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Irish Judge OKs Three Strikes, Calls Copyright A Human Right

Copyright

from the moral-crusaders dept

Fri, Apr 16th 2010 06:13pm -

A judge in Ireland has ruled that plans by ISP Eircom to use a three-strikes system to yank file-sharers’ internet connections don’t violate the country’s privacy laws, and can move forward. Eircom instituted the plan after it was sued by a music industry trade group for not stopping file-sharing from occurring on its network, and the extreme language used by the judge would indicate that the group’s efforts to force other ISPs to play along have gotten a significant boost. The judge in the case said that copyright was “a fundamental right” under Irish law, and that “The right to be identified with and to reasonably exploit one’s own original creative endeavour I regard as a human right.” That’s a huge hole for record labels to drive their agenda through: now they’re fighting for human rights, like people trying to stop genocide, hunger, discrimination and other noble pursuits. U2 manager Paul McGuinness, an outspoken supporter of three-strikes rules, is understandably thrilled. But he still can’t explain how kicking people off the internet — and pissing off customers — is a viable business model.

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Comments on “Irish Judge OKs Three Strikes, Calls Copyright A Human Right”

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172 Comments
vivaelamor (profile) says:

Re: Re:

“That’s probably the first time exploitation has ever been described as a human right.”

Hear, hear.

What really bugs me about this ruling is that the Justice quotes St Colmcille as saying “to each cow its calf and to every book its copy”, suggesting that he was against copying. A quick google search suggests that quote is in fact from King Diarmaid’s court council, ruling against St Colmcille, who had surreptitiously copied the book of another monk named Finnian.

You can read a well sourced version of the story here: http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/gikii/docs2/corrigan.pdf

I am left wondering how the Justice managed to go out of his way to quote a historical figure without even managing to attribute it to someone on the same side of the argument.

vivaelamor (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

May some deity strike me down for abusing the comment system so, but I have to point out what St Colmcille appears to have actually said:

“I contend,” saith Colmcille, “that the book of Finnen is none the worse for my copying it, and it is not right that the divine words in that book should perish, or that I or any other should be hindered from writing them or reading them or spreading them among the tribes. And further I declare that it was right for me to copy it, seeing the was profit to me from doing in this wise, and seeing it was my desire to give the profit thereof to all peoples, with no harm therefore to Finnen or his book.”

I submit that a round of Nelsonesque Ha, Ha! noises be directed at the Justice for this snafu.

I know stuff.... says:

Re: Re: Re: Vivaelamor & Colmcille

The judge is quoting a phrase from the judge/king/representative of king in the Colmcille case..

There, in deciding that the copy was the property of the owner of the original, the king famously said “to each cow its calf, and to each book its copy”, thereby ruling against Colmcille

So no issue there.. you just read it wrong. Judge in this case is against copying.. and also allowed the three strikes settlement agreement to stand in the face of data protection laws.

vivaelamor (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Vivaelamor & Colmcille

“The judge is quoting a phrase from the judge/king/representative of king in the Colmcille case.. “

From the judgement: “This has existed as part of Irish legal tradition since the time of Saint Colmcille. He is often quoted for his aphorism: le gach bó a buinín agus le gach leabhar a chóip (to each cow its calf and to every book its copy).”

A hearty Ha, Ha! to you too, reading challenged stranger.

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

TAM doesn’t post here anymore since Mike dropped the ban hammer on him.

So wrong in so little space. (1) We’ve not dropped a ban hammer on anyone, especially not TAM. His account is still active and always has been. (2) He is still posting here, just not as TAM — though it seems most commenters see it as obvious when he comments.

Though, looking over his recent comments, he’s stopped being the “devil’s advocate” and is now 100% trolling — posting obviously inane comments just to make people respond. Too bad. He used to be interesting.

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

No denial, Mike?

Or maybe I just wasn’t around a computer today?

Geeze. The more time you spend here, the more silly you seem to be getting. Is your life really so sad that the best you can do is now make up totally bogus conspiracy theories about me needing to block your comments?

It’s not true. You know you’ve always been free to comment here under whatever name you want. Hell, we’ve had lots of people ask us to START blocking your comments, because you don’t add much (most of the time) to the conversation, but spend more time trying to disrupt things, and we’ve defended you time and time again when people ask us to block you.

So, no, you’ve never been blocked. It’s just another of your lies.

doughless (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:6 Re:

Mike did it on purpose:

1. Mike, while posting under his real name in this comment thread, he mistakes the wrong anonymous coward as TAM.
2. Later, in some other article, he posts as anonymous coward and points out that different anonymous coward is really TAM.
3. TAM, posting as an anonymous coward, points out that the anonymous coward that is pointing him out is really Mike.
4. Mike then points back to this comment thread, saying that he can’t possibly be Mike when even the “real” Mike can’t tell who TAM is.
5. ?
6. Profit!

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:6 Re:

i dont know if he was ever blocked but i know your over zealous staff blocked a tam account because they didnt like a word in the email address. so would you like to take back your comments or are you just going to lie some more?

This is incorrect again. You were never blocked. At one point you did try to sign up yet another account, and used an email address that appeared to be spam. And, yes, an overzealous employee here turned off that account, though it never blocked anyone. And, as you well know, within about 20 minutes, when you started screaming bloody murder, we went and looked, saw what happened, apologized, reinstated the account, and reminded the employee in question that we only shut down accounts when they are actually used for spam — not just when they look like they come from spam accounts, as your accounts inevitably do. But at no point was he blocked or not allowed to comment in any way. And, of course, all of this is public record, as it took place in the comments itself. You can read the whole thread if you want: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090803/0308375752.shtml

As noted, we disable spam accounts. That you signed up with an email address that looked quite like a typical porn spammer was… well… telling.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:7 Re:

it wasnt telling. your overzealous employee decides to block it without checking posts. that was blocking me. thus you have lied already saying that people were not blocked because there were. sucks to get caught doesnt it? now if you could get past the point and realize i didnt ask you any of these questions but someone else did then you might realize that you have made a fool of yourself. oh yeah, you violated anonymous posters again too.

