"Oh, d-d-d-d-dear!"
I burned a copy of The Outlaw Jose Wales for my neighbor.
Come and get me coppers.
It’s as if all important crimes with real victims have been eliminated and now your taxes are used to keep the public sector gestapo employed.
This is the part I find disturbing. Why force them to sign a non-disclosure agreement? Are they are afraid people will find out what they're doing?
Theft if theft. We may disagree with how they go about protecting their property but it IS their property.
I actually received somewhat of a warning. I was in the middle of downloading all the seasons for a SiFi TV show I liked. I actually had the series on DVD but was just to lazy as it’s over several seasons worth with some spinoffs.
Needless to say my ISP shut off my internet to get my attention (I don’t answer my home phone :) ). Once they explained why I of course stopped and got myself a good DVD ripper and finished it myself. Turns out my rips were better so I went back and redid them all anyway.
And no, I don’t share what’s on my HD either and if I borrow a movie I don’t rip it either. If I like it I buy it, THEN I rip it. :)
I ain’t perfect but I try to obey the laws.
JB
The advice to individuals should apply to corporations as well: If you do not want something in the public domain, do not put it on the net! After all, are not corporations people also?
Just wonder how different the story would have been if they had done this is Texas.
Just wonder how different the story would have been if they had done this in Texas.
“It is sad to see how even the big artists have no idea what CIAPC / TTVK is doing in their name. And the worst part is that even after learning about this, like Chisu did just now and took part in the discussion on Facebook, they can’t stop it since all copyright protection and monitoring is centralized,” Mäkinen told TorrentFreak.
That paragraph indicates to me that the artists aren't seeing any of the money collected for these "fines".
To stop matters progressing further the man was advised to pay a settlement of 600 euros, sign a non-disclosure document, and move on with his life.
So the "non-disclosure" document hides these fines from public view?
This whole thing smells like extortion in the same line of attack that Righthaven took against FR.
Where copyright all started.
http://copy.law.cam.ac.uk/cam/tools/request/showRecord.php?id=record_uk_1566
Star Chamber Decree, Westminster (1566)
Abstract:
The commentary describes the background to the Decree and in particular the concern of Elizabeth’s High Commission over the influx of Catholic texts from continental Europe. The commentary argues that the Decree is particularly significant in that it formalised, for the first time, the specific link between the interests of the government in regulating and censuring the press and the economic interests of the Stationers’ Company. The formal inclusion of the category of ‘letters patents’ within the remit of the Decree ensured that works published under a printing privilege now attracted the formal protection of the Star Chamber.
http://copy.law.cam.ac.uk/cam/tools/request/showRecord.php?id=record_uk_1586
Star Chamber Decree, Westminster (1586)
Abstract:
A decree prohibiting the publication of any book contrary to statute, injunction, ordinance and letters patents, as well as any ordinance set down by the Company of Stationers. The formal protection of the Star Chamber was extended not only to books protected under royal printing privileges (see: uk_1566) but to books printed in contravention of the internal regulations of the Stationers’ Company itself, further enhancing the significance of ‘stationers’ copyright’. The commentary describes the background to the decree, in particular the religious controversies of the 1570s and 1580s, as well as the dissatisfaction within the general printing trade during this period at the manner in which a number of the printing privileges granted by Elizabeth resulted in the monopolistic control of commercially lucrative works within the hands of a few stationers only. The commentary also details the efforts of the dominant members of the Stationers’ Company to influence the substance of the decree and further augment their control over the internal operation of the book trade.
http://copy.law.cam.ac.uk/cam/tools/request/showRecord.php?id=record_uk_1637
Star Chamber Decree, Westminster (1637)
Abstract:
The commentary describes how, by comparison with earlier decrees (see: uk_1566; uk_1586), the 1637 Decree provided a more elaborate system for licensing both ecclesiastical and secular works as well as a more comprehensive set of regulations to govern the operation of the printing trade. As a regulatory measure, it is widely regarded as representing the high point of the Company of Stationers’ control and authority over the book trade.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licensing_Order_of_1643
Motivated by a desire to eliminate chaos and piracy in the printing industry, protect parliamentary activities and proceedings from its opponents, suppress royalist propaganda and check the widening currency of various sects’ radical ideas, Parliament instituted a new state-controlled censoring apparatus in the Licensing Order of 16 June 1643.
The Licensing Order reintroduced almost all of the stringent censorship machinery of the 1637 Star Chamber Decree including:
pre-publication licensing
registration of all printing materials with the names of author, printer and publisher in the Register at Stationers’ Hall
search, seizure and destruction of any books offensive to the government
arrest and imprisonment of any offensive writers, printers and publishers.
The Stationers’ Company was given the responsibility of acting as censor, in return for a monopoly of the printing trade. [2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licensing_of_the_Press_Act_1662
The Licensing of the Press Act 1662 is an Act of the Parliament of England (14 Car. II. c. 33), long title “An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Bookes and Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses.” It was repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 1863.
The Act was originally limited to two years. The provisions as to importation of books, the appointment of licensers, and the number of printers and founders were practically re-enactments of the similar provisions in an order of the Star Chamber of 1637.
Printing presses were not to be set up without notice to the Stationers’ Company. A king’s messenger had power by warrant of the king or a secretary of state to enter and search for unlicensed presses and printing. Severe penalties by fine and imprisonment were denounced against offenders. The act was successively renewed up to 1679.
Under the powers of the act Sir Roger L’Estrange was appointed licenser, and the effect of the supervision was that practically the newspaper press was reduced to the London Gazette. The objections made to lines 594-599 of the first book of Paradise Lost by the archbishop of Canterbury’s chaplain, acting as licenser, are well known. The act expired in 1679, and for the remainder of the reign of Charles II, as in the reign of George III, the restrictions on the press took the form of prosecutions for libel.