Wrong way round?

"Mandy also said this morning that consumers needed to be educated about the “value of intellectual property rights” to change public perceptions about downloadable content."

I think he's misunderstood how government should work. Consumers, or voters as I call them, have an opinion, then it's up to the government to follow that opinion as they are supposed to be our representatives. They are not supposed to tell us what to think.

The tail does not wag the dog (or perhaps that should be "the flees do not tell the dog what to do").

Fair enough

Fine. Time to encrypt *everything* that leaves your network then, file sharer or not.

Turn up the settings on your SMTP relays, BitTorrent clients (gee, these are used for *legal things* ya know...) and use HTTPS versions of web sites where available.

What the hell do they expect to happen ?

Consumers needed to be educated...

"Mandy also said this morning that consumers needed to be educated about the “value of intellectual property rights” to change public perceptions about downloadable content."

Do the media companies need to be educated about the “value of intellectual property rights"?

Person A downloads a video or piece of music.

How much has the media company lost?

The full price of the retail item or the average retail price or the most discounted retail price or the rental price?

Would person A ever have bought or rented the item?

heh

Stupid Labour party meet Perfect Dark, Perfect Dark meet stupid labour party. Also say hello to torrentbox.

Still the question is do the copyright police just need to see an IP Address on a tracker list (which is easy to fake) or do they actually need to be able to connect and prove that they can download content from you?

If it's the second option then peerguardian 2 is your friend if it's the first then their evidence is meaningless. ~.~

However I don't pirate games or films or popular music or popular tv programs so it's of little interest to me.

Still perfect dark all the way baby.

Whats in a Name

"speaking at the government’s C&binet conference"

What's a 'binet'? Or a 'C' for that matter?

Where do they get these plonkers?

"He called on new business models that would effectively push down prices, making them more attractive to customers who might otherwise download files for free."

Oh this made me laugh out loud!

The music/movie business doesn't want to know.

That's part of the problem.

Sorry must go, I have a torrent or two on the go....oh damn, what a give-away!

Lame Ducks

They need a slogan. Many tried "If I can come back, we can come back," but that doesn't ring true. How about "No we can't"

Surely this will never become law, it would mean that Lisa could get her education stymied by Bart's wrongdoing. They can't promote internet access as a basic human need on one hand and then threaten to take it away on the other. Meanwhile priates will hijack neighbours' wifi and encrypt everything. Actually, that last bit sounds good.

But surely the same counter argument applies?

Until convicted of a crime, as opposed to suspected any sanctions or punishments can't be legal? Or did Mandy change the law when I wasn't looking?

Eh?

"I think he's misunderstood how government should work. Consumers, or voters as I call them, have an opinion, then it's up to the government to follow that opinion as they are supposed to be our representatives. They are not supposed to tell us what to think."

I think the misunderstanding is yours. What you appear to be advocating is anarchy...something the government isn't there to provide. Just because a large percentage of the population are theiving cretins doesn't mean that the government can just cave into their criminal activity. They have to protect people like games developers, music artists, film studios etc who work hard (and funnily enough deserve to be paid for their work).

How ironic that you should refer to the government as the parasites.

Why three strikes?

How about for the first violation of law they get a $10K penalty per copy like it should be? If there is a second offense then whack the fool with another $10K per and a minimum one year in prison. For a third offense nail the fool for $10K per and send them to prison for ten years. They'll eventually get a clue about law and punishment for their crimes. Three strikes is meant for chronic criminals so start with the basic punishment and scale it up for the criminally challenged.

1 in 20

1 in 20 downloaded lawfully.

2 in 20 would probably only buy it anyway, even if you couldn't get it _unlawfully_.

I wish they would stop going on as if every single downloaded track is an individual lost purchase!

Just words

I think developers working with the interwebs may be one step ahead of you Mandy.

One Little Problem...

Although I see nothing wrong with tossing self-indulgent thieves off the Internet, there's this thing about 'proof'...oh, and 'due process'.

Utterly irrelevant

In the time it takes the Bill to be approved by Parliament, become enacted, jump whatever hurdles arise in the meantime, acquire a stupid namer and logo, work out how it's actually going to work, hammer out the finer details, argue with the ISPs a bit, then actually start working, Mandy and his mob will be out of power, courtesy of the electorate.

Now, does anyone know what the Tories have to say about filesharing?

Single biggest threat...

The single biggest issue in any such proposals are the requirement that private companies will be policing our internet connections at the behest of other private companies and punishing individuals based on their own evidence with no involvement of the police or the British Judicial System.

