UK backs out of corporate ‘3 strikes’ law
p2pnet news view | P2P | Politics:- The UK government, which had appeared to be in tight lockstep with the entertainment cartels, has delivered another powerful blow to corporate efforts to gain control of the Net by using administrations around the world to compel ISPs to act as copyright cops.
David Lammy, the UK minister responsible for intellectual property, has, “ruled out a ‘three strikes’ law denying internet access to illegal file sharers, says Out-Law.com, quoting The Observer.
Lammy said cutting off users was not “the right road” for UK law makers,”
That doesn’t, however, mean Britain has now decided to abandon efforts to work on behalf of vested corporate movie and music industry interests.
“Lammy told The Observer that there will be anti-piracy legislation to back up the work of the rights agency, but that the laws must not be too specific or exhaustive,” says the story. “In the end, the solutions are going to be commercial solutions. They are going to be solutions that are about ensuring people pay for content, but the ease of paying is there,” he said.
With that as background, parents in the UK might want to think about withdrawing their children from schools.
“Lammy said that solutions to the problem will also have to rely on individuals knowing more about copyright and the world of intellectual property becoming more accessible to people.”
Apart from flooding the Main stream media with specious press releases and phoney statistics, this will inevitably mean introducing corporate ‘educational’ programs into classrooms designed to bend the minds of even very young children to the will Hollywood and the Big 4 record labels.
Get ‘em while they’re young is already happening full-scale in the US.
Three strikes law is striking out
Meanwhile, although South Korea has apparently fallen in line with the corporate entertainment industry plan to have ISPs act as copyright cops, turning in their own customers so they can be victimised as file sharing criminals and thieves by the cartels, the scheme is for the most part coming apart at the seams with citizens making it clear they, not the movie studios and music labels, are in charge, p2pnet said recently.
The Big 4 are in the midst of huge international campaign in another phase of their efforts to dominate, if not totally control, the way music is distributed online, and by whom, said another story, going on »»»
Under it, they hope to force governments to toe the corporate line by introducing legislation to compel local ISPs to both identify customers accused by the labels of being illegal distributors of copyrighted music, and to ultimately terminate their accounts.
New Zealand was the first country to officially cave in to corporate demands, but is now wavering under public pressure to abandon the plan, inspired by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music.
France, the first country to get firmly behind the three-strikes-and-you’ re-out legislation, seemed poised to adopt it, but it, too, is coming under increasing public pressure to drop the massive corporate DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer control scheme.
In Britain, the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA), “argues that ISPs cannot prevent illegal downloading because they ‘are no more able to inspect and filter every single packet passing across their network than the Post Office is able to open every envelope’,” p2pnet said recently.
p2pnet went on:
“The European Parliament has condemned France’s so-called HADOPI law, turning its back on every proposed amendment, rejecting the corporate music inspired ‘graduated response’ for the third time, said La Quadrature du Net.
“Now, ‘Each country will forge its own solutions to this challenge,’ CNet News has RIAA bullshit supremo Bainwol saying, adding, ‘but the general pattern is clear.
” ‘ISPs and the content community are working together in a constructive way to find common solutions that work for all sides.’
But as we added, the general pattern is, of course, quite the opposite and it’s becoming increasingly clear that, thanks largely to online People2People Power, world governments are unwilling to raise the ire of their populations further by kowtowing so openly to obvious commercial interests.
Stay tuned.
Out-Law.com – IP minister rules out ‘three strikes’ disconnection law, April 28, 2009
Get ‘em while they’re young – Copyright Alliance: mind-raping our children, April 23, 2009
fallen in line – New South Korea ‘3 strikes’ copyright law, April 6, 2009
p2pnet – RIAA supports French 3 strike move, April 9, 2009
another story – Comcast, AT&T say No! to RIAA 3-strikes plan, March 26, 2009
wavering under public pressure – New Zealand: safe from Big Music. Or is it?, March 25, 2009
increasing public pressure – French anti-file sharing law targets children, March 25, 2009
cannot prevent illegal downloading – Brits say No! to ISPs as corporate copyright cops, March 16, 2009
condemned – Europe parliament rejects French 3 strikes law, March 27, 2009
HADOPI – French ‘3 strikes’ anti-P2P law mired, May 10, 2008
La Quadrature du Net, The European Parliament rejects “graduated response”… for the third time, March 26, 2009
CNet News – RIAA gives thumbs up to France’s three-strike law, April 8, 2009
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April 29th, 2009 at 9:37 am
As a UK citizen, there is NO WAY a 3 strikes law will ever be passed in the here. Sure they would like to, and there are industry-bribed cronies that support it, but they simply cannot square it away so that it ‘fits’. It won’t ever fit, so they best look somewhere else for their solution.
