Canadian MP: Three Strikes Law is Idiotic
Written by Ben Jones on July 06, 2008When It comes to politicians taking a stand against ‘anti-piracy bills’, such as the three-strikes legislation that’s being backdoored in Europe at the moment, the mind generally goes Swedish, to Rick Falkvinge for example. The mind doesn’t tend to think of North American politicians, but there is an exception, in Canada’s Charlie Angus.
This Monday, European Parliament will vote on a new telecoms bill that would make it possible to disconnect people from the Internet, if they receive more than two copyright infringement warnings. The new law goes directly against a decision from the European Parliament earlier this year, when they said that such legislation would be: “conflicting with civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness.”
Luckily, there are still some politicians who know what’s right and what’s not. Charles Angus, a Canadian MP, is not a fan of the ‘3 strikes and you’re out’ proposals, which have also been discussed in Canada. Indeed, it seems that nobody, except the lobby groups pushing it, are for it. Cory Doctrow, in a piece for the Guardian the other day, proposed a similar 3-strikes measure for the anti-piracy officials. Send 3 false accusations and you’re off the net. Angus is similarly opposed in a recent interview:
Well, i think the outset the three strike law as admissible is idiotic. It’s idiotic because as we see with the DMCA those that get accused of infringements lack the legal power that the corporations that are threatening them have. So it’s always going to be a completely one-sided argument and if ISP’s are legally bound to cut you off after three claims of infringement, I think there are certainly problems.
Charles Angus, MP, is not your typical politician. Unlike most, he’s not a lawyer, and having worked first hand with those who have been forgotten by those in government , the homeless , has a good appreciation for cause and effect. Also, through clashes with his church over gay marriage in the past, he has also proven himself a man of morals, not easily swayed by peer pressure or lobbying.
It is welcome then, to hear that he is also in strong opposition to Canada’s bill C61, dubbed “the Canadian DMCA”. Back in early May, in a statement from his office he warned of lobby actions:
The DMCA lobby will be working closely with the government to create a false impression that there’s an international crisis of confidence in Canada’s copyright regime. They will attempt to portray copyright as a black and white battle against pirates, thieves and criminals. In doing so, they will tar the efforts of educators, consumer groups and artist’s organization who recognize that the DMCA is the wrong model for Canada.
DMCA advocates have attempted to portray Canada as a pirate haven for failing to ratify the WIPO agreement. Angus points out that many of Canada’s competitors are in exactly the same position, and that Canada could easily ratify WIPO without agreeing to the onerous restrictions included in the DMCA legislation. He says politicians need to wake up to the problems with the DMCA.
The DMCA is a failed model. It doesn’t work in the United States and it won’t address the needs of a 21st century innovation agenda in Canada. However, U.S. trade lobbyists are intent on bringing Canada to heel. They will try to choreograph a sense of fear that Canada is somehow failing internationally if we don’t go the DMCA route.
Many didn’t heed that warning, however, and bill C-61 was the result, introduced last month. Like a lot of consumers (including some 85,000 - up from 40,000 last month - on Michael Geist’s facebook group) Angus isn’t happy about the bill, as he states:
Bill 61 is a piece of legislation that is taking us down the wrong road. We really need to update our copyright legislation for the 21st century. It’s Something that has been dragging on much too long. But bill c-61 is premised on a number of very faulty assumptions. It’s also predicated on, well it’s been based on a complete lack of consultation with the key people who need to be at the table to make good copyright legislation.
When it comes to copyright, he is the one that had the advantage over politicians. A former musician, he also earns money from book sales as well as music. His views seem to be quite different from another artist, Indiana Gregg, the difference is, he has studied the facts, she hasn’t.
It is the punishments that come up for greatest scorn however, and he is firmly on the side of ‘proving your case’ something the industry hates to do, for studies, and now lawsuits.
If you look at how the lawsuits happen in the U.S, you will get a bill for 15-20,000 and be told to pay it. If you try to challenge it, they will bring a massive legal team against you, and we saw the woman in the U.S who basically lost her house and savings for the fact she uploaded 12-24 songs. Thats completely irrational. If there are damages, if someone has massivly infringed copyright, there has to be a limit. There has to be clear limits, and it has to be proven what those damages are.
For the full low-down on his thoughts, check out the full interview. For more information about the European “three strikes” legislation, visit the Open Rights Group.
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54 Responses
What the … two warnings and then you’re out? No police investigation and judge verdict? That oughta suck :S
why cant more people be like this? Reasoning is being buried by lobbyism, which is damned scary.