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:8 Re:

it wasnt telling. your overzealous employee decides to block it without checking posts. that was blocking me. thus you have lied already saying that people were not blocked because there were. sucks to get caught doesnt it?

Heh. Ok, let’s do this one more time, and then I’m done posting in response to this rather inane discussion.

(1) Someone (not you) said that you (TAM) were no longer commenting here because your account had been blocked.

(2) I pointed out that was not true.

(3) You (TAM) claimed that I was lying and you had been blocked, and pointed to one specific example.

(4) That specific example is both wrong and does not fit the claim of the original comment.

(5) It is wrong in that you were never blocked. You had an account temporarily deactivated, which at no point stopped you from commenting. You could still comment, you just could not log into that account. That lasted for all of about *half an hour*. It happened in August — and it was before you started commonly using the TAM name. After that you used the TAM name for a few months and oddly stopped on Feb. 15th. You can see all the comments you made under that account here: http://www.techdirt.com/profile.php?u=tam Notice how many comments occur well after August 2009 when that 30 minutes of account deactivation occurred.

(6) To thus suggest, incorrectly, that having an account deactivated for about 30 minutes in August meant that you had been blocked is obviously faulty, as you really didn’t even start using the TAM account until after that date and used it continuously until February.

(7) You were never blocked, have not been blocked, and have always been free to use the TAM account other than 30 minutes by a mistake for which we apologized.

All of that has been entirely public. I did not lie. I was not “caught.” The statement was that you were no longer commenting here because you had been blocked. That was entirely untrue. You’ve never been blocked and you are still commenting here and you are free to do so, because it’s fun to watch you make these sorts of ridiculous arguments.

Anyway. I will not respond to you further on this particular thread, because there is no point in doing so. Everyone is free to read the details, and follow the links and make their own judgments.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:9 Re:

sorry but mike you got it all wrong. i didnt agree or disagree that tam account was blocked i dont know dont have access dont care. i only said that at least one post had been blocked which was true when an account was blocked by techdirt. the rest is someone else baiting you and making you look funny. congrats on getting caught over reacting and not telling all the truth. oh and the account you blocked wasnt tam account it was something else but you arent good with facts anyway. have a nice sunday.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:9 Re:

let me add this: you are violating anonymous right now by addressing posts to a person and saying that person is posting. ‘Someone (not you) said that you (TAM) were no longer commenting here because your account had been blocked.’ this by definition points out which one of the anonymous posters may be a given person. sorry but you just keep making it worse instead of better. admit it mike you over stepped the line and got tricked by some other anonymous poster who wasnt who you thought they were and now you have gone off on a rant. sorry but you got it wrong and violated the very things you consider important.

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

it is one of the reasons not to post with a name. less chance to get filtered. i wonder how many angry dude posts dont make it.

Also not true. Being anonymous actually gives you a greater likelihood of having your comments caught by the spam filter (which, again, get released after a regular review if not spam).

And none of angry dude’s comments have ever been blocked or deleted. I mean, come on. Have you seen the stuff he writes on the site? Do you think there’s something worse he could have written that we wouldn’t have allowed?

It’s more fun to watch him (and you) post something stupid and to watch everyone rip apart the completely moronic arguments.

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

Heh, that’s not what I heard. Seems his comments started getting held for indefinite “staff review”.

Not true. Not even close to true.

His comments have never been held. He may have triggered the spam filter once, but I’m not even sure of that.

Given that we’ve let all sorts of his ridiculous comments through even on this thread it seems pretty obvious that isn’t true.

As I’ve said probably a dozen times before, we have a spam filter. Every so often legitimate comments get caught in the spam filter, but we free them as soon as we find them — and, yes, that includes comments that disagree with us. Given the number of comments that disagree with what we have to say, thinking otherwise is pretty amusing.

Now, it is true that we do not let spam comments post on the site or stay up if we see them after they’ve made it through, *and* it is true that we include “pure troll” comments in that categorization. Those are comments that are not about the topic at hand or a part of the ensuing discussion. We’ve also deleted a few comments here or there that beyond the pale (such as one that described rather specific plans to kill someone and had nothing to do with the story). But legitimate comments, no matter how stupid (such as those made by TAM) do remain on the site. We believe that it’s better to fight stupidity by letting people see it.

Of course, TAM recognizes this, which is why he now posts anonymously. His old personas had been totally discredited, and now he can pretend to be a series of different people, all agreeing with himself, which I guess he finds amusing.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

why so angry mike? want to violate some anonymous poster again? no discrediting to anonymous posters you are forced to deal with issues rather than people. what do you do? you stop answering and start making it personal and violate the anonymous barrier. too bad that you didnt check to realize that some other anonymous has asked you all these questions. fail whale again.

RD says:

Re: Re: Re:5 Re:

“why so angry mike? want to violate some anonymous poster again? “

Frankly, Mike can “violate” you all he wants as far as we are concerned. You whine and cry more than an infant (and LIKE an infant), spread blatant lies, falsehoods and misrepresentations around, and generally serve only to stir up shit rather than have any actual discourse or reasoned arguments. You are beyond worthless and I really wish there WAS a way to ban or block your sniveling little diatribes.

RD says:

Re: Re: Re:7 Re:

“hey rd, when i want your opinion i will ask for it, otherwise keep it to yourself.”

Says the Traitor Against Mankind that is all for the removal of personal rights and abrogating the constitution if it will line his pockets and those of his corporate masters. Interesting that you dont seem to feel the same need to keep YOUR opinion to yourself. Maybe you should practice what you preach. Oh thats right, lying hypocrites dont understand such concepts as “whats right for you is right for me too” or the idea that the constitution grants both my right to privacy AND expressing my opinion.

