UK Politician Vacations With Hollywood Big Shot... Suddenly Wants To Criminalize Sharing
from the funny-how-that-works dept
Calvin alerts us to the news that, just days after dining with entertainment industry honcho David Geffen while on holiday, at the Rothschild family villa on Corfu, Lord Peter Mandelson, the UK's Business Secretary suddenly returned to the office and demanded that the Digital Britain report be beefed up to include criminalizing file sharing. Even the press reporting on this seem pretty skeptical of the reasoning behind it (which is a first). While a spokesperson for Mandelson insisted the wining and dining with Geffen had nothing to do with things, someone else in the office seemed to disagree:'Until the past week, Mandelson had shown little personal interest in the Digital Britain agenda. Suddenly Peter returned from holiday and effectively issued this edict that the regulation needs to be tougher.'Perhaps you can't take a single anonymous quote seriously, but it's at least worth finding out why Mandelson suddenly thinks it's a smart thing to criminalize a large portion of the online activity in the UK.
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Filed Under: copyright, criminalize, david geffen, file sharing, peter mendelson, uk
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Re:
Do that!
Criminalize it!
You see....if they criminalize it, it requires a burden of proof *far* exceeding that of a civil suit. MediaSentry et al. will not be enough to provide proof beyond doubt.
Do this in the US as well, and our problems with RIAA will suddenly go away (after they get laughed out of court the first time).
I have been saying this same thing for a long time... More importantly than the burdan of proof, the penalties would be standardized as well so you wouldn't see any more of these $600k judgements.
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