Being fair and just in law making should take top priority, not who will benefit and how can i benefit from them benefiting while screwing the public out of the money they need to live.
Fucking lobbyists, and big corps… burn them to the ground
Canada has some really smart people like this guy and Michael Geist (a feking hero if you ask me), but then again its right next to the MAFIAA’s base country and has an asshole like Jim Prentice in power…
Best of luck people in Canada…, you’re gonna need it, eh!
Cheers!
ezee.se
One unfortuante fact is that our views are not repesented on the site SpeakOut.com. Simply put, they represent two sides: the side that advocates stronger copyright laws, and the side that advocates keeping the copyright laws as they are. Nowhere do I see anything that represents the side that advocates the decriminalization of file-sharing. This is clearly a problem. We can start by talking to them through their forums, and collectively e-mailing them, and also sending mail to them:
E-mail address: chrisv@speakoutfoundation.com
Mailing address:
The SpeakOut Foundation
20720 Beallsville Road
Dickerson, MD 20842
Proposals for action:
These proposals for action are at my blog so that people can comment on them more easily:
http://izumi-sensei.blogspot.com/2008/07/proposals-for-action.html
File-sharing is simply not something for which people should be punished. When you have bought your CD, it should be YOURS, and you should be able to do whatever you want with it. Copyright is an infringement of basic property rights - it puts restrictions on what you can do with YOUR property. Non-profit file-sharing should simply be allowed, and commercial file-sharing should be allowed 15 years after the publication of the original work.
The following are two proposals for action:
1. Civil disobedience. We need to do this in public: hand out CDs for free in public. If the police reacts, and arrests people, then public sympathy would more likely be on our side.
2. Protests, campaigning, letter-writing. I do not mean the U.S. Congress or any other part of government. I mean the multitudes of institutions or people who simply think that file-sharing is somehow is a problem, and do not even consider the people who oppose copyright law. We need to persuade the small people first before we tackle the big institutions.
We need to start a social and political movement for the change in copyright law.
We can start here:
http://www.28chan.org/pledge.php
with a simple pledge to form an e-mail group.
People, I have made a simple forum for discussion about copyright reform. Use it if you wish to.
http://www.28chan.org/forum/index.php
I think that it is very important to start a non-profit organization in the United States for the purpose of advocating copyright reform, but I am not a lawyer. If some lawyer is here, I would like to contact you, and my e-mail address is at aworldwithoutsnowflakes1@gmail.com
I have to wonder if ‘they’ look at the broad view of where they want the internet to be in the future.
First of all I would assume that sending digital content to your consumers would be the best possible way of delivery as there is no real ‘middle-man’ due to content going from the provider directly to the consumer. This cuts down on the amount of distribution as well as the amount of physical media that needs to be created. More money gained per unit sold and all that needs added is bandwidth as a service takes off. Every consumer that is disconnected from the internet is another potential customer lost. As a side note beyond the ‘potential’ I would also mention that those that are likely to run afoul of the copyright infringement problems are also those that are more likely to be savvy with computers and are highly likely to shop online as opposed to a store. Given the idea of a black list for people who are no longer to be offered an internet connection the internet will soon be a barren wasteland. The upside for the music industry would be that their business model will, once again, be required.
Second; it would seem that the disconnection by ISP’s would directly impact their bottom line in at three new ways. They are disconnecting their customers as well as providing additional overhead due to the newly created need to track, monitor and chastise users as well as possible legal and privacy action now that they are enforcing actions from a third party. Eventually it would seem to get to the point where they have too few customers to continue to provide the maintenance to keep their wire online. This assumes that any legal fees brought by false positives did not lay the ISP to waste.
Thirdly would be the legal action of false positives. I saw an article on Arstechnica that showed that a group of researchers (I believe in a Washington State college) were able to get DMCA take down requests generated to a networked printer they had on campus. As mentioned in the article they were able to use any ip address they wished in the request which would be a great way to maliciously disconnect people as well as to cause havoc with the system as it stands.
Another aside to the third section would be that even if the person in question was downloading copyrighted content that does not make it illegal. If I go to a friends house and download stuff from my computer to his to play for my entertainment I’m doing nothing wrong but there is no way to know that through DPI. It looks like I’m downloading copyrighted content illegally from my computer to his computer though I am breaking no laws (that I know of at this time). This also assumes that the many new portals for obtaining copyrighted content are all automatically removed from the list of offending websites. I would easily incur 3 strikes in a day from iTunes otherwise.