The example quoted by the chief executive of EMI Music is a million miles away from what is being proposed here. An ISP is not the equivalent of the police and should not have the same powers to infringe on an individuals civil liberties. Especially when it is at the behest of a private company!

Making or allowing ISPs to police their customers internet connections will lead to more than just allegations of copyright distribution. Remember that, because if Mandelson gets his way, you may very well get a letter from your ISP saying someone using your IP address downloaded child porn. You'd then go straight to jail. You wouldn't pass go and certainly wouldn't see the inside of a police interview room or a court of law.

Forget about illegal distribution of copyright material, consider the wider rammifications. Mandelson must be stopped.

Innocent until proven guilty by the police or a court of law!

Two letters. Sounds simple enough.

Let us imagine this

Person A uses ISP1. Person A downloads "stuff" and gets a letter.

Person A switches to ISP2. Person A downloads "stuff" and gets another letter.

Is this the second letter for Person A?

Or this

Person A uses ISP1. Person A downloads "stuff" and gets two letters.

Person A switches to ISP2.

Would ISP1 have to tell ISP2 that Person A had been sent two letters?

Or this

Person A uses ISP1. Person A downloads "stuff" and gets two letters.

Person A switches to ISP2. A month passes.

Person A switches to ISP1. Do the "two letters" still apply? What about after six months, or a year or two years...

Er....what?

Yet again we get to see how completely computer illiterate our politicians and lawmakers are. File sharing and downloading aren't the same thing. As far as I'm aware, they'd have trouble taking action against someone who's simply downloading something SOMEONE ELSE made available. You're only doing something wrong when you're the uploader - not the other way around. Sheesh.

Voters? What are they.

@Matt 21, just remember no-one voted for him. He was appointed.

Where there's a will..

Very curious how they are going to spy on what people do without infringing human rights/ court orders.

Or am I missing something?

How are they going to force ISP's to be "honest" in the ban's cut-offs (could we see everyone changing to certain isp's that aren't as strict?

How are people going to be cut-off i.e. mac, IP, physical address, linked to person. Can I just move house, swop the router/nic, change the broadband to the wife's name?

I really don't think anyone has anything to worry about. This is just the government spending our tax money on another pointless exercise, wy not waste it on a new IT system for the NHS. Could intergrate the whole country...oh wait....

oh well

Looks like people will have to go back to the good old days of funding organised crime by buying their Pirate DVDs and CDs down the local market..

Innocence

This will only get a) thick people b) the technically challenged, everyone else will carry as normal using the myriad of encryption or non p2p sources.

They should be allowed to fine people up to the RRP of whatever they get caught with, along with a fixed admin fee of say £50, and a ban for repeat offenders. Proof should consist of forensic examination of the offenders pc, or an admission of guilt Ip addresses don't count, and if they can't prove who did it, then no-one gets convicted. At least if they did that then they would only get the really stupid.

change in business model

i think it's time studios realize that's it's 2009 and it's time to change the model they've used for few decades. who is it they're protecting? artists or their own revenues?

@heh

"Still the question is do the copyright police just need to see an IP Address on a tracker list (which is easy to fake) or do they actually need to be able to connect and prove that they can download content from you?"

Most items I try and download are not complete, so are just a random collection of useless data. Also often the file isn't what it says it is. Either way, just because there is a list showing a filename and your IP address, can't actually show that you have downloaded the file.

Three Strikes - not a bad idea actually

Could somebody please remind me how many times the right dishonorable gentleman has been booted from office in disgrace?

We've tried holy water and a stake through the heart, I think decapitation is next on the list.

Just remember kids -

Home Fucking is killing Prostitution

Abandoned material

So does this mean that it will be relatively safe to download material for whom there is no identifiable owner still in existence (OK, I know that copyright is always 'owned' by somebody, even if companies go bust and people die)

If the copyright rests with a little old widow who has forgotten that her husband once owned media company XYZ Ltd, I'm sure she, as the copyright owner, will not be interested in identifying the infringer, or spending her remaining nestegg sending 'Cease and Decist' letters.

Of course, this may mean the rise of MPIA-UK or RIA-UK industry bodies (or does FACT do this).

Pity Mandy didn't get the 3-strikes treatment...

What the hell has happened to this country when an amoral political predator like Mandelson - who most of us think should be in gaol, not the House of Lords - gets to lecture the rest of us on what's moral and acceptable???

More than any other factor in the current political scene, I think Mandy's undemocratic and inexplicable re-return to power shows how far this country is sinking into banana-republic status.

What exactly does this man 'have' on our political leaders?