Share a Youtube Video. Go to Jail

[Calz]

Perhaps a bit on the alarmist side ... but something to take note of:


http://stevebeckow.com/2011/03/share-youtube-video-jail/

[Carmody]

Obviously it was a corporate driven directive. In the same way that the FDA is filled with the corporate heads of the various companies that benefit from any sort of control of the FDA....and the FTC is filled with the corporate board members (temporarily ex-corporate....on leave, running the given government office) and friends of corporations that make that given government entity the vehicle of the given corporations involved.

My information is not what one would call 'poorly referenced' on one of those (government entities). From a deputy director, one could say....

Note that what I have spoken of is the absolute true, specific, and real meaning of the word 'fascism'.

It's right in front of your eyes, people. Wake up.

If and when it explodes into the public eye... is when it starts to really move into the 'panic the people-run them into the nets' mode.

First they have to create powerful enemies for you to be polarized -against. They've done a fine job so far.

I was just speaking to a young man who seems intelligent enough but all his information comes from major media. The spin it created in him is that....His words went along the lime of: He wants (thinks they should) to carpetbomb the "ragheads" into dust...and wants to to leave the Israelis alone.. and let them do all this. (finish the job).

Sigh.

[Circe]

That doesn't surprise me,It won't be long before we will all be behind a huge firewall/censorship program just like the one China has in front of their internet users.

Chinese Internet users are monitored by the government, especially in Internet cafes.
The Internet Police: The Internet Police reportedly employs 30,000 agents who investigate individuals who post information online that may be offensive to Chinese government and officials. This kind of information may include rumors or state secrets, as well as material that brings down Chinese morale and its reputation, according to CNN.
All keystrokes are recorded: Even in Internet cafes, all chats, online games and e-mails are recorded by the government, making it impossible to fly under the radar or send any truly private messages.
The Internet Detective: The Chinese government uses a special kind of spy software called the Internet Detective that records sites you visit, e-mails, games, message board activity and identity card numbers. The government says that it uses this spyware to make it easier to catch criminals who use Internet cafes.
Great Firewall vs. Golden Shield: The official name for the online censorship idea is the Golden Shield Project, which began in 1998. Critics of the project refer it to the Great Firewall of China.
China has more web surfers than America: China’s population is of course larger than the population of the U.S., but Americans once dominated the virtual world. That means that the Internet Police patrol 253 million web surfers.
Jurisdiction and Punishment
If you’re caught violating the laws of Chinese censorship and appropriate online behavior, you may have to go to jail. Find out how journalists, web surfers and even U.S. companies become entangled in the Chinese censorship movement.
Offending China online warrants jail time: If you are caught and convicted of offending China and the government, you may be sent to jail.
Yahoo! indirectly aided in the arrest of a Chinese journalist: In April 2007, the World Organization for Human Rights sued Yahoo! for "willingly" supplying the Chinese government with the personal information and e-mail addresses for a Chinese journalist and "cyber dissident." The government used that information to arrest both individuals, and Yahoo! was widely criticized for their cooperation in the event, even by the U.S. Congress.
Even U.S. companies have to comply with China’s rules: U.S. Internet companies like Yahoo! and Google make their services available all over the world, but in China, those services are restricted. Just recently, the Chinese government restricted access to Google altogether "after a government representative accused [Google] of spreading pornography," reports PC World.
Fines are issued as punishment: If an individual is found guilty of publishing offensive content on the web, such as "defaming" the government, they could be forced to pay a fine of up to $1800.
Restrictions and Blocked Sites
Learn about blocked sites, taboo topics and more.
Amnesty International battle: China routinely blocks access to the website for Amnesty International, which criticizes China for imprisoning so many journalists each year. The site was also blocked during the 2008 Olympic Games, but the restriction was temporarily lifted after international journalists complained.
There’s no Twitter in China: Twitter is very often blocked in China, so don’t get your hopes up for tweeting action when you study abroad there.
You can check to see if your website is blocked in China: You can stop worrying about catering to Chinese readers if you know you’re blocked there anyway. Just use this tool from Harvard’s Cyber Law page.
YouTube and Flickr are often blocked: Sometimes these two media sharing sites are blocked completely, and other times, they’re just heavily restricted.
Restriction is lifted when the issues garner international attention: When there is a strong international interest in the Chinese censorship issue, certain sites are allowed to be visited, like during the Summer 2008 Olympics and during an international summit in Shanghai.
Blogger blogs are often blocked: During the Summer 2008 Olympics, bloggers who used the Blogger platform found that their sites were blocked in China.
Only "healthy" news is allowed: Time reports that the Chinese government only allows "healthy" news to be reported on the Internet.
iTunes was blocked during the 2008 Olympics: Wikipedia reports that after athletes downloaded a pro-Tibetan song from iTunes during the Olympics in 2008, China blocked iTunes.
Even outbound links are restricted: In 2000, China passed a law that forbids China websites to link to outside news websites — or even reference news reported by outside news sites — without getting approval from the government.
The Tiananmen Square anniversary was heavily censored: The 20th anniversary for one of Chinese history’s darkest days — Tinanmen Square — was censored all over the Internet. Comment boards were shut down by companies afraid of being prosecuted for encouraging discussion about the massacre, and Twitter was shut down.
Falun Gong censorship: The Chinese spiritual group Falun Gong is one of the most widespread censorship targets in the country. It is a practice steeped in principles of morality and supposedly rose after the Maoist revolution. The group staged a silent protest in 1999 against an incident of beatings and arrests in 1999, and China has censored and abused them since.
Search engines are filtered: There is an effort on behalf of China to eliminate certain words from search engines like Yahoo! and Baidu.
The pun that got through: Bloggers around the world laughed when a "dirty pun" leaked through China’s censorship restrictions. A song about a grass-mud horse sprang up to poke fun at the censorship because the Chinese word for "grass-mud horse" sounds very similar to an obscenity that otherwise would have been blocked.
University access blocked: Some online university systems have been blocked since 2004, making it impossible for students at schools like George Washington University to access assignments and notes from China.
Rogue ways of getting past censorship: Some savvy Chinese citizens intent on getting past censored sites have created applications with names like Gollum and picidae to get past servers and browse pages as images.
Forced restriction leads to self-restriction: Time reports that James Fallows of the Atlantic brought up a frightening reality: that Chinese who were afraid of being caught using the Internet in illegal ways were starting to censor their own use. Fallows wrote "The idea is that if you’re never quite sure when, why and how hard the boom might be lowered on you, you start controlling yourself, rather than being limited strictly by what the government is able to control directly."

