back to article Record labels seek DMCA-style UK takedowns

Record label trade association the BPI wants sweeping changes to UK online copyright practice in 11th hour amendments to the Digital Britain bill. The amendments would grant copyright holders injunctions against websites and service providers similar to the US DMCA act - but with no 'safe harbour' provision to verify whether …

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  1. Dick Emery
    FAIL

    Oh I know

    Lets just tear up the book on due process and have accounts suspended on a whim shall we?

    The more the gubberment let pass, the more liberties these jokers will take. Don't think it will end at just this. If they let this bill pass it will only last for a few months before they start bleating again (Because it is bound to fail in stopping filesharing) and even more draconian measures are demanded (Account suspension on first offence etc).

    Function creep at it's finest.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Alert

      Exactly.

      I don't only FULLY agree but add this: Look what happened with the anti-terror laws, where councils snoop on us and our kids using laws originally aimed to tackle terrorists.

  2. Shinobi87
    FAIL

    by that logic

    couldn't i just make a search provider then just put loads of wares on the a server owned by me? surely it would also make wares search websites immune to being taken down as they do not host anything

    1. Thomas 18

      yup

      We calling it caching and its exactly what search providers do. Know that little link you see on search results that makes em load instantly and without any pictures? thats because it comes from googles archive and you can bet your bottom dollar at least some of the cached material is illegal somewhere.

  3. ShaggyDoggy

    Entire Work ?

    "The BPI believes it is analogous to defamation injunctions, where publication and distribution of an entire work can be halted because of an offending passage."

    Wrong - they don't halt publication of the Daily Mail because of one offending passage three days ago, do they

  4. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Thumb Down

    The BPI *tables* amendments

    I though Members of Parliament do that?

    So basically 1 or more of these is *effectively* a BPI sock-puppet.

    Care to name names?

    The DCMA is a byword for flawedlaw making with at least one staffer picking up a nice payday when they ensured that the *publlisher* retains rights to a digital work, *not* the artist.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mandleson to make laws?

    "The BPI amendments would introduce an entirely new Section 97B of the 1988 Copyright Design and Patent Act, ...The Secretary of State would have the ability to review and amend the provision "by allowing the injunctive relief available to the Court to evolve and to keep pace with technology"."

    Secretary of State? Presumably that would come under Secretary of State Mandleson, so BPI is proposing letting Mandleson amend the law as he sees fit... to 'keep up with technology'.

    i.e. they want Parliament taken out of the loop and Lord Mandleson in charge?

    This is Mandleson, some people have "CBE", "OBE" "KBE", or similar after their name. Mandleson has "denied any wrongdoing" after his.

    1. David 105
      Stop

      Letting Mandleson ammend the law as he sees fit

      Of course the BPI want mandlescum to have these powers, do you have any idea how expensive it will be to take ALL 600+ members of parliament out to lunch on they're yachts?

    2. Dibbles
      WTF?

      and in fact...

      ...this would be Mandelson in his dual role as Secretary of State AND best friend to the record labels (as personified by David Geffen and his yacht)...

      1. MinionZero
        Big Brother

        Amend!?! - This is a Dictatorship's blank cheque, so to speak...

        "The Secretary of State would have the ability to review and *amend* the provision "by allowing the injunctive relief available to the Court to *evolve_and_to_keep_pace_with_technology* ""

        Thats so open to abuse and yet another example of how they are bypassing Democracy to allow themselves Dictatorship powers to keep altering the laws, without having to ask anyone once they are granted the power to write the law.

        The last time (I know of) they played a similar chess move, was when they used a so called "statutory instrument" which that time, allowed them to give literally Police State powers to the local councils to force entry into our homes (and freeze our bank accounts) whenever the councils choose and without the police even being told or even present. The police were shocked by that law change, especially as they were not even told, but then no one was told, because it was quietly brought in via "statutory instrument".

        Now they just expect to be granted another blank cheque. This bunch of out of control arrogant tyrants is unbelievable, not least with that infuriating Lord Sith Mandleson at the head of the pack.

