Beginning of the end for the Internet in the UK

Originally posted by ipsedixit
I think they want control and will do whatever it takes to achieve it.

They have privatized the prison system to a large extent in the US. As long as these things can be integrated into a completely corporatized (fascist) social and economic continuum, there is no problem.

I am exaggerating to make a point here. We are drifting toward a situation where we have less and less rights. The Bush administration took strong initiatives in that direction. I'm merely extrapolating to the logical outcome of a trend like that when I talk about a "pole shift" in law enforcement.

There have been regimes on this planet where what I am describing would not be considered far fetched at all.

Thins change with time, morality, issues, technologies. Governments are now more capable of tracking people, transactions, activities. They were always doing this, but now they have millions of cameras, computers and software, digital documentation, to facilitate it.

Much of it is beneficial. Tracking criminals, foreign enemies, sexual predators, terrorists, etc. Law enforcement and maintaining order gets a boost. The paranoid will gravitate to fears of being spied on, loss of rights, etc.

The world has seen a positive shift in information exchange with the universal acceptance of the Internet. That has tremendously affected everything in the last decade. It is infinitely more difficult for governments to conceal abuses than ever in history. Exposures that reach tens of millions happen within hours.

I personally don't buy into the great fear being advanced. If I had anything to hide and they were suspicious, they could have tracked me through wiretaps, photographs, asking questions of contacts, checking banking information, etc.

It's just easier now. But the cost of tracking more than 1-2% of the population is simply prohibitive. The Russians found that out.

We will lose some privacy but are gaining communication and access to information about the people that run things. We have the means of organizing we lacked before. We are more capable of asserting our rights collectively than any previous society.

If you are doing something you don't want discovered, you have reason to worry. But that is nothing new.


M

Originally posted by TheComte
The best way to stop all this nonsense is to boycott the entertainment industry en masse. Probably impossible to do, but imagine the look on the movie/music execs faces when nobody, and I mean nobody, buys their product. Do it for six months and watch them come crawling back to us on their knees begging us to go see a movie.

I'm not a UK citizen and have not read the legislation yet. Having said that, are you saying you want to boycott entertainers because they want paid for the work they do? Are you paid for your work?

When somebody steals your property does it upset you at all or do you think it is their right to steal your property?

Intellectual property is property and has value. Plenty of labor and skill goes into its creation. Stealing it is the same as stealing a car or anything else.

This legislation may go to far and considering the UK is usually only a couple of years ahead of us on having your rights taken away it does bother me. However punishing people for stealing I'm all for.

Originally posted by DChenO
My daughter goes to college with some very elite kids here in the USoA...

She says everyone in her generation (including her very poor cousins and their in-law relations all the way to kids who go home for break on private jets and/or are heirs to some of the biggest globalcorps on the planet) have up to and over 10,000 illegally down loaded songs.

And thats over $100,000 of illegal songs per kid.

That tells me there is a serious Parenting problem. Its up to Parents to monitor their children and teach them stealing is always wrong. What you say, if true, means an entire generation of Parents have failed at their jobs.

A theft of $100,000 should always lead to a severe punishment and prison. Sounds like these "elite" kids would make great crooked politicians. No morals, no ethics, no regard for other peoples property.

This may go further than just filesharing.
Using the proposed law, or rather the spirit of that law, could put the mockers on a lot of live music.
I play drums in a covers band, meaning that we play songs that were originally recorded by other artists. Most venues have a Performing Rights Society (PRS) licence, but a lot of smaller venues, pubs and the like, do not. Will this new law mean that people will be able to march on stage and stop people playing cover versions of songs, as they will say it violates the original artists' copyright?
I know a lot of people that make a good living playing at weddings and the like, pretty much all of the music is covers, so will this legislation put these people out of work? A lot of them are professional musicians.
I appreciate that the original subject deals with Internet filesharing, but the possibilities for abusing this proposed law can go so much further than the Internet.
Musicians of the world unite!

reply to post by mmiichael


just to play devil's advocate here.

ever try to photocopy a whole book a page at a time for someone, or even yourself? Pirating songs, music and movies, even ebooks today is simple and easy, which is why it is so prevalent. Yes, there is a certain souring of the public to the less than stellar offerings in which people don't see any value in what they're buying. make it free, and they'll collect as much crap as they can, because, its free. moreso, they want it unfettered. if the media companies started offering everything for free with a 5-10 second preemeptive commercial, you'd see the whole pirate industry shift to removing the ads.

meanwhile, we keep buying their garbage even if we also pirate it.

