Will Britain Turn 7 million citizens into piracy criminals?

[gster]

A politician being touted as Britain’s next Prime Minister has been persuaded to take action to criminalize 7 million citizens following intensive industry lobbying over file-sharing. Business Secretary Lord Mandelson is in favor of introducing tough laws including Internet restrictions and fines of up to £50,000 ($83,000).

The debate on how Britain’s should tackle illicit file-sharing is heating up. The government has already set an utterly unrealistic target of reducing online piracy by 70% within a year. If that isn’t achieved, under the Digital Britain proposals communications regulator Ofcom would be given extra powers to take degenerative action against the functionality of a user’s Internet connection.
Now, thanks to intense lobbying from the music and movie industries, the government is considering giving Ofcom these powers more quickly.
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson, the man being touted among his Labour party voters as the successor to Prime Minister Brown, is said this morning to have been “persuaded by the argument for tough laws to curb illegal file-sharing.”
But what could’ve prompted this renewed aggressive anti-piracy stance from Mandelson? According to a report today, the Business Secretary’s intervention comes after he and David Geffen – the billionaire producer who co-founded the DreamWorks studio with Steven Spielberg – had dinner with members of the Rothschild banking dynasty at the family’s holiday villa on the Greek island of Corfu.
The consultation document on Government’s latest plans – which could be included in the Queen’s Speech later this year – could mean the criminalizing up to 7 million British citizens including Internet restrictions and fines of up to £50,000.
UK Pirate Party leader Andrew Robinson is naturally against these draconian fines. “You’re branding a huge percentage of this population criminals for doing something that doesn’t have any proven implications,” he said this week. “It’s a ridiculous state of affairs. People who copy a movie are lumped in with people who steal cars.”

SOURCE


Even more reason to vote for the Pirate Party UK now. F**k Digital Britain! :2gun:

[TwitchingMcgee]

Wouldnt happen theres so many ways to mask your ip also the more computer savey you are the easyier it will be to set up a proxy

[mickice]

Prisons are probably full enough already. I just don't see what the positive outcome of locking up 7 million internet pirates would actually do?

Very bad idea if you ask me, It'll only screw your economy more than the pirates have.

And those large sums of money? Your not gonna get those, no way, if we had the money in the first place we might have bought you piece of crap to begin with.

[THUGGEDOUT]

F**k Britain! :2gun:

Sounds about right...

[scottscorpion]

id love to see them try, where is there any indication that downloading songs is illegal...as far as im concerned im not selling or making profit from my downloads, which i obtain by using google and bt broadband, if they try to sue me i'll counter sue google and bt for failing to restrict illegal activity. bt set me a download limit and will be well aware what i use i this for , therefore i can only assume its ok untill told otherwise, and since none of you are legal experts i cant follow any advice you might give on the subject.
i plead ignorance

[Tyrien]

Effectively increasing the national debt by a theoretical maximum of £350,000,000,000!

[Updator]

id love to see them try, where is there any indication that downloading songs is illegal...as far as im concerned im not selling or making profit from my downloads, which i obtain by using google and bt broadband, if they try to sue me i'll counter sue google and bt for failing to restrict illegal activity. bt set me a download limit and will be well aware what i use i this for , therefore i can only assume its ok untill told otherwise, and since none of you are legal experts i cant follow any advice you might give on the subject.
i plead ignorance

i completely agree with this

[L1nux K1ng]

Doubt this'll happen. Prisons are full enough IMO.

[FallingBullets]

isnt that like 10% of the population.... why the hell do people vote for these people? and how the hell do they get away with it...

[The-lost-]

Violent crime is rising, burglaries are rising, car theft is rising. But we shouldnt worry about that according to our c*nt politicians, we should worry more about huge corporations lossing a minscule amount of their takings from internet piracy. £50,000 fine? I know people who have recieved smaller fines for assault.

"Because of you downloading five songs from sharing sites, our corporation only made £500,000,000 this year, when we should have made £500,000,002. So we are going to put you into poverty by fining you more money than you have, HAHAHA".

And they have the audacity to call downloaders "criminals"? Greedy c*nts.

