matter, so the standard of proof required is merely the balance of probabilities [drukker.co.uk].
See also the Top 10 Copyright Myths [copyrightservice.co.uk] page from the UK Copyright Service.
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That may all be true, but the information on the pages I linked to generally seems to be accurate and it's certainly much better than the wishful thinking nonsense posted by the AC I was replying to.
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See, all that would be hard, and could take a while. Also, "criminals" tend to be mobile and surreptitious. An ISP, on the other hand, is visible and stationary. If you can just shift the blame to someone you can actually reach, "doing something" becomes much easier.
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That's an outrageous accusation - how dare you suggest that he's not supporting the organisation he's a director for (the Motion Picture Licensing Co - MPLC)
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Obviously the only blame lies with Sony for being so careless.
Sure it does, the same way the only blame for the theft lies with the homeowner who installed a defective lock on their front door, and the only blame for the rape lies with the pretty girl in the short skirt who was asking for it.
Oh, no, wait, maybe the blame for a crime lies with the people who committed the crime.
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It's not really much of an argument.
Maybe if you had no recourse but for Microsoft to fix their stuff, maybe they'd have to... you know... fix it?
I don't buy the "it's better / quicker from the illegal sites" argument in terms of software, movies, etc. The problem is not the speed or ease of access as much as the ease of licensing. When you can't buy a movie in a certain country, or on a certain date, or by a certain vendor, it's almost always a licensing problem. Fix the licensing and the problem solves
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If anything which has value to someone, and which can be taken away from that person can be stolen, then yes... it definitely qualifies. The fact that what might be getting taken away from the authorized person or persons in this case has no physical representation does not diminish the value that it was legally declared to be The fact that the person who might take it would not gain the same value out of it as the value that the person who took it lost by having it taken does not diminish its value eith