Originally posted by royspeed
This may go further than just filesharing.
Using the proposed law, or rather the spirit of that law, could put the mockers on a lot of live music.
I play drums in a covers band, meaning that we play songs that were originally recorded by other artists. Most venues have a Performing Rights Society (PRS) licence, but a lot of smaller venues, pubs and the like, do not. Will this new law mean that people will be able to march on stage and stop people playing cover versions of songs, as they will say it violates the original artists' copyright?
I know a lot of people that make a good living playing at weddings and the like, pretty much all of the music is covers, so will this legislation put these people out of work? A lot of them are professional musicians.
I appreciate that the original subject deals with Internet filesharing, but the possibilities for abusing this proposed law can go so much further than the Internet.
Musicians of the world unite!

You kind of answered your own question there. You said a lot of the venues already have a performing rights license. So you know to perform a copyrighted work requires such a thing. However, it is something which is rarely enforced. For the O2 yes, for the Fox and Hound no. The new law just brings things up to date regarding the digital age. As for "this new law" have you read it? Why do you think anyone would be interested in what is being played down some local pub? I don't think anyone is in doubt that money is a rather big factor in this issue but at the end of the day if you wrote a song wouldn't you want to have a say in it's use?

Originally posted by CoffinFeeder
ever try to photocopy a whole book a page at a time for someone, or even yourself? Pirating songs, music and movies, even ebooks today is simple and easy, which is why it is so prevalent. Yes, there is a certain souring of the public to the less than stellar offerings in which people don't see any value in what they're buying. make it free, and they'll collect as much crap as they can, because, its free. moreso, they want it unfettered. if the media companies started offering everything for free with a 5-10 second preemeptive commercial, you'd see the whole pirate industry shift to removing the ads.

meanwhile, we keep buying their garbage even if we also pirate it.

I've photocopied many books in my time. Usually they've been out of print for decades and I managed to borrow a copy. Two pages at a time, it takes about half an hour.

Scanning is labour intensive too.

In China and other parts of Asia the big media corporations are making their legitimate copies so cheap, with the better quality they can compete with the knockoffs. This is how things will go.

I'm an anti-collector. Download and consume. Make a note of where it si if I want it again or pass the link on. Sometimes it's gone a day later. There's always new stuff you will discover so no great loss.

The real focus markets are the underdeveloped world. They never could afford to accumulate libraries of media junk. Maybe now they'll up their consumption and get hooked for life.

How it translated to $$ remains to be seen. Selling franchises is now more important than single units. Once people are addicted to Spider-man, Harry Potter, Buffy, Batman, they'll be buyers for movies, toys, clothes, games, other licensed junk.

Money has to be generated fast after releases. The freebies are considered part of the viral marketing.

The rules and consumption patterns are changing, but there's still big money there for those who figure out how to tap into it.


M

I dont think it is anything to worry about;
It cant be done or wont be done;
If an ISP started banning all their customers they would put themselves out of business;
It would be a loss of billions of dollars per year;
Look at what happened to the ISP America Online; they kept banning all the customers who got reported 3 times for cussing in chatrooms and now they are out of business;
Everyone could still use WIFI internet for free at libraries, airports, internet cafe's, bookstores; schools;
You could steal a neighbors wireless internet or drive around looking for wireless internet connection;

You could even use a program that changes your IP address every couple seconds and keep jumping from proxy server to proxy server;

websites will start popping up where they give each visitor a randomly generated encrypted key/code version of the webpage, for maximum privacy

What the entertainment industry needs to do is get advertisers to sponsor their movies and music so they could make money while giving the content away for free

each song could start with an intro from the artist like "This is Dj and you are listening to ATS, sponsored by Adidas"

Look at how much 30 seconds of commercial time costs during the SuperBowl; Its millions of dollars;
And maybe these movie companies should also stop paying some of these actors hundreds of millions of dollars just to star in the movie when there are billions of people that would do it for free

[edit on 22-11-2009 by DjSharperimage]

With undoubted TPTB timing this news story is on www.tmz.com (TMZ) titled "Bon Jovi, Gwen Stefani Take (Taylor) Swift Action".