“you are just a whiny child as far as i am concerned.”

Nothing more than taking my remark and reusing it. Lazy.

“call us back when you move out of moms basement and get off the meds.”

Funny about that, I havent lived with her in over 2 decades. You probably cant say the same.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:9 Re:

“Do you realize how angry you sound RD? It’s is actually frightening.”

And what cloistered, rose-colored-glasses world do you live in? Because if you think THAT is anger, you really have no conception of the term.

Notice also that, once again, instead of debating the issues, you deflect and attack the person with personal attacks. So, guess we now know for certain you really DONT have any valid viewpoints on these topics, and you are nothing more than a paid mouthpiece for an increasingly draconian and fascist industry.

RD says:

Re: Re: Re:9 Re:

“Do you realize how angry you sound RD? It’s is actually frightening.”

And what cloistered, rose-colored-glasses world do you live in? Because if you think THAT is anger, you really have no conception of the term.

Notice also that, once again, instead of debating the issues, you deflect and attack the person with personal attacks. So, guess we now know for certain you really DONT have any valid viewpoints on these topics, and you are nothing more than a paid mouthpiece for an increasingly draconian and fascist industry.

Observer says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

Let’s see now, speaking of TAM you wrote:

“His comments have never been held.”

And then:

“Though, looking over his recent comments, he’s stopped being the “devil’s advocate” and is now 100% trolling — posting obviously inane comments just to make people respond.”

But then you also wrote:

“Now, it is true that we do not let spam comments post on the site or stay up if we see them after they’ve made it through, *and* it is true that we include ‘pure troll’ comments in that categorization.”

Well, first of all , you have a pretty funny definition of “spam” if you include comments that you characterize as “troll”. So what’s troll? Whatever you decide it is? That sure sounds to me like you might indeed be actually deleting some comments that you just don’t like, if that’s the case.

And I’d careful about trying to equate “trolling” to “spamming”, if I were you. Some people find your own positions on things like copyrights and patents to absurd and “obvious trolling”. Now if trolling were the same as spamming, I could see them arguing that Techdirt itself should be banned from the Internet for spamming (trolling). Does that still sound good to you?

And as to TAM, first you say you don’t delete his comments, then you say all he does is troll, and then you say that you delete troll comments. So which is it Mike? Do you delete his comments or not?

When people start contradicting themselves like that and trying to claim that words mean something other than what most everyone else thinks they do (trolling isn’t spamming, despite what you say), it often means that they just can’t get their stories straight because they aren’t telling the truth. So now we know. What a shame, Mike.

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5 Re:

Well, first of all , you have a pretty funny definition of “spam” if you include comments that you characterize as “troll”. So what’s troll? Whatever you decide it is? That sure sounds to me like you might indeed be actually deleting some comments that you just don’t like, if that’s the case.

I said, quite clearly, that we only delete comments that are totally consider spam — which means they have absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand.

I have never — not once — deleted on on topic comment.

Frankly, we have one of the most open commenting policies anywhere.

And I’d careful about trying to equate “trolling” to “spamming”, if I were you.

Why? Because the blog police will come arrest me? It’s my site. The policies we set are beyond reasonable. As stated, a lot more people ask us to block the likes of TAM than are happy that we keep him, but I prefer a much more open discussion, because sunlight shows the true nature of his comments.

And as to TAM, first you say you don’t delete his comments, then you say all he does is troll, and then you say that you delete troll comments. So which is it Mike? Do you delete his comments or not?

As I said: we have NEVER deleted a TAM comment — despite many requests that we do so.

In the nearly 13 years this site has been around, I believe that we have deleted somewhere around a dozen comments — and those were beyond the pale types of comments. Now that does not include the millions of spam comments caught by our filter (around 40k per day), but we do not delete comments unless the situation is extreme. Some moron acting like an idiot does not qualify.

Observer says:

Re: Re: Re:6 Re:

I said, quite clearly, that we only delete comments that are totally consider spam — which means they have absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand.

Which is how you characterized TAM’s comments, now wasn’t it?

Why? Because the blog police will come arrest me? It’s my site.

But it’s not your Internet, and most ISPs (including yours, I imagine) prohibit spamming. Now if the rest of the world were to accept your definition of “spamming” to include “trolling”, and then someone convinced your ISP that your copyright and patent positions amounted to trolling, then they just might disconnect you (and blacklist you from other ISPs as well). How’s that for “why”? So yeah, it’d still be your site all right. All yours. All by itself. With no connectivity. Moral of the story: be careful what you wish for.

As I said: we have NEVER deleted a TAM comment — despite many requests that we do so.

Why not? You said that his comments were pure troll and that you delete those. You’re still contradicting yourself (and only digging your hole deeper).

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:7 Re:

“Which is how you characterized TAM’s comments, now wasn’t it?”

There is a difference between merely trolling and off topic trolling. He specifically blocks extreme off topic trolling. and right now you’re trolling.

“But it’s not your Internet”

It’s not yours either. The Internet belongs to everyone, different parts of the Internet belong to different people. This blog, a certain part of the Internet, belongs to him. He can do what he pleases.

“But it’s not your Internet, and most ISPs (including yours, I imagine) prohibit spamming.”

The Internet as a whole allows more things than a specific blog is to allow. Heck, even spam on a spamming site might be appropriate to some extent, even to an ISP. But spam that disrupts everyone’s personal E – mails might be blocked by the E – mail provided. As far as spam on the Internet, the ISP has to come after the user if they really want to stop it. But really, I think you’re making an issue out of nothing being that the blog already blocks most of the spam that ISP’s don’t block or seem to prohibit. It doesn’t really seem like ISP’s prohibit spam, at least not in any meaningful way. But it’s fine, we find mechanisms to stop spamming without the ISP’s intervention. In fact, it’s probably not too much the ISP’s business to prohibit spam to the extent that it might require an invasion of our privacy. Some places on the net may tolerate spam and the ISP might be OK with it. It’s more up to a particular place on the Net to decide what content they do and don’t tolerate and to block intolerable content as they see fit.

