UK caves to cartel anti-P2P law
p2pnet news view | P2P | Politics:- British politicians have been having a hard time of it. They didn’t know what to do for the best – their best: try to please the people who who put them into office, or the corporate entertainment industry companies which apparently control them.
But now they’ve decided.
Hollywood and the Big 4 record labels rule.
“Britain is trying to finesse stories that it`s all set to make life even harder for people who share music with each other online,” said p2pnet last Tuesday, going on, “A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills tells Billboard.biz that the reports contained `speculation` and that the consultation process on legislation continues”.
The statement followed reports that Lord Mandelson, secretary of state for business, innovation and skills (BIS), wanted legislative measures, “beefed up to include sanctions such as fines and cutting off of Internet access, said Billboard.
But, “People who persist in swapping copyrighted films and music will have their internet connections cut off under tough new laws to be proposed by the government,” says The Guardian.
The measure brings the United Kingdom into line with America where the cartels not only dictate policy when it comes to matters of interest to the corporate entertainment industry, but also have their own legal teams embedded in the Department of Justice.
Following demands from Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music, and Time-Warner, Fox, Disney, Columbia, Paramount, MGM, the new British anti-P2P, anti-file sharing laws, “also include taking the power to target illegal downloaders away from regulator Ofcom and giving it to ministers to speed up the process, says the story, going on »»»
Today the government will take the unusual step of proposing much stricter rules midway through the Digital Britain consultation process. Illegal filesharers will still get warning letters but if they continue to swap copyrighted material they could have their internet connection temporarily severed, although it may be possible to retain basic access to online public services.
A similar law in France under which filesharers could be cut off for up to a year was recently kicked out by the country’s highest court as unconstitutional. In the UK, privacy groups are likely to challenge any similar legislation as contrary to human rights law.
The power to introduce technical measures, meanwhile, will rest with the secretary of state, not Ofcom and their introduction will not rely upon an arbitrary 70% reduction in piracy but be up to the minister’s discretion as he tries to secure the future of the UK’s creative industries.
“The previous proposals, whilst robust, would take an unacceptable amount of time to complete in a situation that calls for urgent action,” according to a draft of the government’s new plan.
The surprise move will intensify speculation that Lord Mandelson reached a secret deal to protect the film and music industries with Hollywood mogul David Geffen earlier this month.
The business secretary met Geffen, founder of Asylum Records and the man who set up DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg, at a private dinner with members of the Rothschild banking dynasty at the family’s holiday villa on Corfu.
Following that meeting with Geffen, a long-term and outspoken opponent of online piracy, Mandelson instructed officials at his Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS), charged with tackling online piracy by June’s report, to clampdown even harder on the pirates.
The music and film industries, “will be particularly annoyed that the government reckons the cost of technical measures should be borne by the ISPs and it wants that enshrined in the autumn’s Digital Economy bill,” says the story, adding:
“The content industry, meanwhile, will continue to pick up the tab for identifying illegal filesharers and preparing enough information for them to be targeted by the ISPs, while the costs of the letter-writing campaign will be split equally.”
UK Pirate Party
In other words, the Hollywood studios and major record companies will be in charge of targeting British families for prosecution, gathering their own ‘evidence’ for eventual use by UK police and law-enforcement officers whose salaries are, of course, met by British taxpayers.
In May, “Nine bodies representing the creative industries – among them the body representing British record labels, the Federation Against Copyright Theft, and trade five unions, including the Musicians’ Union – want the government to force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to warn, throttle the speed of connection and ultimately disconnect persistent illegal file-sharers,” said the BBC.
“They want a commitment to stopping file-sharing and the responsibility for doing so to be placed on the ISPs and for that to be enshrined in legislation.”
And now they have it.
But the question becomes: how long will it take Britons to make it clear not only to Mandelson and other government officials who’ve become confused as to whom they owe allegiance to, but also the 10 corporations which somehow are allowed to dictate to legally elected governments and administrations, that thanks to the net, People2Power has arrived in the 21st Digital century?
In Europe, Swedish Pirate Party sent elected Pirate Party MEP Christian Engström to the European Parliament.
And the party is now officially registered in Britain.
By their actions on behalf of the entertainment industry, Mandelson and his colleagues have given the party a tremendous boost and indeed may as well have become paid-up card-carrying members.