        So what now, Full on Internet Big Brother brought in to "keep pace with technology". Still won't stop piracy but then we all know these control freaks really want outright power over the Internet far more than they really care about piracy.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    Same old same old....

    "Any concerns regarding Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to a fair hearing) are dealt with by the fact that the service provider would be a full and active party in the proceedings,"

    A rough translation meaning what big business ALWAYS means - screw your human rights if they interfere with our colossal profits.

    As for lobbying - between media industry salarymen, well-greased politicians and increasingly monopolistic isps - who's lobbying for the man in the street?

  7. Number6

    Costs

    If there's a takedown that is successfully challenged in court, BPI should be liable for all costs in the case, a suitable fee payable to the ISP/webhost for the work in removing the disputed item(s) and then replacing them, plus a per-day charge payable to the person/organisation whose website was targetted. If they do their homework and only go for valid targets they'll never have to pay a penny, but if they adopt the shoot-first-ask-questions-later, it'll cost them.

    Checks and balances.

    1. I didn't do IT.
      Pirate

      Re: Checks and Balances?

      How about "innocent until proven guilty?", or is that truly lost from the mother isle across the pond?

      The whole point of the DCMA was to dump the burden (and COST) of proof onto the ISP or the user who posted any "offending" material. Until then the publisher had to get off their own @ss and actually PROVE your 28K "Family_at_Disneyworld_2008.jpg" is actually some cleverly compressed 780MB copy of "Snow White". Now, they just poke the over paid lawyer to justify its existence by throwing out letters and emails to ISPs after doing the morning Google search for *disney*...

      But again, in order to effectively "challenge" any such takedown (which the statements about Article 6 seem to claim that such court action would be frivolously unnecessary, so just let the nice BPI take care of all that, thank-you-very-much), all costs have to be stumped up by the challenger, usually in advance, and then more continually poured in as the boring legal case progresses. Quick, easy, pro bono civil prosecution against a BPI take down.. kinda like looking for Nessy, eh?

      This is where the big companies "make the magic happen"... by smothering people in paper and outlasting their pocketbooks in court.

      The only checks are the ones the companys expect from us as "summary judgement fines" and the balances are how much we "owe" for the next 20 years...

  8. irish donkey
    Megaphone

    I was waiting on the WMD's Amendment

    Weapons of Mass Deception.

    You see what I done there.... I drew a parallel between the lies told by Alistair Campbell to justify the war in Iraq and the lies told by Lord Mandy to justify the erosion of everyone's right to a fair hearing.

    In a few years we will all be talking about how foolish we were to listen to their lies and end up the mess we are now.

    Will we ever learn. VOTE. Its the only way YOU can make a difference

    1. Simon Westerby 1
      Unhappy

      vote...

      >> Will we ever learn. VOTE. Its the only way YOU can make a difference

      I've leant that that whoever i vote for will still be a muppet ... such is politics...

    2. Peter Gathercole Silver badge
      Alert

      representational politics...

      ...will never provide what everybody wants. You vote for an MP, and when they are elected, there is no way that you can actually make them vote in the House the way that you want, and you have no way of making them do so until the next general election, or you try to get them de-selected. This is not a quick process, and will not work for specific piece of legislation.

      Once elected, the whipping system in the House will make your MP vote with their party, or face censure (at least on important votes). If you feel like it, try talking to your MP at one of their surgeries, and then see whether you can affect how they vote on the issue you talked about.

      The only way to get what you want is to force a referendum on every topic that is made law, but then how would you get the whole population educated to make sensible decisions on, say, tax policy or defense, or some other area where you may have to have necessary but unpopular policies. To gauge whether you want this, try watching the debates in both houses on the Parliament channel to find out whether you really want to be involved in every policy decision.

      I suspect that if there were whole-country votes for everything, the turnout in each referendum would soon become a fraction of one percent of the voting population. People are just not THAT interested in politics. This would then lead to legislation being passed by any group able to motivate enough people to overwhelm the normally apathetic opposition.

