Politician Violates His Own Two-Strikes Anti-Piracy Plan

Ernesto
October 1, 2011
72
germany,
kaudergate
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A few days ago Siegfried Kauder, Chairman of the Legal Committee of the German Parliament, announced a plan to introduce a two-strikes model for persistent pirates. After two warnings, Internet users would lose their Internet access to protect the interests of copyright holders. However, it now turns out that the politician himself might be the first to be disconnected as his website features copyrighted photos that were lifted without permission.

kauder We see it time and time again. Copyright is a double edged sword, and those who sharpen one side often get cut by the other.

When the German politician Siegfried Kauder introduced a two-strikes model to beat online piracy a few days ago, his own actions with regard to copyright were weighed carefully.

It didn’t take long before people spotted Kauder’s first infringement on his personal website, which was quickly followed by another one.

In what has now been dubbed Kaudergate, the pro-copyright politician was hosting at least two photos on his website which were taken from a photo sharing site without permission (1, 2).

When blogs and news sites picked up this ‘mistake’ the photos were quickly removed, but by then it was already too late.

Confronted with the blatant copyright infringements, Kauder tried to turn the tables in an attempt to use his failure to support his plans. He told the German news outlet Der Spiegel that this is a perfect example of how effective a two-strikes policy would be.

“I’m grateful that I got the opportunity to show how the warning model works. The use of the two copyright-protected photographs was brought to my attention. The photos were then removed, so the warning model works,” he stated.

An interesting attempt at spinning things around, if it weren’t for the fact that the copyrighted photos are still hosted on the server of Kauder’s website. So even after being outed by hundreds of blogs and the mainstream press two days ago, the politician – who is also a lawyer – continues to infringe copyrights (1, 2).

Even worse, Kauder claimed in the press that he had somehow “licensed” the photos after he realized his mistake. However, the photographer who owns the rights denies this and commented that the politician hasn’t been in contact at all.

One has to wonder that when a politician who wants to introduce a two-strikes anti-piracy system doesn’t even know how to stop breaking the law, how can he demand that others should?

Needless to say, the public is now demanding that he will be disconnected from the Internet. That would probably set a good example.

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Anonymous

‘Needless to say, the public is now demanding that he will be disconnected from the Internet. That would probably set a good example.’

And rightly so, their government should lead by example (failure to apply the law as it would to a common citizen should be calls for resignation for their abuse of power [or whatever wording the Germans have for that =/ ] ).
- Anonymous
  
  You mean like our congressional representatives that pass through TSA screenings with a wave?
  - Anonymous
    
    Exactly, it is a one rule for them and quite another for the rest and thus an abuse of power (unless the law is broken by providing exceptions to them [broken because it therefore removes all meaning to having all parties equal before the law] ).
    
    In short; What’s good for the goose [the public] is good for the gander[ it's representatives - regardless of rank].
    
    Technically they are not ‘our’ reps since I’m an Australian; though lately with the way the Aus gov jumps when the US asks it to I’m beginning to think otherwise.
politux

Excellent example of what it means to be a douche bag.
- http://twitter.com/NillocR Collin Reisdorf
  
  You meant Deutsch bag right?
Tosser

Don’t be silly – it’s one rule for them, and another for everyone else.

Everyone knows that.
- Okarin
  
  it would really be a surprise if they weren’t above the law
  - Anon
    
    I AM THE LAW
http://twitter.com/iamhezzy hezzy okello

we all know that he is part of the govt and can get away with it if the wants to or he can show you waht you want to see while he still has his internet
Truth

If he claims parliamentary immunity, then perhaps elected PP representatives should host trackers.
Eddy

Will you keep us updated on this story please…it will be interesting how serious the law and his political friends treat this error. I feel it will be reported ‘tongue in cheek’ and ultimately nothing of any note will be done about it.
thanks.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Don-Dilly/1624894683 Don Dilly

To quote the now out of copyright bard Will Shakespear

‘ They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For ’tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petar; and ‘t shall go hard’

(Hamlet)
Dude

He does have another option – he can just pay the exorbitant fees from the rights holders to get a “license” to post the pics on his website. I once asked Getty Images about doing that to get a picture to post on the web and when I found out what a rip-off they are I just got the picture from filesharing and posted it without the licence.
- Bruddah
  
  pretty sure ‘but i bought the dvd after i got the pay up or else spam’ hasnt worked for some people.
  
  typical example of the one rule for us, their own rules for them
- Bruddah
  
  pretty sure ‘but i bought the dvd after i got the pay up or else spam’ hasnt worked for some people.
  
  typical example of the one rule for us, their own rules for them
- Rohan
  
  That’s great. All photos should be free really. Not like a professional camera gear outfit costs well into five figures at the low end…oh wait. And photographers shouldn’t need extra money for unnecessary stuff like food and rent either.
  
  All these stupid shops I go to actually have the nerve to charge me when I get things from their stores. Pretty crazy that they would want money for their goods and services, I should just start taking things I want instead.
  - gudrun
    
    Obvious troll is obvious.Torrentfreak please put a dislike button so the people like rohan can see how much we love them without starting a flamewar
    - Qwerty
      
      I don’t believe he was trolling at all and I whole-heartedly agree with him. A photograph someone takes is just as much theirs as a muffin baked at a store. You have no right to just take other people’s things as you see fit.
      
