Stealth legislation that could affect Europe on Monday

OgTheClever - 549 days 19 hours ago

This could be pretty big and contraversial if passed.

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UnblessedSoul - 549 days 19 hours ago

Not so stealthy now is it, hope it gets failed.

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DRUDOG - 549 days 19 hours ago

This is totally unacceptable and is really turning into a witch hunt of epic proportions. So basically what they are saying is that if your sharing a flat with someone else who decides to d/l something and gets "caught" three times that they will ban everyone using that IP? F that. This is exactly why I never d/l crap anymore. One day a subpoena is going to end up in your mail telling you you're being sued by somebody for some ridiculous thing like file sharing.

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Fishy Fingers - 549 days 19 hours ago

Not a chance.

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Tmac - 549 days 19 hours ago

Waiting for the influx of american's who are just itching to say "This doesn't affect us".

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chasuk08 - 549 days 19 hours ago

I hope this comes in to effect very soon. How would you feel if you were an artist trying to earn money, and some snotty nose twat illegally downloads all your music. And i know im gunna get disagrees for this, as most people are cheap bastards who think they can steal stuff instead of paying for it.

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Fanboy Slaughter - 549 days 19 hours ago

While the video was kinda corny, it got it's point across.

That's a really sh!tty thing to do to our European friends. Not only do they get stiffed by the gaming industry on a regular basis, but now their government wants to ban their Internet Access altogether?!

Wow, hope it fails. I can see riots happening if this measure passes.

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Mikelarry - 549 days 19 hours ago

monday is almost upon us. and last time i heard it was only virgin on board with this. im sorry for the song writers who are trying to make money but i really wish this fails. if this gets passed god have mercy on us get ready for even more extreme privacy breaching

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Rogert - 549 days 19 hours ago

Well, thank God i live in America. Sucks for Europeans if this passes. Nearly half the continent is going to get their IP blacklisted.

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Sangria - 549 days 19 hours ago

How about legal sharing? Jamendo shares legal contents with Creative Commons via eMule or BitTorrent, does that mean you can be arrested for legal purpose? And what about games that use p2p like Trackmania or COD4?

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MazzingerZ - 549 days 18 hours ago

"It was slipped in right before the legislators broke for the summer, hidden within a huge package of telecom legislation, so most of them won't even get a chance to read it before they vote!"

LOL c'mon give me a break! so the whole world now knows about it but them...this is just BS

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Lotto - 549 days 18 hours ago

Note its 3 accusations! Not convictions which makes the whole law more fuoked up.

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robep3 - 549 days 18 hours ago

Hi I think european human rights legislation would protect you against this I would think THEY would have to prove that you knew d/l was taking place and you did nothing to stop it I mean if terror suspects can get bail etc because of H.R.L I dont think ISP or anyone else would risk the possible compensation claims ,legal fees etc.

Rob.

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Rogert - 549 days 18 hours ago

music artists make tons of money from commercials, tours, and merchandise. i am not paying 13.99 for 12 crappy songs. iTunes is a bigger rip-off, $1 per song?! my friend has 1300 songs on his iPod and non of it he got legally. so if he did buy all his songs, than thats $1300! no wonder CD sales are horrific now days.

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AllroundGamer - 549 days 18 hours ago

i'm not sharing, i'm using rapidshare :p

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Gaara_724 - 549 days 18 hours ago

DOWNLOAD PORN NOW ITS YOURE LAST CHANCE LOL no but what about p2p games? cod4 and mmos im sure mmos use p2p dam if it does every wow guy/gal will be banned lol

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Premonition - 549 days 18 hours ago

This is pretty big, and effects gaming as well, just imagine all those hardcore gamers not being able to play clan matches or online gaming for that matter, that would suck big time, and i know this is outta left field but imagine WoW players thats going to hit news of suicides and such.

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jspc1989 - 549 days 16 hours ago

to me this is just people with way to much power that are scared sh!tless of losing it to what is possibly one of the only true ''free'' (and im not talking price) places left, cyberspace.

it just so happens to be the one thing that noone can really control and that scares the government (excuse me if i sound like im going OTT).

p.s. i just had a really sad but ironic thought. if you take out the WMD from metal gear solid doesnt this kinda remind u of the storyline lol...the patriots trying to control the world digital information network. maybe kojima was onto this the whole time and used MGS as a hidden message lol x

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Fatmanp - 549 days 16 hours ago

LOL i would like to see them inspect an SSL encrypted usenet download.

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OgTheClever - 549 days 15 hours ago

I wonder how this takes into account people using free wifi?

It would pretty much ban every McDonalds from using the internet.