      In addition, those people who do not understand democracy, but voted, will still feel aggrieved when they are in the minority.

      What we do need, however, is a strong and independent second house to provide the checks and balances to prevent bad legislation. This government, not liking the old model House of Lords (because it kept giving them bloody noses every time they tried to pass bad laws) tried to reform the Lords, but botched it by not completing the job. This has left the balance of power with the House of Commons, a very undesirable state of affairs. The result? A raft of poorly thought out and often impossible to enforce laws, which could soon be joined by the Digital Britain bill.

      So the answer is not just VOTE. It is a much more complex problem that I do not believe anybody has the answer to.

      Still, I understand the sentiment. What we are enduring at the moment just SUCKS!!! I am beginning to smell the faint whiff of revolution in the air.

      BTW. Did anybody else spot that this is an Andrew Orlowsky article that allows comments?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    They will get it too

    No doubt they will get what they want, given that Comrade Broon's gaggle of halfwits will sign up to anything that puts the owness of any respsonsibility on the shoulders of the great unwashed!

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon
      Troll

      Sir

      owness? wtf is that?

      Oh, onus.

      :P

  10. Stef 2
    Flame

    Allow me

    May I be amongst the first to entreat the BPI to join Mandelsnot in fucking right off?

    1. Winkypop Silver badge
      Megaphone

      Seconded

      What he said...

      1. David 105
        Megaphone

        Thirded

        Maybe WE can start tabling amendments now?

    2. seanj
      Thumb Up

      Thirded...

      What he said, with a hefty dose of "and die!" on the side.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying -

    lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else.

    But I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests."

    1. Gordon is not a Moron
      Thumb Up

      Re :They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying

      The music industry spends billions complaining that they've lost billions, so surely the obvious answer is to outlaw lobbying in this manner. The music industry gets it's billions back and the great unwashed have fewer perverse freedom erodding laws to tend with (or just ignore), it's got win-win written all over it. There is also the added beauty that any politico who opposes it can be painted as a greedy, corrupt puppet of big business....

      ... so no change there then.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    Why not just...

    hand all of the LINX EXCHANGE over to the BPI and watch them demolish the entire site and disconnect the UK from the internet.

    There job done, BPI's utterly flawed failed business model now fixed, all threats to the holly cash cow now removed. and we get all the wanna be song writers and artists back in house now they got no-where to go for selling their (more popular than our pap) media products to the public without our say so.

    Oh.. you wanted to use the interwibble for something else other than ripping us off, tough!

    it breaks some law or other that we haven't strong armed through parliament by handing out generous backhanders to corrupt politicos and mandarins....

  13. Paul 111
    FAIL

    What happens

    when the media companies get all of their wet dreams made into reality and they still can't flog the utter shit they produce?

    1. David 105
      Flame

      @What happens

      At a Hunch it will go something along these lines

      1 - Broadband will be blamed for allowing people to download in massive amounts. Broadband Banned

      2 - Bluetooth will blamed for allowing people to share copywright material between phones. Bluetooth Banned

      3 - Independent record labels will be blamed, as they allow people to buy music not produced by the big 4, therefore a "lost sale" for them. Indie's Banned

      4 - Whatever the newest communication medium is will be blamed. Innovation Banned

      5 - Potential Future technology developments will be blamed as they could potentially allow infringement. Future Banned

      6- Your brain will be blamed, for allowing you to make the decision that you don't WANT to pay over the odds for their shit. Your brain banned.

      7 - We end up as a subsistance farming society, surviving on a diet of gruel and Miley Cyrus records, while the BPI (All Hail) weep tears, for there will be no more rights to supress.

      8 - They still pump out Shit

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Flame

        and...