      You feel entitled to everything you see, most likely because you have never created anything worthwhile yourself.
- nwzimmer@gmail.com
  
  Great, point. Given that the license owner can set any price that he wants for any future buyer, I’d guess that the ‘asking price’ for a license for these two photos just went way up!
  
  Since he apparently hasn’t bought a license yet, he’ll have to buy one at the ‘new price’.
:D

Goddamn man you F*cked your sh*t up…
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=626287111 Timothy Burton Regula
  
  YES! Lmao
Guest

Yeah these type of people shouldn’t even run our country or even have the right to create laws.

when they know nothing about anything..goddam these idiots….
Guest

OMFG

If he’s not disconnected then “warning model” doesn’t work.
http://twitter.com/AlyssaBlindy Alyssa Blindy

Disconnect him, if not for one day. He needs to get a taste of his own medicine.
WuHu

Oy, Germany. How could such a great nation actually elect an idiot such as this.
- Dontshowmyname
  
  Hitler joke?
- http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja
  
  Hope you aren’t American and if you are you voted Wyden or one of the few sane voices there… Or your comment is a priceless irony ;)
Anonymous

Hypercritical people are rampant when it comes protesting against copyright infringement and trying to protect their own patch. A doubled edged sword is a good way to describe this.

This reminds me of a previous TF article of the woman protesting against people pirating her books when at the news conference she hosted she then admitted that her family owned an MP3 player filled with hundreds of infringing songs along with a counterfeit handbag when the original was too expensive!
- Herbert
  
  and the New Zealand politician who voted for the copyright laws there and at the same time, in Parliament, said she ‘file shared’ copyrighted songs with friends! the ‘dont do what i do, do what i say’ rules as usual!
- GeoDuck
  
  Or French President Nicolas Sarkozy pirating 400 copies of a DVD, relabelling, and distributing them.
http://ompldr.org/vYWN3ag/see-what-i-thought-id-do-was-id-pretend-i-was-one-of-those-slut-whores-LOL.html w3ts1ut

When he was in a position of power, and could have said, “This is unconstitutional”, instead, “ah nahh, doesn’t make a claim, NEXT, DENIED.” And he didn’t sense how wrong, how cold hearted that was, until it was him, that had to spread his buttocks, it was him who had to pull his penis back, you understand what I’m saying? It became a whole other reality. Jamaican’s have a saying, “Who feels it, knows it“, well, now he knows it… Little too late though aint it. –Mumia Abu-Jamal, Interview on prisons, (applies perfectly to all cases like this :P )
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ThumbsUpThumbsDown

What frightens us about the intrinsic moral ambiguity of Mr. Kauder’s position and conduct and his even more ambiguous self-justifications, is not their mere factuality, that they exist in all their ugly openness. In every democracy, in all of history, we have seen this movie play, in tragic circularity, over and over again. A television evangelist who has become rich and famous preaching a gospel of strict self discipline and rectitude for others appears on national t.v. moaning that he himself has been leading a life of sin. The church, which daily gives order to the lives of millions, must dig deep to explain why so many of its staff are so attracted to the vice of molesting children. A speaker of the house, whose political platform is grounded in a doctrine of high personal moral responsibiity exercised individually with minimal governmental intermediation is forced to admit, reluctantly, and only in the face of other governmental authority checking tenaciously his accumulated power, that his personal and professional activities have not met the moral standards of his responsibilities. Again and again, at naseum, the mere fact that we can imagine our particular democracy as a blessed refuge from the scourge of heineous acts, and as a neighborhood of mutual friends secure in their humanity, does not prevent us from awakening to to the horror that our democracies are merely unimaginably fragile accomodations between imperfect people to protect themselves from the impunity of their even more imperfect rulers.

We must be afraid! Be very much afraid.

The moral plasticity that is the essence of Mr. Kauder’s facile adaptiveness is neither unique nor irregular. Neither is it, a particularly egregeous example of its historical potential to damage and destroy the human spirit: Do you think, perhaps, that 1930′s Weimar Germans, six years later still among the most culturally and technologicly advanced people on earth, could smell the mass murder of innocents that was occurring
all around them? Do you think that cultured 1960′s white Mississipians couldn’t sense what was amiss with a law subjecting a black person to criminal sanctions for trying to eat lunch in a whites only lunch counter in city centre; long before, decades before, the civil rights act was passed?

It’s not our memory that’s bad. Our problem is that we cannot afford to forget what we have seen and where we have come from. All around us we see the powerful flexing their hegemony, with the rest of humanity barely an afterthought; and, the democratic order we hoped would shelter us, very thin armour indeed. We can see all too clearly where we are going because we have alreasdy been there: Throughout history, Mr. Kauder has always been there, because he has never left.

