And no, it wasnt a $15,000 fine – it was deportation followed by indentured servitude.
But good point. ACTA is here. ACTA is bad.

No the only people who were pushing for this power to search and seize laptops at all U.S. border crossing and airports was the entertainment industry! And this is just the beginning, this is a precedent but in an age of an economic recession, any business sector hurting enough in sales could pay off politicians so that laws are passed whereby the power of the state becomes the protector of corporate profits! If enough people steal bread than the bakers and bread lobbies could payoff enough politicians so that police can stop people at will (whether walking, driving in a car, riding a bike, etc.) who are carrying bread and/or are eating bread and force people to show proof that they actually bought that bread! Even though there are laws against stealing, the bakers and bread lobbies want even harsher laws on the books to make examples of people who steal bread! Even though a loaf of bread may cost 75 cents to make and the price to customers is $1.85, if some person is caught let’s say driving and a policeman pulls this person over. If this person has 3 loafs of bread and can’t prove he bought the bread (either really did steal the bread or bought it but can’t find the receipt), the state will the power to seize this person’s car because it was carrying stolen goods! Also the bakers and bread makers can sue this person $25,000 per loaf of bread that was stolen and up to $15,000 per bagel!

Now does this bread story make sense? So why should the entertainment industry be allowed to influence (or bribe) politicians in order for the state’s law enforcement system to become an arm of corporate greed, making sure that every person possessing an electronic version of a movie or a song has been bought legally? I’m sorry but this kind of verse Orwellian future where the state becomes a dictatorial entity by default through corporate fascism must be stopped! Corporations by law aren’t a person, as such a corporation can’t vote as a person during an election thus corporations must be not allowed to gain access to politicians for influence peddling–period! Regardless of the country, an average citizen can’t get access to politicians but lobbyists for corporations and those with lots of money not only have no problem gaining access to politicians but politicians pass laws to favour these wealthy people and corporations! Until this systemic system of political corruption is fixed and laws are enacted that make it illegal for corporate influence peddling than not only will things not change but people as a whole will lose all their rights except the right to purchase products and services!

So – the question needs to be asked. What are WE going to do about it?
As our rights, civil liberties and daily activities are eroded by ever growing legislative encumbrances, do the couch potatoes care enough to do anything about it? Yes that’s you and him and her and that other guy peeking over your shoulder.

Have any of you written to your local member or congressman?

Have any of you started a Blog to spread the word?

Have any of you gone up to your next door neighbour and said – “Hey dude – the Government is about to be taken over by the media corporations of America – did you know that?”

Homework assignment.
===============
Everyone print out ten copies of this story and put it into ten home letter boxes at random locations at least a kilometre from your home.
Feel free to put additional copies on school and community notice boards.

And no – posting a comment here is not enough. I doubt politicians read all the comments on this blog.

But maybe, just maybe, if enough copies of this article get deposited in mailboxes across Canada, then just maybe one of them will be read by the mother, father, brother or sister of a Politician who can make a difference.

Don’t think about – hit that print button now.
Ten pages – ten letterboxes.

Won’t happen.
Fear mongering and namecalling are much easier than having to come up with pesky little things
like ‘Facts’ and ‘Truth’.

You sound like one’a them thar uppity book-larnin’ people.

( yes, i’m joking, just in case someones joke detectors are malfuntioning. )

But Canada must be really different, they put online a simple website and then the problem is fixed :p I’m sorry but I’ll need a little more than just a website put online for PR purposes to believe that people’s voice will be taken into consideration.

“This kind of unreasoned editorial serves no one and nothing.”
Since when telling the truth serves no one?

Nice article IMO, and I failed to spot any factual errors. If someone does please do point it out.

It IS always “dangerous” to buck the system.
Dangerous to the SYSTEM ITSELF.

The corporate media oligarchy has nothing to offer:
Not superior technology (as I’ve discussed before).
Not creativity or artistic merit (Milli Vanilli and other manufactured ‘talent’ notwithstanding.)
The rampant — and increasing — cronyism between them and various governments (so-called IP ‘law’) is rapidly discrediting the notion that businessfolk actually want a “free” market — which is a good thing, because they longer we in the West lie to ourselves about our supposed “free market” system, the less we’ll be willing to engage in corporate oversight, or punish corporate malfeasance.)

Personally, I gotta thank the RIAA for waking me the hell up on this score — I mean, if the corporate media oligarchy hadn’t killed the REAL napster, the REAL mp3.com, cozied up to government, and basically declared war on it’s own customer-base, Lawrence Lessig, the various ‘pirate’ parties, and the ‘free culture’ movement itself would probably never have happened.

I mean, if this bullshit keeps up, people might even start asking why the corporation — a mere business model — is considered a “person” under the law. Maybe if they start asking questions like that, we wouldn’t be so surprised by stuff like Enron, or the fact that “Picher Oklahoma” had to be completely abandoned because it’s uninhabitable, due to toxic waste mining companies just didn’t want to bother to dispose of properly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picher,_Oklahoma

(Hint: the mining companies didn’t give a shit about “exteranlities” like poisoning an entire town, so it’s not all that surprising that the corporate media oligarchy wants to destroy the public domain and unleash CopyFascism just to protect their all-precious profits.)

“A few months ago I was watching a movie, “Giordano Bruno”, the story of
a “heretic” condemned by the Vatican and burned at the stake in 1600 for
his beliefs….”

/me gets the lighter fluid. Jon “the heretic” Newton, is a danger!