        P2P blamed for all illegal copying - All P2P banned (as it is alleged to be 95% illegal downloads)

        By the same argument - e-mail SPAM in UK is illegal, and 95% of e-mail is spam - ALL e-mail banned

        Cam-corders blamed for making illegal movie recordings - ALL cam-corders and cameras and phones banned

        copyright backups deemed illegal for ALL copyright media including operating systems - computer backups banned

        all ripping software blamed for loss of revenue - Windows Media Player BANNED (not too bad - this one)

        Computers ability to view unencrypted media blamed for encouraging copying - Computers banned

        Black paper can be used to re-write copyrighted documents - blank paper banned

        Pens and pencils can be used...All writing material BANNED

        Photocopiers used to make copies of DVD sleeves, encouraging sales of illegal material - photocopiers banned, as well as cameras and printers (but with no computers anyway, nobody notices this one)

  14. Adrian Challinor
    FAIL

    WRONG

    "The BPI believes it is analogous to defamation injunctions, where publication and distribution of an entire work can be halted because of an offending passage."

    Great - So they want to base a law on one that everyone agrees is wrong. The defamation laws in the UK are more draconian than any other country. Defamed in Australia? No problem, the publication was on the web, so you can sue anywhere - lets choose Brittain.

    This is just silly and liable to get the whole act thrown out.

    wait a moment....

  15. noboard
    Megaphone

    We need a new party

    One that will use these powers to cripple the MP's that allowed them in and the industry execs that wanted these powers in the first place. If MP's and the entertainment industry b'stards thought for a second that these powers could be used to take away their liberties, they'd never let them in.

    Who's with me?

    1. John G Imrie

      Vote Pirate Party

      They are the only one's who understand the Net.

      If there isn't a local branch then form one.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Me

      What is your party called, where are your members standing?

      How do we raise the deposits?

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I am!

      If you mean _literally_ cripple.

  16. markfiend
    Black Helicopters

    But who do we vote for?

    All major parties (as far as I can see) support this crap. So who do we vote for to oppose it?

    The old saying goes "if voting could truly change anything they'd make it illegal".

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Who is important

    Remember not to buy their records untill the whole business goes tits up. You are important because without your money they are history.

    Having sead that record sales are through the floor so I am preaching to the converted.

    1. David 105

      record sales through the floor

      I'm assuming you mean "through the Roof", as 2009 was a record year for both single sales AND record company profits. Downloading is killing music my A$$!

    2. Oliver 7
      WTF?

      That's what they want everyone to think!

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8444854.stm

      "Statistics released by trade body the BPI showed overall album sales dropped by 3.5% in 2009 to 128.9 million, the fifth year in a row they have fallen.

      But the fall was eased by a 56.1% rise in album downloads to 16.1 million, now accounting for one in eight sold.

      The news comes days after weekly sales of singles - on CD and download - recorded an all-time high."

      So they are selling more than ever before? Am I living in a parallel universe? Please tell me how this squares with an industry being killed by piracy and how it justifies draconian legislation to protect these poor lambs!!!

  18. Ned Fowden

    @Irish Donkey

    VOTE ... yeah like substituting one politician or party for another is going to change anything ... they're all the damn same

    when will people learn that democracy doesn't work, it's worse than communism in that democracy is designed to give the people the view that they are free to choose, when in fact that simply ain't true

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    HATE this government

    I HATE IT HATE IT.

    They're such a bunch of LOSERS. They don't give a rat's about their people. They just do what the copyright lobby wants them, and I bet they pay well.

    That is NOT how things are meant to work. They're raping us and there's NOTHING we can do about it.

    The Digital Economy Bill is a DISASTER. It should be called the Digital Copyright Bill, or perhaps the Big-Content-is-watching-over-you Bill.

    A government that cannot protect our rights has no right to be a government. Lobbying should be illegal, and politicians who have been lobbied should be arrested.

  20. ShaggyDoggy

    Who do they think they are

    Dear BPI

    Strange at may seem to you, I use the web and internet for other things than music downloads, and if you want to make some restrictive reparation on me for some indiscretion as yet uncommitted, I would be obliged if you make that reparation effective only in the area of your own interest, and not in the other 99% of web activity that goes on.

    Thankyou.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Payola?

