British Government Considers Tenfold Increase To Copyright Penalty 154
Out-Law is reporting that the British government is planning to increase the maximum fine that can be awarded for online copyright infringement tenfold. "The Government and the Intellectual Property Office (UK-IPO) are consulting on the plans, which would allow Magistrates' Courts in England and Wales to issue summary fines of £50,000 for online copyright infringement. The larger fine is proposed for commercial scale infringements, where the person involved profits from the infringement. The plan would implement another of the recommendations of the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property, the 2006 report by former Financial Times editor Andrew Gowers which has been the foundation of intellectual property policy since its publication."
Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
not news. (Score:4, Insightful)
nobody here cares if you prosecute people who are making money off your patents/copyrights.
we only care that they stop prosecuting their customers.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Take a look at censorship:
Harmful for children becomes harmful for good citizens becomes harmful for you becomes harmful for the state.
Just because it starts out with something small doesn't mean that it won't keep growing.
Re: (Score:2)
It's perfectly acceptable to think that you should be able to control what your kids watch on tv, to some extent.
That's "censorship" but it's by no means extremist censorship.
In fact it's perfectly acceptable.
If you oppose this because you're afraid of what it could become, then you've lost touch with reality. There has to be a boundary line, a threshold that can't be crossed, and you have to be willing to accept that these copyright holders can't have people selling their property for profit.
If you aren't
Re: (Score:2)
It's perfectly acceptable to think that you should be able to control what your kids watch on tv, to some extent.
I was talking about government-imposed censorship like what the FCC does.
If you oppose this because you're afraid of what it could become, then you've lost touch with reality. There has to be a boundary line, a threshold that can't be crossed, and you have to be willing to accept that these copyright holders can't have people selling their property for profit
Yes, but is a tenfold increase necessary? Nope. It makes sense for if I am selling pirated books knowing that they were pirated I might have to pay a $500 fine to the copyright holders and give them all of my income from those books. Not I have to pay a $100,000 fine.
Re: (Score:2)
It makes sense for if I am selling pirated books knowing that they were pirated I might have to pay a $500 fine to the copyright holders and give them all of my income from those books. Not I have to pay a $100,000 fine.
Surely it depends on the scale of the infringement? It wouldn't be much of a deterrent if the fine for catching a train without a ticket was only the ticket price + 10%. It wouldn't be much of a deterrent if the penalty for fraud were only returning what you had illegally taken plus a $10 court fee. Statutory, punitive fines like these are only worth anything as deterrents, and they have to be set on a scale that reflects this.
Re:not news. (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree that penalties need to be significant enough to provide deterrence. In the U.S., there's a rule of thumb frequently used, which allows for triple damages in cases where, for example, simple negligence gives way to criminal levels of negligence. I think that is derived from English common law so the U.K. probably has similar principles in some areas of modern law.
But often, that idea means instead that the penalty becomes stiffer if the tort or crime is one that most of the time goes unpunished or uncorrected.
This can end up resulting in punishing more severely anyone breaking a law the public often disagrees with. If the public (or a big segment of it) actually doesn't want to turn in people committing crime X (i.e. drug use), then the additional penalties would get adjusted upwards to make up for that reluctance. The U.S. already has some penalties like this - for ex. the HOPE tax credit, which the taxpayer can't get if the student was ever convicted of a drug related felony, but could theoretically still claim if the student was convicted of rape, murder or even treason.
The fact that a large minority disagrees with a law, and might passively disregard it, should make the government think the law might be too harsh, rather than serve as an excuse to make it harsher.
Re: (Score:2)
"Yes, but is a tenfold increase necessary? Nope."
Well, they have to keep up with inflation. :)
Re: (Score:2)
What about non-profit copyright infringement?
Don't take it for the face value (Score:5, Insightful)
If you take society at face value, you assume that institutions and rules actually control this place.
In reality, values and economics and demographics do.
They can increase penalties all they want, but that's not addressing the economic role of piracy and the new demographic that sees it as normal.