And I’m all for teaching people about copyright. The more the merrier. Everyone should know how it’s true meaning has been corrupted, how it has been extended and extended so that the public domain is starved, how it is abused by content owners, how it is used to encroach upon basic rights etc. etc.
On the other hand, if I ever hear that my child has been taught industry propaganda in school then there will be, quite literally, bloody hell to play. And I’ll be shouting loudly at the school gates for ALL to hear.
April 29th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Certainly, copyright could be a subject included in the TEACHER’S cirriculum.
No outside interference of that cirriculum should be accepted.
The teacher alone should be the one gathering any appropriate materials needed, and presenting copyright for what it really is, and isn’t, and should be allowed the freedom to choose how, or even if, any of the MAFIAA’s literature would be presented.
The same way basically everything else is taught in a classroom.
Present the subject… outline the principles… explain the scope… invite discussion… quiz them on the facts.
That’s what TEACHERS are paid to do…
As opposed to some “trade group” representative, who’s paid to spin and distort the facts, and plant the seeds of propaganda everywhere he goes.
April 29th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
UM CORPORATE 3 strikes law,
is that a user NON corporate 3 strikes law?
Let me take you far away , in the light.
Let me take far away, where the good days are under the sun.
Let me take you far away, in flight.
Let me take you far away , where democracy is practiced every day.
Where ever you find the light, WE shall shine forever bright.
———————
The above you can’t destroy with law, you can’t destroy with rules, you can’t legislate freedom , for it only exists inside your heart.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
I think there are some backroom changes going on out of the light of day. I suspect without knowing that the UK wants the three strikes for other reasons, just like they would love to have access to user data gathered by Phorm. I am sure either there is a deal with Phorm to in some way share that data or some other equally dastardly plan given that the UK has become big brother in the worse sense of the word.
Notice that in every country that this is being tried in for the three strikes the respective governments are really catching it from their citizens, who are wholesalely rejecting the proposed law. I also suspect that the ISPs whom collectively are bigger than the copyright interests, along with the other collectives this would harm are probably making it known they too will not support this.
The first run through of the DMCA laws here in the states brought the same ire from the corporate interests that it would have affected and in short and quick order was squelched until modifications were made. Basically the copyright interests were bitchslapped to wake them up that they were not as important to others as they thought they were. The DMCA in place not is one heck of a lot more toned down than it was originally intended. DMCA still has a lot of problems in that it is being used as a club for others that don’t really represent the objectives it was put in place to handle. At some point that too will come to a head.
The entertainment industries that are using it as a club will find in the long run it wasn’t such a good idea as it sounded like at the start.
Until the copyright industries get some sort of clue that they no longer rule the roost as they think they do with their self-important, artificially inflated sense of worth, there is no hope of them coming out of the self-proclaimed doom and gloom. I expect it to get far worse before it gets better. A grass roots call to boycott world wide would be such a wake up call as is needed. I already boycott their products as I don’t agree with their methods. I will continue this for life if need be, without quibble. I buy no music, no movies, don’t do the pay for view, and don’t go to the movies, until they wake up and get real.
Neither I nor you by ourselves will make a dent in this alone. It will take the buying public en mass to make this point and take it home. Once they are facing either bankruptcy or shrinking to the point of irrelevance as an entertainment value, they will get the idea that pissing off your customers was a really bad move.
I do have one request if someone out in the public could help with it. Would some one loan the copyright interests a machine gun? The single shot they are shooting themselves in the foot with, just isn’t fast enough for my tastes.