Ever eager to protect the young, fledgling songwriters Bono's also concerned about, the US Congress has decided to spend US$30 million (mirror) on fighting "piracy". Because, apparently, everyone with an IQ over 80 knows that non-commercial copyright infringement is a stepping stone towards drug abuse, gang membership and rape. It's a good thing, then, that Congress isn't wasting money on silly things like healthcare, or real piracy - the kind with ships, guns and rocket launchers in which people actually get hurt.

Across the Atlantic, British ISPs fear the cost (mirror) the government's "copyright protection" plans (informally the "please our friends" law) will bring. A cost which will be passed on fully to the customers: they get to pay to be considered criminals who need to be watched 24/7.

To piss even more in their citizens' pints, this new legislation could give the UK government complete control over their subjects' internet use.
You're already paying to be spied on, you might as well pay to only see what your betters in government think is good for you to see. In the as good as dystopian society the United Kingdom has become, no one would expect less.

Always interested in anything important, especially if it means they can get more free dinners at their industry pals' expense, British politicians are also present at the ACTA talks.
However, democratically© elected Members of Parliament - the supposed representatives of the people and their interests - are kept in the dark about the details of the talks and agreements. Supposedly, there is an important need for secrecy - but, if you were a politician, you wouldn't want to be seen holding hands (again) with an industry executive either, right? And it's a great way to do some policy laundering. Nothing but profit.

Meanwhile, British consumer organisation Which? has received over 150 complaints of people who received letters from ACS:Law accusing them of copyright infringement (and, of course, demanding payment to get rid of the threat of charges being brought against them). In several cases, these letters were sent to people who don't even know how to turn on a computer.

The same "proof" ACS:Law uses now to accuse people will be used by the government to automatically consider people guilty of copyright terrorism. But hey, if a private law firm can bully people into paying hundreds of pounds for something they didn't do, why should the government miss out on such an easy quick-cash scheme? Especially if it's the name of goddamn justice itself.

Crossing the Atlantic again, there's still no good news: not a single book went into the public domain in the USA this year; thanks to the retroactive extension of copyright (the "Mickey Mouse" act), forced through by politicians in bed with the various industries' executives and lobbyists.

In most European Union countries it is, thankfully, a bit different - but they could still do a lot better. Seventy years is close to a full lifetime for most people.
Publishers should be forced to hand back the rights to the author after only a few years, and the publication should go into the public domain on the day after the author's death. After all, after expiring, the author - the only person who should profit from his work - has got no use for money anymore.

Copyright law needs to change soon, as right now it's simply too ridiculous. The industry needs to get to grips with the internet and digital distribution - without Digital "Rights" Management.
If they don't, failure upon failure will stack up and law upon freedom-raping law will be imposed upon the stupid, unsuspecting public, simply in the name of nepotism and greed.

Not to fear: logically, the vast amounts of personal information that float around in this modern age should be closely guarded. But, as profit always goes before common sense or the useless proletariat's rights, it isn't.

PrivacyRights carries a long yet lovely list of data breaches, a lot of which stem from companies that make a living (and, undoubtedly, a big profit) out of legally acquiring and selling personal information.
And that's just the USA. (The US government buys that information, too. With your tax dollars. It sure beats having to get a warrant on reasonable grounds of suspicion!)

But you don't care, right? This won't happen to you, right? You don't mind dealing with a $10,000 debt you never asked for, and have a shitty credit rating for the rest of your life, right?

The world's favourite search engine, Google, has a privacy policy more pathetic than Zimbabwe's economy: basically, none. It keeps just about everything. Forever.

Google has even introduced advertising based on your search history. Because you need that Margaritaville that dispenses salsa sauce from the bottom if you put it in at the top.

To be fair to them, in 2007 Google did cut the retention time for personally identifiable information. A great and noble idea – unfortunately, AOL had already shown that “anonymous” doesn't exist anymore in this modern, digital age.

Other search engines, like Yahoo and Microsoft's ridiculously named Bing, are of course hardly better and should be equally avoided.

Microsoft, holding a majority market share through dodgy deals with hardware manufacturers, has been monitoring its users for years. Windows Genuine 'Advantage' phones home more than you would expect, even after you've spent your hard–earned cash on a license for their proprietary system – all of this data needs to go somewhere, and it sure as hell isn't going into Microsoft's recycling bin. (On a positive note, with free software you wouldn't have this problem; nor have your computer controlled by a faceless, avarice–addicted corporate entity.)

