MP Says 'Failed' Piracy Warnings Should Escalate To Fines & Jail 135
An anonymous reader writes with news that, not long after UK ISPs agreed to send piracy notices (Voluntary Copyright Alerts Program), thoughts have already turned toward adding criminal penalties. From the article: Prime Minister David Cameron's IP advisor believes that the carrot needs to be backed up by a stick. In a report published yesterday largely detailing the "Follow the Money" approach to dealing with pirate sites, Mike Weatherley MP says now is the time to think about VCAP’s potential failure.
"The Voluntary Copyright Alert Programme (VCAP) is welcomed and will be a good step forward once it is hopefully in operation in 2015, although it is primarily an education tool," Weatherley says. ...
"Warnings and fines are obvious first steps, with Internet access blocking and custodial sentencing for persistent and damaging infringers not to be ruled out in my
opinion."
These suggestions aren't new, but this is the second time in a matter of months that the Prime Minister's closest advisor on IP matters has spoken publicly about the possibility of putting persistent file-sharers in jail.
Even better idea: (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's have Parliament put a law into place that warns him whenever he incorporates someone else's ideas and philosophies in his speeches, and after the third time, put him in jail.
After all, can't have him "pirating" other peoples' intellectual property, now can we?
Re:Even better idea: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Even better idea: (Score:5, Funny)
How about we follow the money for him to see if he's getting "contributions" to say this. Perhaps that's why he's using other's ideas.
Remember, it's not bribery, it's a licensing fee.
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Remember, it's not bribery, it's a licensing fee.
I'm sure such a fee should be paid in the other direction...
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He'll be schmoozing with the various copyright cartel lobbyists, who'll be blowing smoke up his arse and whispering sweet little lies in his ears.
Recompense will come in the "you scratch our backs, we'll scratch yours" format at some point in the future. That's the way it usually worls: 'favours' for 'favours'.
How about Failed Policy warnings... (Score:4, Insightful)
One rule for the plebes another for the politician (Score:5, Insightful)
When politicians running for election start getting in real trouble for stealing songs and images to use in their promotional material then they can start to think about applying this to the little people.
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Little people laws don't apply to "the elite", whether they be government or just rich.
That won't work (Score:2)
"Hey [music company], I'd like to use [song] in my campaign. I'm sure a nice company like you would be happy to support me in this manner"
The only time the music company might go after a politician for it is if he/she is using said material and is pro copyright-reform (a.k.a not in their pockets)
False Warnings? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about a fine and prison for making a false complaint or warning about a copyright violation?
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Re:False Warnings? (Score:4, Insightful)
Stop allowing the perpetrators to hide behind the corporate veil.
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>Stop allowing the perpetrators to hide behind the corporate veil.
Then what's the point of a corporation!? (See my sig. below.)
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Perpetrators of what? There's loads of things that might or might not be legal, depending on circumstances. If you want to make corporate employees liable for things that are illegal that they had no good reason to think illegal, you're going to wind up criminalizing a lot of people who don't deserve it.
Re:False Warnings? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or just go back to "basics" where "limited liability" means that the shareholders (owners) have no liability to cover the debts of a failed corporate entity. The original idea was to encourage people in invest in business, with the knowlage that at worst they'd just lose the money they had put in. Protecting either the company or it's officers/executives is a much more modern interpretation.
Re:False Warnings? (Score:5, Insightful)
If they could find a way to imprison a corpoation, I'd immigrate to the UK tomorrow!
That's easy if you think about it: imprison the board of directors whenever there is sufficient malfeasance to warrant such a punishment. They hold shared responsibility for the company's actions (and benefits thereof), so let them share the consequences.
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Its not going to happen. The corporations own the government... bought and paid for.
Re:False Warnings? (Score:4, Informative)
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Stick all the company's assets into storage for the length of the sentence.
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Imagine if the US wasn't bought and paid for? If an oil company poisoned the gulf like what happened with the Deepwater Horizon (11 dead and massive damage to the fishing industry and the environment), the US government would simply pull its charter and be done with it [gwu.edu]: that company would cease to exist.
All the other corporations would thereafter straighten up
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I would like to see would be to forbid the company from doing business for a time equivalent of what the prison sentence would be.
