The issues with anti-”piracy” laws
The great Occidental lawmakers, in their hurry to appease their friends in the entertainment industry, don’t seem to realise the (legal) problems surrounding their law proposals.
Firstly, there is no real need for a new law. In all Western nations, sharing copyrighted material (provided the copyright license doesn’t allow sharing, as the copyleft licenses do) is already against the law, and can be acted upon – it doesn’t matter if it happened online or offline.
Ordinarily, when the copyright holder notices his copyright is being infringed upon, he will start a civil case against the suspected copyright terrorist. Copyright infringement, unlike murder or the possession and distribution of child pornography, is not a crime the government itself would prosecute – the owner of the rights needs to file a complaint against the other party. The government stays out of the process, except for the justice system; bar of course in this brave new world where politicians and media moguls are BFFs (mirror).
The entertainment industry claims that filesharing and so-called online “piracy” is costing them billions per year in lost sales. The proof to back up these ridiculous statements is, for some dubious reason, not used to file complaints against the “pirates” – instead, they use these made-up figures to sway the media into publishing sob stories on how the Popular Artist Of The Day cannot afford a third villa because people are spitting in the face of the law by downloading their releases.
The sad fact is that many people who download music or movies wouldn’t even think about spending a cent to buy the items. They serve as mindless entertainment for just over an hour; which could be spent equally productive by reading a book, taking a walk, or staring at the wall.
The short and simple point is this: if online “piracy” suddenly comes to a complete halt, the entertainment industry’s sales will go up marginally… at most.
Specifically regarding the British (mirror) and French law proposals, they carry the major legal issue of innocent until proven guilty being done away with. These proposals mete out punishment based on nothing but accusations.
The Convention on Human Rights, Article 6, §2 states that it is a fundamental right to be always regarded as innocent until proven guilty. To be punished on the basis of allegations is against our governments’ own laws.
Adding to the fact that people will be considered guilty by weak allegations (see below), another important subject lacks in these proposals: the ability to defend oneself. The right to a fair, public trial where you can make your case is a basic human right and generally only ignored in countries ruled by despots and tyrants, not the democratic™ nations we live in.
Furthermore, the EU Parliament ruled on 6 May 2009 that internet access within the Union is a fundamental right, which cannot be taken away unless sanctioned by a judicial authority. Soon afterwards, the French government adapted its proposal to include such a judicial authority, but another issue reared its ugly head: a judge willing to convict and punish people based on allegations isn’t worthy of the title, let alone the responsibility and power. Any judge that punishes anyone if/when these proposals become law should be imprisoned himself.
But, of course, these fundamental flaws aren’t the only problems with these proposed anti-”piracy” laws:
It’s an unlikely scenario, but one where no one wants to be in. Filesharing protocols aren’t solely used for supposedly illegal downloads; they more often than not serve as a helping hand in distributing all kinds of copyright-free media, GNU/Linux or *BSD distributions, …
The fact that this particular torrent contained the anti-”piracy” rant quickly became well-known, and thousands of people downloaded it to satisfy their curiosity and/or to be amused.
Will you be guilty under these new laws, fully knowing that what you downloaded wasn’t what the filename claimed it to be; and fully knowing that you weren’t committing copyright infringement at all?
Will it be enough to encrypt your traffic? After all, if you’ve got nothing to hide, why would you encrypt your packets?
What will stop the next government from re-using this law to exert even more control over the population? This doesn’t necessarily require a government that is rogue from the start: the Nazis were voted in democratically too, remember?
As for now, these atrocities are nothing but law proposals. We can still hope that they won’t actually become law. However, history has shown us that hope is anything but the alpha and omega of human life – on the contrary, when faced with the authorities, it has shown us that it is futile to hope because the govermnent is always right. And if, by some freak accident of law or nature, they appear to be wrong, they will quickly make themselves right.