#G250* - Download piracy: has the film industry shot the bystanders?

Download piracy: has the film industry shot the bystanders?

The issue is a big one: if you make intellectual property, people are probably using the internet to steal from you.

Software licences get hacked, images, music and videos are “shared” for free, rather than bought or licensed as intended. Obviously it's wrong, costly and dishonest, but the present response, being quietly rolled out before our General Election may be thought extreme and has huge implications for both householders and businesses.

The entertainment industry has lobbied effectively in the halls of the EU and globally, and has got results: In September 2009, a bill passed the French Lower House to cut off net connections used by pirates. A markedly similar bill surfaced in Spain in early December.

Our own, the innocuously-named Digital Economy Bill, was quietly announced in the political “dead zone” between Christmas and the new year. The financial calculations attached to the British legislation estimate £500m direct admin cost, and £350m in extra VAT to central coffers. Both are annual expenditures for the nation, and will be met principally by internet users. No wonder governments like the idea!

What’s likely to happen?

•Telecoms charges will go up to cover the new bureaucracy.

•There may be a new legal liability of internet subscribers, for actions of third parties using their connection. In the home, that means family and visitors, and in the workplace, your staff and possibly customers too.

•Piracy, roughly defined as downloading entertainment for which payment has not been made to the copyright holder, will change from being a civil to a criminal offence, but crucially, it's not the perpetrator who will be held responsible, but the subscriber to the internet connection.

•Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will be given the role of policemen, to detect, report (and ultimately punish) anyone who 'allows' their Internet connection to be used for breach of copyright.

Criminal offences are proposed, and lesser punishments will include the restriction or removal of Internet access from the premises concerned.

The situation is changing rapidly though. The Lords (bless 'em) have tabled almost 300 amendments to the bill, and the whole thing may yet fail (in its present form) before our summer general election.

There is an internal fight going on in the halls of the EU about this. On the one hand are campaigners claiming that there should be free access to the internet for everyone (Estonia, Finland, France and Greece have all reportedly recently declared that broadband Internet access is a 'human right'). On the other hand there are industry anti-counterfeiting and copyright protection lobby groups. These generally seek to impose monitoring, and limit free passage of digital content, so that copyright infringers may be caught and punished.

Employment law is always complex, but this one could be a blank cheque for lawyers (sorry legal chaps, but it's true!). It touches on personal privacy, and may well impose complex new responsibilities on employers.

The smart money is now on a March or May general election in the UK, so the British bill may yet run out of time. It does however clearly indicate a pan-European trend towards less liberty and greater monitoring of the internet, and criminal legal penalties.

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The latest breaking news is a strong reaction from Charles Dunstone, chief executive of Carphone Warehouse CLICK HERE

To view Simon's original article in context CLICK HERE

"In politics, stupidity is not a handicap."
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821),

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‘The arrogance and hubris of corrupt politicians
will be responsible for every drop of blood spilt
in the Wars of Disassociation, if Britain does not
leave the EU.

The ugly, centralised, undemocratic supra national policies being imposed by the centralised and largely unelected decisionmakers of The EU for alien aims, ailien values and to suit alien needs stand every possibility of creating 200,000,000 deaths across EUrope as a result of the blind arrogance and hubris of the idiologues in the central dictatorship, and their economic illiteracy marching hand in glove with the idiocy of The CAP & The CFP - both policies which deliver bills, destroy lives and denude food stocks.

The EU, due to the political idiocy and corruption of its undemocratic leaders, is now a net importer of food, no longer able to feed itself and with a decreasing range of over priced goods of little use to the rest of the world to sell with which to counter the net financial drain of endless imports.

British Politicians with pens and treachery, in pursuit
of their own agenda and greed, have done more
damage to the liberty, freedoms, rights and democracy
of the British peoples than any army in over 1,000 years.

The disastrous effects of British politicians selling Britain
into the thrall of foreign rule by the EU for their own
personal rewards has damaged the well-being of Britain
more than the armies of Hitler
and the Franco - German - Italian axis of 1939 - 1945.

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Treat every election as a referendum.

Don't waste your vote on a self serving Politician in ANY election until we are liberated from the EU and are a Free Sovereign peoples, with independent control of our own borders, making and managing Law & Justice for our own benefit, in our own elected Westminster Parliament where we can fire our politicians at the ballot box, if they fail to represent OUR best interests.
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