UK File Sharers Going to Jail???

It seems that the US is not the only country to enact totally draconian laws regarding file swapping....


UK file sharers could land in jail
After a delay of almost a year, the European Copyright Directive will now be implemented in Britain and, "As well as giving new protections to DRM and anti-copying technologies, it creates an offence that could, at least in theory, be committed by using a P2P service like KaZaA," says OUT-LAW.com.

"It may not be the intention of the Government, nor of its Copyright Directorate, the Patent Office department responsible for drawing up the implementing regulations; but that does not change the fact that this will be written into our laws."

Moreover, European nations are repeating the US' mistakes over the draconian Digital Millenium Copyright Act in their implementation of the equivalent EU law, says a UK think tank.

In a ZDNet UK story, Matthew Broersma warns: "Far-reaching European copyright legislation making its way into UK law is likely to tighten the grip of large companies on consumers, according to a British IT policy think tank, because of the way it is being implemented across the European Union.

www.boycott-riaa.com...

And of course, the latest attempt to put US file sharers in prison...


Today, bill HR 2517 which would, among other things, allow the FBI to prosecute p2p file sharers, again rears its head.

Because today is the day Lamar Smith, backed by John Conyers and Hollywood Howard Berman, plan to present changes to their Copyright Enforcement Bill as a markup statement to the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property.

As it stands, HR 2517 is designed to, "To enhance criminal enforcement of the copyright laws, educate the public about the application of copyright law to the Internet, and clarify the authority to seize unauthorized copyrighted works."

Smith & Co now also want to make it a federal crime to record movies during a cinema performance; and, "create a new provision requiring any person who offers 'enabling' software for download over the Internet to provide notice to users about the risks and get consent before allowing the user to download it'."

And, although the 1997 NET (No Electronic Theft) Act, "closed a loophole that required a showing of attempted financial gain as a prerequisite to bringing criminal charges against an infringer," unfortunately, they say, it's "difficult" for various reasons to satisfy the statute's "felony threshold" and the Department of Justice has, "encountered many obstacles to prosecuting cases under the NET Act". So, "the Subcommittee intends to work with DOJ, affected federal agencies, copyright owners, and technology and user groups in an effort to find an appropriate solution".

www.boycott-riaa.com...

Yup, two years in prison, just for running Kazaa or Bittorrent.

But, I download loads of stuff legally with bittorrent, so how can this be illegal.

Does this make the use of ftp illegal also?

Dude, it's not hard to make the difference.

It's not the protocol or the software that mather in the end, it's WHAT you download with it.

If it's copyrighted, then you could go to jail, unfortunaly.
But hey, I'm no exception, I barely don't rent movie anymore since I have bittorrent.