John Linton
.....to the dreaded surveillance society and all of the doom and gloom that George Orwell predicted.
I had intended to see what impact the UK Government's copyright protection policies had on the two ISPs I have contacts with while I was in the UK but the flurry of articles that appeared overnight about the apparent toughening of the UK government stance as in this article:
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090825/1021095995.shtml
makes that redundant. When I was in the UK around this time last year the UK had just brought in the agreement with the major ISPS to send warning letters to users when authorised agents for various media companies issued them to the ISPs with the possibility that, like the legislation the Irish government was enacting, disconnection for persistent offenders could be considered. The early claims I subsequently read, and I can't remember when that was, were that by sending the letters piracy had reduced by 15% - but my memory could well be playing me tricks.
One thing that has always intrigued me about copyright theft is the brazen attitude of both the people who do it and the people who speak out on the public record about it - like the person who wrote this article. His derisive reference to "the media industry lobbyists" and "the movie and recording industries" shows his, and everyone like him, belief that "how dare they try and get the government to try and stop us stealing their property". I really just don't "get it". What sort of society do we live in where people not only think it's perfectly OK to steal property but actually think it's so 'OK' that they publicly get offended if the owners of the property approach their respective governments to actually 'police' the theft better?
"I think it's just fine for me to steal your property and how dare you attempt to stop me from doing that".
As a kid I remember that I, and many kids I knew, stole magazines and paper backs and other easily concealable articles from the local newsagent and book store. To my eternal shame I remember that on probably more than one occasion I stole money from my mother's purse. Those acts were pure theft and I was never under any misapprehension that 1) I was committing a criminal offence, 2) it was wrong to deprive people of their property and 3) there was some chance I would get caught and suffer the consequences. While I would prefer to think that I stopped doing those things because of an increasing awareness of the wrong of it - it was almost certainly the fear of 3) that eventuated in my ceasing those anti-social activities. Not so the people who, each, now steal property worth hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year and then turn round and vehemently declare, publicly, that it's completely "OK".....because there is little to no chance that they will have to face any consequences of their actions.
So now in Ireland, and if the overnight articles are to be believed, in the UK in the not too distant future, copyright theft will now be taken more seriously in terms of the law and there may be an attempt to stop people who illegally download copyright protected material using the internet. The public yellers and screamers about 'fascist music and movie industry' are unlikely to be deterred from their on going thieving by these actions - but a proportion will be: parents whose children cause the family internet to be disconnected, flat mates who cause their other flat mates to lose internet connection when assignments, left to the last minute are due, wives whose husbands cause the children to lose the ability to do their home work and a dozen more scenarios that immediately come to mind.
The brazen thieves won't be bothered - they will believe they can continue stealing by just changing their ISP...and so they can unless the third mooted stage of the process is put into place. It has been suggested that to address the 'hard core' thieves a register is kept of the telephone numbers that have had the internet disconnected for persistent copy breach and that all ISPs will be required to build into their provisioning systems the requirement to check that register before activating a new internet service. All very 'fascist' and a sad commentary on the 'surveillance society' The problem is crime is reaching such proportions in so many aspects of daily life that there is an increasing rationale for such surveillance.
I am always amused at the people who speak out on this subject vociferously claiming that it's "illegal" for a copyright infringement notice to be sent because it hasn't been proven in a "court of law" that the offence has actually taken place. What complete hypocrites these people are to, knowing that they constantly steal other people's property (they break the law) and then rant excessively when their ELECTED government seeks to put more laws in place to prevent copyright theft via the internet.
Personally I have no view on this matter other than the need for Exetel to obey all and any laws that apply to its business operations and (as in the recent AFACT campaign to find a bunny to prosecute) to protect the company from unnecessary costs of operation by being stupid. What does surprise me, and continues to surprise me to a greater extent as it continues, is the number of people who seem so ethically and morally bankrupt that they publicly condone widespread property theft so publicly.
It seems, at least to me, that the societies we now live in have regressed more than a little over the decades I have been aware of right and wrong.