Even your mobile phone company wants to sell off (sorry, “share”) your personal information – as if you didn't pay them enough already.

One can suppose this behaviour is to be expected from private, profit–driven companies. But, as usual, our supposedly democratic governments aren't much better.
Any soon–to–be totalitarian government that gets elected (it's not like that hasn't happened before) is going to have a field day with all of this information. Our prisons may be full already, but there's still plenty of bullets to go around – Chinese style.

But hey, you've got nothing to hide, right? Nothing to hide, nothing to fear! So why do you keep your curtains closed after dark?

Try to protect your privacy. Use privacy–respecting search engines like Scroogle, Ixquick or Yauba – before all of us are completely scroogled.

In October, Ralph Lauren hilariously tried to use DMCA takedown notices against websites ridiculing an immensely bad digital manipulation in one of their adverts.
Their only success came through a hosting company which responds to takedown notices with automatic compliance, out of fear – instilled by years of propaganda – of being taken to court. Ironically, because of Ralph Lauren’s own actions, the supposedly offending picture will be around the internet forever.

The “Church” of Scientology, in their turn, have made it a habit of using copyright and trademark law against people using their name and even claim the fairly common name Hubbard as a trademark. They make a point out of threatening people who publish supposedly ’secret’ material online, again claiming copyright infringement.

Still in the USA, some yoga teacher has managed to copyright a sequence of yoga routines. The US Copyright Office seems to have forgotten that these are not copyrightable under current US law.

Painfully less funny, though, is the confiscation of cheaper generic medication destined for Africa by Belgian Customs officials (mirror, Google translation). The NGO Oxfam says they think the seizures happened because of false claims of ‘intellectual property’ (a term to avoid) or patent violations, with Belgian Customs being pressured by the pharmaceutical industry (who, of course, only want the best for all of us).

But hey, we need these laws to protect the companies, authors and artists, right? Else we wouldn’t have music, books or art, right?

No.

When best-selling author Lynn Viehl revealed her royalty statements, she showed the world that the publisher takes the profit – not the author. And unfortunately for authors the world over, the publisher will continue to take most of the profit for many years to come.

Three serving UK soldiers thought it’d be a good idea to release a CD of which the proceeds would go to charities supporting injured servicemen (because, apparently, the UK’s Ministry Of Defence can’t be bothered). Unfortunately for them and the charities, only a disgustingly small amount goes to charity (mirror) – the rest goes straight to industry executives whose pockets already bulge with $100 bills.

Obviously, the industry needs to take this much profit because of all the evil pirates, right? Well, no. Digital filesharing doesn’t hurt the industry as much as it would like to claim, and as it turns out, alleged copyright terrorists actually buy more music (mirror).

The industry’s insistence to keep to their old ways of business is suicide, and apparently it’s clear to everyone but them. They desperately use any law they can find to scare people into their way of thinking, just so they can keep up their disgustingly high profits (of which, of course, the artist sees very little).

The industry needs to modernise and stop their ridiculous lies for their own good. That’s the theory, anyway: lucky for them they’re good friends with our politicians, and can get their own laws passed, as opposed to laws that would benefit both the people and the artist.

However, DNA isn’t as infallible as Anthony E. Zuiker or the government want us to believe – and databases full of DNA profiles definitely aren’t.

Recently, a high-flying lawyer lost her job because her DNA profile was in the database (mirror), having been swabbed after (false) allegations were made against her. She was later released without any charge, but her DNA profile was kept on the database “just in case”. Apparently, a presence there warrants a sacking – the fact that she was innocent all along, and never even charged with an offence, never mattered.

In its haste to add every single person onto the database – because we’re all criminals waiting to strike – the UK police has started arresting innocent people just to take their DNA. No need to panic, though: if you remain innocent for six years, your DNA profile will be removed from the database – until, of course, five years from now it is decided that the six-year term should be prolonged, preferably indefinitely. Just in case.

Equally worrying is the idea that you would be swabbed for your DNA, and your DNA profile retained for a very long time, if you commit the annoying but not exactly vicious offence of speeding (mirror). Or, God forbid, littering (oh, you terrorist!). The government’s tactic is understandable: littering and speeding are well-known paths to cold-blooded serial rape and murder.