“Now if the rest of the world were to accept your definition of “spamming” to include “trolling”, and then someone convinced your ISP that your copyright and patent positions amounted to trolling, then they just might disconnect you”

Except you seem to have a reading comprehension problem that effectively mischaracterizes his definition of spamming. and you also seem to be misrepresenting the job of an ISP (or at least what the job of an ISP ought to be) which is merely to provide connectivity and, for the most part (with few exceptions like when the government wants to investigate issues that concern potential violence and terrorism), mind its own business. The rest of the net has developed methods to handle spam in areas that it is not considered appropriate.

“Moral of the story: be careful what you wish for.”

No, moral of the story, learn to read and stop misinterpreting what Mike says.

“Why not? You said that his comments were pure troll and that you delete those. You’re still contradicting yourself (and only digging your hole deeper).”

No, it’s your reading comprehension problem that’s digging yourself a hole.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:8 Re:

… might be blocked by the E – mail provider (and not the ISP. ie: Gmail might block spam, and they have every right to if they wish. The ISP should probably still mind its own business and the spammer could go find someone else to spam. The free market, for the most part, corrects spamming issues).

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

you dont think the masnick doesnt do that to your posts already?

it is the land of the hypocrisy. masnick applauds when isps dont give up user info but he has no problem telling everyone who an anonymous poster is. do as i say not do as i do? this reveals the sham of techdirt i guess.

harbingerofdoom (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

well, seeing as how i dont see anything around here anywhere that says “HEY!! HERE IS TAM’S POST!!!”
that’d be a no. unless of course for some reason you think that he is just doing it so that you and i are the ONLY ones that dont see the tags?

if so, you are no longer even a troll, that just makes you a member of the tinfoilhat brigade.

as far as your point, how is an ISP not giving up your identity and a website operator (on whose site by the way you do NOT have any expectation of rights to freedom of speech beyond what the operator says) pointing out that “TAM still posts here and his posts are obvious to many” even remotely the same thing?

im startin to think the tinfoilbrigade is where you belong.

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

it is the land of the hypocrisy. masnick applauds when isps dont give up user info but he has no problem telling everyone who an anonymous poster is.

I’ve never done that.

I have pointed out when certain commenters are the same people. That’s not the same thing, but you’re not known for letting details or facts concern you when you want to act out.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:6 Re:

“it violates the right to be anonymous”

You have a right to post your thoughts on a blog that chooses to allow you to stay anonymous. That blog owner has a right to choose whether s/he wishes to allow anonymous commenters on his/her blog. He/she also has a right to choose not to. If they choose not to you have a right to go to another blog. The government, with very few exceptions, has very little right to interfere with this process (ie: if you threaten to blow up a building or kill someone then I absolutely expect the government to investigate).

RD says:

Re: Re: Re:7 Re:

“You mean the right you constantly insist shouldn’t exist, TAM?”

Of course not! Then again, when talking about TAM, hypocrisy is the order of the day. Funny how that works, when the show is on the other foot, suddenly privacy is a BIG issue! But when it comes to any even SLIGHT violation of his Lord and Masters’ Holy Copyrights, then its all “they NEED to be HANGED!!” in the most extreme and public a manner as possible.

He will say one thing, mean another, then say ANOTHER, opposing, thing, then take YOU to task for “not getting it” and “misunderstanding” him. Plus, he is a shill for the Big Corp/*IAA’s anyway.

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Re:

mike, a word to the wise: respect anonymous. outing people who post anonymously has its risks.

You keep saying this, and I keep responding. I’ve never “outed” anyone. I have said when two commenters are the same people. For example, it’s obvious to pretty much any regular reader here that you are “TAM.”

Of course, as such, I should also point out that in a previous thread, you gave explicit permission for me to reveal your private info, including your IP address and email address, but I have never done so.

Either way, revealing that two commenters are the same, and that one once went by the name The Anti Mike is not violating anyone’s anonymity. I have no idea who you are, so there’s no info to reveal. All I have is an IP address, which I haven’t revealed, even though you gave me permission to do so in an earlier thread.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Re:

yes it does violate anonymous. you should never connect the two. if someone chooses to post with a name that is their choice not yours. anonymous is anonymous, should always be. your using of information to make that public call is a violation of privacy. you would be all up an isp for revealing any information about users why do you feel the need to do it here?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:6 Re:

nope in masnick world there is no difference. they are all 230 service providers. by violating any one persons information, he gives that up. he is no longer just providing a chat board he could be liable for everything on here, or obliged to give up the information on everyone else. you guys should be outraged like you are about isps doing it because masnick has shown he is willing to do it without a blink.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

The judge gets it partly right in that one should be paid for one’s work if one does work for money.

Now if the judge could just extend thought to an outside non contract third party is not responsible for relations between two other parties.

And it would be really great if the judge could extend thought to the concept of if one works and is paid for one’s work that they get to keep the product of their work and that a society has no claim to the proceeds i.e one is not a slave to society.

DJ (profile) says:

Why we left...and yet....

“The right to be identified with and to reasonably exploit one’s own original creative endeavour I regard as a human right.”

One of the reasons the original settlers of this land LEFT Europe was because lawmakers/enforcers/judges employed OPINION with regard to the law, not necessarily upholding the law itself. And yet we’re starting to see this sort of thing in the States as well….

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Why we left...and yet....

This is why I propose that judges should somehow be held accountable to the PEOPLE for making really bad decisions. Unfortunately, they are not. That needs to change.

