UK Government Abandons Piracy Legislation 155
arcticstoat writes "Following last year's reports of a scheme to 'ban' pirates from the Internet via ISPs in the UK, it looks as though the UK government has now decided to back down on the plan, saying that it hopes it won't have to apply 'the heavy hand of legislation'. The UK's Intellectual Property Minister, David Lammy, said that 'I'm not sure it's actually going to be possible,' as a result of the complexities of enforcing such legislation. Lammy also revealed that he had a different opinion on file sharers than many people in the music industry. He pointed out that there's a big difference between organized counterfeiting gangs and 'younger people not quite buying into the system'. He added that 'we can't have a system where we're talking about arresting teenagers in their bedrooms. People can rent a room in an hotel and leave with a bar of soap — there's a big difference between leaving with a bar of soap and leaving with the television.'"
Not common sense (Score:5, Informative)
They just ran out of money [denninger.net], that's all.
David Lammy MP (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Oh, I Was Kind of Looking Forward to It (Score:5, Informative)
First the average payment was £18 (about $25), which is hardly unreasonable. Secondly the law explicitly allows for ISPs to make a charge covering the costs of data retrieval. If it wasn't for that, you'd get police forces on fishing expeditions requesting information on just about *everybody*.
Re:Why not? (Score:2, Informative)
Tim's on him laptop at home in his bedroom
(In a IM window) Hey Tim, what does "little Timmy" look like?
(Tim sends a picture of "little Timmy")
(In the IM window) Wow, that's so b
At that instant SWAT teams blow-up the front door of both of their houses and arrest them on the spot
Both are now on the Sex Offender lists for the rest of their lives.
We do it here daily in the USA.
Re:In other words... (Score:3, Informative)
Haha - you're entirely wrong.
Complimentary = with our compliments.
Complementary = making complete.
Unless you are trying to claim that the meaning of 'complementary' is that the bathroom sans soap is somewhat less than whole, you've just made a complete arse of yourself.
Thankyou for playing the pedantry game - please feel free to come back when you are better at it.
Hmm, I wonder if this has anything to do with... (Score:3, Informative)
Of all the potential legislation that the government have been talking about over the last few months, this music industry stuff reeks of lobbyists doing whatever they can to gain influence in Westminster. And what has been in the headlines in the UK the last few days? [guardian.co.uk] Ah yes, allegations that unelected members of the House of Lords are being paid by lobbyists to table amendments to UK law. Maybe there's a hurried shakedown going of this kind of overly "lobbied" legislation - before a pesky journalist joins the dots while the legislation is still on the table.
Re:Oh, I Was Kind of Looking Forward to It (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, an independent charity whose CEO is an ex-police officer.
http://www.iwf.org.uk/media/page.66.200.htm [iwf.org.uk]
No offence to them but at best it's a quango. Robbins joined fresh from his police career the year that Malcolm Hutty, executive director of the Campaign Against Censorship of the Internet, and two other members resigned [bbc.co.uk]. At the same time that the IWF came up with its 'Tough New Approach', in fact, curiously enough.
Whether or not it is funded as an independent charity, the Powers That Be very definitely have a hand in IWF sockpuppetry. As far as I can see the only differences between this approach to the IWF and the directly govt funded approach are a) the govt don't have to pay for it, because they can just lean on the ISPs to get 'donations', and b) a complete, total lack of accountability. The govt pretty much forced the creation of the IWF in the first place by threatening to raid ISPs...
Re:In other words... (Score:4, Informative)
Under Australian health regulations, they have to. Those little packets of soap are covered under the same regulations as the little packets of butter and jam, Anything that is touched by a customer must be disposed of and not reused regardless of weather it is opened or not. Of course this little regulation is sometimes ignored in private with unopened packets.
But when it comes to taking soap from a hotel room, is it really stealing? The cost of replacing that bar of soap and the little bottles of shampoo are factored into the price you paid to stay there. It's not like taking the towels or replacing vodka in the minibar with water (not that I've done this, walks away whistling). Shrinkage is also factored into a hotel's operating costs but it still doesn't make stealing towels right.
Re:Oh, I Was Kind of Looking Forward to It (Score:3, Informative)
It wasn't the government, it was the IWF (www.iwf.org.uk) who are actually an independant charity.
Except it was the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre [bbc.co.uk] who are a Government agency headed by a senior police officer [wikipedia.org].