Australia

[polopony]

saw this on the news they are taking this to extreme and dangerous levels ,will they be able to stop you on the street and examine what you have on your IPOD ,computer ,any storage device

www.smh.com.au/news/technology/the-65000-question-do-you-own-an-ipod/2006/11/20/1163871308087.html

[necrocracker]

I'm sorry to hear that the US isn't the only one making stupid copyright laws. How many more eight year olds need to be sued before they figure out this doesn't work? What's next, making it illegal to have recordable discs because it shows intent to make illegal copies? Even if this bill were to pass, it would prove to be completely unenforcable and would be quickly ammended. So be it, live and learn... or not!

[JasonFriday13]

I have seen a sony cd player for a car that has 1GB of Flash memory in the face plate (for playing mp3's and wma's). If you get pulled over and they see this, you could go to jail. I reckon it's stupid.

[lfcrule1972]

The law is an Ass !

 

And now on a less serious note and one liable to get me

 

Professor Brian Fitzgerald, head of the Queensland University of Technology's school of law, agreed. He noted in an article submitted to the Online Opinion journal: "These new provisions have the potential to make everyday Australians in homes and businesses across the country into criminals on a scale that we have not witnessed before."

Isn't that what 99% of Australians were 200+ years ago anyway ??

[spinningwheel]

[Shamus_McFartfinger]

saw this on the news they are taking this to extreme and dangerous levels ,will they be able to stop you on the street and examine what you have on your IPOD ,computer ,any storage device

www.smh.com.au/news/technology/the-65000-question-do-you-own-an-ipod/2006/11/20/1163871308087.html

Politicians in Oz really are a pack of dickheads. I should pick up my things and move to the USA. The laws might be just as silly but at least I'll be able to sell my dog for a fortune.

 

[lfcrule1972]

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

 

Now that is the funniest thing I have seen all day

[polopony]

I can hear it now ,,sir put your hands against the wall ,do you have any weapons guns ,knives ,anything that might stick me or cut me on your person ,are you carrying a Flash Drive ". .They think making new laws will change anything ,do they think that the same people that didn't give 2 shits for the old laws will suddenly stop because theres new law inacted .They should be all taken out for a pee test to see what they're on its not reality for sure ,Years ago I read that if everyone was charged and jailed for all the things they do wrong then 90% of everyone would be behind bars

[Kenadjian]

This thread should have been posted under the 'quick jokes' heading, because that's exactly what it is.

[Pain_Man]

I hope no one thinks I'm taking any swipes at Australia in this post.

 

 

I'm sorry to say, neocracker, that many other countries have been following our Congress' stupidity before this. Finland, not that long ago, passed a law even stricter than our idiotic DMCA.

 

But the law in this article borders on the surreal. I have to say that my jaw dropped when I read this. This would make nearly everyone in Australia an "infringer." My grandmother (who's 80) sets her VCR to tape her soap opera when she makes her annual trips to her home state. Under this law, were she in Australia, she'd be a felon!

 

This law could also impact tourism. Image flying down to Australia and from XYZ and you've got your iPod with you for the 17 or 24 hour flight, whatever it is. And customs examines it and then you get thrown in the Gray Bar Hotel! Or, at the least, lose your $350 iPod. Word of stuff like that gets around.

 

I'm not an American lawyer, let alone versed in Australian law, so perhaps someone else can answer this question:

 

Do the courts have the power to throw laws like this out?

 

This would never stand in the US (I say this simply as a matter of fact). It would violate the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment, as well as probably half a dozen Supreme Court decisions.

 

Police would have to have a warrant or "probable cause" to believe a felony is in progress before they could stop you on the street. And they would definitely have to have a warrant to search one's iPod (et al) for so-called "infringing" media.

 

We do have one common sense law in this area in the US (I'm not implying that other countries lack common sense). The name has eluded me, I think it's called the American Home Recording Act of 1990. But basically it makes copying one's CDDAs perfectly legal.

 

CDRs have a special tax on them, several pennies, that goes into a fund that's paid out to the record labels for their supposed "losses" due to people copying legally purchased CDs and passing them to friends.

 

In spite of these payments, some record companies are using consumer screwing technology to try and block copying of CDs (yet they still keep taking the payments!) At least one congressman has called for amending the law to stop the payments to record companies producing so-called "protected" CDDAs. Naturally, this has gone nowhere. The record companies are organized and make large donations to Congressmen and Senators. Consumers aren't and don't. (Tho' I did donate $50 bucks to my party; a lot of good that did on 7 Nov.)

 

 

 

I'm sorry to hear that the US isn't the only one making stupid copyright laws. How many more eight year olds need to be sued before they figure out this doesn't work? What's next, making it illegal to have recordable discs because it shows intent to make illegal copies? Even if this bill were to pass, it would prove to be completely unenforcable and would be quickly ammended. So be it, live and learn... or not!

[Pain_Man]

 

 

 

We'd love to have you, Shamus.

 

Unfortunately, if you're looking to flee fuckhead politicians, this ain't the place to come.