It seems a bar has allowed public performances of Bon Jovi and Gwen Stefani so they are sueing them. This is just the start, it's the end of public performance in America.

Without Bon Jovi and Gwen Stefani's songs played in public the freedom of Amerika is doomed.

Or maybe they are just greedy cows.

You decide.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by Blaine91555
...are you saying you want to boycott entertainers because they want paid for the work they do? Are you paid for your work?

No, I said boycott the entertainment industry. The entertainers get paid by the corporations, usually a pittance but that is on the entertainer to negotiate a better deal. The corporations make the majority of the profits.

Of course I get paid for my work. So do entertainers and even the corporations make a large amount of profit every month. Much, much more than I make. Let's not get greedy Mr. Entertainment Conglomerate man. If I made that much I'd gladly give up a few hundred thousands a month just to spread the love.

Most people who download probably wouldn't buy anyway so the corps aren't losing that much money anyway. Just a drop in the bucket on top of already obscene profits.

I didn't make the internet the way it is. I didn't invent peer to peer software. I don't make blank disks and dvd recorders. I don't videotape movies in theaters. I find things on the internet, I watch or listen, then leave it where I found it.

It's too bad you think it's so bad. It's definitely NOT the same as stealing actual physical property or using someone else's intellectual property to make profit for yourself.

Originally posted by Night Star
Oh no!!!! This is unreal! America will be next. What are our friends in the UK doing about this? My God, It astounds me that I am living in a time when our rights are being taken away right from under our noses. This has got to stop!

Why is America always next? You do realise that America is a seperate country, also do you think that major entertainment enterprizes in this country would give into this? Every major rap label would fold with in weeks. Come on people not every bad law that is past or every bad thing that happens will come here. Calm down and....wait for it.... Write your elected officals. If that doesn't work MARCH. till that happens calm down.

Originally posted by Night Star
Oh no!!!! This is unreal! America will be next. What are our friends in the UK doing about this? My God, It astounds me that I am living in a time when our rights are being taken away right from under our noses. This has got to stop!

Why is America always next? You do realise that America is a seperate country, also do you think that major entertainment enterprizes in this country would give into this? Every major rap label would fold with in weeks. Come on people not every bad law that is past or every bad thing that happens will come here. Calm down and....wait for it.... Write your elected officals. If that doesn't work MARCH. till that happens calm down.

Just use your neighbor's wireless. Simple as that.

The full text of the bill can be read at Publications.Parliment.UK

I spent about 45 minutes looking through this grossly over inflated piece of legislation. (although it's not 2000 pages like it would have been here in the U.S.) There are some troubling aspects of increased control, and there is a whole section devoted to censoring media content that I found to be of much more concern.

There are literally whole sections explaining that an ISP must notify subscribers when they get caught breaking copyrights, and that the ISPs' must keep records of complaints by copyright owners.

I don't speak legalize to well but I was not overly concerned with the bill itself. The penalties like disconnecting the internet for whole families is way over the top and summarily punishes innicent people. I don't know exactly how the government works in the U.K. but I assume the people have some leverage on their elected officials. (someone from the U.K. could fill me in)

The other thing that really caught my attention was the censorship. ISPs' monitoring and regulating content sounds more like China than U.K.

In brighter news the BBCs Jane Wakefield reports

BBC

~Edit: fixed link

[edit on 11/22/2009 by AlienChaser]

Originally posted by logican

Originally posted by thoughtsfull

Originally posted by logican
What applies to the "entertainment industry" applies to individuals also. You wouldn't shoplift but cyber shoplifting is totally ok is it?

Were as I have a problem with punishment without trial, conviction without evidence.. those are quite weighty issues on there own.. and this from the generation that rebelled and listend to pirate radio stations that swamped our airwaves, which they didn't pay for either.. pot kettle black...

Um, punishment without trial and conviction without evidence? What did you base that on? Because the OP said it? Let me know. And as for pirate radio stations swamping the airwaves, well, i'd debate with you the "swamping" part but regardless didn't you have to tune into them, so that would be kinda like a choice yeah? So basically the people who rebelled had a choice, listen to free music on a national/commercial station or listen to free music on a pirate station. That's some rebellion. Unless you are referring to the pirate stations themselves and their choice of music, which comes to to an artistic choice if you will, but without paying the fees that the other stations did to air the music. But I guess you are all for everything being owned by you. I guess all the design work i've done is yours too. What an attitude. Does my identity belong to you too. Shall I post under your name and attribute everything I say to you or would you prefer to have intellectual control over these things?