The UKPP has three core policies »»»
- Reform copyright and patent law. We want to legalise non-commercial file sharing and reduce the excessive length of copyright protection, while ensuring that when creative works are sold, it’s the artists who benefit, not monopoly rights holders. We want a patent system that doesn’t stifle innovation or make life saving drugs so expensive that patients die.
- End the excessive surveillance, profiling, tracking and monitoring of innocent people by Government and big businesses.
- Ensure that everyone has real freedom of speech and real freedom to enjoy and participate in our shared culture.
It says »»»is
The Pirate Party UK has been encouraging people to respond to the Government’s consultation on P2P filesharing, which threatens Britain’s 7 million file sharers with a range of draconian penalties.
Today, the Government has moved the goalposts for the consultation. They have finally admitted that, as we suspected, their plans do include cutting off internet access for whole families if one member of that family shares files, in stark contrast to Gordon Brown’s recently stated aim of “universal connectivity to broadband”.
This is a massive announcement that threatens far more people than before, yet it has been hidden away in an update to a consultation document. We are only to be given 5 weeks to respond to this major announcement and defend our right to justice, a fair trial, and to defend the principle that collective punishments are wrong, despite the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills having a commitment to 12 week minimum consultation periods.
The other new announcement is that ISPs will be expected to share the cost of enforcement 50:50 with ‘rights holders’, a move which may well price independent artists and film-makers out of the process, and places an unjustifiable burden on ISPs who are a third party in disputes between file sharers and rights holders.
Yet again the Government have done exactly what the big media cartel have told them. There is still no hint of a real discussion on the rights and wrongs of file sharing, or that the strong arguments in favour of legalistion will be given fair consideration.
The UKPP also has Twitter and Facebook pages, as well as a Pirate Party UK Wiki.
Stay tuned as other countries similarly organise their own Pirate Parties in what will eventually become the world’s first true global democracy with Pirates proudly linking together to help each other and achieve goals of importance to their individual populations, and to the world.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
p2pnet – UK anti-file P2P sharing reports `speculative`, August 18, 2009
Billboard – U.K. Govt Rebuffs File-Sharing Reports, August 17, 2009
The Guardian – Internet cut-off threat for illegal downloaders, August 26, 2009
Department of Justice – Jenner & Block – running the DoJ?, April 26, 2009
BBC – Q&A: Disconnecting file-sharers, May 12, 2009
elected Pirate Party MEP – Swedish Pirates on their way to Brussels, June 7, 2009
proudly linking together - I, Pirate, Part IV ,, April 30, 2009
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August 25th, 2009 at 8:45 am
This is great news!
UK citizens WRITE your OWN material and share it! Seriously, write anything, no matter how lousy, and share it and only share NON-copyrighted material.
You’ll get your ‘Net connection cut off, but then you and your fellow citizens can launch a massive lawsuit against these groups and your own government for laying copyright to material that is not theirs (you know, actual copyright meaning?). Why would this work? Because they CANNOT cut you off for sharing your own material by claiming it is a copyright violation, because that would imply they are the copyright holders.
Which they won’t be because you won’t let them and you can ban together and file suit and win!
Use the law against them!
August 25th, 2009 at 9:41 am
Great news. The more they try to choke the people, the more they’ll find ways to work around the restrictions. And more money will be lost by the industry.
I still buy things I like. But the industries behind the stuff I buy disgust me. I’m thinking about getting in touch with the artists directly and deposit money into their accounts directly for the material.
August 25th, 2009 at 9:56 am
stop calling us pirates! i’m not a pirate. i’m a filesharer. pirates make money. filesharers don’t.
August 25th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Well said catflap,i’ve found myself writing that abit lately too!.We don’t need to be helping them spread their own propaganda!.Make the distinction clear to all.
August 26th, 2009 at 11:49 am
catflap and kiwishare, please read:
I, Pirate and Pirate: the definition and I, Pirate, Part IV …
Cheers!
August 27th, 2009 at 10:33 am
my comment was not directed at jon, but at the lamescreamers who use the word to describe filesharers, as it’s used in the article by the guardian, gov’t and other r-tards.
i know the political pirate parties around the world adopted the term as sort of a tongue-in-cheek response to the r-tards who originally called p2pers pirates. and unfortunately it stuck because the parties have gained notoriety and legitimacy.
i don’t belong to any political party, and i never will, but i support the political pirate parties, and the formation of more in every country.
August 27th, 2009 at 10:37 am
PS: jon and others who know me from here:
you should have understood where i was coming from.