That won't work. In the UK companies that have gone bankrupt often just change their name and carry on.
My wife did the finances of a small company. Another company went bankrupt owning her company £1000's. A few weeks later she got a phone call from its owner asking for even more goods on credit. He had restarted the company as "Bloggs Widgets" instead of "Bloggs Gadgets". Same premises, same phone number, same people, making the same stuff. He insisted it was a different company though.
Som
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How about a fine and prison for making a false complaint or warning about a copyright violation?
Honestly, I don't know why companies don't do this. If I was Google, I'd charge like $1000 for every false/incorrect DMCA notice delivered. If the person/company refused to pay,then I would stop processing DMCA notices from that person/company.
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Except, compliance with DMCA and the like is a requirement to have safe harbor provisions.
So it is more in the interests of companies to say "we don't give a damn", than it is for them to determine if something is true or false.
That was how the law was written by the corporations who wanted it -- "comply with us, and you're OK. Don't and we'll have the government hurt you".
There's simply no incentive for Google et al to give a damn if the claims are true or not -- that is for your lawyer to determine at yo
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Better idea: Just get rid of the damn DMCA takedowns and force companies to go to court if they want something taken down.
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If they are (or acting on the specific authority of) the copyright holder then that should have the effect of placing the work in question in the public domain.
If they are not then treat them as "pirates". Regardless of their complain/warning had any validity at all.
Totally clueless (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, that guy illegally downloaded a movie that's worth 20$ on DVD.
Let's put him in jail, costing the government thousands of dollars per year.
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If it costs the government thousands of dollars a year, maybe the UK should just look into jailing anyone accused of filesharing, even without proof. Bankrupting the government would be a very effective way to plan for a possible re-election of Mike Weatherley as an MP, and would be 100% effective against piracy to boot, in that if the government goes bankrupt the people will be too busy rioting in the streets to pirate anything.
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You miss the bigger picture, that costs the taxpayers money, the movie industry doesnt have to pay for incarceration.
Of course they still working on making remembering a movie a copyright violation
Re:Totally clueless (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm in security. And once security costs more than the asset you're trying to protect, it's time to stop protecting the asset. If your insurance costs more than the asset it insures, wouldn't you cancel it immediately?
And the cost for protecting copyright has outdone the damage done by infringement a long, long time ago.
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This is likely to continue to be the case so long as lobbying/bribing costs are less than what the actual "insurance premiums" would be.
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And here is where a responsible politician would step in and declare that protecting your jobs and your revenue is more damaging to the entire society and economy than the whole IP crowd is worth.
And we crossed that threshold, where IP infringement is cheaper to society as a whole than the effort to uphold it, a long, long while ago.
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I also can not help but notice that when studios infringe other people's copyrights, those cases still have to be fought at the expense of the prosecuting party.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States#Cost [wikipedia.org]
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The article talks about the UK, but I guess the costs are very similar.
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The problem there is they might try start forcing more people in such prisons in order to make money for the government, claim "we are fixing this country" and everyone will cheer.
Do you not have private prisons in the UK? If not, I suppose it's only a matter of time. We have them in the US, and some judges are already rotting in prison [wikipedia.org] for exactly the sort of thing you were imagining. They were sentencing juveniles with petty offenses to long term detention, in exchange for multi-million dollar kickbacks from the private detention facility. When imprisoning people becomes a profitable enterprise [google.com], abuse is guaranteed to follow.
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The problem there is they might try start forcing more people in such prisons in order to make money for the government, claim "we are fixing this country" and everyone will cheer.
Do you not have private prisons in the UK? If not, I suppose it's only a matter of time. We have them in the US, and some judges are already rotting in prison [wikipedia.org] for exactly the sort of thing you were imagining. They were sentencing juveniles with petty offenses to long term detention, in exchange for multi-million dollar kickbacks from the private detention facility. When imprisoning people becomes a profitable enterprise [google.com], abuse is guaranteed to follow.
