Digital Rights Law Enforcement

[franceslievens]

Sabam, the association inning and distributing copyright compensations and promoting the interests of copyright holders in Belgium, want the big internet-providers to install filters that'll prevent surfers from sharing music files over p2p-networks. They demand so holding in hand a not-so-well-informed verdict of a Belgian judge.

Not very subtle and uninformed commentary of the chief editor of De Standaard (with added !): "Violating copyright is stealing! There are big networks of copyright offenders! We should fight against them like we fight against child pornography! Internet providers should work together with law enforcers on this one!"

Answer of the assembled internet providers: "Are you nuts?"

(Sorry, I can't provide any links. De Standaard's articles that gave me the information are tucked away behind a subscription wall.)

Comments

[iphi1.livejournal.com]

I went through the roof when I first read about this a week or so ago. Really I saw red I was so mad at that judge.

This judge probably does not know how to open his email.(I am not kidding, my husband's father IS an actual judge and he does not know how to use "that dread machine from hell".

I don't know why there hasn't been more uproar about this. It's an extremely dangerous precedent.
I don't ever download music, but I do download a lot of TV-shows, I don't really know what I'd do if I cannot do that anymore.

Am not so worried anymore, it's the internets, they will find a way around it. In fact, they already have. In your torrent application you can just check the box to encrypt/confuse the provider.

This whole thing is just ridiculous!

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

What fills me with even more dread is that Peter Vandermeersch went along with it, making comparisons that just fall flat. I think he's a person who knows how to use his email. But he so blatantly showed that he doesn't understand, or even wants to understand, the nature of the internet.

Why hasn't there been more uproar? This is Belgium. We are only interested in Kim Clijsters' wedding dress.
It is exactly the same question internet providers asked. Abroad they are enraged and baffled over this. Here they leave blue-blue, because the judge must be right, right?

I don't use p2p, but do get illegal music directly from friends. Seems they don't even consider that option.
You think all these copyright-zealots never ever made cassette tapes when they were young?

[iphi1.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I'd be willing to pay a reasonable amount of money to download my favourite tv-shows legally, but if they are available to download from iTunes or on a network's webpage as streaming video, they are only available for US viewers. AS IF THE WORLD WIDE WEB is not f*ing WORLD WIDE. When are these people going to understand it's a new world out here? Sigh. It's just so mindnumbingly stupid. I have no words. They could make SO MUCH MONEY!

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

I would do exactly the same thing. As soon as we were able to buy off iTunes we stopped illegaly downloading through p2p (and also because limewire crashed on me). I think you can actually buy an Apple-tv thing here already, but it's off no use when you can't download programmes or films through iTunes.
Now I just miss out on all the cool things.

Another thing is the bloody previews etc. we aren't allowed to view, because we live in the wrong country! And it's free in the first place. *sighs*

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Yeah, the interwebs is a dangerous series of tubes, full of child pornographers and terrorists. And copyright violation is just as bad!

Errr, there is currently a big gap between what technology allows us to do and what the media industry allows us to do. Sometimes, it's just plain crazy - like the fact that in Germany we're still allowed to make backup copies of CDs etc., but only if there's no copy protection on the disc, because circumventing that is a no-no. Also, this copy protection shit messes up the cds and then they won't play in all cd-players - so in order to listen to a cd that you have purchased legally you have to illegally make a back-up copy.

Downloading television series is a necessity for those people in Germany who want to watch television without dubbing. Oh, yes, you can buy the DVDs later (and we generally do if we really liked the series), but in a way the good television doesn't stand a chance on German channels, because most people who want to see it in its orginal state have already seen it through other means (or are waiting for the DVDs), so we're killing good television, because the rightsholders won't be able to sell the good stuff overseas, because it gets really low ratings. ---

The distribution of television is changing and I'm pretty sure that in the near future it won't be called television anymore but 'intervision' and it will be made for a global audience cutting out the middlemen of the television channels. At least, that's what I hope for.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

Your ideas come close to iphi1's. You can see you both have the same experiences when it comes to downloading tv-shows.

The copyright holders don't want to embrace the new media and think up different business models that don't harm the end user in any way. A critique that appeared in todays newspaper asked for that: that the industry rethinks how it brings its content towards the public. And another thing is that the Belgian judge asked for something that is impossible and will in the end have the ordinary internet user (who generaly doesn't download "illegal" content) pay much more.

There has to come a new legislation considering copyright, and no-one really wants to talk about it, because they try to appease two contrary sides.