Perhaps making them have to run for elections (and not merely appointments) every once in a while might help.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Why we left...and yet....

1) Fair representation of the people. For example, if a political party gets 30% of the votes during an election, they should get 30% of the seats.

2) A better system, one that is truly fair, should be employed as at least part of the process for choosing Judges.

3) All laws need an expiry date. That is to say, they need to be reviewed after a certain mount of time to make sure they still make sense. You wouldn’t believe the sheer quantity of stupid laws there are. For example, it being illegal to hunt whales with a shotgun from a moving car or fishing while riding a giraffe.

4) Frivolous lawsuits need to have more stringent punishments against the plaintiff, especially where free speech and/or human rights are the target (abuse of the DMCA for example). Law is supposed to be about checks and balances, is it not?

5) The whole concept of lobbyists needs to be outlawed. The very idea that industries, the rich 1%, are allowed to have so much influence, financial and otherwise, over our elected officials is completely ludicrous. Who lobbies for the other 99% of society?

These are the five things I can think of that would lead to a better system of government. Democracy is the whole idea here, is it not? In my mind that means fairness above all.

Hephaestus (profile) says:

Re: Re: Why we left...and yet....

“Perhaps making them have to run for elections”
you already went down that path yesterday. Running for elections is not something you want a judge to do. It requires they make friends with the people funding the election. Look at the political favors, ACTA, the health care bill, bailing out the banks, a trillion dollars of recovery spending to cover 20-40 billion in political payola. Electing judges is not a good idea they would become beholden to others.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: human right

Humanity has a right to build communication infrastructure and use it without monopolies getting in our way.

If one ISP wants to ban someone for something, that’s fine, provided that anyone is allowed to compete. and it’s anyone’s right to compete and provide Internet service.

Also, copywrong laws are not a human right, they’re a privilege, and for ISP’s to think that they must ban people off the Internet to avoid the liability of not enforcing an unnecessary and harmful privilege against the ISP’s right not to punish anyone for violating such privileges and the ISP’s RIGHT not to be held liable for not punishing those who break such privileges only demonstrates the atrocious nature of our legal system and how it interferes with our rights.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 human right

“or to steal from others?”

Copywrong infringement is not stealing and everyone has a right to freely copy whatever content they see fit, despite the legal privileges restricting said rights. You have no right to a monopoly on anything (that you don’t physically own).

and to equate infringing on someones privileges with stealing is flat out dishonest and gives me more reason to mistrust IP maximists and their position and what they claim.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 human right

“is the internet on par with rights like food and clean water?”

Our rights to grow and sell food and access water and distribute it and have the public pay for such distribution are important rights. but we also have rights to build and use communication channels and not have copywrong privileges interfere with our rights to use these channels.

Smoking Gun says:

The collapse of humanity.

So let me get this straight, corporations are deserving of human rights now? If this judge was talking about individual artists, I could understand that and would agree with him. However, this case had nothing to do with artists. The recording industry and the artists are two very different things. One exploits the other on a massive scale and receives the lions share of the profits for doing so. I just don’t see how corporate entities are more deserving of human rights than actual humans are.

What happens when false positives become rampant, resulting in a great deal of innocent people being forced off of the internet? While I’m at it, what about all of the other online services people use and pay for? No more internet means no more online shopping, which is how a LOT of people make purchases these days. I buy almost everything from online stores these days as it is easy and allows me to find the best prices. About the only thing I don’t buy online, for wholly impractical and obvious reasons, are fuel and groceries (though I can order take-out food online). Internet users aren’t going to be the only ones affected when enough of the population have lost their internet connection. Tons of business may eventually see their bottom line affected too.

Don’t even get me started on the implications for education, access to information, and public services as well, all during a time when most governments are trying to move more and more of themselves online (voting for example). This three strikes plan may seem like a good idea to a tiny percentage of folks now, but ultimately I foresee it going all wrong for everyone. On top of it all, nobody has pointed out how kicking people off of the internet is going to magically increase entertainment sales. Anyone?

No more internet?
No more Dell.
No more Amazon.
No more eBay.
No more Xbox Live.
No more DLC.
No more MMORPG’s or online gaming.
No more iTunes.
No more Netflix.
No more Newegg.
No more YouTube or Hulu.
No more open source.
No more donating.
No more pre-purchased tickets.
No more research.
No more Web MD.
No more Wikis.
No more streaming radio.
No more online banking.
No more e-mail or instant messaging.
No more VoiP.
No more forums.
No more breaking news.
No more Pet Finder.
No more deviantArt or CG Society.
No more digital photography.
No more game walkthrus.
No more technical help.
No more Weather Network.
No more access to anything governmental.
No more eyes seeing your advertising.

That all barely scratches the surface. Is the recording industry really more important than all of that? I say prove it.

ToasterPoster says:

Re: The collapse of humanity.

Certainly the government would step in before anything really bad happens … their solution would be something which generates revenue while appeasing their masters. Fines and the like would their first choice, followed with community service and public humiliation.

Maybe we as a society would like to reintroduce the use of the stockade to punish those who have accused of piracy. While we are at it, we could start burning those accused of being witches.

This would all be done in the name of copyright preservation

TTFN says:

Re: Re: The collapse of humanity.

No more stupid posts by idiots like you because you don’t have an internet connection anymore lol.

But seriously, it’s a valid question. Is it right to protect one business at the expense of many others? We need to remember as well that it has been shown pirates spend more on content than non-pirates, and there are a LOT of pirates out there. Even if it was feasible to kick all of them off of the internet, would it actually help? What about the false positives, or the fact that everybody infringes copyright at one point or another whether they’re aware of it or not?

It will be very interesting to see what the outcome of three strikes laws truly is as time passes. My suspicion is that it will ultimately fail. Even if one doesn’t have an internet connection, there are still a lot of ways to obtain content for free, or for minimal cost (used/rental). I certainly don’t think being kicked off of the internet is going to endear anyone to the content industry, making people suddenly want to pay.

