Users should PAY for their piracy says Turnbull Australia's government is applying its customary confusion to the copyright debate, with the two ministers most associated with the issue giving divergent messages on how best to solve the country's supposedly-chronic piracy. Late last week, communications minister Malcolm Turnbull – one of the two signatories to the leaked- …
". . . the government is determined to step into the policy gap left by the iiNet case, and if need be, we will legislate."
Two problems immediately jump to mind. First, the government is "determined", which is to say that they don't actually care what their citizens want - they have made up their mind and if ISPs don't tow the line voluntarily, the government will force them.
Second is that the government assumes there is a "policy gap". They have already decided that the system needs fixing and they are dirtying up their boots to come tramping in.
The only question, really, is which came first: the determination for a "solution" or the identification of the "problem"? Both are equally flawed so it doesn't really matter but, for what it's worth, I suspect the solution came first.
"unwitting facilitators of infringement " - this sort of logic would make Australia Post complicit in kidnapping because the kidnappers sent their demand by mail.
Indeed, but they should also drag the power companies in for infringers who are not running off-the-grid, after all, computers do not run without electricity.
Also the company that maintains the infrastructure between their ISP and the house, after all, if that didn't exist the person couldn't possibly have infringed…
In fact, let's have the copyright holders sue the ACMA since they manage the licensing of said infrastructure.
It'll look like the US legal system in no time!
"Australia's government is applying its customary confusion to the copyright debate"
There are times when I love our government for shit like this. As long as they are all running around like chooks with their heads cut off, none of this shit is going anywhere. It's only when they're all in agreement on things that we should start worrying!
It's not just Big Media here. The TPP, from what little we've been able to look at, is a Robber Baron's Charter, designed to allow US companies to shit on any Pacific nation government whose internal regulations make it hard for them to peddle their crap in that nation, and intended to give US corporations the godlike powers over dirty foreigners that they've always lusted after.
And our government can't wait to implement it! And with the current opposition from other parties (Japan not wanting shitty, hormone laced US beef force fed to its citizens, several 'partner' nations beginning to question why the 'Partnership' seems to involve being handcuffed to a table with their trousers round their ankles), that nice Mr Abbot wants to assure our merkin friends that Australia, at least, is ready, nay eager to comply. And the 'determination' of the givernment has more to do with getting the thing in place before the Australian people discover exactly what they've signed us up for.
And we've even brought our own handcuffs.
The first problem is rights holders have to be able to prove someone stole their content and an IP address doesn't prove it as shown where they sued an elderly couple that didn't even know what a torrent was but found their wireless connection was open.
The second problem is that they can't sue everybody because there is millions of people doing it. They might be able to set a few examples but you still have a bigger chance of winning lotto than getting sued.
What they need to do is make content easily available. Get rid of geoblocking and regional deals. Draconian laws and Gestapo squads don't help anybody.
I don't think you're given Turnbull enough credit here, although I may be giving him too much. He's saying you have to be prepared to sue these people because if you don't then you obviously don't care that much about protecting your content i.e. if you cannot be bothered with enforcement then don't expect us to do it for you. He also pretty much said as much. He also stated that if they want to be taken seriously then the content needs to be made available affordably etc so as to remove the incentives to pirate. Seriously, from what he's stated he's on the ball with this one and actually gets it. He knows suing your customer base doesn't work which is why he suggest both it and the making it available line. He's openly stating the two avenues they can pursue - litigate or yield to the inevitable. You want piracy to decrease then either slap down potential customers or give them want they want. He cites the example of the music industry that went all out on the litigation front before realising that it didn't work. These are not the words of a man who doesn't get it. At some point he may well be brought to heel by the leadership as uncle Rupert will be getting very traumatised by these statements and that will look like an about-face although I hope he stands his ground.
Brandis is the one that needs a good shoeing. That a*sehole thinks everything can be fixed by a new law and the removal of rights and freedoms - a real sh*tbag make no mistake.
Example 1
I own copyright on a photo I took and I published in an article in a UK magazine. Another person stole a copy and later included it in a book with the caption "one of the authors jobs". He was not even in the country with the photo was taken (I stupidly employed him several months later). Because he lives in another country the cost of suing for copyright breach is estimated as not less than four times the maximum possible payout.
Example 2
My wife's parents were prolific authors and some 90 of their works are advertised on the website of a major Australian bookstore owned by Americans and Poms (NOT Amazon).
Only one of those books advertised is NOT pirated. On one they are selling the copyright is credited to an American company on just about eery page even though the authors name is in big letters on the cover, title page and the advertisements.
Again HONEST lawyers say that suing is a waste of time because the cost will again far exceed the likely payout.
In the USA all that is needed is a takedown notice which costs nothing to at least remove the web sales if not the store sales.
Turnbull thinks copyright holders should commit economic suicide just so his lawyer mates can make another bucket of money.
brandis wants the isps to be the copyright police to help content owners
turnbull wants the content owners to sue mum n dad downloaders to help themselves
both want people to stop pirating - the above helps them do that.
only one of them acknowledged content in australia is over priced.
The very same Australian Government stopped a ship in international waters, took the people off it and kept them hostage for a month. Men, women and children. Check it out if you think this is too extreme to be true.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-16/lawyers-for-asylum-seekers-say-tamils-held-behind-closed-doors/5603140
Now tell me who are the pirates?
Arrrrr!
LPL may describe them however their abbreviation is short for the Asinine Liberal Party.
If you pronounce ALP it sums up what the electorate need when either is in power - (H)ALP
Unfortunately the Green(about the gill)s, the PUPpys and other options stink just as bad.
I wish Aus had India's law that requires ballot papers to have "None of the Above" as an option so I could show my disgust better than just putting the siamese twins last.
Piracy is not a legal nor a technical problem for ISPs to fix. It’s a marketing and service delivery problem for content providers to fix.
iTunes showed the world there’s big money to be made in selling people exactly what they want with no nonsense. The equivalent services on offer for movies and TV shows are poor, and cable TV is just plain pathetic.
In a world of high speed internet and media enabled devices, it should be trivial to sell TV shows and moves episodes or season at a time for a reasonable price, that can be played on any device without special software or hardware vendor lock-in, and do so free from advertising.
The video game industry has seen this boom already. There are dozens of online services available now to purchase and play games with few restrictions and for reasonable prices. Why have the media industries (with the exception of Apple iTunes) not figured this out yet? Instead they’re wasting their time on stupid “three strikes” laws, when they should be working out how to beat their competition into delivering a profitable service that keeps paying customers happy.
I see one little problem with that [no sarc.] that bothers me personally, and it's called infinite greed of people running such services. Like, once you're subscribed to an "Internet TV" service you expect to watch the films and series in peace, without any interruptions, and then all of a sudden they start flogging advertisements down your throat... :-/ because 10 quid per month is not enough to satisfy their appetites. So I would only subscribe to the services that will guarantee me that they won't make me watch ANY advertisements and let me enjoy the content in the same way as if I downloaded it from a Torrent website.
Actually, speaking of infinite greed it is a huge worldwide problem, mostly developed countries problem, though, because you can't call people who have nothing to eat greedy because they want a bigger wage, from 1$ to 2$ per week... if you get my drift.
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