[edit on 22-11-2009 by logican]

First off, just for your peace of mind, I do read other sources and debate these issues in other forums,.. here one link that I debated the issue on, since you require proof.
Extract

All this together means Mandelson's plan violates the fundamental principle that people are innocent until proven guilty, and that only the guilty should be punished. His system would see parents thrown off because of their children, children thrown off because of their parents and all thrown off because of a stranger. So here's the key question: do we want to live in a society where people can be cut off from the internet without a trial, without a jury and without proving they committed any offence at all?

And I agree with the above sentiment, while it appears you believe in the government legaly imposing punishment for a crime without trial or the need to prove guilt is the right way to go, on this point we shall disagree.

so just to just clarify your position, do you also feel the same way about shoplifters? burglers? and what crimes do you feel worthy of a trial? I'm intruiged.

Just to confirm whatever assumptions you have already made, I personaly feel that a person should be tried, and found guilty of the crime before the government can punishment them.

And I'll argue this point regardless of topic..

As for the 60s, since when was the BBC ever free? to listen to music at that time it was either radio, record or concert.. and what stations actually played modern music at this time? mainly the pirate ones.. and as you said it yourself, for free.. people didn't need to buy records, or go to concerts to hear the music THEY wanted to hear, which in my opinion had the same impact on the industry and forced the industry to change the model it uses.

While I know you have made the assumption, I have not actually said downloding was right..

Edit: cut initial quote down to reduce length of post :-) and add cost of Uk radio Licences. www.radiolicence.org.uk...


[edit on 23/11/09 by thoughtsfull]

The typical political response is to say those that question this are alarmist and that it won't be abused. Time will tell.

reply to post by mmiichael


Perhaps if they didn't rip people off for £40 a game, people wouldn't download.

The truth is, most people are not spoiled and lazy, nor generally are they thieves, they are basically fed up to the back teeth of being ripped off for every piece of media there is.

£40 for a game that costs about £1.00 to produce? £20-£30 for a film DVD/BR

Etc.

People have had enough of the thieving that's been perpetrated on them for decades and are clawing a little back for themselves.

As for that pathetic creepy slug Madleson, i'd say go F himself, but he'd probably love it.

[edit on 23/11/2009 by spikey]

reply to post by AlienChaser


Nope.

We have no more leverage over our politicians than you do.

They only answer to the corporations and the bribe merchants..i mean lobbyists.

People have short memories, when elections swing around again, all is forgotten and people vote the colour, not the person.

Sad, but true.

We have git's like Mandleson, who is driving this forwards at the behest of his 'industry' golden geese cronies...who are not only NON elected, but this crook has been fired from the government TWICE for corruption!!!

How's that then? This crook breaks the law, twice, get's fired twice, and is brought back yet again as business sec...then he thinks he has the right and power to summarily throw any of us in PRISON for downloading a film the money grabbing ENT IND is making hundreds of millions on anyway...it's a screwed up world.

I'd like to know what dirt Mandleson has on the other PTB, the slimeball bounces back more than something very bouncy indeed.

reply to post by TheComte




You've hit the nail on the head.

Most people who download, would not go to the pictures, or buy the game or DVD anyway, perhaps because they can't afford the extortionate prices in the first place, or perhaps they are fed up with paying a fortune for a piece of media that turns out to be utter crap and there goes another large portion of their meager household budgets.

Fine, if they said buy it, take it home and try it and if it's not for you, you get your money back, no questions asked...but they don't. And a good 50 - 70% of what is produced these days is complete rubbish, and not worth the few pennies the actual media costs.

It would be a different story, if the downloaders/filesharers were making bootleg copies and flogging them off at a market or boot sale, or even from a website...but that is not the case, at least not for 99% of us. Most of us, do not make money/profit from hooky DVD's and games.

Which is the real cut and trust of the copyright laws in the first place! To protect the copyright holder from other companies or organisations from copying and then producing and selling their work on as their own.

It was never meant to be applied against individuals who are not ripping and selling their works as their own product.

Not that reality seems to mean much these days.