File sharers should be charged for appeals
p2pnet view Freedom | P2P:- This morning, at 3:00 am, I was sitting at my computer wondering why the hell I do this. It isn’t because of the money. There isn’t any. It isn’t because of the glamour. There isn’t any.
Then I realised why. It’s because I’m angry. Really angry.
And I want you to be angry too.
What got me going yesterday was the TalkTalk bullshit.
The company is pretending to stand up for the rights of its customers and the Telegraph, normally one of the better UK news sources, wrote it up as though it was a genuine breakthrough, instead of a blatant PR move designed to portray TalkTalk owner Carphone Warehouse as a good guy in a sea of bad guys.
What’s got me going today is another Telegraph report, only this time focusing on a new move by his lordship, and corporate entertainment industry shill, Peter ‘Mandy’ Mandelson (right).
He’s another of the corrupt, self-serving politicians looking after the interests of Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music and Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom, NBC Universal and Sony Pictures at the expense of the public whose taxes pay his salary.
The story says >>>
In an amendment to the Digital Economy Bill, the Government has made it possible for those accused of illegal filesharing to be asked for a contribution towards the cost of the appeals process.
Amendment 200A was tabled by Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary on January 13 in an effort to clarify the wording of the Bill around how the costs of targeting web pirates will be apportioned between the suspected offenders, Internet Service Providers and the rights holders – such as record companies.
Yes, you read it correctly.
Mandelson isn’t only promoting a hard-core entertainment cartel bidniz plan which’d hang British file sharers out to dry, if they appeal, he wants them to pay for it as well.
“People wrongly accused of illegal downloading would be able to appeal the disconnection before it happened and could be charged by Ofcom, the media regulator, to cover the administrative costs of the appeals process run by the Tribunals Service”, says the Telegraph, noting the service is “unable to say how much this type of case would cost as it was subject to consultation”.
Another corporate shill
CMU was created in 1998 by Chris Cooke, the late Alastair Walker and Fraser Thomson to create “something which brought together everyone working in music and the music media, utilising the college network to reach the grass roots,” it says.
“Crucially,” the bill is being “heard first in the Lords, meaning it will move to the House Of Commons with an election very close,” says the CMU blog, pointing out:
“That means it will be discussed at a time when those pesky MPs are more sensitive than ever to emotive predictions (by those who oppose the legislation and its anti-piracy three-strike provisions) of innocent families losing their internet connections thanks to a heavy handed record industry. And while the Tories are seemingly generally in favour of the DEB’s copyright-based proposals, they have issues with other parts of what is a rather eclectic bit of legalisation.”
So, “Basically it is not assured that this Bill will glide through the Commons on the nod”, says the post.
But one of Mandy’s keenest supporters, Geoff Taylor, speaking at MIDEM, doesn’t agree. In fact, he reckons the bill is a done deal. But what else would he say?
Taylor is another corporate shill. He’s the mouthperson for Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s BPI (British Phornographic Industry) and they’ve bet the house on Three Strikes being rammed through not only in Britain but elswhere and, ultimately, in the US.
“As Taylor was talking up the bill in Cannes, one of its most vocal and well-funded opponents, the boss of internet service provider TalkTalk, was in Westminster trying to persuade political types to oppose the legislation,” it says, goiing on >>>
As previously reported, TalkTalk’s Charlie Dunstone hates the idea of having to tackle copyright infringers on the record industry’s behalf, mainly because of the costs involved in operating three-strikes and the PR challenge of suspending the services of paying customers.
Yesterday in a TalkTalk-sponsored event in Westminster, Dunstone insisted to the MPs and Lords who had swung by for coffee that his anti-three-strikes campaign was about protecting consumer rights and not protecting his company’s profits. Unfortunately for him one of the key lobbying groups he brought with him – and probably the most high profile campaigners for consumer rights in the UK, the Which magazine people – don’t especially agree with Charlie boy’s position.
As previously reported, Dunstone argues that if the record companies reckon one of his customers is illegally file-sharing then they should sue that customer directly through the courts – ie launch lawsuits like the 139 pursued by the BPI between 2003 and 2006, and the 30,000 plus lawsuits pursued by the Recording Industry Association Of America during the last decade. But such lawsuits don’t work for all sorts of reasons. Plus the record industry would argue that a system that begins with a stern but informative warning letter sent to a file-sharer via his or her ISP is more consumer friendly that a system that begins with punters on the street being served legal papers by a record company.
Meanwhile, “Creators will continue to create,” says Bill Glahn.
“Fans will continue to support them” and even if the bill somehow scrapes through, “Three-strikes will fail when the results become apparent to those even outside of the artist and fan contingencies. The only question is how much damage will be done to both emerging artists and their fans before that failure is complete.”
Stay tuned.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
TalkTalk bullshit – TalkTalk: fighting the Three Strikes bill, January 29, 2010
Telegraph – Alleged internet pirates could face appeal fee, January 29, 2010
says Bill Glahn – RIAA: Artist friend or artist foe?, January 28, 2010
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January 30th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
It’s been the theme all through out the labels campaign that someone…anyone…should pay for their problems; anyone but themselves.
I have hopes that as this continues, the music industry gets bit right where it needs to be; on the butt.
People are changing what they consider to be their entertainment favorites. I personally have been very turned off by the major labels lack of interest in giving up even a smidgen of control on their product. Every major p2p would have been happy to give their left nut to have gotten a license to be legal. The main reason they weren’t is that the labels would not talk in good faith, without holding the bargaining at holding the first born as hostage.
