UK IP Minister Defends Kicking People Off The Internet, As Rockstars Come Out Against It

from the who-is-this-protecting-again? dept

Fri, Sep 4th 2009 11:06am — Mike Masnick

Despite the UK gov't insisting recently that a policy of kicking file sharers off the internet was off the table, a nice dinner between UK Business Secretary Peter Mandelson and Hollywood bigshot David Geffen created a sudden new interest in the subject, which quickly turned into it being right back on the table -- creating massive complaints from just about everyone not associated with the RIAA or MPAA. Mandelson has tried to defend the idea, but his reasoning came up short, and demonstrated that he got his talking points direct from Hollywood and that he hasn't actually spent much time actually understanding the issue at all.

But, it's not just Mandelson in the gov't pushing this now. The UK's Intellectual Property Minister, David Lammy, got to hang around with the MPAA and gave a speech "defending" kicking people off of the internet. Now doesn't that seem strange? It's the MPAA that's among those pushing for such a plan in the first place. So, Lammy is preaching to the choir. Why not "defend" the plan in front of actual consumers or ISPs or musicians who are up in arms about this idea? You don't "defend" the idea to the people who already want it and who were already wining and dining you to get it back on the table after you'd taken it off.

And, yes, I said musicians who are up in arms about this -- and not just small indie musicians either. Michael Geist notes that folks like Paul McCartney and Elton John have come out against the proposal as well. So, ISPs think it's terrible. Music fans think it's terrible. Musicians think it's terrible. Who's left? Oh, just some dying industries who have done everything possible not to innovate for a decade. But they sure do spend money on lobbyists.

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Filed Under: david lammy, elton john, paul mccartney, peter mandelson, three strikes, uk
Companies: mpaa

16 Comments

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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 4 Sep 2009 @ 11:30am

Brand Integrity
Hey, they just want everyone to know that when they're bought, they stay bought. It helps with future sales.
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Hephaestus (profile), 4 Sep 2009 @ 11:38am

Preaching to the Choir ....
"You don't "defend" the idea to the people who already want it and who were already wining and dining you to get it back on the table after you'd taken it off."

With people that can't believe and deny their (insert any word here world, business, etc) is coming to an end they're not likely to stray from what they know and stick with people in their comfort zone. This of course creates problems that continue to recycle; if people can't get involved with people who have healthy behaviors and coping skills, then the problems continue..... That is until the entire system comes crashing down....
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Joseph Young, 4 Sep 2009 @ 11:47am

Bogus Statistics
It also turns out that the baseline statistics for UK file-sharing are seriously flawed. See, How UK Government spun 136 people into 7m illegal file sharers. Not especially newsworthy, I know. This has been the case for every other major country for which similar statistics have been produced.

In other, unrelated UK copyright news, I think we have a journalistic full-house. The story Teenage graffiti artist accused of stealing ‘£500,000 box of pencils’ in feud with Damien Hirst has everything. A stand-out feature for me is that, given current legislation, a sample of the father’s full DNA will be kept until his one hundredth birthday, because he might have, although apparently didn’t, know where a box of pencils might have been.
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GJ (profile), 4 Sep 2009 @ 12:09pm

Re: Bogus Statistics
This DNA thing got me thinking about filing my DNA with the patent office. If someone wants to get a sample of it, we can then negotiate a licensing deal.

As an added benefit, I can then sue my children later on in life for using this patented material.

You know... just in case they end up making a lot of money. I should get some of that.

--GJ--
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Sep 2009 @ 12:36pm

Elton John? Seriously? Last time I heard about him, he wanted everybody to "turn off the internet" and stuff.
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Gussy, 4 Sep 2009 @ 12:54pm

Minister talk to your kids
I wonder if this Minister talks to his kids at all, cause i think that he would find himself kicked off the net in oh, about 5 mins.

Blind leading the blind.
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Jake, 4 Sep 2009 @ 12:58pm

This is what you get when the office of Business Secretary is given to a man who's been fired for taking backhanders. Twice.

And why do we even have a Minister for Intellectual Property, anyway?
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Sep 2009 @ 1:06pm

Re: Minister talk to your kids
It's more like the retarded leading the gullible.
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Hephaestus (profile), 4 Sep 2009 @ 1:30pm

Re:
LOL .... funny "Minister" and "Intellectual" in the same office title
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Jason (profile), 4 Sep 2009 @ 2:37pm

Re: Brand Integrity
well played, CHT.
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Jason (profile), 4 Sep 2009 @ 2:44pm

Re:
Yoo no, I don reelly like all this talk abowt Intellectual Proptery Law. It's like, "Oh, it's Intellectual, you wouldn't understand it." I think that's reelly incriminating against stoopid people.
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thorninside, 4 Sep 2009 @ 6:11pm

bogus
One would think some enterprising people would find out the IP addresses of the people passing these laws, then flood them with infringement notices. Or simply start putting in requests for every IP address out there.
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Richard, 5 Sep 2009 @ 7:29am

Re: bogus
No need - just wait for the Nigerian Scammers to work a con around the notices.

Then the real ones will get discarded as spam - quite legitimately - and they will become impossible to issue.
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Ben, 6 Sep 2009 @ 9:04am

Typo
You spelt wining wrong, from what I hear it should be whining. The RIAA and MPAA seem to be doing a lot of that.
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Tom, 8 Sep 2009 @ 2:41am

Never Mind the Policy: Can Filtering Technology Stop p2p?
In all the coverage of the issue over what the government may wish to do, I'm interested to know if technically any of this is possible - especially in the long run. Some musings on this:
http://blog.catbot.org/content/never-mind-policy-can-filtering-technology-stop-p2p
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Linda22, 15 Jan 2010 @ 7:27am

Re
Always some people do know how to create the already written essays. But when you’re not a professional papers writer, you would have to find the reliable essay editing service to order your essay assignment with the goal to have a success.
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