Hephaestus (profile) says:

All joking aside ...

This reminds me of what went on behind the scenes at the pirate bay trial.

In the EU internet access is a human right. This actually ruling is to coincidental for me. The argument I see coming down the pipe in the EU courts is which is the greater human right? internet access, or copyright. In the future if this judge gets a job in the entertainment, pharma, or news industry we can point at this ruling and ask “hmmm was throwing that case a bought decision?”.

Anonymous Coward says:

Why is it that when reports are made about court decisions that appear to go against the generally prevailing views on this site negative comments begin to proliferate without anyone having actually read such decisions?

Isn’t a copy of the actual decision mentioned in the article the best evidence of what it purportedly says?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 Re:

An internet site discovered after a search yielded a link to “www.courts.ie” which supposedly had a pdf file of the decision. The link, however, did not yield a copy of the decision. Likewise, a search of the website for the High Court of Ireland did not yield a copy of the decision, which is apparently too new to as yet be listed.

As earlier stated, it does seem a bit premature to excoriate a judge about a court decision without having actually read the decision.

Anonymous Coward says:

This is another reason why judges shouldn’t have invincible lifetime term limits. Such term limits may have made more sense back in the olden days, when things changed very slowly and information traveled slowly, but things change so fast now that to have a judge that doesn’t yet know how to turn on a computer make substantial decisions on technology they do not understand, decisions that have such huge ramifications on society, makes no sense.

Judges need to be held accountable so that they can have some incentive to at least make some effort to keep up with the times or else get replaced by someone who does keep up with the times. To keep judges for very long periods of time and have them make decisions on new technology that they do not understand because they did not grow up with such technology and never spent a lot of time studying it might not that good of an good idea.

Davem (profile) says:

http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/analysis/2261512/industry-reacts-acta

Industry bodies have welcomed the news that the European Union and major nations have agreed not to use a three-strikes approach to combat copyright infringement as part of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) talks.

The ruling is at odds with the recently passed Digital Economy Act that contains measures for internet service providers to send letters to persistent file sharers and potentially disconnect them from the internet.
Advertisement

Copyright lawyer Robin Fry from Beachcroft LLP suggested that the move could have significant repercussions for the UK.

“In essence anyone disconnected under the Digital Economy Act could challenge that ruling in the European Courts of Justice claiming the UK laws are not good enough as they don’t follow the ACTA agreement,” he said.

“This could pose some significant international challenges as organisations may be prepared to back any individuals who looked to challenge a UK ruling in the European courts.”

So ACTA saves us from the DEAct/Three Strikes????

I know stuff.... says:

There’s a lot of points about the ruling in this case, but possibly the most important…

Getting three strikes doesn’t remove you from ‘The Internet’.

a) Use a different provider than Eircom:
Eircom were the ISP in this case. Other providers aren’t part of this agreement, and unlike Eircom, will challenge the record labels rather than make a settlement (which is the basis of this ruling)

b) Use your 3G phone to connect to the internet:
3 strikes is nothing against you personally. The 3 strikes work against broadband service provided from Eircom, which will be cut off.

c) Use internet in your library / college / school / work / internet cafe / friends house:
Access is still as open as it will ever be in places other than your home.

d) Use your neighbours wi-fi connection:
Eircom routers are notoriously easy to by-pass the password. In fact there’s an iphone app called “dessid” that will work out the password for you. (see:http://www.tjmcintyre.com/2009/11/unauthorised-access-theres-app-for-that.html)

e) Or, if you’re bothered you could challenge the 3-strikes
Well that’s a topic that requires it’s own thread, but suffice to say EU Telecoms Package

Darryl says:

I dont know what the problem is ?

I see a judge, a professional law speaking guy, making a fair decision based on the rule of law. And I see here alot of whining that the decision “did not go you’re way”. And allow you to break the existing laws.

And it’s a good deal too, how often do you get 3 strikes or 3 chances to break the law before they do anything about you’re criminal activities.

And yes, corporations deserve human rights just like governments, and citizens, and countries do.

A part of those human rights, and all should expect is the right to not have something you own stolen and used against you’re wishes.

Copyright and patents are there to protect something of perceived value.

It if had not value, perceived or real then you would not want it right. You dont download songs and music or software that you dont want, dont like and cant use !!.

You only take what you see as value to you, even if you would not take it if you had to pay for it, you find enough value in that other persons efforts to consider it enough value to take it for free. And even make it available to you’re friends and customers, who also would not want it if it had no perceived value.

So, get over it, If you did not see value in it you would not want to steal it, so you’re downloading and theft of that item is an admission that you see enough value in that product to want to have it youreself. Therefore any arguments that you are not taking away from the person you steal it from is the real strawman argument.

And the judge made the right decision, a fair decision and it could have been far worse.

So get over the fact that corporations have humans in it, and all humans in corporations or not have a human rights.

Go figure, mabey if corporations were run by cows, there would not be a need for human rights for them.. But they are not, companies are run by humans, humans just like you and me.

And if I create something of value, or invent something I have every right to do with that what I freaking well like.

I can sell the right to someone else and cash out, or I can sit on it and do nothing. But someone may come up with a better method and I lose.

But it’s not you’re right to see what I have done as valuable and think, I can use that, so ill take it. But only if I can get it for free. No, the world does not work like that, the judge knows it, the music industry, film industry, software industry and every other industry knows it as well.

Like it or not, thats just how it is, deal with it.

TN says:

Re: I dont know what the problem is ?

You can rant all you want, which seems akin to all the whining you’re complaining about, but the fact is, this ruling won’t do much, if anything at all, about the reality of file-sharing, in Ireland, or across the globe.

Turning fans into criminals has never worked, at any time, during the years the net has become the distribution platform for digitised products.

