[ Date Index ][
Thread Index ]
[ <= Previous by date /
thread ]
[ Next by date /
thread => ]
On Tuesday 22 October 2002 8:38 am, Tom wrote:
It would seem to me that not long ago, one of the criticisms of the comunist block countries was their control of fax machines / tape recorders (and other duplication technologies), and how lucky we are that we have a more liberal society. Now how long do you think it will take the "big boys" ( after introducing a version of DMCA in this country) to lean on governments to remove our rights to operate such devices.
The thing is, I doubt any of the this legislation will make very much difference to what anybody in the UK actually does, it will just make more and more of it 'more illegal'. The law generally follows trends in society as much as vice versa. A poor analogy, perhaps, but look at what is happening with cannibis. Because so many people use it, the police are unwilling to waste their precious time enforcing what is still technically illegal. The same will happen with music pirating, movie ripping, whatever. As long as it stays reasonably easy to do, people will still do it. And seeing as it seems to be possible to ship fairly large amounts of illegal substances around the world, beaming increasingly clever workarounds to copy-protection schemes over the Internet is a triviality, especially as P2P networks grow ever stronger with increasing consumer bandwidth. Also remember that most law-enforcement is driven, or at least enabled, by citizens themselves. I openly swap copied CDs in public, and have never experienced more than a joking comment about my 'illegal activities'. Unless the general opinion towards copyright theft changes quite radically, any number of laws will not make the blindest bit of difference. Jon -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.