    The record labels in the US have a long history of bribery even into modern times. Might be worth looking at the industry's relationship to the folks writing the Digital Britain bill.

  22. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart
    FAIL

    Another massive fail

    Ha Ha!, does anyone really think that this about copyright infringement, its about the copyright mafia trying to increase their monopolistic stronghold on the music product, still good to see all those trips by dark lord Mandy to Corfu have paid off for the copyright mafia.

    The European Commission's Digital Competitiveness Report (http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/eeurope/i2010/docs/annual_report/2009/sec_2009_1060_vol_1.pdf) makes for interesting reading, particularly section 5.1

    Basically a lot of people fell that they have paid for their connection, and are entitled to grab whatever they can off the internet and are willing only to pay for those services that provide additional added value over and above that provided by those services they can obtain for free. And let’s face it there are a lot of legitimate free sources of content on the web. There are some figures in the report, which I haven’t analysed to any great extent, but it seems a lot of people are watching web TV and listening to web Radio.

    The report also states that digital download are up by 25% in 2009 v 2008, the corresponding drop in CD sales is about 12% (depending on source), is there something the copyright mafia are not telling us? I have also read that in some European countries there is a 12½% levy on the sales of all blank media to compensate the copyright mafia (including HDDs) for the copyright material that will be placed on such media. When the copyright mafia control the internet will they start lobbying to have this levy removed, they will like fuck! It *would* be very interesting to find out exactly how much the mafia are getting from this little kickback .

    I suspect that this new approach is more about censoring the web rather than about stopping copyright infringement, after lobbying politicians in the US to get the DMCA act passed, they have found out that it is in fact useless in protecting the copyright mafia’s stranglehold on music; so now they are trying something else. Since they can’t control the product (that other people create) they now want to control the distribution medium (that other people create), in the same way a parasite will suck the life blood from its victim. DMCA failed to stop DeCSS being published and the copyright mafiaa spent 5 years chasing Jon Johansen through the Norwegian legal system only to have him acquitted on all counts.

    “The BPI believes it is analogous to defamation injunctions, where publication and distribution of an entire work can be halted because of an offending passage.”

    Interesting approach, so what they are saying is that Sony should have been stopped selling all their products when they started putting BMG rootkits on CD that illegally installed itself on peoples and could be exploited by virus writers. May I be the first to congratulate the BPI on recommending that Sony be shut down; I suppose it will only be a short time before the BPI wants the rest of the monopolists shut down as well.

    This law will do nothing to reduce piracy, but then also I suspect that there are very few torrent sites hosted in the UK anyway, with most P2P sites “abroad” with anonymous registration of the domain name. I predict that this law will be implemented, that more restrictive copyright conditions will be attached to CDs and DVDs (no secondary sales perhaps), the copyright mafia will use it for everything bar the purpose it was intended for, but that seems to be the case with UK laws.

    So this is just another ploy by the copyright mafia to control their monopoly, where the real targets are not the pirates, whom they are not able to stop anyway, but the cut price operations (such as grey-importers) who are showing the copyright mafia that it is possible to reduce price and still make a profit.

    The copyright mafia’s monopolistic business empire has failed, they just don’t realist it yet!

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    what a load of...

    your bin is too long on the footpath, stop taking fotos, you have a beard, you moved snow without a permit, i think your are thinking............. bollox!

  24. Andus McCoatover

    Technology???

    "...to the Court to evolve and to keep pace with technology"

    Oh, really? Then why do courts (OK, I've mainly seen US renderings, particularly SCO judgements) deliver their documents as a dog-eared crooked scanned copy of something that looks like it was written on a childs Petite typewriter?

    "Couldn't find a goose handy to make a decent quill pen, M'lud."

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Another Good Reason

    To never to return to UK PLC. Since leaving for foreign climbs I watched the countr y sink into deprivation... everytime I return I get more depressed. Soon it will be goodbye UK citizenship - hello new life.

