Posted on 04/13/2009 12:59:01 PM PDT by a fool in paradise
Is Internet access a fundamental human right? Or is it a privilege, carrying with it a responsibility for good behavior?
...The United States Congress held hearings last week on the growing problem of piracy, which the American entertainment industry says accounts for the loss of $20 billion a year in sales. Several lawmakers vowed to increase scrutiny of international markets where piracy is widespread.
But if events in Paris last week are any indication, legislative solutions will not be easy. French lawmakers rejected an antipiracy plan championed by President Nicolas Sarkozy, where the Internet connections of people who ignored repeated warnings to stop using unauthorized file-sharing services would have been severed...
Last month, in a pre-emptive strike, the European Parliament adopted a nonbinding resolution calling Internet access a fundamental freedom that could not be restricted except by a court of law...
“There’s increasing understanding that broadband is fundamental to basic economic and social participation,” said Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, an economist at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development who studies information technology. “Some people wonder whether this is consistent with cutting off Internet connections.”
Content owners have sometimes had more luck with the courts, winning a series of rulings against accused pirates....
On Friday, a judge in Stockholm is expected to rule on whether four people connected with a popular file-sharing service, the Pirate Bay, are guilty of criminal violations of copyright law. If so, they could face as much as two years in prison....
David Price, head of piracy intelligence at Envisional, a company based in Cambridge, England, that helps movie studios and other clients monitor copyright violations on the Internet, said that while file sharing by peer-to-peer networks appeared to be leveling off globally, sites that offered alternatives to downloading, like streaming of pirated movies, were growing fast....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The REAL piracy that the RIAA/MPAA infused Obama Administration is concerned with.
Aside from the question of something like Internet access being a “fundamental freedom”, third parties (e.g. a copyright holder) have no standing to interfere in the contract between the signatories (i.e. the internet service provider and the internet access customer). If the third party believes its rights have been infringed, it should bring a lawsuit, to be judged on its merits.
Last month, in a pre-emptive strike, the European Parliament adopted a nonbinding resolution calling Internet access a fundamental freedom that could not be restricted except by a court of law...
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And that’s the way it should be...
someday, internet access will be citizenship itself. watch these precedents.
Until they turn it on its ear.
What does legal right have to do with it? Seems to me it is a freedom just like speech with all the responsibilities speech entails.
You mean plaintiff would have to prove violation of law and damages therefrom? How novel.
"And I want to be very clear that we are resolved to halt the rise of privacy in that region...."
For that matter, why are we even thinking about this? Do we ban people from television if they copy a DVD? Do we ban people from books if they don’t return their copies to the public library?
Government has too much time on its hands. I’d gladly offer Congress a 6 month paid vacation if they promise not to use any of their time off for any Congressional-related work.
I'd like them to account for how they figured "$20 billion" as being the cost.
And yet studies have shown that those who do pirate music are far more likely to buy the music than those who don’t.
I wonder what the numbers are comparing concert-goers who pirate compared to those who don’t. I am all too happy to give my money to the people who make music I like. I’m less inclined to give it to the structure of an outdated business model.
Freud would be proud of that slip, wouldn’t he?
Even better, have them show that the people accounting for those billions in lost sales would have actually gone out and bought the DVDs if it weren't for the Internet as opposed to, say, just not watching the DVD at all.
Obama administration sides with RIAA in P2P suit (March 23, 2009 Declan McCullagh)
Totally FUBAR question. It is service that people pay for. Period.
But can your access to the internet be restricted by law due to past indiscretions?
Courts in American in the 1990s have prohibited a Florida cartoons from drawing anything, even for himself with random inspections of his home.
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