Noose Tightens on Copyright Theft (Fixed Penalties for Downloaders Next!)

Posted by Strangely Crawling Chaos, Health, Internet Add comments

Aug 212008

Following my little hit on Crawling Chaos tune nickers here google-security-to-crawling-chaos-and-morals/, the latest news is that a London woman, Isabella Barwinska, has been fined and costed a total of £16k!

Pirated Dream Pinball 3D Draws £16,000 Payment

Game sharers face legal crackdown

Game sharer hit with £16,000 judgement

The original case is reported here, which shows the extent to which big business is prepared to go. Also, it’s not just games makers that are prepared to spend money on lawyers and turn the screw in various ways. Last month they made a huge deal in the UK (Net firms in music pirates deal ) to legalise snooping on IP connections and thus send out warning letters automatically, turn down connection speeds and ultimately prosecute.

I suppose eventually it’ll be like speeding cameras and fines where there is no human involvement at all because in most cases the evidence will be so overwhelming that a defence is futile.

Fixed Penalties for Downloaders!

Ha Ha.

As an aside and as an example of the futility in trying to bring a little jollity into the BBC world, the BBC has a “Have Your Say” on-line section where people get issues of the day off their chest – and nothing happens – they just feel that something’s happened.

Anyway, this site, News Sniffer, monitors the BBC online output and makes notes on all editorial changes, which is interesting to watch the editor’s brains working, and also, monitors the censoring going on….

One post was censored from the “Have Your Say” item called, Should rules be tightened on file-sharing? It went like this:

Written by Barry, Glasgow, Glasgow on Tue Aug 19 09:51:23 UTC 2008. 1 recommendations.

Yes, all sorts of virus and diseases are spread through sharing files – fungal infections being the most common. I got a nail infection by sharing someones file. We should aim to keep everyone in good health and ban the sharing of files. One file per person, simple, no transfer of infections.

I thought it was a typical bit of spontaneous English whimsy, the kind Ken Dodd talks about, and shows that the grey suits are finding their way into the on-line BBC world when previously it was left to geeks, propellor heads and other misunderstood undesirables.