Falkvinge is completely correct in his surmising of ‘messenger immunity’. Not to spoil the eloquent articulation, but he’s really reinforcing the basic concept, “Don’t shoot the messenger!” which most if not all of us know. I do agree that something needs to be done that removes the power and pressure from the ISPs, however there isn’t a legit politician in this world that’ll go with Morals and Honesty instead of a bribe. I can’t help but be pessimistic due to history only repeating itself and governments being the only ones who never learn.

None of this will ever change until the people unite, completely. Not just
within their borders, but more so as a species. My opinion of how we should self label has never been [nationality],[province],[gender],[religion] or whatever the “norm” is supposed to be. First and foremost I find myself HUMAN! After that I tend to be residing on the planet EARTH. So far I already 2 things in common with (virtually, still can’t tell about politicians) everyone that everyone seems to overlook. I don’t care what your spirituality is, religious sect, sin color, country of origin, “baby-Daddy” status, sexual preference or any other damn bit of info that doesn’t concern me. The things we share (opinions, internet connection, ideals, ethics) are the only things I want to possibly burden you with in a conversation or exchange. Your view can enlighten me and mine and visa versa.

I’m not going to wait for the day when some honest politician, which for
some unexplainable reason is still breathing, finds the lack of freedoms and rights conflicting with basic civil liberties. I’d much rather die than wait around for possibilities or inevitabilities. Instead I will fight where I can, how I can and as well as I can. If people don’t actually fight, then no one is really going to listen. Just take 5% of the “Infringers” in the US alone and send them (on foot) to Washington DC. Can anyone extrapolate as to how many people that would be and how fast the whole city would shut down? I know the number is incredibly smaller than 1% of the population for the US, but anything higher than 500k would force street traffic to a halt and would also bring media coverage. It’s also incredibly hard to not notice that the front yard of
the white house is covered in pissed of people who simply wanted to share what they had.

I know we all want to maintain our lives as they are in the hopes of them never getting worse… The only problem is that our voices get muted this way. I think it might be time to put down our mice and start picking up rocks. Not only are OUR rights and freedoms being tampered with by proxy, but things that should NEVER have the power they do are refusing to evolve while others are going to extend their reign of monopolization. WE, the people of each of the countries imposing these injustices are just as responsible if we simply sit back
and wait.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2132153

Most of them find piracy removes sales. If sales are removed it directly affects an author through loss of royalties or directly as a loss of sales income if they’re an independent publisher. Not to mention various indirect effects caused by the 50% drop in revenue the music industry has had this past decade.
What the ECHR confirmed is that copyright can conflict with article 10, but in the cases where copyrighted art is the information being received and imparted the limitation is acceptable because it protects the authors rights, as prescribed by article 27.

Good part is that we’re mostly living comfortably enough.

Bad part is that we’re paying more for things that we’re not responsible for.

We are periodically given a choice for our lawmakers and governments. We always choose the same ones. The ones who already proved they won’t defend public interest, but a collection of private interests. They promise they will do good, then do either bad or nothing significant. Over and over. And we just tell them “oh well, I’m sure next time you’ll do good”.

In some countries, it went so far as to have two choices at most. Charybdis and Scylla. Plague and cholera… Black cats and White cats. (Not to mention countries where you have a “choice” between one party to vote for. ) The concept of “democracy” has been entirely corrupted at its source, leaving us with an illusion of choice that changes so little it’s not significant anymore.

Moreover, they are responsible for nothing. Making bad laws? Wasting resources? Ruining whole countries? Whatever, they can’t be held responsible for poor or even deliberately bad choices (except for a short list of crimes like embezzlement). We are. Political responsibilities are diluted over their whole country, making us “accomplices” for anything, from the failures of banks to the real wars going on on foreign lands… or the simple erosion of our own freedom. And we pay for this every single day. Officially, we’re paying the price of our freedom. Officiously, we’re paying those that forge new shackles into our very culture.

There is no easy answer, obviously. The system reduced choices to such a short list of either corrupt or just disempowered people, lacking will or courage to act against the many slow but constant attacks on our rights.
Only difficult options remains. Refusing the wrong choices. Speaking against lawmaking abuses. Trying to fight our way back to actual democracy and responsible governments. Preferably before a violent revolution becomes the only option.

Even if we were to overlook the fact that 99% of the time the ones “offering the same material for sale” aren’t the author(s), but corporate rightsholders, are you going to, you know, actually prove this claim or simply assert it to be true and expect everyone to take your word for it because it’s “obvious”? Do you have any kind of reliable evidence or research to support the thesis that non-profit filesharing provably hurts an author’s material interests?

Also, from what I’ve read, the ECHR did neither recognize that copyright infringement related statutory damages are justified in their scope or even principle (because that wasn’t related to the case), nor that the Copyright privilege avoids conflict with any other part of the UNHR declaration – Article 10, specifically; in fact, it pretty much outright affirmed that notion, stating that even for-profit sharing activity was covered by the right to ‘receive and impart information.