Kidding Jon, I wouldn’t torch you. Though it seems someone would like to.

You must get the most fascinating fan mail.

Yeah, he’s good for Ad-hominem, but thats about it.
But I wouldn’t take the words of a glorified light man too seriously.
I know no one else here does. He doesn’t have a legitimate horse
in this race. It’s just fun for him to bash people.

Yes, Jon is a danger to society.

We must band together to have him shut up and put away.

Jon, the terrorist.

Think of the kids!

Damn, thanks for that — Saved me the effort of troll-smashing him/her/it.
If they don’t ‘get’ it by now, they won’t, because they don’t WANT to, so don’t waste your time trying to help them learn.

I learned MY lesson the hard way, when “Sam I Am” continued to intentionally ‘misunderstand’ everything I/anybody else said, claim that stuff like the history and original reasoning for PERMITTING copy’right’ in the first place were “beside the point”, and turned every discussion into a personal attack about where I lived, etc.
That’s why I troll-smashed him every time he came around.

But at least he was ballsy enough not to hide behind “reader’s Write” like these shills.

So don’t waste the time, Dredd — just swat them down like the sad little trolls they are, and then leave it alone.
(That’s my new motto, folks — pick your battles.)

But congratulations on the great response, does my heart proud, truly.

You sir are a shill. Nothing more. The Harper gov is doing F all. Industry Canada is a joke with their useless puppet CRTC, useless puppet competition bureau, useless Heritage Canada, and useless consulations.

Open your eyes to te bullshit C-61 they tried to pass off w/o consultations, their open doors to the industry with useless plaigorized and fabricated-PAID-FOR corporate spew put out by the Confernece Board of Canada.

You are a shill working the comment area trying to make harper seem like king. Well harper is king! King of greed for the corporations and the screwing of the people like te US has screwed their own people.

Take yourself, take harper, take his gang of industry thugs and just fuck off with your useless corporate-Harper will save the day bullshit, you shill.

And let the door hit you on the way out.

Harper and his thugs are a joke, a sham, and i forgot to mention OUT next time around.

I am disapointed to learn that the OBama administration carry this kind of shit. So if it is a republican or a democrat governement same shit right?

Well! The US Constitution allows us to dismiss the government if it become abusive.

Clearly this federal government is now repetitively breaking the law, violating the constitution and trampling the supreme law of the land. The illegal spying on US citizens, the jailing of people without trial, the rendition, the assassination, unconstitutional law that they try to enforce such as the DMCA, the infringement and tactic such as coercing people to give up their right to a trial by jury, the corruption and manipulation of justice shery picked up judges and jury members, the routine corruption of representatives senators and government official, finally the corporations who now control the government. What is the difference with communism?

It is now time to rise up, fight for our freedom, clean up the government and destroy the rogues corporations who do not contribute to the common good starting with the music industry/movie RIAA/MPAA members.

We shall close these businesses and declare them illegal association of gangsters.

This will hapen eventually but the longer we wait the more painfull it will be.

@ Readers Write post #3……..

The real danger here is people like you, whom dont wish to inform themselves, but freely accept the BS
that the cartels push. When shown actual facts you pretend that we are wrong, and we should be
ashamed to spout such non-sense.

Well this is how i see it, I would rather be wrong believing the facts than be right believing the BS that you believe.

“Live long and prosper”

First off, Movie revenues are off the charts, while at the same time those same movies are the most downloaded.
No degeneration of revenue here.

Second, Several independent studies have proved that file sharing has no impact on recorded music sales.
AllofMP3 proved that people will pay for music at a reasonable rate and without DRM. Instead of embracing it
it was shut down for showing an embarassing truth.

Third, the RIAA members have plenty of money to throw at extremely expensive lawyers, and giving their own
executive a LOT of cash, while ‘forgetting’ how to contact the artists that they owe money.
If the labels were really losing that much they already would have gone under, since the file sharing
phenomenon has been around well before Napster brought it into the light. Claiming that file is the
sole and most major reason the labels may be losing some steam is at best, intellectually dishonest propaganda,
at worst, an outright lie.

Fourth, taking the software industry as an example, The photo manipulating app PhotoShop has been around almost
as long as 486 computers. It is now and has always been one of the most bootlegged apps in internet history, and yet
it is still around and still being developed. If all that downloading was really that destructive this app wold have
disappeared into the pit of history a long time ago.

“small number of people who do not believe in paying for value received. ”

This is another propaganda statement.
We ALL believe in paying for Value received.
We don’t believe in being given a false perception of that value, only to find that it was not as portrayed,
( the CD or movie is actually crap ), and not being able to get our due return ( money back for a dissatisfied
CUSTOMER ).

There is plenty of evidence that if there is real value, it does get paid for.
that is the truth hidden under the lies the likes of you spout day in and day out, until
the Goebbels principle kicks in and makes the lie seem the truth and the truth seem the lie.

DIAF.

The Harper Government is doing everything it can to develop fair and just copyright regulations, as it is proving with its online Copyright Consultations ( http://copyright.econsultation.ca/ ) which, to remind you, even you have written about.

This kind of unreasoned editorial serves no one and nothing. Instead, it takes attention away from genuine efforts in both America and Canada to bring intellectual property and copyright matters into this century.

Please do yourself and your readers a service by confining yourself to the few subjects and topics which you are qualified address and if you cannot do that, it is time for you to retire and take P2Pnet offline.