http://www.onlinecollege.org/2009/07/05/25-shocking-facts-about-chinese-censorship/

[InCiDeR]

Similar happened with the worldwide known Swedish torrent-site Pirate Bay. They did not have any of the shared material on their servers, still they got prosecuted.

Therefore my question...why don't they prosecute Google? Their searchengine points to illegal material everywhere on the internet! Strange isn't it?



What does the Pirate Bay verdict mean for innovation?

It's the jewel in the crown of internet piracy, but is the verdict against Pirate Bay a pyrrhic victory?

Pirate Bay's four co-founders face one year in prison and a $905,000 fine each. They will appeal, but the consortium of 17 media and music companies behind the prosecution will be crowing over their victory for years. It's a landmark, certainly, but one that raises more questions than it answers.

• Technology versus old corporations

Aware that the case has been polarised into the new, popular tech crowd versus faceless big media business, the consortium has been quick to use the verdict as a way of endorsing legal tech startups.

John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, insisted that the music industry has done its best to explore legal variations of file-sharing as well as other new business models.

"Common sense is the new currency," he told me. There are more than 400 legal sites worldwide, and one great site getting a lot of attention at the moment is Spotify. It's a great service that offers great value but sites like that cannot flourish if its competition is free."

How will the music startup space respond to this enthusiasm for embracing new and innovative business models? Ben Perreau, chief executive and co-founder of Gigulate, said: "Technologists see Pirate Bay as representing innovation. Obviously, as a startup, we are keen to make sure artists get paid and the licencing issues are sorted and it's a shame Pirate Bay couldn't make their service more legitimate. But it is a very focused, very strong, unique and distinctive proposition that has caught people's eye.

"It's strange for the IFPI to say it supports innovation when a lot of those leftfield services have paved the way for the new startups who have played with those ideas with and created legitimate businesses from them."

• The technicality of the prosecution

Prosecutors had to drop the charge of assisting copyright infringement for the lesser charge of assisting making available copyrighted material, with reference to 33 specific files. Given that Pirate Bay doesn't host files but links to them, what are the further repercussions for this seemingly tenuous distinction? If someone was to post a link to an unauthorised copy of a music video on Vimeo, would that also be illegal? In a precedent based legal system - and one with few precedents, what are the implications?

Simon Levine, global practice group leader at DLA Piper, has represented clients on both sides of this debate, but still feels the verdict is a good one. "Just because it is online, digital and cool doesn't make make it a different principle from bootleggers on Abbey Road 20 years ago." The charge of assisting the crime of copyright infringement isn't as tenuous as it seems – that's a standard legal distinction. But we only have to look at the Viacom and Premier League cases against Google to see more on the principle of assisting infringement. In penalty terms, though, this is a hefty sentence.

• Will it really have an impact?

The big music companies have to be seen to be protecting their business assets; these are major companies with shareholders and corporate, fiduciary responsibility. To that end, they have no option but to pursue these kind of cases.

The comment by British Phonographic Industry chief executive Geoff Taylor sums it up: "We hope that this decision will encourage British music fans to steer clear of these parasitic illegal download services and support the future of British music by downloading legally."