In my view, record labels, software firms and book publishers all had it easy with record profits on super-popular hits, and so they ignored the rest as "niche topics."
Now that everyone can publish, the market is flooded with material, reducing its value. Labels and publishers need to compete more aggressively, not spend money lobbying for laws.
All IMHO.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually that example fits perfectly into the GP's example. All that represents is the difference in values in the current "electable" demographics and the average values of the remainder of the set.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly. They're losing the war, and are desperate. If you use the laws against those who bought them, especially in this area, enforcement will become prohibitively ever more expensive and impossible. You gotta copy the file to check to see that it's pirated. Nobody illegally copies more files than the copyright investigators of big media. If you applied the same evidence standards used by big media in their lawsuit campaigns against big media, they'll be instantly bankrupted many times over.
They'll find o
Re: (Score:2)
Hell yeah, man.
Funny acronym (Score:3, Funny)
UKIPO? Is that pronounced "uki-po"? I'd be embarrassed to work for them, even if the job itself wasn't a disgrace.
Re: (Score:2)
The plan would implement another of the recommendations of the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property
They actually named the study GRIP? Really? That's not even Orwellian, that sounds like something stright from Emperor Palpatine!
I guess they have stopped pretending that these laws are about anything besides giveing the government more power over citizens. Good thing I have a written Constitution to protect me from such shenanigans, right? Right?
Re: (Score:2)
That's both interesting and scary. At least the Brits are honest about their Orwellian laws, unlike us Americans who call the traitorous "cowardly government official self preservation act" the PATRIOT act.
Re: (Score:2)
Which is a a way ironic, given how many Americans believe that the hated USA-PATRIOT act was written entirely by the "other" party. They could just have called it the WE-BE-EVIL act, and everyone who wrote it still would have been re-elected, given the level of voter awareness.
Interesting to see the dichotomy (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is it always the UK? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Antarctica?
Re:Why is it always the UK? (Score:4, Funny)
I could make you a list, but you be dismayed to find it full of countries that have already achieved outright fascism...
Re:Why is it always the UK? (Score:4, Insightful)
no, we cannot find another country. this is NOT about the UK or US. or even the west. its a 'catchy virus' that all countries are not embracing ;(
take a lesson from brer rabbit (ie, from the BANNED film 'song of the south', by disney). you cannot run away from your troubles.
seriously, there is no where to run to - as soon as you try, THAT place will increase the anti-freedom crap that you are seeing in the UK (and we also more or less see here in the US).
Re: (Score:2)
I disagree - there is some degree of bullshit in every country, but the UK is definitely the top of the pile. Try to find equally concerning news about Switzerland or Norway.
and then go see sweden and THEIR wiretapping desires!
given time, the 'good countries' will soon see the fruits of tapping their citizens and no one will want to be the last country standing that isn't 'enjoying' the same restrictions as others.
like I said, its catchy. the UK is one of, if not THE worst; but its just a matter of time be
Re: (Score:2)
in fact, you'll HAVE to take my word on it since that film CANNOT BE FOUND (new or legit) in the US! ;(
there were prints from long ago but the political correctness 'squad' in disney figured it would be simpler to just BAN the whole movie than to explain that it was a product of the 1940's and that WAS what life was like (racial attitudes) back then.
if I was disney (yeah, right) I'd take the moral high ground, release the movie (it really WAS a masterpiece) and then also comment on it and even apologize for
Re: (Score:2)
First you have to name a country that is 'blithely gamboling towards outright fascism'. (Hint #1: "trampling of civil rights" != "fascism". Hint #2: you don't have a 'right' to violate someone else's legal rights in the first place.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No individual violation of civil liberties represents, in itself, fascism. They are bricks that together build up the walls of a police state. Complain when you see the bricklayer turn up, not when you are already trapped.
And you do have a right to fair punishment. Copyright laws are deliberately, maliciously and excessively punitive.
Re: (Score:2)
Hint #1: "Enforcing someones legal rights (or punishing those who violate them)" != "Police State".
Hint #2: "Police state" != Fascism".
