There was one thing I wanted to stress about the, well, totally fucking batshit insane IPRED directive.
I’ve already mentioned how major industry organizations can maintain databases containing personal information otherwise considered private without regulation, forcibly extract the matching information from an ISP based on an accused IP address and a point in time, freeze your bank account, raid your home, seize any information on any digital device, extort you, take away your right to a lawyer and fair trial, make you under these circumstances prove that you didn’t do anything wrong and then force you to take out a magazine ad paid out of your own pocket proclaiming your conviction in civil court; most of which the police, miltary or most governmental organizations couldn’t do.
But I think I didn’t stress enough that the road to entry isn’t particularly guarded. You have to more or less be accused, and the rest of the pieces will start falling on their own. So when Cordfunnel writes “Music / video piraters: you are now officially fucked.“, that’s only partially true. The real truth is probably more like “Anyone who could be made to look like someone who downloads files from the Internet: you are now officially fucked.”. And that’s a whole lotta stiffs.
So. “Guilt upon accusation”, as CreativeFreedom.org.nz, a site against a similar proposal (Section 92) in New Zealand, puts it.
Raise your hand if you think “artists getting paid” is a good idea. Right now, this shit is what the chestnut “artists getting paid” means — the parts of the French Revolution that involved guillotines, basically. Except this is actually going to be written into law.
It’s one thing to pass a law, it’s another to make it stick – and there’s going to be plenty of lawyers willing to take this down for free.
What I don’t get, though, is why The Pirate Party / TPB are seen as ‘the opposition’ in this. It reminds me of people identifying with Soviet Russia as the opposite of the United States, or the way that Al Quaida and Amercian foreign policy are two sides of the same coin – each justifies its action in terms of the actions of the other.
And as with both of those, I reject the choice I am being presented with, because it doesn’t include my choice.
By JulesLt · 2009.03.02 22:49
Right now, those who seriously believe what you believe are fighting this just like I am. They hate this awful law because it runs counter to their cause being taken seriously. In that sense, this stands as a roadblock to any progress on the philosophical issues.
I doubt you really mean that you forfeit an opinion on this because you’re not squarely in one of the two existing ‘camps’ that you, not I, brought up. I brought up how the current legislation in favor of your position meant, well, *this*. It’s fear of concession from people with your mindset that forced their hand to vote through this law, when a more proportional alternative would have done. And the road to that starts by saying no.
And I really do hope you’re right about the plentiful pro-bono lawyers, willing to persuasively prove the innocence of their client from scratch, missing thorough documentation to back them up. It’s rigged from the start to make vindication almost impossible.
By Jesper · 2009.03.03 00:38