Yeah Chris Grayling is indeed pushing DoJ that way, have friends involved in this mess who are leaving careers because of whole fiasco. They are trying to do that to the whole system not just 1 or 2 private prisons and judges here wont get put in such prisons for it since it'll be the system that is bent not just a few backhanders and dodgy practices which the met already specialises in getting away with to fluff arrest records to meet the projected figures the politicians want for that year. Basically ever
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Hey, that guy illegally downloaded a movie that's worth 20$ on DVD.
Let's put him in jail, costing the government thousands of dollars per year.
Seems to me that while the UK was one of the near or first countries to get rid of debtors prisons, they're on the forefront of bringing them back.
We keep getting closer to a dystopia (Score:5, Insightful)
You,"But I never downloaded that movie."
Prosecutor,"Lets hear your defense."
You,"I run a free wifi spot for people who want to check the net when they're out and about."
Prosecutor,"You should have never said that fellow. You're responsible for what other people do on your router. So lets see what other criminal activities they did before we sentence you to just a couple years of jail."
There's an alternative dialogue that involves a guy who clicks on links he finds on Twitter and Facebook and doesn't realize he watched copyrighted material.
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Prosecutor,"You should have never said that fellow. You're responsible for what other people do on your router. So lets see what other criminal activities they did before we sentence you to just a couple years of jail."
Common Carrier protection.
Red flag facts (Score:2)
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As I understand relevant statutes, such as the corresponding US statute (17 USC 512), protections like "common carrier" and "safe harbor" stop applying once there exist "red flag" facts that reasonably should alert a provider to a subscriber's wrongdoing.
Well, a solution to that is that once notified of legal proceedings, you shut off your anonymous AP.
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once notified of legal proceedings, you shut off your anonymous AP.
Then the state could just notify every home Internet subscriber of "legal proceedings" that it plans to take against those who operate an anonymous AP. It could claim to be planning a sting operation to drive around town and download CP through anonymous APs that it discovers. Besides, in some cases, ceasing and desisting is not enough. Someone might be seeking damages or criminal penalties for what was done before the AP was switched off.
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Someone might be seeking damages or criminal penalties for what was done before the AP was switched off.
Then, like a coffee shop you provide what information you have about those who connected, and move on.
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Can you just declare yourself to be a "common carrier" like that?
Anyway, in this case, this is happening in the UK, where responsibility defaults to the owner of the access point.
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Yeah, we've got this thing with the major ISP (BT) where you can get free wireless at hot spots around the world (FON) by ticking a checkbox that sets aside bandwidth on an open SSID on the router. The IP remains the same, but a claim of responsibility for what other people do with open WiFi gets a "fuck you" to the prosecutor and to hell with the contempt of court.
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More of a "Excuse me people of the court, but that IP does not belong to me; it belongs to BT. You should have their board of directors here in court, not me, as they are obviously the ones profiting from this breach of law."
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IIRC it isn't just BT doing this sort of thing.
From a technical POV it would be perfectly possible users of the "guest" captive portal to appe
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Prosecutor: "You laundered millions of dollars for violent drug cartels."
HSBC Bank: "Yup, sure did. Here's $2 billion. We're good now, right?"
Prosecutor: "You're free to go."
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These days it's more:
Defendant: My router runs a free wifi hot spot to provide internet access for people.
Prosecutor: Your router, you're liable for all the traffic
Defendant: But my ISP is the one that turned on the hot-spot. I don't even want it!
Prosecutor: Doesn't matter, it's in your house. You're responsible.
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You're responsible for what other people do on your router.
That's why my ISP's router is nothing but a passthrough device for my own router, which in turn routes all traffic through a VPN out of the country. It's none of your fucking business what I do with the connection, just like as a Common Carrier it's none of my ISP's business. If you want to search my shit, get a warrant. Not wanting you logging at what I choose to read or watch online is not "reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing".
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Yes, but as Groucho said, I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.
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And this was, of course, meant to go to a completely different thread. I should probably close a few windows...
(actually, it's kind amazing that this doesn't happen more often... now mod this offtopic please. Thanks)
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I'd like to know what this moron's bank account looks like.
...would that be before or after the media lobbyists have stopped by his office?
Aww, I read that wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
For a moment it sounded like asshats sending out frivolous takedown notices via carpet bombing would end up in jail.
Should've known that adding sanity to the mix would be asking too much.