Re: (Score:2)
Since when is breaking the law a civil right?
Re: (Score:2)
You think permitting a maximum fine of £5,000 when someone is found guilty, in a court, of deliberately infringing someone else's copyright for personal financial gain, possibly making far more than £5,000 in profit at the legitimate rightsholder's expense, is "just"? Wow, that's pretty far to stretch.
Re: (Score:2)
What civil right is being trampled here?
Re:Why is it always the UK? (& US) (Score:2)
Can anyone recommend a country that isn't blithely gamboling towards outright fascism?
China?
Might be communist, but they don't give a *$%&* about IP law.
Those damn commoners. (Score:5, Insightful)
<satire style="Stephen Colbert" >
I mean, the nerve of those commoners - copying data without a whim of care towards the strict control of information. Taking good sales pounds from BMI and other sacred institutions. It's downright madness - thinking they could just download and copy what isn't rightfully theirs, and think they could get away with it.
I say, no more - they must be punished further - £500,000, no $5,000,000 per... bit of data copied. By god, they shall learn what it means to write data that isn't theirs.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to yell at squirrels for taking nuts from my trees - I do believe they now owe me twelve trillion fully grown oak trees - damn selfish squirrels, they will learn, oh yes, all of them will learn what it means to take my precious acorns - potential trees, all of them, stolen from me!
</satire>
Hmmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm rather curious to see how much longer laws can be enacted that seem to be in direct contradiction to what is increasingly the norms of society.
Re: (Score:2)
That's just the thing - piracy isn't a norm of society. Protecting rights is the norm of society, and that's what this law is doing.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Piracy is a norm, just as much as breaking the speed limit.
You may not like it, and it may not be a good thing -- we'd have less pollution and fewer fatal accidents if people didn't speed, after all -- but whether it's desirable or not has nothing to do with whether it's reached the point of being the effective status quo.
(While I work with Free Software, the games I play and t
Re: (Score:2)
If I was a government official or entertainment industry executive, I'd be scared to screw over people so hard without executing them, making sure they were dead so they could never exact revenge. They might as well rename these acts Palestinian Suicide Bomber Importation Acts. LOL. Destroy somebody's life over some copied songs, especially when IP Addresses don't identify individuals, and reap it baby, reap it! We already saw the copycat effect of school shootings in first world countries over school bully
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Having the law so divorced from reasonability that I could have statutory liability greater than the present sale value of my house for this act is frankly unconscionable.
You make good points, but I just want to reply to the above, because on this one I really do disagree with you. I would far rather have laws that permit a wide range of penalties if they are broken, and trust that a court with the facts of the specific case will decide an appropriate level in those particular circumstances, than have the legislation mandate a certain level of penalty based on whatever Parliament happened to consider at the time the law was written. If an unreasonable penalty were handed dow
Re: (Score:2)
Piracy is the norm within UK society, the BPI likes to state that 6 million people regularly pirate in the UK. There are only ~20 million broadband users in the UK, this suggests a good fraction of people see nothing wrong with piracy and are happy to do it. 1/10th of our populaton admit to regularly pirating and don't see anything wrong with it. Piracy is a society norm, there are less iPhones and iPods in the UK both of which are considered "norms".
What needs to be addressed is how do we deal with this pr
Re: (Score:2)
In the U.S. enterprising youths have decided to make a game of destroying the camera. Sort of a status thing.
It's a temporary fix until the government goes to aerial drones and super tall steel towers.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Disputes over copyright penalty are a lot like disputes over tariffs in structural terms. One industry stands to gain significantly at everybody else' relatively minor expense. Even though the overall social cost weighs against the special interest, they usually recognize and fight for their interests much more strongly than do the diffuse majority.
Even worse, this situation usually involves an industry that makes something unsexy and emo
Dear recording industry (Score:4, Insightful)
Watch out Seagate, Western Digital, Apple, ISPs (Score:3, Insightful)
Watch out Seagate, Western Digital, Apple, and any other company that "seeks profit" from the abuse of piracy.
