p2pnet - rss feed: Australia’s MIPI: helping kids
p2pnet.net news view:- Australia’s Music Industry Piracy Investigations Big 4 faux police unit is touting a brochure called Young People, Music and the Internet, says Alex Malik over in Oz.
It’s, “not surprising that this sort of document should be released by the Australian anti-piracy unit,” he says on his blog, Malik’s law.
“They have increasingly become involved in information dissemination activities, rather than anti-piracy raids,” he says. “However, there are some problems …”
Says Malik >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Firstly, the document is almost identical to an earlier document released in the UK in 2005. THAT document can be found here:
Indeed, if you go here: you can see that the same document is available in German, Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Croatian.
Surprisingly, there is no Australian option listed yet, but there is a US option listed.
Anyway, there are significant differences between the law as it applies to digital downloads in Australia, compared to the UK and US and elsewhere, yet the document does not appear to have been substantively amended to reflect Australian law.
For example, in the ‘Legal risks’ section, the following appears:
‘Parents can be held responsible for what happens on the family computer, even if they are not themselves engaged in illegal activity’.
While this may (or may not) accurately represent the law in the US and some other countries, I am unaware if any legal precedents that support that statement in Australia.
Indeed, rather than true information dissemination, this looks more like a scare campaign.
Remember - in Australia, no private individual has EVER been sued for the sole act of file sharing. So no private individual has EVER been found guilty or liable for the act file sharing.
The second problem is that the document was written 2 years ago. MIPI acknowledge this in the fine print - the copyright notice on the final page says © Copyright Childnet International 2005. Now, in the file sharing world 2 years is an eternity, and the document reads that way.
The document talks about ‘Kazaa, Limewire and BitTorrent’ in the ‘What is P2P’ section. Strange how Kazaa is mentioned, given that the case was settled in a blaze of publicity a year ago.
By invoking the name of Kazaa, is MIPI suggesting that Kazaa, with whom they settled amidst much fanfare are an illegal operation, and one which would invoke liability?
Childnet, the organisation that wrote the document has noble aims:
Welcome to Childnet International, a non-profit organisation working with others to ‘help make the Internet a great and safe place for children’. This website gives news and background to Childnet’s work and serves as a portal to Childnet’s award-winning projects …
Can’t argue with any of that - it would be like arguing against parenthood. But the question remains, why MIPI waited 2 years to release this? And why wasn’t the document UPDATED and AMENDED to reflect Australian law in 2007. There’s information and then of course, there is misinformation.
Interesting, as is the fact Childnet has a long history with the corporate music industry.
Also See:
long history - The Big Lie: Part II, June 8, 2005
If your Net access is blocked by governBryan Adams slams Net radio hikement restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the endSurvey: How Did Copyright Infringement Become Equated with Robbery? (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