Perhaps, one day there’ll be no one left with the courage to rise and challenge him…..and he will own the world.
- CHRONOSSANGRY
  
  NO i shall not fear, let them fear me
  the govt MUST fear its people that is what keeps them in line.
- Fluck
  
  Wow, that was cogent and articulate. Nice rant, exceptionally well said!
Dontshowmyname

“I’m grateful that I got the opportunity to show how the warning model works. The use of the two copyright-protected photographs was brought to my attention. The photos were then removed, so the warning model works,” he stated.

That statement remindedme of homers bear tax in the simpsons…

Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a
charm.
Lisa: That’s spacious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, dear.
Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Oh, how does it work?
Lisa: It doesn’t work.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: It’s just a stupid rock.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don’t see any tigers around, do you?
[Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money]
Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.
- Fluck
  
  Sorry to be ‘that guy’, but it’s “specious reasoning”, specious meaning it looks or sounds plausible but its really not.
  - http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja
    
    Anal is the word that comes to mind. But I did learn a word today ;)
me

I say hold him to a higher standard, cut off his internet, and give him jail time, lets make an example.
Anonymous

Interesting thing is, when he was confronted with the copyrighted image thing, he said his webmaster was on vacation (yeah right.. lol), but the images were still removed a while later.

this guy is just so full of BS.. >.>
Naomi

Tyranny!
monkeyslap

It’s not uncommon for a government to create new laws and then turn around and violate them. They do it all the time. The also get a way with it. I highly doubt, since he is a politician, that anything will happen to him. Typical tyrannical hypocrisy.

The government’s motto around the world:
“Your ass is grass and we’re the lawnmower. What we cut off your ass we transplant in our front yard.”
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Calvin Lim

The link to the Blog of the copyright holders interview
contains an TROJAN EXPLOIT!!!!

[u][b]avast! Infection Details[b/][U/]
URL: http://oqpuhxx.cx.cc/main.php?page=182040544330d2c8
Process: file://C:Program Files (x86)Mozilla Firefoxfirefox.exe
Infection: js:Downloader-gen@bhv [Expl]

ATTENTION TF ADMINS,,,,REMOVE THE LINK!!!
Ven

“11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.”

So Siegfried Kauder may very well have attempted and succeeded in getting permission to use the photos – from Google.
- Bruddah
  
  google are fucking evil tbh
- Bruddah
  
  google are fucking evil tbh
  - Ven
    
    I don’t know about evil, but they (along with Facebook) have certainly set a poor standard in terms of taking care of customer’s needs/wants.
    
    Who knows, perhaps quality customer service belongs on the list of pipe-dreams of the 1950′s like single-income households and retirement.
    - Guest
      
      When thinking about Google and Facebook, it’s important to remember that we are not their customers. Their customers are advertisers and data compilers who want information about us. They do very well at taking care of their customers. Their customers love them.
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Anonymous

Where can i join up with the people demanding his disconnection?
NO

Prime example of why these faggots are terrorists.
Common Man

The absurdities that copyright fanaticism entails in our digital age, was nicely demonstrated in John Tehranian’s classic paper ‘Infringment Nation’.

Every politician involved in these matters should be required to read it first.
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gudrun

“I’m grateful that I got the opportunity to … FACEPALM
Robogo

If the government really means business, they should make an example of him.
Anonymous

You gotta just love those bought and paid for politicians.
132512345

I think some like this worked pretty well in egypt.
Guest34234

he infringed and was warned but it is not removed. 2 strikes disconnect that motherfucker’s internet!
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Anonymous

tinyurl.com/3ct3pn6
tinyurl.com/3tnmjr8
http://loweschmidt.se Lowe Schmidt

I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.
me

Siegfried Kauder shouldn’t be disconnected from the Internet, just as we shouldn’t be disconnected either, no matter what he or we do. This whole fascist and authoritarian concept of depriving people from Internet connectivity just because they have some problems with so called “intellectual property” rights owners, has to go down the drain… the faster, the better. We don’t cut off criminals from oxygen supply either, do we? (and I’m not implying that copying and sharing files is criminal)
Anonymous

,..awesome..,
m? b?st fri?nd’s m?m m?kes $ 77 ?n h?ur ?n th? c?mputer. Sh? h?s b?en ?ut ?f j?b f?r 9 m?nths but l?st m?nth h?r ch?ck w?s $ 7487 j?st w?rking ?n th? c?mputer f?r ? f?w h?urs. R?ad ?bout it h?re http://alturl.com/xhz3x
Anonymous

http://www.lovetoshopping.org
http://www.jerseymall.org
Cheapest Vans Shoes,Tiffany Jewelry Company,Wholesale Hollister
Clothing
http://fairandroid.com Asho

it seems funny… actually politicians are not that great in internet laws… they are thinking that they can use images found in Google images…
Anonymous

haha , two strikes and you have to become a politician

the worst thing that could happen.
Hippynz

Well the laws do not apply to politicians, it is the same here in New Zealand. If a politician breaks the law, it is ignored, but if any one else does it then the law comes down hard.
Jones

http://falkvinge.net/2011/09/05/cable-reveals-extent-of-lapdoggery-from-swedish-govt-on-copyright-monopoly/
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