As NME editor Conor McNicholas pointed out on Radio 4's Today programme this morning, the 'capturing' of music within pieces of plastic is a relatively recent phenomenon. For centuries, music existed only in the ether, shared vocally between people and only paid for through performances. What these companies are protecting is not the music, but the business model around the music.

Kennedy insisted the verdict will have an impact on the popularity of file sharing as a technology, despite the widespread problem. "In the digital world we suffer from 90% piracy but it is still a $3.8bn digital industry that is more successful than newspapers, film or books. Even if we can move the needle slightly from 90%, it will be good."

Perreau's not so sure. It might have an impact on his mum, who will come to know the name Pirate Bay and the term file sharing as A Bad Thing. "That's what it's all about – casting a sinister shadow over the scene and saying 'we will find a way of taking you down'." Labelling, or seeming to label a popular and effective technology in this way is what causes the tension between the corporations and the tech community. Can't there be a more constructive way, he asks?

"It's the old carrot and stick approach. We get the stick, the stick, the stick, the stick ... we're in a recession – can't we have some carrot?" That's a call for the funding of legal music services, if you didn't hear it loud enough.

"What is frustrating is that this doesn't clear the way for music startups, it doesn't help the industry and it doesn't help musicians," he said.

"It is helping these companies retame an existing model for licencing but what we're hoping for is a model that helps artists get paid in a new economy where we know the market for recorded music is shrinking. And maybe the future for EMI, Warner, Sony and Universal is in an eight-person team in Shoreditch?"

Meanwhile, given the notoriously lenient conditions of Swedish jail, the Pirate Bayers may well be given weekend leave, will retain their passports and, dare we suggest, a regular and substantial broadband connection...

[firstlook]

You cant control information. Anything digital is up for grabs. This isn't a belief, its sustainable physics.

Its too spread out now. Any attack on us is an equal blow to them in man power, money, and time. Too many are recognizing empty threats when they see them.

Information and being truly informed is what is toppling their empire.

Peace :)

[TigaHawk]

I think the whole situation with copyrights is absolutely hilarious.

The problem is, they are trying to pump out products as quickly as possible to get as much money as possible. I can use both the Music and Gaming genre's as an example. Crappy, finished in 3hours, boring and uneventfull games, and "artists" with no real tallent that sound like a cat choking on a skunk without all the editing and audiotuning done to it before it's released. Everyone thinks that they can do as little as possible and charge top dollar for the end product.

People also realise this. Mostly not as you'd expect them too with a - hey - i know this is going to be crud - i wont buy it attitude. It can be hard when they take you're childhood favorite and revamp it into a videogame you go out and buy it. And then get angry and upset because - and you knew this before you bought it too - it would be subpar. This disheartens people. They know they're being ripped off by the companies, but in a legal way. It sucks when you know the CEO of a games producing company gloats to the media that he's taking the fun out of gaming - and how he turned a $50 product into a $500 product by deviding the content of the origional product across 8 others and added a few accessories. (Activision/Blizzard in reference to Guitar Hero) So yeah - you know the guys running the show are ripping you off by "legit" means and rubbing it in you're face and laughing.

So the consumer gets disheartend. They feel - well - if they arnt gunna play by the rules - why should i? Thus leads to Piracy and Outrageous copyright protections that disadvantage noone but the paying customer.

If you look at stores which sell things online as well - there is no way you cant feel ripped off. Everything is the exact same price as in a store. Yet you know they diddnt have to pay a cent to have anyone attend to you in a store, nor all the fee's involved of running the store and getting and keeping stock in the store. They just send it to you direct from their wearhouse if you buy it online. Heck, you even pay postage. So - Why are you still paying the exact same price as in the store? Shouldent it be cheaper if you cut out a heap of costs for the seller to get you the product?


People are sick of getting ripped off. The big corporate boy's are trying to scare us with threats of jail and fines. You hear news stories about mother's who download under 20 songs and get a 500,000 fine. It's all for show. We know the companies will never see a cent of that money. The act was purely to instill fear into you that .. you know... that could happen to YOU! if you pirate!! Buy our crappy products for ripoff prices and dont complain! Damn disobediant sheeple!



The problem is now, however, that the powers that be see a win win senario if they side with the big companies on the stance of piracy. In the name of stopping piracy, they can then track and look into what you do (if they keep pushing and are allowed - which will most likely eventualy happen) and start disconnecting people from the net as "punishment" - while the government happily piggyback's off the "anti piracy" watching software for its own means.

What we are seeing now with this news report is how the companies are pushing to get their way. They try 1 thing, it gets declined, they try another. Even if it seems absolutely stupid and retarded in its means (like this news article - for linking someone a video... come on..) Its their means of getting what they want in the end. Get stupid ideas put thru - enforce them untill there is a public outcry for that crap to stop. Then they put thru the origional proposal again, if it gets declined - repeat. Untill they cave in.

When will people wake up and stop putting up with this ****?