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.'"
Oh, I Was Kind of Looking Forward to It (Score:5, Insightful)
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'.
Call me stupid but I was kind of hoping they would pass legislation and attempt to arrest a 100,000 people--flooding their legal system with 'guilty' file sharers and stealing valuable time from police officers who should be focusing on real threats to society.
You know, it's not until they actually try to rigidly enforce this that they'll realize that the premise of "stealing from the IFPI/MPAA/RIAA" is utter bullshit. They'll be arresting (hopefully Brazil [wikipedia.org] style) large numbers of students that have no money and finding that the file sharing they were doing did not supplant an imaginary source of spending. They'll also cripple their legal system to try to reprimand people from "stealing" something that isn't physical.
I'm not supporting illegal file sharing, I'm not condoning it, I am just hoping that they try to enforce something this stupid so they realize they are in no way providing a solution to a fix an archaic business model threatened by amazing new communications technology.
Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
"'we can't have a system where we're talking about arresting teenagers in their bedrooms."
Why not? We do it here daily in the USA.
we also financially ruin their families just for good measure as well.
Re:First (Score:1, Insightful)
Now we can download stoner movies, but can't smoke a reefer whilst watching them.
Swings and roundabouts.
Re:Oh, I Was Kind of Looking Forward to It (Score:2, Insightful)
Just means someone else will do it. (Score:5, Insightful)
All this does is open the way for a properly appointed government body to do it.
Bugger.
In other words... (Score:4, Insightful)
People can rent a room in an hotel and leave with a bar of soap â" there's a big difference between leaving with a bar of soap and leaving with the television
In other words, it's fine to steal things as long as they're of low value. I'm fairly certain the hotel *could* have me arrested for stealing their soap, it's just not usually worth their time.
Don't get too excited yet. (Score:5, Insightful)
Bear in mind the Gower's report on copyright terms that was an independent review on what was best for the country. The report fed back that 50 years as is is fine, but less would be better.
Both the Conservatives and Labour outright ignored this independent report that they commissioned in the first place and still decided to push for 70 years.
This could just as well end up the same. Unfortunately common sense holds no place in the corrupt halls of British parliament. Why follow the recommended route and gain nothing when you can just vote for harsh punishments and get all sorts of goodies and incentives from the music and movie industry? That's how most of them see it. It aint just the Lords that's corrupt, I felt David Cameron's comment the other day that he'd put someone from the creative industries (music, movies, books, advertising) in charge of Britain's broadband future quite telling- I mean really, what the hell qualifications do the creative industries have for solving what are basically technological problems?
It really is! (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow it really is a sudden outbreak of common sense... I am shocked. Then again, it would be 10x more amazing if it were the US dropping the DMCA...
Re:First (Score:5, Insightful)
Now we can download stoner movies, but can't smoke a reefer whilst watching them.
Stoner movies don't actually make you think about stuff that much, granted, pot does make you think incoherent stuff at times but it makes you think nonetheless. The last thing the UK government needs now is people thinking stuff about their incoherent policies.
Re:In other words... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm fairly certain the hotel *could* have me arrested for stealing their soap...
I doubt it. Not when the packaging calls it "complimentary soap". I think it's fair enough to consider the soap to be a gift from the hotel to you, much like the little chocolates on the pillow.
It's a flawed metaphor anyway. If you take the soap, it's gone, whereas when you download an MP3, it's still there. A better comparison would be dodging your fare on the Underground - and Transport for London levies a £50 fine [tfl.gov.uk] for that, which is less than a parking ticket will cost you.
Re:Oh, I Was Kind of Looking Forward to It (Score:2, Insightful)
It wasn't the government, it was the IWF (www.iwf.org.uk) who are actually an independant charity.
(quoted from their about page)
"We are an independent self-regulatory body, funded by the EU and the wider online industry."
"We work with UK government to influence initiatives developed to combat online abuse and this dialogue goes beyond the UK and Europe to ensure greater awareness of global issues, trends and responsibilities."
"IWF is an incorporated charity, limited by guarantee. Charity No. 1112398."
Re:Uk government, "if at first you don't succeed" (Score:1, Insightful)
Dude. Weak. The Register?! You may as well be referencing Fox News, I've never read anything in the register that wasn't bleeding of oversensationalisation and regularly hit spots where they obviously haven't even made a slight attempt at verifying their story elements. The Register isn't a reliable source of anything, please don't spread their panic stories, you can do so much better I promise you.
Re:Oh, I Was Kind of Looking Forward to It (Score:5, Insightful)
Call me stupid but I was kind of hoping they would pass legislation and attempt to arrest a 100,000 people--flooding their legal system with 'guilty' file sharers and stealing valuable time from police officers who should be focusing on real threats to society.
See, "Drug War"
Re:David Lammy MP (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, the wonderful "4 hour wait" in the Accident and Emergency departments..
Nice idea, in theory.. But the implementation is something along the lines of:
"Ok, this task that took you anywhere between 30 minutes and 6 to 8 hours, depending on how many people walk through the door (a random number, very roughly predictable in trends analysis, but often with huge discrepancies), will now definitely be done in 4 hours or less. No, we won't give you any more money to employ extra people to cope with the extra load. If fact, if you don't do as we say, we'll take some of your money away. Yes, I know you don't have the money to employ staff sufficient to do this, or have the beds available to admit enough people, but there you are. No, we don't know how you do it, that's your job. We've done ours in telling you to just do it".
Some places just honestly can't do that. It's not feasible.. I've seen some that now have ticketing systems, where you take a numbered ticket, and when they call the number, you get to go up and register at the desk. At that point, you're "officially waiting". Before that, you're just "in the queue to register to wait".
Most places are better, but that's meant closing wards on some days, so there's an overflow to medical assessment, where you can throw the cases that aren't urgent but there aren't the staff to perform the basic treatment. The initial triage is a rush to get done. I know of doctors and nurses that have been pulled off their usual wards to help out in triage (so you end up with people not getting neuro/cardio treatment, so they can examine and patch up the drunkards who aim for a fight on friday and saturday nights).
The "Targets Culture" in the UK NHS is absolutely crippling it. And the biggest waste of money on it is working out a "legitimate workaround" so you can do what's possible with the staff you have, and not run headlong into getting fined huge amounts of money for breaching an arbitrary target that was not possible to meet in the first place.
Still, seems like he does have a touch of common sense!
Re:First (Score:2, Insightful)