As a finale I would say, “What next?”. As it stands I download an absolute ton of copyrighted content on a daily basis. Every single website that I hit displays an icon, graphic and text of their name which are either trademarked or copyrighted. Every picture that I download from a social networking site has an implied copyright owned by the person that captured the image and I’m sure there are a hundred things that I am too naive to even mention but as ignorance is no excuse of the law then I am likely guilty.
Slightly OT:
I find it interesting that a single song uploaded on the internet can worth more than my house.
@ - Izumi-sensei - PLEASE READ
America has the EFF, why don’t you rally support for them instead of your own mad campaign? dumping comments over and over is annoying!!!
@ - Iowa native
‘as ignorance is no excuse of the law then I am likely guilty.’
This is my worry completely, if not myself but others in europe with even less knowledge of what’s going on tomorrow (Mon 7th Jul). We’re all pirates but alot don’t know it and it’ll lead to the mass blocking of thousands, probably millions with in a year.
@10
Does the EFF support decriminalizing file-sharing?
“People, I have made a simple forum for discussion about copyright reform. Use it if you wish to.
http://www.28chan.org/forum/index.php”
Anything with “chan” in it doesn’t sound good to me. I assume it is filled with people screaming “LAURKS MAOORSZ” at everyone.
@ 11 Izumi-sensei
I’ll admit I haven’t read all there materials which I obviously recomend before getting to deep in but from the looks of it yes…
http://www.eff.org/issues/file-sharing
There are always some sane politicians. They just don’t have a lot of power.
@12
You are mistaken. This forum is completely unknown to anyone except you people.
I am looking for a second opinion. I have e-mailed the EFF once with the following e-mail. Do you think that the EFF will be interested at all in participating in demonstrations to reform copyright? The following is the e-mail:
I am a citizen interested in issues related to file-sharing, and who is also motivated to take action to decriminalize file-sharing. Does the EFF support decriminalizing file-sharing? If so, what has the EFF done to advocate for this?
I see that EFF has:
* EFF has proposed ways for artists to get paid without fans getting sued.
* EFF helped establish legal protections for privacy online, including the privacy of P2P users.
* EFF has assisted Internet users mistakenly caught in the industry’s dragnet.
* EFF has helped P2P users sued by the RIAA and MPAA find legal counsel.
* EFF took MGM v. Grokster to the Supreme Court and defended the right of innovators to build new technologies without begging Hollywood’s permission first.
* EFF helped beat back the INDUCE Act, which threatened innovation and P2P systems.
* EFF debunked Audible Magic’s P2P filtering solution.
* EFF pushed for sensible solutions for college campuses concerned with file sharing.
* EFF started a petition to Congress opposing the RIAA lawsuits.
* EFF and its members helped defeat the Berman “P2P Vigilantism” Bill in 2002.
Other than writing statements and doing legal activity, have you people done anything to try to sway the people who are on the fence? For example, http://www.speakout.com/activism/napster/ and http://www.commonsensemedia.org/newsletter/archive.php?id=2003-09-12#story4 are two websites of people who are on the fence, but agree with the RIAA on the idea that file-sharing is a problem. The first tacitly agrees by presenting only two sides: those who favor stronger copyright laws, and those who favor keeping copyright as it is. The people of the second website think that file-sharing, although nothing major, still sends the wrong message.
I believe that the EFF should do more to persuade fence-sitters that decriminalizing file-sharing is a legitimate opinion.
Moreover, I believe that the EFF should do more to promote direct action in regards to decriminalizing file-sharing. First, people should protest the people who believe that file-sharing is a problem. I do not mean protesting the RIAA or the U.S. Government. I mean protesting the people who are on the fence, to let them know that this is serious. Second, there should be more parades and mass gatherings, more events where people give speeches. Third and lastly, there should be more real-life action against the laws. By this, I mean leaving CDs in public for free in massive numbers everywhere whenever the RIAA sues somebody for downloading a song.
I know that the EFF is mostly a legal group, but I believe that the EFF should also do more advocacy and activism.
@ 16 - Izumi-sensei
Yeh looks well thought out. As you say tho, they are more of a legal group and I’m not sure how well CD give outs would work, espically if you mean give out copyrighted stuff.
Although if you tried to get in contact with Nine Inch Nails or other bands that have legally shared stuff and ask to give out there work then It’d be a good way of showing the benefits of main streaming file sharing.