[One-Shot]

Violent crime is rising, burglaries are rising, car theft is rising. But we shouldnt worry about that according to our c*nt politicians, we should worry more about huge corporations lossing a minscule amount of their takings from internet piracy. £50,000 fine? I know people who have recieved smaller fines for assault.

"Because of you downloading five songs from sharing sites, our corporation only made £500,000,000 this year, when we should have made £500,000,002. So we are going to put you into poverty by fining you more money than you have, HAHAHA".

And they have the audacity to call downloaders "criminals"? Greedy c*nts.

You do realize that governments can do more than one thing at once, right? So just because they do something for less offensive crimes does not mean nothing is done for burglary, car theft, ect. Also piracy has done a lot more than just knock a few bucks off. All you have to do is look at the state of the music industry and pc gaming as proof.

Also stealing music online is a crime so that does = the person doing it by definition a criminal.

[R33C3reece]

Doubt this'll happen. Prisons are full enough IMO.

lol there is a waiting list atm!

[Kydosan]

A politician being touted as Britain’s next Prime Minister has been persuaded to take action to criminalize 7 million citizens

Umm, touted by who? Is there someone out there who actually believes labour are going to win the next general election?

lol.

[Zoibie]

Umm, touted by who? Is there someone out there who actually believes labour are going to win the next general election?

lol.

My thoughts exactly. And if we're going to make weird suggestions like that, why not Boris for PM!!

[Tyrien]

You do realize that governments can do more than one thing at once, right? So just because they do something for less offensive crimes does not mean nothing is done for burglary, car theft, ect. Also piracy has done a lot more than just knock a few bucks off. All you have to do is look at the state of the music industry and pc gaming as proof.

Also stealing music online is a crime so that does = the person doing it by definition a criminal

We can make this into a huge debate about the merits of illogical laws if you really want...

His point though was that there's far more important matters to focus on then attempting to excessively (and arbitrarily, mind you) fine people who generally speaking are people who go to work every day, pay their taxes, and other various attributes of a contributing member of society all because they broke an unjust law created to compensate for music/movie distribution companies recklessness.

[scottscorpion]

You do realize that governments can do more than one thing at once, right? So just because they do something for less offensive crimes does not mean nothing is done for burglary, car theft, ect. Also piracy has done a lot more than just knock a few bucks off. All you have to do is look at the state of the music industry and pc gaming as proof.

Also stealing music online is a crime so that does = the person doing it by definition a criminal

clinking links provided by google makes u a criminal...lol...love to see that stand up in court,
also ive never stolen anything in my life, if someone who has purchased the licence for copyrighted material and decides to share it , how is that my problem, i can so i will, i'll stop when i cant or it becomes too difficult, internet is built for sharing...long may it continue

[One-Shot]

clinking links provided by google makes u a criminal...lol...love to see that stand up in court,
also ive never stolen anything in my life, if someone who has purchased the licence for copyrighted material and decides to share it , how is that my problem, i can so i will, i'll stop when i cant or it becomes too difficult, internet is built for sharing...long may it continue

So anything that is easy to do is perfectly fine?

[Kydosan]

Copyright infringement isn't theft, but yeah if you're distributing copyrighted works without the copyright holder's permission (i.e. torrents) you're breaking the law. Ignorance isn't a defense which works.

The solution for budding infringers is not to redistribute - or to have a government which is less hostile to the general public where corporate interests are concerned, but it doesn't seem like such a thing exists.

[iBean]

This won't work. Are they really going to chase mostly teenagers downloading in their rooms? Seriously? Why not find the people actually sharing files, if they can find out who downloads the stuff surely they can find who uploads it? It's all false promises like most things they come up with.

[Vip3r]

Mandelson can rot in hell as far as I'm concerned.

[Xelis]

Mandelson's Time in office.