    Pity the wife wants to return to live in western Scotland; and some of the rural celtic landscapes are still under English control. It would be sad to see it go - and el reg of course - but for the rest of the muppets who dont vote for radical change... well so long and thanks for all the frozen fish fingers.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      uhuh

      First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;

      Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;

      Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;

      Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out.

    2. Asgard
      Big Brother

      @"who don't vote for radical change"

      So much for learning from history. When will some in the world ever learn. They tried “radical change” in German in the 1930's and look how that turned out. We need to improve things, not make them worse with radical groups being allowed into power. Radical is bad because they are more extreme versions of the moderate parties. History has repeatedly shown, radical parties still abuse power, just they are already more extreme to start with to be radical. Now give them the Police State powers that New Labour have created and its an utter nightmare. They would turn the UK into an outright Police State.

      Its better to have a moderate party in that can be steered by public opinion. Currently we don't have a moderate party in power, because too many people have ignored what New Labour are doing for too long and so that apathy has allowed New Labour to become ever more extreme, resulting in the current nightmare. More people should have been fighting New Labour every step of the way for years to stop them becoming so extreme.

      Many people want to see an end to the New Labour crooks in power, but we cannot replace one group of arrogant extreme politicians with another load of radical extreme politicians.

      By comparison although Conservatives are not perfect they are a lot safer than radical groups. At least the Conservatives can still be partly influenced by public opinion to some degree and will reverse some of the extremes of New Labour. But don't be fooled by the radical parties, they are a nightmare. (Every party is filled with people out for themselves, but the radical parties are even worse than the moderate parties).

      That is why everyone needs to become more involved in politics *after elections*, not just vote and then just let the politicians freely get on with everything they want, without question. That is exactly what has allowed New Labour to spiral out of control to their current shockingly distorted extreme version of their former selves. (Power corrupts etc..). The next party in needs to be watched much more closely, but we will not be able to watch a radical party for long, because they will move against any attempt to force them to be accountable to the people, just as we have now with New Labour, endlessly changing the laws to suit themselves. The radical parties are another level of nightmare beyond even the nightmare of our current New Labour tyrants.

  26. SlabMan

    In the time it takes to whinge here...

    ... you could have signed the petition here - http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/dontdisconnectus/

  27. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    @Sir Runcible Spoon

    Owness = own us = pwned

  28. James Pickett

    Income

    What happened to the revenue from those blank ‘audio’ CD’s that carried a surcharge to compensate for the supposed losses incurred? I think I can guess where it didn’t go...

  29. dave lawless
    Boffin

    if it's illegal .....

    > Clause 17 is an essential component of the Bill since it provides a mechanism to deal with the increasing threat of illegal downloading from non-P2P sources and other future threats.

    If it's already illegal, what do we need more laws for ?

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Quit whining, Freetards

    :: A government that cannot protect our rights has no right to be a government

    Protect whose rights? They're not protecting artists rights against leechers who want to rip them off. Or protecting them from Google and BT, who want to be above the law. So you're talking about your selfish right not to pay for music?

    A DMCA to protect artists digital rights is long overdue. What took so long?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Did you miss the point here, or what...

      A DCMA...long overdue....fair-enough

      But, "I think you allowed an illegal file download" is not valid enough to have somebody cut-off from the Internet, especially when the onus of proof now has to be with the ISP/Website. No trial, no evidence, no due course.

      If you think it is such a good idea then perhaps we should extend it to all laws.

      Me - "Please Mr Officer I think this WUM was drink driving last week"

      Plod - "Very good Sir, we shall ban him from driving immediately, until he proves that he wasn't - have a nice day"

      You - "WTF!"

      Great idea, No? It would surely reduce the number of deaths by drink driving if everybody who is randomly accused of it were banned - must be a good idea.

      You will think differently if you ever find yourself on the receiving end (and I wouldn't wish that on anybody - even you).

      You are either an idiot or a WUM (or both). Or your surname is Mandelson (which does not preclude the other options).

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Big Brother

      ignorant fool

      Piracy?? Did the post you quoted say anything about piracy?

      This is about BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS being trampled into the ground. Companies and governments policing YOUR thoughts for their own interests.

