UK considers Pirate Finder General
source: http://blogs.current.com/news/2009/11/19/uk-considers-pirate-finder-general/
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- afitzgerald
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No, it's not what you think: a swash-buckling extra-legal pirate hunter with a musket, a clipper ship and letters of mark stalking the coasts of Somalia. It's about copyright piracy. And it's kind of sinister.
The British Secretary of State is proposing legislation that would give his position the ability to create anti-piracy legislation without Parliamentary debate. The goal is to crack down on copyright infringement in a big way.
Cory Doctorow at Boing-Boing broke the story:
"This is as bad as I've ever seen, folks. It's a declaration of war by the entertainment industry and their captured regulators against the principles of free speech, privacy, freedom of assembly, the presumption of innocence, and competition. This proposal creates the office of Pirate-Finder General, with unlimited power to appoint militias who are above the law, who can pry into every corner of your life, who can disconnect you from your family, job, education and government, who can fine you or put you in jail."
This comes as some see the music industry starting to recover from a hard decade of battling piracy. The Economist wrote last week that though sales across the industry are down a third, the music business is adapting successfully. And moving beyond suing the pants of off random downloaders. Viacom's chief counsel told a group of Yale law students that suing P2P users "felt like terrorism".
Well it certainly seems like the Brits are gearing up for the sort of extralegal powers we're used to over here with our War on Terror. ...But...wait...that's backward...the terrorists are....the lawyers? Ah, somebody'll figure it out.
FROM THE NEWS BLOG: http://blogs.current.com/news/2009/11/19/uk-considers-pirate-finder-general/
SOURCES: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/19/breaking-leaked-uk-g.html
http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14845087
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/11/viacoms-top-lawyer-suing-p2p-use...
The British Secretary of State is proposing legislation that would give his position the ability to create anti-piracy legislation without Parliamentary debate. The goal is to crack down on copyright infringement in a big way.
Cory Doctorow at Boing-Boing broke the story:
"This is as bad as I've ever seen, folks. It's a declaration of war by the entertainment industry and their captured regulators against the principles of free speech, privacy, freedom of assembly, the presumption of innocence, and competition. This proposal creates the office of Pirate-Finder General, with unlimited power to appoint militias who are above the law, who can pry into every corner of your life, who can disconnect you from your family, job, education and government, who can fine you or put you in jail."
This comes as some see the music industry starting to recover from a hard decade of battling piracy. The Economist wrote last week that though sales across the industry are down a third, the music business is adapting successfully. And moving beyond suing the pants of off random downloaders. Viacom's chief counsel told a group of Yale law students that suing P2P users "felt like terrorism".
Well it certainly seems like the Brits are gearing up for the sort of extralegal powers we're used to over here with our War on Terror. ...But...wait...that's backward...the terrorists are....the lawyers? Ah, somebody'll figure it out.
FROM THE NEWS BLOG: http://blogs.current.com/news/2009/11/19/uk-considers-pirate-finder-general/
SOURCES: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/19/breaking-leaked-uk-g.html
http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14845087
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/11/viacoms-top-lawyer-suing-p2p-use...
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- tags:
- Music, UK, United Kingdom, Piracy, 8 more
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bethopea
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why not simply pay the musicians, actors, artists less?
let us pay scientists their hefty salaries and see if we can learn the art of telekinesis. I'd pay any day to learn the 'science' behind that....much more than I would to learn the lyrics of any pop stars CD. - 2 years ago
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bethopea
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remanns
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V for Vendetta TIME.
- 2 years ago
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remanns
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Saladin
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I honestly cannot comprehend how in the hell British citizens can put up with that kind of bullshit.
Have they just decided to abandon civil rights and become a totalitarian country that votes every once in a while?
- 2 years ago
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Saladin