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Decreasing government revenues is a choice, not an inevitable outcome of some fundamental change in society. Part of the nature of the decreasing revenue is that we keep moving more and more discretionary spending into corporate welfare, like private prisons. The best part about this is that the worse you treat people in need, the more likely they are to wind up in prison. $$$.
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Especially gieb that these multinationals often have complex schemes to avoid paying taxes to ANY government. So it's really individuals and small businesses who will be paying here.
Victimless crimes are not felonies (Score:2, Interesting)
Content industries are merely a speck on the surface of the global economy. Why are we devoting so much judicial and legislative time to them?
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Because media companies are the ones that provide access to voters.
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Culture shall be privatized (Score:1)
Those sharing culture shall be prosecuted.
The rent-seeking shall continue until you comply.
Please insert your coins into this slot [ ] after reading.
Or you will be prosecuted to the furthest extent of the law.
If it doesn't work... (Score:3)
Big talk from a politician (Score:2)
Naturally for a person that is not on average income it's difficult to understand proportion.
Like a punishment (if found guilty) proportional to the crime (if proven as such).
Every so often someone calls for a tougher stance on copyright infringement. How about a more reasonable stance on copyright in general?
Maybe all this Gestapo copyright notions should be canned and a more enlightened, modern system be created?
I agree with some other posters, why not make false copyright complaints accountable? -
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Naturally, for a person who doesn't need to pimp him/herself out to get reelected, it's difficult to understand the real damage here.
It takes millions of dollars per election cycle for any politician above the local-town-council level to get and keep their government meal-ticket. Joe Plumber doesn't have millions of dollars, and as a non-corporation, even if he did, he couldn't legally donate that much to a si
Copywrong (Score:2)
Blocking not enough? (Score:1)
Already there (Score:4, Insightful)
IANAL, but the process would be something like this: Copyright owner sends take down notice. Service owner fails to comply. Copyright owner files civil suit and court orders civil penalties, including an order to take content down. Service owner still doesn't comply and can now be held in contempt of court (criminal offense).
No new law needed.
You wouldn't... (Score:3)
Yes, jail and criminal charges should be used... (Score:1)
Both ways (Score:1)
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Third: these are accusations; there has been no trial. They're saying after you've been accused x times, you go to jail. I think they missed a few steps.
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They're saying after you've been accused x times, you go to jail. I think they missed a few steps.
And for that reason alone, there is absolutely no chance this is going anywhere.
No British government is actually going to pass a law saying you can be sent to jail without having your day in court less than a year before a general election. They get enough flak for pushing in that direction with terrorism-related laws that are only used against a tiny number of people in practice, because of the principle and the risk of later abuse, and that's a subject where a significant fraction of the population will
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They're saying after you've been accused x times, you go to jail. I think they missed a few steps.
And for that reason alone, there is absolutely no chance this is going anywhere.
I don't know where the idea came from in this discussion that "infringers" would go to jail without a trial. Citation for that? I believe that what is meant is after three warnings you would be considered for prosecution. The prosecution if successful might lead to imprisonment.
Dog in the manger (Score:2)
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There's also the issue of "what constitutes infringement?"
I suppose if someone is intentionally seeding a bunch of stuff to some network and writing the .nfo files that go alongside, that could possibly be argued to be criminal infringement (since their copyright abuse would be against many many claimants).
But what of someone hosting an analysis of a song? Part of a song? Using the preview clips off iTunes as a backing track to a home video? Hosting a song they wrote and recorded themselves on their own
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An IP address does not correlate to an individual. I would have thought someone with a user id below 1 million would know that by now.
Follow the chain of (IP, time, MAC) tuples (Score:2)
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Connecting your MAC directly to the Internet router is quite insane for other reasons
Please elaborate.
Also, you forget that people are now being forced to run open wifi in their neighborhoods without their knowledge.
The ISP would be required to keep the same logs for DHCP on open APs that it controls that it keeps for DHCP on its wired service.
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You're talking about Britain, where they recently let a man convicted with thirteen life sentences leave jail for a weekend and were surprised that he didn't come back.
When was the last time a shoplifter was jailed in Britain? When was the last time a persistent burglar was banned from the Internet?
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