By the way, I am proposing that we take action to swing fence-sitters to our side. One example is:
SpeakOut.com
One unfortuante fact is that our views are not repesented on the site SpeakOut.com. Simply put, they represent two sides: the side that advocates stronger copyright laws, and the side that advocates keeping the copyright laws as they are. Nowhere do I see anything that represents the side that advocates the decriminalization of file-sharing. This is clearly a problem. We can start by talking to them through their forums, and collectively e-mailing them, and also sending mail to them:
E-mail address: chrisv@speakoutfoundation.com
Mailing address:
The SpeakOut Foundation
20720 Beallsville Road
Dickerson, MD 20842
“I’m not sure how well CD give outs would work, espically if you mean give out copyrighted stuff.”
It is civil disobedience. Give out CD’s on the streets, dare the police to take action against us.
@ 19 - Izumi-sensei
Thats where I’d say your not going to do well. That would probably put things back a step, I’ll admit I’m in the UK so i don’t know fully the reaction. but…
It sounds like you’d be p*ssing in the face of the music industry, the police wouldn’t care much probably detain you, then you end up facing tons of legal threats, you spent so much setting up the campaign you can’t pay for a VERY VERY good lawyer or to get the law suits off your back.
As i say a better stunt is with legal music, because you’ll make the same bang, police will assume your not legit get you in trouble then it’ll come out your wrongly accused and everything is above board.
Which would just point out how internet users can be wrongly accused for file sharing and that it has many positive points.
Plus these artists who legally share would probably want the publicity if not returning the favour abit. or so i see it.
> “Give out CD’s on the streets, dare the police to take action against us.”
What are the police going to do? Copyright infringement is for the most part a civil case, as in “corporation sues you” not “state arrests you”.
This MP spoke at the Net Neutrality Rally. He’s fantastic! It’s too bad he’s the only one vocal about online issues.
Also, I just noticed Cory Doctorow is Canadian? Man, there’s Canadian online “celebrities” everywhere! Let’s all get them in the Order of Canada, they rock way more than half the people in there. :p
I’m not Canadian but I like this guy. I’ve read what he’s had to say on net-neutrality before now and he comes across as someone who knows what he’s talking about.
I’m trying to take action right now because it seems like nobody else is willing to. Too much, people just download things from the internet and neglect to campaign politically in real-life. The reason why the RIAA is winning so much is because there is no political campaigning on the other side. The EFF is a legal organization, not a political organization.
What is very important is for people to meet, to discuss, to speak, and to make declarations. Lastly, it is very important to circulate printed media to let people know that they should take action to help legalize file-sharing. I am talking about some kind of political movement. Lastly, there should be more real-life events for the purpose of decriminalizing file-sharing.
Most important of all, it is important that we exist, and that certain thing exist. The Pirate Bay exists, TorrentFreak.com exists, EFF exists, and we who support the decriminalization of file-sharing exist.
I am very much exasperated by the fact that nobody else seems very interested in taking action. Why are people so apathetic about this, and what can be done about this apathy?
I think that the biggest problem is to get people who oppose copyright in its current form to be a cohesive group. Right now, there is pretty much no organization for people to find out what are the latest efforts for people to try to decriminalize file-sharing. As a result, almost nobody knows that people who think so exist.
A remix of Prentice and Angus is here:
http://stashbox.org/v/151705/madeworseincanada.mp3
“Made Worse in Canada (feat. Jim Prentice)”
by Upset Canadian
Description: This clip is about the controversial Canadian Copyright Bill C-61, recently tabled in the House of Commons. Starring: Jim Prentice (Minister of Industry, Conservative), Colin Carrie (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry, Conservative), Charlie Angus (NDP), Bill Siksay (NDP), Howard Knopf (Excess Copyright), David Fewer (CIPPIC), Safwan Javed (Wide Mouth Mason band). Based on “Below the Arctic Ocean” by Azhrak. Licensed to the public under Creative Commons. Cover picture by p2pnet.net.
The link above is a link to a webpage (stashbox does not seem to allow direct downloads).
I specifically prefer distributing Joss Stone’s music in public. She said that it is okay, so this must be tested out when someone get sued.
I am soliciting the support of all of you people who read TorrentFreak.com - please join the e-mail group at http://www.28chan.org/pledge.php in an attempt to start a social and political movement to legalize non-commercial file-sharing.
marry me Charles!!!
