[Wolves] Fwd: [SC.LUG] 3 Strike Petition

[Kevanf1]

2009/11/25 Andy Jewell <Andy.Jewell at sysmicro.co.uk>:
> Kevan,
>
> I signed too, and I think most of the guys in my office will.
>
> Just one point - you said "It is legal to have a digital back up for personal use." Unfortunately, this is not the case; British copyright law makes no exception like the "Fair use" ones in the US; fair dealing covers things like reviews, analyses, critiques and so on, but does not really allow us to make full copies of any copyrighted material.
>
> Technically, it is illegal to use a vcr to record from the TV, or an MP3 ripper to make copies of your CD collection. There has been a precident set by Industry, on the basis that although the rights holders *could* sue under the law, they would not prevail (although they could still "win") in court, as they can show no material harm caused; that is the key in the UK - if no "harm" is caused by the infringement, no damages are due. The judge could say to the plaintiff "yes, mega-mdeia-corp. you are quite right, mr. smith did infringe your copyright, so mr. smith, you are guilty of copyright infringement, however, as he caused you no actual harm, I will not impose any punishment. Case dismissed".
>
> I AM NOT A LAWYER - THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE - for that, you have to pay a proper lawyer/solicitor/barrister etc. etc.

No argument with you on this Andy but I thought our law had changed
about 4 or 5 years ago.  I'm sure I read that it is legal for us now
to have a back up.  If I'm wrong then so be it.   Perhaps somebody
knows more?

> My biggest worry about this bill is that it's "the thin end of the wedge" and will result in far worse restrictions down the road.

Absolutely.

> How are virgin media (my ISP) going to differentiate my relatively frequent ISO downloads of linux distros from music cd ISO's or DVD ISO's? Will I get threatened with disconnection for downloading Ubuntu 10.04?
>

One of my big worries too.  I do not download mp3's (I did, about 10
yrs ago when Napster were first operating).  I do grab the occasional
tv programme that I have either forgotten to record or haven't been
able to for some other reason.  I could just as easily ask my
neighbour to burn his copy to an optical disk but that would then make
two copies.... so I'd rather just get one copy, watch it then delete
it.  I do, however, download distro's.  Maybe not as many as I used to
but sometimes I have a mad burst of downloading various flavours and
can easily look at racking up 10 or 20gb in a few days (this is rare
but it can happen).

How about the people who regularly upload and download updates for
distro's who are programmers?  They must consume a fair bit of
bandwidth and they could so easily be targetted.

Another area of concern is online file storage.  There is plenty of
perfectly legal storage ranging from paid stuff like Rapidshare that
is used for illegal stuff as well to 'A Drive' which is pretty much
open to anything but I personally use it to store documents etc.

I just do not think any of this bill has been properly looked at.
It'll be another ID card thing which rumbles on for years consuming
bigger and bigger amounts of money due to taxpayer funded research.
-- 
==============================================

Kevan
Linux user #373362
Staffordshire
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