How do we know this? Well, file-sharing is bigger than ever, that’s how.

The judges ruling is not a solution to the issue — not even a band-aid. It’s more like angrily waving a stick around, whilst wearing a somewhat petulant face.

The problem is, the ruling solves nothing.

abc gum says:

Re: I dont know what the problem is ?

“did not go you’re way”.
– did not go your are way ??????

“3 chances to break the law”
– 3 accusations of breaking the law (FTFY) …and all this with a lack of due process, what a good deal !

“corporations deserve human rights”
– simple statements of opinion carry little weight, next time try proving rational as to why you think this way.

… lets see, off on a tangent blah blah … oh here we go

“mabey if corporations were run by cows”
– maybe if you could spell. If corp were run by cows they would not screw their customers?

“if I create something of value, or invent something I have every right to do with that what I freaking well like.”
– Ok. I doubt anyone would argue with that

“I can sell the right to someone else and cash out, or I can sit on it and do nothing. But someone may come up with a better method and I lose.”
– Oh, I see. You want to charge monopoly rents upon ideas that anyone could come up with. Like the laser cat toy maybe ?

“But it’s not you’re right to see what I have done”
– I do not care what you have done, get over yourself.

“the world does not work like that”
– where have you been? wake up and smell the coffee

Anonymous Coward says:

Human Rights

Human rights are inalienable. They cannot be bought, sold, transferred or abridged, only violated. They only apply to humans. They also do not expire after some period of time but last for an individual’s entire life. After an individual dies, his human rights cannot be violated.

Now consider copyright as a “human right”. It follows then that copyrights cannot be held by corporations. They also cannot be bought or sold and cannot be transferred to the holder’s heirs upon death. And being a human right, civil laws would have no right to change any of that. So it looks to me like that would pretty much wipe out the entertainment industry as we know it. Are they sure they want copy right to be considered a human right?

Of course, since so many judges live in Alice’s Wonderland, they’ll just consider it a human right when it suits them and not when it doesn’t. Such “justice” itself is a violation of human rights.

Anonymous Coward says:

Just FYI: Ireland is currently up the proverbial creek anyway.

The NAMA agreement has put us into severe debt. Emigration is rocketing. The major political party is so corrupt it makes Bill Clinton’s extramarital activities look trivial – think “millions in taxpayer money siphoned off for the friends and lackeys of those in command”. Those who aren’t corrupt are powerless or dumb as a box of rocks, and if you doubt that, see the latest blasphemy law for reference.

There’s nothing but scandal after scandal in the papers, mostly detailing cronyism, backhanders, abuse of power, you name it. The cover up of horrific child abuse in the Church detailed in the Dublin Report alone would turn your stomach. And people still go to Mass on Sundays, and still vote for the politicians who’ve ripped them off left right and centre.

Just saying it’s not all sunshine and bunnies here, and a decision like this isn’t all that surprising when the country in question is apparently being run by idiots and assholes, and apparently populated by the terminally stupid. 🙁

Anonymous Coward says:

Customers will be in control-- in one form or another.

Ireland’s chief exports are dominated by foreign multinationals after hundreds of years of agriculture dominance. (CIA Factbook) Many of these companies “export” their IP to their Ireland-based subsidiary skirt paying various taxes which is in a way, a global version of Microsoft’s Nevada Tax Dodge ( http://microsofttaxdodge.com )

The light at the end of the tunnel of this abuse of copyright law is that the Commodity Trading Futures Commission approved a new Hollywood stock exchange ( http://HSX.com ) which will allow customers to short anything with Bono’s name or Paul McGuinness’s name associated with it as these asshats continue to push through their idealistic copyright utopia.

Customers will be in control– in one form or another.

Darryl says:

how is this not 'outing' someone ???

“I have pointed out when certain commenters are the same people. That’s not the same thing, but you’re not known for letting details or facts concern you when you want to act out.”

Making a public statement indicating the identity of someone who chooses not to be identified (in this case).

IS OUTING SOMEONE,,, I dont know how you can try to spin it any other way. But it is what it is.

I’t’s you using you’re “power” over “us” to give you more ability to attack those who comment against you.

So when you’re explaining how this is *NOT* outing someone, you can also explain who this is not just an ad hominem propaganda attack??????

Where you more interested in discrediting the messenger, and not addressing the message. Classic tactic, but obvious…

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: how is this not 'outing' someone ???

Making a public statement indicating the identity of someone who chooses not to be identified (in this case).

I did no such thing. I did not indicate their identity at all. All I did was say these two *anonymous* users are the same. That’s it. That’s not “outing” someone. It may be revealing an attempt at subterfuge, but that’s perfectly reasonable. This is my site and I am free to do that.

Where you more interested in discrediting the messenger, and not addressing the message. Classic tactic, but obvious…

Darryl, which “message” did I not address?

The Infamous Joe (profile) says:

Re: how is this not 'outing' someone ???

Making a public statement indicating the identity of someone who chooses not to be identified (in this case).

Funny, I read through all the drama and I still don’t know who TAM is. Do you? No? Then he hasn’t been identified, has he?

Where you more interested in discrediting the messenger, and not addressing the message. Classic tactic, but obvious…

When the message is a lie, then addressing the message is, in fact, discrediting the messenger.

Darryl says:

Youre reply.

“Darryl, which “message” did I not address?”

Who knows, as you should know I cannot prove a negative, you probably do not address many messages.

What I was saying, that as opposed to addressing the message, you decided to use Ad hominem propaganda tricks, to try to descredit the messinger. And that is clear, that is what you resort too doing when all else fails.

Thats why I said it’s a classic trick, when you run out of other options. And I can clearly show where you have done that, and im sure it would not take much looking to see that
Ad hominem attacks are one of youre primary tools.

Or is it so second nature to you that you dont even reaslise that youre doing it ?