Solving crime is important. But as less than 1% of UK crimes are solved with the help of DNA, the idea of having a costly, invasive and unsecure database of every (innocent until proven guilty) resident’s DNA profile quickly becomes ridiculous.

Apart from the cost, the invasion of privacy, the insecurity and henceforth the fact that this information will be abused, there is a whole host of other problems with DNA profiles.

And with the UK government’s long track record of losing sensitive data, why wouldn’t they lose your DNA profile too?
That way, someone can fabricate DNA evidence from it; if an unscrupulous, underpaid government employee doesn’t beat them to it.

The New York Times proudly reports (mirror): “They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person.”

Awesome. We’ll all live happily ever after.

Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested. – Der Prozess

The discussions have a broad scope: our nations’ Wisest Men will be chatting away about anything from counterfeiting physical goods to unlawful digital distribution.

Maybe they should’ve decreased the scope, as these two problems facing the so-called creative industries (and their politician friends) are completely different and shouldn’t be discussed together.
The fact that the industry’s lying propaganda has placed any perceived ‘infringement’ upon any perceived ‘intellectual rights’ (to avoid the term “intellectual property”, as everyone should), under one all-encompassing banner of “piracy”, that it has become acceptable for our governments to dismiss their own laws and use the industry’s illogical disinformation strategy against their own people.

The counterfeiting of physical goods is the work of criminals (and is often a side-project of organised crime) and prey upon both producer and customer.
Internet distribution (the Evil Filesharing™) does not belong in the same category. Non-commercial copyright infringement, as would happen when some kid uploads a copyrighted file, falls in no way under the same definition – or any human definition – of crime.

Transparent and open democratic governments? Not in this society, apparently; where policy laundering and dodgy advisers with their own business interests at heart are the norm.

However, not all news on invasive laws is bad news. For once eager to follow the French example, the UK government has been pushing its Digital Economy Bill. Invasive? Yes. Scary? Not according to culture minister Sion Simon, who said last Monday that “people who have done nothing wrong should not be in any danger of having their internet interfered with at all.” And to spoil his countrymen even more, he even threw in a right of appeal!

A right of appeal where you prove that you are innocent. Like France’s HADOPI law, this UK law will consider you guilty until proven innocent; and you will carry the burden of proof yourself. Good luck proving you didn’t do something!

Will the snoops bother to check the contents of the available torrents? Framing your enemies is getting easier every day, why not get them booted off the internet whilst you’re at it?

If the government’s cronies are just connecting to random popular torrents and issuing notices to the ISPs of all IPs connected to those torrents (a very flawed method to say the least), will they assume that everyone connected to the torrent is both downloading and uploading, during which the real ‘infringement’ happens?
And, again, there are several problems with accusing private individuals of copyright infringement when there is such a wide array of (voluntarily and accidently) unsecured wireless networks out there, open FON networks, and so on.

It needs repeating: there are already laws in place to protect copyright holders. However, the current legislation requires rights holders to sue the alleged copyright terrorist at their own expense, and provide sufficient proof against the alleged copyright dissident themselves.
The new legislation will consider the accused guilty based purely upon the fact they were accused, and put the borden of proof (of innocence) on the alleged baby-killing dissident.

Like the French law, this legislation will cause private, tax-paying individuals to be spied on 24/7 without proper reason or suspicion. It will make everyone who uses the internet into a potential criminal who simply must be watched.

The massive propaganda making non-commercial copyright infringement the biggest crime of this millennium would turn any dictator extremely jealous. This small offence against copyright law is a non-issue that has been blown out of proportion purely because the interested parties are friendly with the lawmakers – people whose luxurious lifestyles we pay for through our taxes, and who in (utopian?) theory should cater to our needs, not their friends’ desires.

One thousand. Five times less than the country’s suicide rate for 2007; eight times less than the alcohol-related deaths for the same year; a disturbing 106 times less than the supposed “smoking-related” deaths each year; and an astonishing 193 times less than the 2008 road casualties.

Why would a benevolent government force a vaccination (either through sheer force or disinformation) on its people if the disease is so easily detectable and treatable?

One has to wonder, especially when the vaccine tends to cause a myriad of distressing side-effects:

It's great for the government's statistics, but unfortunately not so great for the accused victims of this ridiculous law.

And, to top off all of the above: we don't need a new law. There are already laws in place protecting the rights of the copyright holders (as flawed as copyright law on itself may be). However, under current law, they have a long process to follow and, worst of all, they have to provide evidence to prove that the accused is guilty.

