Darth Mandelson strikes again.

[yorkie_chris]

More "Big Brother is watching" type rubbish, infringing on personal freedom and probably a mid-step toward total government control of the internet.

Welcome to soviet Britain, comrades. Where can I buy a furry hat?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...andy-plan.html


Now, I don't care about your downloading habits, and I especially don't care about some pop star making money from their sound editors talents. But this is another attack on freedom.

[DarrenSV650S]

Didn't they say that like 10 years ago?

[Spiderman]

Remeber the days when you used to buy something and then lend it to any of your mates that asked for it...and all you were ever worried about was getting it back?

Clearly digitising that "thing" makes it more valuable and in need of protection does it?

The joys of globalisation

If you persistantly steal goods from a shop, you lose your freedom or are fined. So if you share music/video/ game files which are copywrited you should also lose your privilege of having internet access. Now tell me what is wrong in that, you break the law you get punished.
We may not like it ( I know I don't ), but at the end of the day if we did not have copywrite laws then people wouldn't bother making music/films/games and therefore we would not have such a diversity ( and in some cases ) quality in music/films/games.
Just be more careful folks and you will be alright, use Peerguardian as an example.

Ste.

[yorkie_chris]

OK bike dealers offering test rides, they don't then prosecute anybody taking a test ride.

My reckoning, you can hear it on the radio, on artists websites without repercussions. That's public domain. I can quite easily record any of this to an mp3 file myself. Why should downloading the mp3 be a crime?

Fair enough about the people nicking unreleased records... they are already breaking the law hacking.

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

My reckoning, you can hear it on the radio, on artists websites without repercussions. That's public domain. I can quite easily record any of this to an mp3 file myself. .

Actually that was done quite alot ,donkeys years ago when you would record onto tape ( Those were the days ). However it still is illegal to do that, because it is still classed as copying.

Ste.

[yorkie_chris]

But totally unenforceable. And an unenforceable law is no law at all.

Originally Posted by slark01

but at the end of the day if we did not have copywrite laws then people wouldn't bother making music/films/games and therefore we would not have such a diversity ( and in some cases ) quality in music/films/games.

This is the line that the music industry and film industry would LOVE you to believe.

"We spend sooo much money on producing all this stuff for you, surely we should have total control over how you use it"

Copyright has always been for the protection of the publisher's of work (Books, music, films, etc) rather the creators of the work. It has it's history in the start of the printing trade, when books became more available to the general public. (Notice any similarities with today?)

What they seem to have lost sight of is that individual property rights still have some bearing on the matter. When it was a case of having to physically copy a CD or cassette and transport it to another person the Music and Film industries only bothered with the mass pirating operations. Now Joe public can download every piece of music ever created (pretty much), rather than work out how to change their businesses, they want to maintain the status quo. Do artists deserve $100 million dollar contracts for creating music? Is that what their product is intrinsically worth? Or is this just a proportion of what other entreprenuers can make from marketing and selling it?

Meh

[the_lone_wolf]

Originally Posted by slark01

If you persistantly steal goods from a shop, you lose your freedom or are fined. So if you share music/video/ game files which are copywrited you should also lose your privilege of having internet access. Now tell me what is wrong in that, you break the law you get punished.
We may not like it ( I know I don't ), but at the end of the day if we did not have copywrite laws then people wouldn't bother making music/films/games and therefore we would not have such a diversity ( and in some cases ) quality in music/films/games.
Just be more careful folks and you will be alright, use Peerguardian as an example.

Ste.

Peerguardian has more holes than a sieve

And the whole theft thing is a flawed analogy that they've been trying to get people to buy for years, stealing from a shop is one thing, making a digital copy of a file is nothing like stealing...

Anyone who thinks the RIAA/MPAA/BPI/etc etc are actually looking out for the artists, or anything but the record label's profits then

They took down The Pirate Bay yesterday, forced their hosting provider to remove access, less than 24hrs later it's back up with a message for the morons who think it will just disappear. "the internet" is smarter tan they are, the sooner they realise they're wasting their time trying to take down websites the sooner they can start looking at the matter they should be worrying about...

At the end of the day every technological advancement has had the copyright lobby up in arms about how they're going to go out of business, they resist and eventually adapt, the digital age will be no different, they can take mandy out for as many lunches as they want but they'll achieve nothing by criminalising ~6,000,000 of their own customers

Welcome to the future big record/picture, someday you'll catch up

Originally Posted by slark01

If you persistantly steal goods from a shop, you lose your freedom or are fined. So if you share music/video/ game files which are copywrited you should also lose your privilege of having internet access.

I agree with you with regard to the theft aspect - music should be treated the same as any other goods in that regard. We're talking about people's livelihoods and innovation here.

Yeah, I know that we all used to tape our mate's vinyl/CDs but at least in that case someone had paid for a least one copy. Wrong/theft, but we all did it.

Not sure about losing 'net access though - the normal route for theft of anything else in court & fine. Why shouldn't this be the same?