First resignation

In December 1998, it was revealed Mandelson had bought a home in Notting Hill in 1996 with the assistance of an interest-free loan of £373,000 from Geoffrey Robinson, a millionaire Labour MP who was also in the Government, but was subject to an inquiry into his business dealings by Mandelson's department. Although Mandelson alleged he had deliberately not taken part in any decisions relating to Robinson, he knew he should have declared the loan as an interest, and he resigned on 23 December 1998. Mandelson had also not declared the loan to his building society (the Britannia) although they decided not to take any action, with the CEO stating "I am satisfied that the information given to us at the time of the mortgage application was accurate." Mandelson initially thought he could weather the press storm, but had to resign when it became clear that Blair thought nothing else would clear the air.
Mandelson was out of the Cabinet for ten months. In October 1999, he was appointed Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, replacing Mo Mowlam. In his very first speech in the post he mistakenly referred to himself as the "Secretary of State for Ireland." During his tenure he oversaw the creation of the devolved legislative assembly and power-sharing executive, and reform of the police service.
On 16 October 2000 it was reported that Geoffrey Robinson, the Labour MP, "accused Peter Mandelson of lying to the Commons about the home loan affair that cost both of them their Government jobs."

Second resignation

In January 2001, it was revealed Mandelson had phoned Home Office minister Mike O'Brien on behalf of Srichand Hinduja, an Indian businessman who was seeking British citizenship, and whose family firm was to become the main sponsor of the "Faith Zone" in the Millennium Dome. At the time, Hinduja and his brothers were under investigation by the Indian government for alleged involvement in the Bofors scandal. On 24 January 2001, Mandelson resigned from the Government for a second time, insisting he had done nothing wrong. An independent enquiry by Sir Anthony Hammond came to the conclusion that neither Mandelson nor anyone else had acted improperly. The front page headline in The Independent newspaper read in part "Passport to Oblivion".
At the 2001 general election, Mandelson was challenged by Arthur Scargill of the Socialist Labour Party and by John Booth, a former Labour Party press officer standing as "Genuine Labour", but Mandelson was re-elected with a large majority. This prompted him to make an exuberant acceptance speech, which was televised live, in which he declared that "I'm a fighter, not a quitter" and referred to his "inner steel".
After the general election, Mandelson was chair of the Policy Network and the UK-Japan 21st century Group, a columnist for GQ and president of Hartlepool United F.C.

I rest my case.

At least get someone thats can follow the laws of the country before pushing through laws of their own.


Okay, my case wasn't rested.

Firstly, to anything the government does, they will fail, epicly. The government keeps going on about the digital Britain, that we'll all be on broadband by 2012, yet they're going to ban virtually all the users because everyone downloads music. Yeah, top job.

People need to start changing with the times, this isn't the world of VHS and CD's anymore, its all about downloading and iPods. I honestly think the movie and music industries need to start changing, not trying to change the people. Radiohead and NIN have begun the music revolution, it's time everyone else followed. I honestly see it as a musical survival of the fittest, bands that deserve your hard earned will get it, bands that don't will get a 5 minute download and not see the profit.

[F34R]

I think you guys would have more to worry about this statement:

communications regulator Ofcom would be given extra powers to take degenerative action against the functionality of a user’s Internet connection

[John25]

lol i remember an article posted somewere that the Movie/Music industry treated Piracy as just another Competitor.

But anyway why the Goverment seem to care about internet Piracy so much it isnt going to make them any money is it ?

[squirrelbo1]

Umm, touted by who? Is there someone out there who actually believes labour are going to win the next general election?

lol.

well they mite not necessarily need another lection to change leaders (already done it once with brown so why not again) but why would anybody think that mandlespoon would get the gig :

clinking links provided by google makes u a criminal...lol...love to see that stand up in court,
also ive never stolen anything in my life, if someone who has purchased the licence for copyrighted material and decides to share it , how is that my problem, i can so i will, i'll stop when i cant or it becomes too difficult, internet is built for sharing...long may it continue

who has purchased a licence and is sharing it, or are you claiming that somebody buying a cd and uploading it is purchasing a licence ?

[Kydosan]

This won't work. Are they really going to chase mostly teenagers downloading in their rooms? Seriously? Why not find the people actually sharing files, if they can find out who downloads the stuff surely they can find who uploads it? It's all false promises like most things they come up with.

They do a lot to try to cut it off at the source, but as you said "why not find the people actually sharing files" - that's "file sharing" in a nutshell, everyone doing it is equally culpable.