Terabyte hard drives, CD/DVD burners, Broadband providers and portable music players all owe a good portion of their success to the business of "copyright infringement." They have all, at some point, advertised the fact that they are the tools for anyone who wants to download, store, and play digital media. And none of them really care where that media came from, so long as you fill them up and buy more of their hardware.
If anyone is making a profit off the business of piracy, it's the hardware manufacturers and the services that allow the infringing material to be transmitted or recorded. When will we see THEM up against the wall?
Re:Watch out Seagate, Western Digital, Apple, ISPs (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed. In Spain it is assumed that consumers buy this stuff with piracy in mind and they make everyone pay just in case. Buy a new hard disk, pay 12 euros (plus tax, to add insult to the injury) that will go to the 'authors'.
Now, I won't claim that I bought my last Tb for my own pictures, home made movies, etc. But the following industries are getting nothing of my 12 euros: Porn, sports (I downloaded the last Wimbledon match for example), software...
I wonder what is going to happen when they demand a piece of the cake.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. In Spain it is assumed that consumers buy this stuff with piracy in mind and they make everyone pay just in case. Buy a new hard disk, pay 12 euros (plus tax, to add insult to the injury) that will go to the 'authors'.
If you pirate something, and are caught, can you claim that because of the EUR12 you already paid for it?
Re:Watch out Seagate, Western Digital, Apple-SONY! (Score:2)
Let us not forget Sony, who feeds both ends of this equation.
The Gowers Report is well worth reading (Score:5, Informative)
I highly recommend skimming through the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property [hm-treasury.gov.uk], the 2006 study on IP that seems to be the basis for this new law.
It seems to be a truly balanced study, full of interesting insights and recommendations. Some bits I liked:
And I could go on with the remedies suggested by the study, but I'll stop here. If the world were to adopt the recommendations in this Study, I do think it would be a huge step forward.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Wow indeed. I guess the licensing on time travel is pretty damn expensive ;)
Re: (Score:2)
In common with most reports commissioned by the UK government, they'll take the bits of the Gower Report that they like and implement them while ignoring everything else. Even if the bits that they implement are clearly headlined with "THERE IS NO FREAKING POINT IN EVEN LOOKING AT THIS UNLESS YOU'RE PREPARED TO IMPLEMENT THIS OTHER THING THAT YOU MIGHT FIND SLIGHTLY UNPALATABLE".
Re: (Score:2)
Cuz it defies common sense? If I pay for something I'd like to think that most of that money goes to whoever created it when in reality the reverse is true. Unfortunately I doubt this will change and I also doubt it's because of The Man. There are so many people who can write music, sing, and want to be musicians that supply/demand takes over and forces the value of their labor down to almost nothing.
Re: (Score:2)
Is is as sad as when you get paid for providing whatever service your employer demands of you during the course of your employment there.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Recompense is fine (hey, I'm a capitalist, too). It's just saddens me that the market values collecting the payment for a song greater than it values the actual writing or performing of it. That just doesn't feel right to me.
Lets quit pussy footing around (Score:2)
Just make it the death penalty for copying a SINGLE song. That will teach them darn pirates....
Of course that will also cause a revolt and we will all finally overthrow these insane governments.
Given the fall of their currency, (Score:2)
soon the status quo will be reached as the Pound will eventually be worth 1/10 of the USD or Euro.
I notice... (Score:2)
The Path Less Traveled (Score:2)
Option 2: You buy the song from the record company - the artist gets less than the credit card company processing the transaction gets.
Tell me again how this as all about the starving artists (and their families for decades after the artist is dead).
Now tell me just who has been starving the artists in the first place?
I declare Britain is off the list of desirable (Score:2)
there britain goes down the drain in terms of brain power. right at the time the entire population average was becoming too old to support the country too.
you gotta love politicians. for a few dollars, they can sink their own country.
Stupid is as stupid does (Score:2)
Just when I thought the human race couldn't get any dumber, something like this always proves me wrong. I mean seriously, do you really expect me to believe that a 10 fold increase in punishment will deter this kind of "crime"? Give me a fucking break!