In the end when all the dust settles, this is one of the major reasons the industry is bitching about income. They can increase those incomes at any time by releasing the death grip on licensing terms. Something they will go down the drain clinging to.
You never hear that said in all the moaning and groaning about the way things are. No consideration into we can survive simply by licensing more places. Nope, it’s all the pirates fault. The industry has no other problem, no other issue.
I for one am fed up enough with it all that I really don’t care if they survive. In fact, I’m hoping they will go to the brink or over the edge into bankruptcy. Maybe then a change in the way things are done will become the latest greatest new idea. Until then, I am quite happy not to purchase one single song nor movie from any of them.
January 30th, 2010 at 5:17 pm
We should keep an internet list of all these corporate shills within the government and political parties as well as a list of all the major players playing a role in these misbehaving corporation.
People shall be able to consult this list on line and do whatever they think is proper with it.
January 30th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Fully anonymous p2p is being developed and gets better everyday. They won’t have anyone to sue then.
The only thing the corporate content industry is doing is GUARANTEEING that some people will never buy their music again, FOR LIFE. I used to buy a dozen or so CDs a year, until I realized the tyranny I was contributing to. Now I buy NOTHING, no CDs, no iTunes, no DVDs. They will NEVER get one red cent from me. I am awake. I will however download everything I want, and they’re not going to do a damn thing about it. They will never win the technology war.
We win. They lose.
January 30th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
The business plan of the music industry is to Die stupidly filling up their pocket with worthless copyrighted stuff.
I like this business plan since it riding us of some corporate parasites.
There is more to get ride off though and for these we will have to work on it ourselves.
January 30th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
I don’t know about Canada but the US constitution specifically say that citizen should have unrestricted access to the court.
Charging the citizen a fee for a right to appeal would constitute a restriction and therefore would be unconstitutional.
January 30th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
This is nothing less than a way for the copyright industry to circumvent the established judiciary and the protections it affords ordinary citizens. The MAFIAA knows its lawsuit terror campaigns would be doomed to failure here in the uk courts, and so they bribe government officials (mandelson) instead to do their dirty work. Guilty until proven innocent is the new motto.
January 30th, 2010 at 9:42 pm
We are not defeated legally or in spirit, we can read and complain amongst ourselves or we can take action.
Many of you like myself have turned our backs on the rip-off extortionist media groups who target the old, the sick and others who either dont know their rights under the law or cannot afford financially to enforce them against corporate economic terrorism, there will be no justice if shills like Mandelson and tax avoiding peacocks like Bozo (with an N) and others have their way, however, moaning here is not the way ahead in my view, we need to ram home the anti democratic nature of these cartel schemes, and target in public those who take the cartels jaded “shilling”, if they make false claims regarding filesharing they need to face a barrage of written complaints, questions and demands for clarification aimed at both themselves and any organisation they have dealings with that can be used to lay the ground for a civil legal action if things need to go that far and at the least expose such “secret handout recipients” to public scrutiny (and I hope ridicule), or we can simply mull around like sheep waiting for the slaughter to begin, I believe the time to make a choice is now and we have to be vocal to be noticed.
January 30th, 2010 at 9:43 pm
Don’t the Government and the music industry realise that laws like these will just encourage more people to sign up to Anonymous VPN connections, and once people get used to using them, they’ll have lost the war forever? And let’s not forget, the money I’m spending on a VPN is yet another part of my disposable income that I’m not going to be spending on music.
Yes, with a lot of work, they can decrypt the VPN traffic but as it utilises the same encryption method as sending credit card information over the net, decrypting that information would put all online business transactions in jeopardy.
January 30th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
What a absolute disgrace!
I say lock the bastard up for life!
If online instantaneous voting ever became a reality – I’d be clicking the “Nuke Mandelson” button for sure!
February 1st, 2010 at 11:49 am
” Don’t the Government and the music industry realise that laws like these will just encourage more people to sign up to Anonymous VPN connections, and once people get used to using them, they’ll have lost the war forever? ”
Never doubt the imagination of the Media Corps. Once the above happens, a law will be purchased that will force VPN providers and
anonymous proxies to keep records that can be used if a ‘crime’ has been comitted, or the provider will be fined out of business.
I predict they will find a way to affect those types of services in the very near future.
Perhaps by forcing the ISP’s into writing a clause into their TOS forbidding subscribers from using such services ?
February 1st, 2010 at 2:39 pm
“a law will be purchased that will force VPN providers and anonymous proxies to keep records that can be used if a ‘crime’ has been comitted, or the provider will be fined out of business.”
It is not easy to force VPN providers to release logs. They could always say that due to a technical glitch the log has been lost. Good luck to prove that this is not the case! Beside servers and VPN providers can always been setup in places out of reach of any given government as demonstrated by the Pirate Bay who is still standing in despite of the Swedish government and its judges who lost their credibility in the process.
Moreover it will take forever and it will cost these corporate parasites a fortune. I don’t believe these corporate criminals still have that kind of range.
They are dying you know. By the time VPN is wide spread and they start thinking about it they will be dead for sure and replaced by more adaptive species more customers friendly.
Any way there is even more alternative to VPN to spread information and stay anonymous that can be deploy some of them not even using internet.
To get their way they would have to not only get ride of internet but also get ride of computers.
February 1st, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Whilst they can try to purchase laws all they wish a final nail in the cartels coffin will be the human rights legislation that will be unleashed against it across europe, if they want a war it will come and they will be the losers.