(man crush time)
Has anyone thought of letting this bill pass?? Ok it sound crazy and well I have been told i’m off of my rocker a couple of times but this would cause MASS disruption. Something that would ripple through everything and affect not only the individuals who are being disconnected but all of the sites and business they are requesting. Not to mention the many companies that will receive the same treatment for users sharing items. Then there is the fact that a lot of companies are using copyrighted material without care either. Think about misappropriated artwork for websites and the like. This doesn’t affect just small businesses but large as well. Just think how happy the government would be if one of their sites was shut down due to some web developer accidently using someone else’s work? That would bring the whole copyright argument and its flaws to the surface almost immediately.
21: have you heard of IP? The one that stands for intellectual property? Once you understand Intellectual property, you will have a better grasp upon why what we are doing by ’sharing’ is illegal.
TorrentFreak and others, quit giving this Indiana Gregg (whoever he is) attention. Unless its a famous artist, frankly their opinion is of no more value then mine. So quit giving them special focus. This person probably started some thing hoping to get out there so people will investigate their work and maybe get into and make them money.
If they can’t get fame and money the normal way (through solid work and promotion of that work) and instead has to do it in some nonsense “I will attack this for the press” way, they are simply not worthy of having one word wrote about them. Quit helping them. Quit mentioning them. Its not even news, its nonsense so don’t legitimize idiots like him.
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@22
To some extent, it’s a part of Canadian culture for people to just get things done without shouting about their nationality. Heck, most Canadian actors end up getting mistaken for Americans or Brits by other Canadians! (eg. Christopher Plummer)
@32 - Carnegie, the day u stop perceiving file-sharing as some kinda crime or theft , u’l start viewing it as a “reforming thing” for d ppl of d 21st century… May that day dawn upon u soon…
what gonna happen now is 3 strike will be extended to DMCA/ other such abuses cut off offender from internet and make select group of people criminals for using internet
because someone govt, corps didn’t like what there were doing i.e. blog, forum, open source, etc.
All this is just the death throes of a dying industry. Like a drowning man they cling to what ever they can get a grip on, caring little for the people they push under in their desperate bid for continued existence. They care only for their next breath.
dont digg this. they earn money from their shitty ads
@ 28 - Izumi-sensei
I agree on that one, giving out Joss Stone you might just get away with. I still think your stirring a pot that isn’t so nessecary tho.
look at Sweden 90% voted against a law on wire tapping, it happened anyways.
I feel somewhat the same way you do, that most people don’t seem bothered how things go but sadly there isn’t much to do, quoting TF, this is a cold war. One that takes place through the law.
Plus TPB was funded by some very rich people and the EFF has been around for 18 years and foundered by the guy who ran Lotus software.
Step on their air hose - if you don’t like “three strikes” legislation, stop giving the RIAA (and equivalents in other countries) your money, and they’ll go away.
If your product is overpriced, then people on the internet will copy it regardless of copyright laws. So, make your product reasonable where its affordable for everyone. The costs to produce aaudio CD is one fraction of an audio casette, yet look at the price of them, same as DVD’s. Greed runs rampant in the intertainment industry, so what the hell do you expect.
I phoned Jim Prentices office just before c-61 was introduced. His staff flat out lied to me about it
“theres no such legislation to be introduced, I don’t know what you internet people are so wound up about”.
Jim Prentice needs to lose his job over this. End of discussion. Want Proof? Hit up wikipedia. His staff left a nice paper trail of this B.S.
As usual, there will be no accountability.
Democracy indeed.
Good to know that there are people in the higher-ups or whatever that are against those corporate niggers.
Lobbyist groups MUST be banned from influencing government. It’s just bribery in the highest order. Any politician closely associated with any kind of lobbyists ought to immediately lose his elected office. I think lobbyists are criminals and that association with them should be punished.
how to immigrate to canada? :D
Step 1: Spoof IP addresses of RIAA servers, and the servers of your ISP
Step 2: Torrent like mad
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit
“having worked first hand with those who have been forgotten by those in government , the homeless , [he] has a good appreciation for cause and effect”
Ok seriously common.
What does that even mean? Are you implying that it’s the government’s fault these people are homeless? If so maybe you should spend sometime working first hand with the homeless yourself. I’d rather have this guy working for me than a bum. Agreeing with my views (cause) gains my vote (effect). I didn’t vote NDP. Appreciate that.
“Luckily, there are still some politicians who know what’s right and what’s not. Charles Angus, a Canadian MP, is not a fan of the ‘3 strikes and you’re out’ proposals, which have also been discussed in Canada.”