Ofcourse the other classic tactic of someone on shaky ground is to say “this is the last im going to talk about this subject”. As if you did not start it in the first place, but when the heat gets too high you put up youre own chinese wall.

Mabey it’s to keep the strawmen from escaping 🙂

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Youre reply.

“Who knows, as you should know I cannot prove a negative”

When you say, “and not addressing the message.”

You are making a positive statement that they are not addressing the message.

Saying you can’t prove that something didn’t happen is different than making the positive statement that it didn’t happen. When you make the positive statement that it didn’t happen then the burden is on you to prove that positive statement. Otherwise, the most you can say is that you can’t prove it happened, and if this is true it is generally good enough to declare you not guilty in a court of law.

Mark says:

There are two specific things of note about human rights that would not make any sense for copyright to be one of them.

One, human rights can only be held by humans. Period. Considering most copyrights are held by corporations, declaring them human rights would immediately invalidate their copyright, with absolutely no compensation.

Two, human rights cannot be transferred by any means. They are inalienable to being a person, and one cannot *EVER* transfer any human rights they might have to anybody else to grant the other any additional human rights, while leaving the one who desired to transfer them with less. For copyrights, that would mean that copyright would a) *ONLY* be holdable by the actual creator of the work. While it would be possible for multiple people to each have a share in a particular copyright on a work, that share would always and indissolubly belong to them, personally, not to the team as a whole, nor to the company that they might happen to work for; b) immediately terminate upon death of the copyright holder; and c) could not be sold, purchased, given away to anybody else while the copyright holder lives, or transferred to anybody else upon their death, which in the case of a team means that when the team members eventually do start dying off, that their copyright would slowly lose value over time, and the remaining ones would not be entitled to any compensation for this loss. A further side of effect of this is that companies that might leverage copyright as a mechanism for making a profit (such as the role of publishers today) would, in general, be much more interested in the works of younger people than older, as there would be statistically more time to exploit the financial potential of their copyright, and would undoubtedly lead to a very widespread practice of age discrimination among publishers.

I would really hope that Ireland takes a good, long and hard look at what they are really trying to do accomplish with copyright before they go and call copyright a human right. Somehow I don’t think that the ramifications are what they intended.

Anonymous Coward says:

This thread got a little weird with all the off topics, but it actually IS a human right: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a27. I saw it a few weeks ago, and I couldn’t believe that was there. I assumed the content industries just managed to put it in.

Anyway, the declaration is really open to interpretation and the way this right is applied doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to hand out a monopoly (although it seems to imply that).

Sorry if someone already commented this, 142 of mostly off topic messages were too much for me.

vivaelamor (profile) says:

Re: Re:

“Anyway, the declaration is really open to interpretation and the way this right is applied doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to hand out a monopoly (although it seems to imply that).”

“Material interest” would suggest only commercial endeavours, although I wouldn’t accept it as a human right either way. Moral rights? If sanely defined, sure.

Glenn says:

One problem...

There isn’t one “original creative endeavour” that hasn’t derived from someone else’s “original creative endeavour”, so when does the “payback” take place? why, after the copyright “expires”… which keeps getting longer and longer and, well, by the time wheels stop turning copyrights will, no doubt, exist in perpetuity–they’ll be sold and traded like actual money (Hey! is that an original thought? …well, no, actually… no). Rights? What about the right to due process? Is the ISP now a court of law? judge, jury, and executioner? Apparently. Of course, it’s OK for the content owner to deny the rights of others, yeah, that’s the ticket.

Anonymous Coward says:

The other flip of the coin

Let’s see…
I hold copyright on some software / book / music, movie or whatever.

I decide to publish the said stuff under the GNU GPL / GNU FDL / some flavor of Creative Commons, because I think that is the right thing to do in the age of the information society.
(licenses decided arbitrarily, fill up with your prefered ones)

I agree that calling this a human right may go a bit far, but I consider it quite fundamental to be able to turn around the copyright laws so that it can be used to enforce management of content according to my own ideals.

After all, the right of property has been labelled a human right in the corresponding universal declaration of 1789.

So the question should be: how to use that right properly. Whether it is a human right or not is secondary. But if the content industry continues to behave like it does, and bangs on the customers on the excuse that it defends its human right, one really has the tools to make it look like a bunch of fools. I think this website does that pretty well.

Anonymous Coward says:

BULLSHIT

In the nearly 13 years this site has been around, I believe that we have deleted somewhere around a dozen comments — and those were beyond the pale types of comments.

Okay, I’m calling bullshit now because that’s just plain not true. I’ve personally had *more* than a dozen of my own comments held for review and never show up, and not a one of them was spam or “beyond the pale types of comments” either. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing happens to this one.

vivaelamor (profile) says:

Re: BULLSHIT

“Okay, I’m calling bullshit now because that’s just plain not true. I’ve personally had *more* than a dozen of my own comments held for review and never show up, and not a one of them was spam or “beyond the pale types of comments” either. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing happens to this one.”

Feigned paranoia, so sad.

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: BULLSHIT

Okay, I’m calling bullshit now because that’s just plain not true. I’ve personally had *more* than a dozen of my own comments held for review and never show up, and not a one of them was spam or “beyond the pale types of comments” either. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing happens to this one.

You are lying. There’s not much more to say than that, because it’s simply not true.

I don’t know why you would make stuff up, but you are.

RD says:

Re: BULLSHIT

“Okay, I’m calling bullshit now because that’s just plain not true. I’ve personally had *more* than a dozen of my own comments held for review and never show up, and not a one of them was spam or “beyond the pale types of comments” either. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing happens to this one.”

Oh lets pray to JESUS it does! Oh crap, it didnt. Guess its not as unfair as you think. You really should see a therapist about that paranoia of yours. You shouldnt let it rule you so much, that leads to becoming a psycopath.

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