But surely that is what part of being a democracy is about? I'm not sure we fully qualify now as a democracy in the UK or on the US but unless we kick up a fuss about this in the UK then more laws like this will be slipped through.
Surely it is our duty as concerned citizens to raise issues with our members of parliament when we see them overstepping their bounds. It can and has made a difference in the recent past. Just because they are trying it again doesn't mean we should just through up our hands and admit defeat. How many pivotal moments in history happened because people refused to give up?
No, this is an important matter. As has been shown time and time again governments and their security apparatus are made up of fallible human beings. If they really must introduce these laws to allow mass surveillance then the entire matter should be publicly debated and serious measures to protect against invasion of privacy and abuse must be put in place and any transgressions must be publicly prosecuted. That is the only way we can have a system that doesn't repress freedom of speech, association and movement.
What every concerned UK citizen should be doing is writing to their local MP to complain about this process. Make it clear that your continued or future support is reliant on them standing up and being counted as against this cynical and cowardly move on the part of the three parties.
If anyone in the UK is unaware, the website to use to write to your MP is: https://www.writetothem.com/
Are we to have body cavity searches if we don't use the rest rooms and provide a receipt of material expelled?
When will they realise that this is exactly the kind of reaction that is desired? They want us to give up our freedoms? They want to impose capricious authoritarian laws. At the rate we are going we are going we are going to achieve all they want without them actually carrying out any further atrocities in Europe or the States.
I for one would like to see a reduction in the FUD and a near blanket removal of most of the pointless security checks introduced since 9/11, Richard Reid and the liquid bomb plot.
Lets face it most of the security measures introduced won't actually stop any of these happening again. I do say most as clearly making it much harder for high-jackers to enter the cockpit and therefore take over the plane. But the rest of it? Really?
But they do make copies available at a reasonable cost. They send out copies of the movies to the judges who then in turn put them up on BitTorrent. It seems the only restriction they put on the films is to show the words 'For your consideration' along the bottom of the screen every now and then.
Yes, I'm sure that the hardcore pirates--Mike's Faithful--will never care about other people's copyright rights.
Your right, hard core pirates do not respect other people?s copyrights. However, I think you misunderstand the copyright problem.
This isn't about people stealing other peoples work but instead it is a market forces problem. This is possibly an extreme example but compare copyright to prohibition. Now I know there are lots of specifics about each case that are not comparable. I'm not suggesting that movie pirates are going around shooting each other with tommy guns so work with me here.
Swap 'government legislation banning alcohol' with 'media industry refusing to provide music and movies in digital form' and the two situations are fairly comparable.
In that former instance alcohol production became a big underground business to fill a gap in the market that prohibition made. These people were often unscrupulous.
In the later instance services like Napster and LimeWire popped up to fill the gap left in the market due to music and films not being available in digital form.
In the former instance the government made criminals out of people producing
alcohol.
In the later instance the media industry has made criminals and bankrupts out of people copying films and music.
Most people would be very, VERY happy to buy their music and films from legal and legitimate sources. However, they don't want to lose functionality in the process. If you bought a record on vinyl or a move on VHS then you could easily lend that to your friend, play it on any HiFi or video player. This has not until recently been the case with music and there are still too many restrictions on films and video games. See the recent fiasco with SimCity.
There is a simple answer to all of these legal and moral quandaries.
Big business, find a way to supply the services that people want at a price point they find attractive. Do not make them criminals, don't take them to court and don't force them to go bankrupt.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by SimonB.
RE: Whatever
But surely that is what part of being a democracy is about? I'm not sure we fully qualify now as a democracy in the UK or on the US but unless we kick up a fuss about this in the UK then more laws like this will be slipped through.
Surely it is our duty as concerned citizens to raise issues with our members of parliament when we see them overstepping their bounds. It can and has made a difference in the recent past. Just because they are trying it again doesn't mean we should just through up our hands and admit defeat. How many pivotal moments in history happened because people refused to give up?
No, this is an important matter. As has been shown time and time again governments and their security apparatus are made up of fallible human beings. If they really must introduce these laws to allow mass surveillance then the entire matter should be publicly debated and serious measures to protect against invasion of privacy and abuse must be put in place and any transgressions must be publicly prosecuted. That is the only way we can have a system that doesn't repress freedom of speech, association and movement.
What every concerned UK citizen should be doing is writing to their local MP to complain about this process. Make it clear that your continued or future support is reliant on them standing up and being counted as against this cynical and cowardly move on the part of the three parties.
If anyone in the UK is unaware, the website to use to write to your MP is: https://www.writetothem.com/
What is next? When will they be happy?
Are we to have body cavity searches if we don't use the rest rooms and provide a receipt of material expelled?
When will they realise that this is exactly the kind of reaction that is desired? They want us to give up our freedoms? They want to impose capricious authoritarian laws. At the rate we are going we are going we are going to achieve all they want without them actually carrying out any further atrocities in Europe or the States.
I for one would like to see a reduction in the FUD and a near blanket removal of most of the pointless security checks introduced since 9/11, Richard Reid and the liquid bomb plot.
Lets face it most of the security measures introduced won't actually stop any of these happening again. I do say most as clearly making it much harder for high-jackers to enter the cockpit and therefore take over the plane. But the rest of it? Really?
Re:
But they do make copies available at a reasonable cost. They send out copies of the movies to the judges who then in turn put them up on BitTorrent. It seems the only restriction they put on the films is to show the words 'For your consideration' along the bottom of the screen every now and then.
Re:
Oh they can work it out well enough. It just seems that holding office screws with your moral compass.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yes, I'm sure that the hardcore pirates--Mike's Faithful--will never care about other people's copyright rights.
Your right, hard core pirates do not respect other people?s copyrights. However, I think you misunderstand the copyright problem.
This isn't about people stealing other peoples work but instead it is a market forces problem. This is possibly an extreme example but compare copyright to prohibition. Now I know there are lots of specifics about each case that are not comparable. I'm not suggesting that movie pirates are going around shooting each other with tommy guns so work with me here.
Swap 'government legislation banning alcohol' with 'media industry refusing to provide music and movies in digital form' and the two situations are fairly comparable.
In that former instance alcohol production became a big underground business to fill a gap in the market that prohibition made. These people were often unscrupulous.
In the later instance services like Napster and LimeWire popped up to fill the gap left in the market due to music and films not being available in digital form.
In the former instance the government made criminals out of people producing
alcohol.
In the later instance the media industry has made criminals and bankrupts out of people copying films and music.
Most people would be very, VERY happy to buy their music and films from legal and legitimate sources. However, they don't want to lose functionality in the process. If you bought a record on vinyl or a move on VHS then you could easily lend that to your friend, play it on any HiFi or video player. This has not until recently been the case with music and there are still too many restrictions on films and video games. See the recent fiasco with SimCity.
There is a simple answer to all of these legal and moral quandaries.
Big business, find a way to supply the services that people want at a price point they find attractive. Do not make them criminals, don't take them to court and don't force them to go bankrupt.