Re:Ouch (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like another manifestation of ACTA...see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement [wikipedia.org]
ttyl
Farrell
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So when are the government going to do something about the music industry and film industry cartels that are anti-consumer? Those kickbacks to politicians also working well in the UK.
Re:Ouch (Score:4, Insightful)
Only if the person who owns the site, and the person who posted the copyrighted content are the same person I'd surmise.
Yeah, I totally trust the government to make that distinction.
Re:Ouch (Score:4, Interesting)
Spare us the FUD. These decisions will be made in a court, and in the lowest court at that. The government has no direct say in such cases; government ministers wouldn't even get out of bed to attend this sort of case.
And for the record, as someone who has actually seen a Magistrates' Court in action, they are IME sombre, serious places where the decisions are made carefully and with extreme care. It's a side effect of getting lay people to make the decision: they tend to consult their legal advisor frequently, but come from an outside perspective.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, no, I don't mean anything like that. Perhaps you noticed that this is a story about the UK?
Re:Ouch (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ouch (Score:4, Interesting)
This law could also be used to generate more money for developers by suing people or companies violating the copyright of GPL'd software when they don't comply with the GPL requirements...
--jeffk++
Re:Ouch (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Bigstrat's law of bad laws. Useful for making bumper stickers against various laws. Unfortunately, poorly justified at the present time IE a bad law.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But this is a law which definitely has some good uses, but only in a hypothetical future version has some bad uses?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The "slippery slope" argument is a fallacy as a matter of logic, not necessarily as a matter of empirical evidence.
If a government is known to create palatable laws as a way to introduce what would otherwise be less-palatable laws later, then there would be cause to believe that the slippery slope argument is valid in this case.
Empirical evidence trumps logic.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
That line sounds best in the style of K-9 being smug with his "I'm far superior to you humans" attitude.
Or have I just been watching too much old Doctor Who?
Re:Ouch (Score:5, Interesting)
Slippery slope is hardly a "fallacy" in a legal system built on it.
If they want to address profiteers then they should frame it in that
manner: the ill gotten gains. Although this ends up being "inconvenient".
They just want to punish without the burden of actually proving anything.
Beware of any escalation of copyright fines/damages not tied to actual
real damages or gains.
Re: (Score:2)
They just want to punish without the burden of actually proving anything.
Those of us who live in the UK see this as business as usual.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, for goodness' sake, get some perspective.
The point of this law is to bring the penalties available to a court for commercial copyright infringement on-line to the same levels at those already available for off-line copyright infringement. It is closing a loophole. There is nothing to say that courts must arbitrarily hand out fines of 50k for infringement that did not deserve that level of penalty. There is nothing new in the scale of the maximum penalty, either.
Also, this is only the cap on what a Magis
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Profit does not necessitate a monetary return just that they have profit by minor copyright infringements. P2P. generally you must upload content to down load content, upload represents the major infringement and that in turn facilitates downloads at higher speeds, how the individual profits via the upload.
The will lie cheat and steal to maximise the profits, nothing more should be given to them in fact, some of the protections should be taken away or reduced.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
No, actually it's great.
For too long have amateur pirates been downloading and sharing material. It has almost destroyed professional piracy.
Where it used to be possible to sell burnt CDs and DVDs of music and film, and have pay to use FTP sites with ratios, now people expect to get it all for free.
Tighter laws will be a boon to the piracy industry, and we can finally get back to making some proper money again.
Re: (Score:2)
I see a reason to hate it. It takes the UK that much closer to imposing higher fines on ordinary, not-profit-seeking citizens who download movies and music.
How? In what way — any way — does this apply to Joe Average? Did you even read the summary?
And if you're going for a slippery slope argument, that's pretty much doomed here as well. This move is based on the recommendations of the Gowers Review. In case you weren't aware, Gowers made a whole load of recommendations. Another one that is being supported by the government, for example, legitimising format shifting under certain circumstances. Do you consider that a step towards removing copyright a
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ouch (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, at least it's only going to punish people who are illegally profiting from another's work. I don't see any reason to hate this law yet.