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Jikla - 549 days 15 hours ago

Doesn't this go against comp privacy rules? This kind of actions are illegal where I live so I bet it's safe here :/ Yeah, I live in Europe.

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JokerSGS - 549 days 6 hours ago

Is this real? If so that's a damn shame that top officials will sneak around to try and hurt the public without any real warning.

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SilPho - 549 days 6 hours ago

File Sharing isn't illegal! Transferring copyright material is obviously, but how can they tell the difference between a newly released album and your own privately created MP3s?

Next thing you know you'll be arrested for downloading AVG because the ISP thought you pirating Windows or something.

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Matpan - 549 days 3 hours ago

I must admit, being a south American resident (Argentina to be specific) That sometimes prohibitive prices in U$S or Euros (1 Dollar consting me 3 argentinean pesos and one euro going for about 5 pesos) lead me to make ilegal downloads. I do try to buy what I like most out of what I get to play/listen/use, because I think there is a nice added value in having an original game in it´s box, or a music cd/dvd with a nicely designed packaging... but the rest of the things, I remain a pirate user.

I do believe this is true for the vast majority in this somehow tech-wise left aside corner of the globe (360 and PS3 not officially released in argentina, our only chance is to import everything at prohibitive costs)... hell the reason I wont buy a PS3 is that games go for about 80 to 100 dollars here... now should there be a chip released soon I would totally reconsider it (sad but true...)... A mention aside to the lack of customer/warranty support in my area, so I guess I can have a mild peace of mind in the fact that I may be ripping off Sony or Msoft, but they don´t take me into consideration whatsoever, should I have a problem.

In the views of such panorama, the internet is a blessing here, and I quite think it also is on many other places arround the globe. The move for developers/artists is not in trying to avoid this issue, because there will ALWAYS be a way to jump over this legal fences, and piracy will remain one of the lead spreading mechanism for any kind of media. The key is using this free publicity and offering a low cost download option (like VALVE with steam) and the Boxed more costy option (adding REAL value to the pack... maybe extra maps/ graphical printed media / art )...

Oh... and not forgetting about south american markets would be great!!! Software companies should realize that countries that have a more expensive dollar can´t be expected to pay 3 times what their product costs (in their local currency, that is). They should develop some kind of mechanism (as with dvd regions) to ensure specific releases for other non dollar driven markets at more accessible prices for those markets. They would really see a boost in their sales after some time. And I state after some time because the piracy runs almost 90% of the gaming market at least here in argentina (and I believe in most part of south america and probably other developing countries) and it will take time to get people used to pay 50-100 pesos (a reasonble price, not the 300 you must pay for an original console game import) rather than the 5-10 pesos a copy costs.

I would really like to see the main companies show a little mre interest in these regions :)

I am not pro-piracy... I just like entertainment, but cannot afford some prices out there. Said that, I really like having the original boxed limited editions of some of my favourite games, it feels rewarding and correct. I just wish I could do that with every game.

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ENNO - 548 days 23 hours ago

Download as much as you can in the next 48hrs before you gets banned :P

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Perverted - 548 days 22 hours ago

I doubt it'll happen....I'm sure something very similar has been mentioned to the EU before but was knocked back as it infringed on human rights. If that was the case and this somehow passed there'd be a lot of angry internet users. I'd go US style and bring out the lawyers.
If it does happen there could be a knock-back effect...less internet users(LOTS LESS), most people taking smallest net deals or no net deals at all and the ISP companies would loose millions possibly more and as such would have to sack lots of people to survive(you see where this is going? good).
I'll also add it's bad enough the local council can listen in on my phone calls and read my texts but in 2009 that extends to e-mail/web use. Damn you zombie-Osama!!!!
*sigh*

P.S nice post Matpan *+1 bubble* ridiculous prices(amongst other things) drive loads of people to piracy(including myself).

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Darrius Cole - 548 days 22 hours ago

I have a couple of ideas on this subject....

1. If this passes in Europe it will affect the politics in the US. I think it will eventually lose in the US, as we have historically placed more emphasis on individual freedom than in any place in the world. Although, recently we seem to be favoring corporate power. Nevertheless, Europe and the US are close cousins. They tend to share more ideas than not.

2. This reeks of privacy violations. How are they going to know what you download unless they, err....watch what you are downloading, both legal and illegal?

3. I think this is the beginning of the end for the big music companies as they are the only ones who are unnecessary in the chain. All they really do is distribute CD's, market the artists (theoretically at least), and rape artists for most of their money. I see them being increasingly less useful as we go further into the future. The internet is a more efficient way to distribute music, pure and simple. Once an internet channel is refined enough to make it profitable for the artist then they won't need it the record companies anymore at all.

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