I’ll direct your attention now to the fact that no such “3 strikes law” has been implemented in Canada, indicating that not only your savior Mr. Angus, but apparently the majority of Canadian politicians must also not be a fan of said proposals.
“he has also proven himself a man of morals”
Or at least a guy who knows what he believes. Good I like that. But here it comes: and his morals are?
“Bill 61 is a piece of legislation that is taking us down the wrong road.” Hmm, i would have to disagree with Mr. Angus there. I think it is a step in the right direction compared to what we Canadian’s have seen in the US. What I like about it: First it is clear on what is and isn’t acceptable. Second, it protects time shifting and some backup.
While i dislike drm as much as the next guy I think producers have every right to put it on their content. Just like you have every right to not to buy it. I have an itunes account. I refuse to even look anywhere but itunes plus. I’m surviving and I’m stimulating music producers to move away from drm.
I do think the bill could use some work. I also think it will get some. What i would not like to happen is for this to be under complete control of Mr. Angus and the rest of the NDP party. While he may be your knight in shinning armor I would remind you that this is no Fairy Tale. Content creation is a business just like any other.
What do you mean there’s no organisation, call it p2p, organised enough. What “they” fail to see is that “they” need to come to us now, crawling at that.
I don’t think your group will be taken at all seriously on any of the “chan”’s.
Aside from that I’m reminded of something I heard years ago, before even Napster was widely known.
A DJ from the canadian music channel Much Music did a documentary on the “grunge” movement of the nineties. He was careful to note how it broke with the traditional, corporate designed lipstick /hairbands of the day.
He noted how it was “real” music, from “real” people, with “real” things to say about issues of the day, and that’s why it took the scene by storm. Corporate pigs had to get with it fast or be left in the dust by it. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, as a few of the most memorable examples.
He noted how the world was starved by corporate pigs for such raw and real talent and that’s why it was accepted so readily, we hungered for it, and it fed us.
Being that his documentary took place after the grunge movement was poisoned by corporate pigs and died off, said DJ hungered for yet another artful revolution, and questioned what would it take to have it happen again?
He reasoned, exactly the same as what allowed it to happen the first time. People being so sick of the crap being shoved down their throats that they started _sharing_ real music that meant something amongst themselves. Wherever you found it, wherever you heard it, give a copy to your friend and let them give a copy to their friends. In fact he actually went so far as to state “make up a CD of all your favorites and just, forget it on the bus one day for someone else to find and experience”.
…and then came file sharing. That was an awesome documentary from a guy in the industry, and I haven’t forgotten his most powerful points.
Sauce for the goose:
I agree with Cory Doctorow’s idea that
if such a law were to be passed, that
it apply equally to the anti-piracy
companies - three false accusations
of infringement, and they get their
Internet service shut down.
Not that it will ever happen, as the
megacorps have their hands in the
governments’ pockets, and would never
consent to such a condition.
Absolutely crap. You start taking people off the internet and they are no longer spending at Amazon, eBay, etc. You tell Amazon, eBay, et al that their profits will be down across America and Europe because the governments think people are being naughty and throwing them off the internet and they will soon start making a noise about these idiotic and unworkable laws.
The issue really isn’t about piracy here - it’s about a fair system having trouble coping with new business models that the “fat-cat old boys” cannot update.
P2P and piracy (computer-based) are victim-less crimes and fall under the definition of civil case, not criminal. For countries (such as USA) to have criminalised these victim-less acts into jail time - in some cases a longer sentence (and harsher financial penalties) than murder, rape, grand-larceny, and child molestation/pornography - really does show that the country has lost it’s way.
What happens to a country with overflowing jails? When is enough, enough? Especially for the price of a “99 cent song”?
@Kevin:
How Simple Minded you must be. To think that this bill is good just because “it is clear about what is allowed and what is not”.
I’m assuming you read these posts because you download VIA some form of P2P. Would you like to be imprisoned and fined for downloading something, legal or not, just because you used bittorrent to stream work-related material to a boss?
He may not have perfect views, and i don’t agree with him 100%. But as the person who actually CONDUCTED this interview, i find that Mr Angus, and the NDP party, have a better idea on how to make a 21st century copyright law then… Lets say the Liberals or Conservatives…. Oh hell, if we want this country to go to shit, lets just let the Bloc Quebecois make our fucking copyright laws.
In closing: Go fuck yourself :)
The idea is to make claims about infrigment (be them true or false) about the lobbyist and corparations.
Let’s kick e’m off the net!
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