Don't worry, in fairly short order "profiting" will be redefined so as to encompass "normal people" as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't worry. BPI (RIAA in the UK) will probably claim that anyone who downloads a song is profiting by not paying for the album therefore they are subject to the new fines.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
-fold, a suffix added to a cardinal number signifying "multiplied by"
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect the AC was making a joke about folding something 10 times resulting in a 2**10 increase.
Re:Personal use (Score:4, Insightful)
Profit shouldn't have anything to do with copyright enforcement.
Nor does it have anything to do with compensation, or sales.
"They" shouldn't go after anybody for what is a civil law issue. It is not for the government to enforce. If you violate somebody's copyright, and they sue, that should be it.
What really needs to happen is that terms should be sane, criminalization should be undone, and penalties should be realistic and proportional.
Re: (Score:2)
"They" shouldn't go after anybody for what is a civil law issue. It is not for the government to enforce. If you violate somebody's copyright, and they sue, that should be it.
You do realize that it is the government that hands out and enforces those civil penalties right?
Re: (Score:2)
Hands out, yes. Enforces, not necessarily.
Re: (Score:2)
Enforces, not necessarily.
Your statement makes no sense. Civil penalties only have meaning because the government enforces them. If there is no government enforcement they have no force of law.
Re: (Score:2)
It makes complete sense.
For starters, the government isn't sufficiently aware of private contracts to proactively enforce civil laws. They instead rely on one of the parties involved to either file suit, or request the aid of the government in investigation (which may be denied based on a set of criteria). Then, once a decision is found in favor of one of the parties, the government doesn't enforce the judgment. They provide services and tools to help with collections, but they don't do the actual enforceme
Re: (Score:2)
It's in civil cases that 'profit' does matter, not criminal ones.
Making a profit shows that there was enough demand so damages can be reasonably inferred, and often there are reasons for the court to deviate from treating the issue neutrally and actually assume there is no damage to the plantiff otherwise.
Take a DVD seller, who makes an English language version, encodes only for region 1, and doesn't produce a subtitled version. That seller has effectively said that France wasn't intended as a market, that
Re: (Score:2)
Your argument is based on false assumptions. One is that litigation is solely to recover "damages". Which isn't always the case. The other is that "damage" must have occurred for the defendant to be in violation of a civil law.
Since both of those assumptions are incorrect, the rest of your post is irrelevant.
Re: (Score:2)
First, my argument isn't based on either of the assumptions you are trying to put in my mouth. If you want to create a straw man and then attack it, please don't do it to me. It wastes both of our times and makes you look clueless.
Second, if you can cite one single case where any of the lobbying groups that supported this law sued an infringer under it without including damages, please do so. Since it's new law, how about a single case by any of those lobbying groups under the old laws, without damages bein
Re: (Score:2)
You speak of straw men, and then use one yourself? Classy. (Or are you going to go back after the fact and claim your broad generalizations were really meant to be narrowly focused?)
You *did* make those assumptions, and they *are* wrong. Profit is neither necessary, nor necessarily relevant when litigating a civil case, much less a civil copyright case. You specifically said that without profit the court may "actually assume there is no damage to the plantiff". However if the creator's assertion of copyrigh
Re: (Score:2)
I
Re: (Score:2)
Is there an argument you are presenting beyond simple assertions? Why shouldn't commercial scale copyright infringement be treated as a criminal activity?
Re: (Score:2)
So as long as it only takes six degrees of P2P separation to distribute the latest blockbuster movie to the entire world, you think it's OK for a movie studio to invest $100,000,000 in making it and be able to sue one guy who leaks it into bankruptcy and recover at least 0.001% of the damages? That's hardly incentivising production and distribution of new works, is it?
Re: (Score:2)
Who said anything about increasing the length of copyright? The big attempt to do that during the same process failed, spectacularly, after a high proportion of the public responses to Gowers rejected the idea and the Review and subsequent government position followed the same pattern. Is there something else you were referring to, or are you just spreading FUD?