This new law will greatly accommodate the government's friends in the so-called creative industries. Surely, their sales will go up. Oh, wait, they won't – because "pirates" buy more music than anyone else (mirror). But they won't be buying it from prison, or when they're trying to pay off a €300,000 fine.

That is, of course, assuming that they're at all guilty. Which, as the geekier ones among us know, can never be proven beyond doubt with a simple IP address. Ever.

[edited to add - 22 September 2009:]
Today, the French Assembly approved the "HADOPI 2" law. Yesterday, 21 September 2009, the proposal had already been approved in the Senate by 13 votes pro, 6 votes against, and one undecided – yes, that’s twenty votes. Twenty senators (out of 343) turned up for their job that day: the Democratic Machine© in action!

In May 2009, “illegal downloads” were blamed for billions in losses and thousands of jobs lost; at the same time ‘government advisers’ claimed that Britain’s population consisted of seven million copyright terrorists™ who are obviously personally responsible for the detriment of many, now unemployed, music industry workers and their families.

The dubious statistics reached the government through Ciber, which got them from Forrester Research, which got them from one of their subsidiaries’ research – and was commissioned by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

The BBC radio show More Or Less uncovered the above facts and found that the statistics were based on some rather questionable assumptions (mirror).

As it turns out, the music industry’s and (scarily enough) the government’s “facts” were based on the survey confessions of 136 people – surely they are a good representation of a population of 61 million (when is 0.000223% not good enough?).

Of course, 0.000223% becomes extremely representative when the lawmakers are in bed with the so-called “creative” industry and are willing to break their own laws and conventions to please their friends.

Meanwhile, another – and slightly more reliable – study (mirror) tells us that music “pirates” are actually the ones who are silly enough to spend their hard-earned money on buying music. Seeing as there are rarely any decent try-before-you-buy (or listen-before-you-buy) options available at the big digital music retailers, it’s hardly surprising that people turn to “piracy” to make sure they spend their hard-earned money on something they actually want.

The industry needs to realise they simply have to change their business model, rescind the term “intellectual property” and lobby for the change of copyright law in favour of the people: ultimately, that change will benefit the industry too. If you sell songs with Digital ‘Rights’ Management embedded in them, few people are going to buy them. If you allow people to have ownership of what they spend their money on, they will be much more inclined to pay up: it’s the way buying things works – I buy something, I get to do with it pretty much whatever I want. I can’t kill someone unpunished with a hammer I just bought, but I can listen to the song I just bought on my iPod, my Zune, my NoBrand portable music player, and I can convert it to .ogg to satisfy my dislike of proprietary file formats.
The industry needs to realise that when you try to take people’s freedom, they will not like you – but, when you give them some trust, they will give you the money you’re so desperately after and they will like you for it.

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:

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.

Now, if you make the ISPs work more, they will charge their customers more. If this law gets through, customers will have to pay up for the privilege of losing any notion of online privacy. In our Western world, where everything and everyone is connected to the internet, unacceptable doesn’t even come close to describe this proposal.

The same war on online “piracy” continues in the UK: the (unelected) Business Secretary, Peter Mandelson, wants to put draconian measures in place to criminalise filesharers (mirror).

These include fines up to £50,000 and cutting off customers’ internet access (mirror), which is very reminiscent of the French HADOPI law proposal.

Peter Mandelson came up with this intelligent plan after having had dinner with billionaire record producer David Geffen (mirror), whilst on holiday with the Rothschild family at their Greek villa.

A born-rich man like Mandelson, who moves in such proletarian circles, of course knows exactly what the people want and need. And he’s obviously aware of all the alternative ideas that are floating around with regards to copyright law.

Our Italian brethren have in their turn proposed a new law which would force everyone who puts their opinions online to publish a “right to reply” (mirror) from any person or entity who takes offense to that opinion – on penalty of a €10,000 fine.

Francesco Pizzetti, the Italian Data Protection Authority president, has said that this law “probably” won’t apply to bloggers or other private individuals; but mainly to the online press. However, unless this is specified in the letter of the law (which it won’t), no one is going to be free from prosecution.

It won’t kill the internet (for now), as some people have claimed, but it will be yet another step in the direction of total internet control and the death of free speech online – the only place where a shred of freedom remains.