      So don't preach to me about artists, because their right to copy music is nothing compared to the right to get on the internet and voice an opinion without the fear that it will come back to bite you.

      In fact, you just did that, and opted for anonymity. With such laws in place there will be NO privacy or anonymity. If you said something these guys didn't like, they could just track you down and kick your door in.

      1. Paul M.

        Leeching is still leeching

        :: So don't preach to me about artists, because their right to copy music is nothing compared to the right to get on the internet and voice an opinion without the fear that it will come back to bite you ::

        Don't be so pathetic.

        Most people, I think it is two-thirds, don't share music or download music illegally. You are asking for artists to be f*cked over permanently, just because you're a selfish minority. But you know it's illegal. If you've done the crime, you do the time.

        The internet would be a lot better without you whining little Freetard brats, that's for sure.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Boffin

          thick as in THICK

          What is wrong with you? How many times do I need to repeat this is not about piracy?

          This is about surveillance on a massive scale, the possibility of being cut off the internet on mere accusations, the way to turning this country into China.

          If I have to choose between f*cking over artists and f*cking over everyone including the artists, then the second option wins.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    War

    This war on copyright is about as useful as the war on drugs - all just a waste of time and money to keep stupid people happy and divert from real problems, whilst harming those that it's said to be protecting.

    Just scrap copyright for personal use and go after those profiting from other people's work

    So what some people might lose control of their works - if it's worth paying for they can profit in other ways as they'd get more publicity.

  32. Eradicate all BB entrants
    Stop

    As someone who has worked in the industry....

    ...let me make one thing clear

    The BPI, Distributors and labels have never ever had the rights of the artists in mind. They never will......line them all up in front of me and I will happily call them all liars to their faces. Do you know why they want these measures to stop people abusing the artists rights by not paying for the work?

    Because it is their job to abuse the rights of the artists, they have been doing it for over 50 years and they do not want to change. What we should be doing is monitoring all cases of fines for file sharing then asking the organisations to prove the money reclaimed has gone to an artist. I guarantee that not one on this planet will be able to show a direct link between reclaimed money and a payment to an artist.

    For most of us this has never been about getting stuff for free, it has been about stopping private corporations having the right to abuse our human rights.

    We have a government that refuses to take the advice of accredited, respected scientists yet will happily destroy our freedoms after a free lunch on a yacht.

    If the BPI really wants to help artists why dont they create a content delivery system, similar to Steam, that the artists themselves can populate and directly benefit from. They wont......because they have never represented artists.....just the companies that continue to abuse them.

    As for AC@16:54 ... welcome to the Reg Mandy

  33. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Coat

    Do you not realise

    The dark lords word is *already* law.

    You can guess what's in my pocket

  34. The Flying Dutchman
    Pirate

    This is getting so boring...

    ... I've just written a wrapper and be done with it.

    public function bpi( $cake )

    {

    return( have( $cake ) && eat( $cake ) )

    }

    1. Frumious Bandersnatch
      Boffin

      Better written in Perl...

      package BPI::Cake;

      use Quantum::Entanglement;

      sub new { bless { state => entangle( 1=> "have cake", 1=> "eat cake" ) }, shift; }

      sub measure { print shift -> {state}, "\n"; }

      1; # don't lie

      Of course, as much as the BPI would like for this to work, the superposition only works so long as the situation is unobserved. As soon as the value is actually measured, the cake superposition will collapse into having one particular value, as demonstrated by successive runs...

      # Assume module stored in BPI.pm in current directory

      perl -I. -w -e 'use BPI; my $cake=BPI::Cake->new; $cake->measure'

      (Perl, eh? Is there anything it can't do?)

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    @Eradicate

    :: If the BPI really wants to help artists why dont they create a content delivery system, similar to Steam, that the artists themselves can populate and directly benefit from. ::

    Great. But if nobody pays to use the system, they've wasted their time.

    The Comments here show people don't want to pay for music, so why would anyone create a content delivery system just for Freetards?

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