 

 

In fact, I don't think there's any place that's free of said dickheads.

 

It's not so much that "power corrupts" it's that "money kills brain cells." A journalist once proved that whether you got to speak to your Congressperson depended on how much money you'd donated to them. If you'd donated the maximum for that "election cycle" ($10K I think), you almost always get through. If you donated nothing or $50, you're lucky to get to talk to some unpaid intern who takes your number and promises "we'll look into your issue." And then promptly round files it.

 

The best lack all conviction

While the worst are filled with passionate intensity

 

In 18th century England and 19th century America, the corruption was out in the open and exposed, "honest" if you will in that they didn't try to hide it.

 

Now the politicians simply pass laws to make the overt forms (money for votes) illegal but make tons of other kinds perfectly legal. I.e. You can't bribe Senator C. Anine Asshole, but you can hire his kid at $500,000 a year. That's perfectly. Hell, you can hire Sen. Asshole's wife!

 

And many a Congressperson leaves Congress and then goes to work, for gigantic salaries, for the very lobbying firms or corporations that used to donate money to their campaigns!!

[Pain_Man]

One note about the lawsuits by the RIAA. They've been sued themselves for violating the laws they are supposedly trying to protect. And there are calls for criminal investigations of the RIAA for their blatantly illegal tactics.

 

You have to be caught, usually by your IP addressing being traced (why people doing this don't just use IP anonymizing software boggles my mind), having downloaded

 

Typically, the run "stings", usually in chat rooms or via P2P networks. They have people who offer to trade music tracks. This, in itself, is a violation of the DMCA! Yet they have the hypocrisy to then sue people who are doing that same thing.

 

 

People are starting to fight back. One woman who's been sued by these Nazi bastards has sued them. (To make a long story short, her son left an unencrypted 'Net router active in her house after he'd moved out and took his computer with him. A neighbor used it to download thousands of songs.) Instead of settling with these blackmailers, she's fighting them. And, so far, she's winning in court.

 

I hope the Australian Senate has the power to stop this. Or the Commons (proper term?) has the sense to vote it down or amend it until it's at least only somewhat insane.

 

got some legal music to download. From www.emusic.com. Their format is MP3, so there's no consumer-f*cking DRM crap to deal with. You just pay your monthly fee and you can download the songs. Naturally, they don't have the latest, most currently stuff. But their "Classical" section is large and quite varied. And they do have a lot of indie labels if you're in to alternative, punk, etc.

[Kenadjian]

Do the courts have the power to throw laws like this out?

Only if someone mounts a successfull challenge. And lets face it, who can be fucked doing that?

 

"probable cause"

And that's all they need to give you a hard time, no matter what country you're in.

[Pain_Man]

@Ken

 

Only if someone mounts a successfull challenge. And lets face it, who can be fucked doing that?

 

As one post I read today put it, "Judges are starting to actually read the DMCA" and thus are starting to narrow it. F'r instance. Lexmark tried this really lame dick claim that they'd put "DRM" in to their printer cartidges <!> and, therefore, companies selling those kits that refill the cartridges were violating the DMCA! The courts "smacked" that down.

 

Another company, this one made garage door openers, tried suing a company that made a universal garage door opened, claiming that the universal garage door opener was "reverse engineering" and, thus, a violation of that part of the DMCA. The courts smacked that one quicker that owl shit as well.

 

So there are some people and companies with the balls to take on the Evil Power and they are beginning to win. The judiciary is making it increasingly clear that they aren't going to allow the DMCA to be applied to stuff that Congress never even considered such as garage door openers and ink cartridges.

 

But corps will keep trying to squelch competition using it, so the judiciary has to stay vigilant until the day Congress changes this fucked up excuse for a law.

 

 

 

"probable cause"

And that's all they need to give you a hard time, no matter what country you're in.

 

 

Depends on the country. Some countries the police have lots of trouble getting warrants, let alone conducting warantless searches. Other counties, the cops can pretty much do what they want.

 

The countries where its often the most difficult for the police to catch criminals legal or where the sentences or very lenient (e.g. France, Germany, Spain), the cops take to beating the shit out suspects or gunning them down because they know that even if the scum are convicted, they'll walk in a few years. So which system is better? Legal executions after trials and appeals? Or they cops blowing people away on the street? The latter is certainly quicker.

 

What no other Western country I know of has that US does is what we call the "exclusionary rule." If cops here bust down your door and find 500lbs of heroin it can't be used as evidence against you. Canada--whose justice system has been criticized--fairly or unfairly I make no judgment here--as too lentient does not have an exclusionary rule. It's the most insane piece of legislating from the bench imaginable.

 

The Burger and Rehnquist (esp the latter) did a good job at injecting some common sense into the insanity of the Warren court decisions of the Sixties (actually the line of precedence for tying the hands of the police goes back to the 20s!).

 

No longer do murderers walk free because a cop grabbed the form for an arson warrant instead of a murder warrant (this actually happened in the late 70s; a guy strangled his girlfriend with an electrical cord and set her body on fire; the homicide detective mistakenly grabbed a form for an arson warrant; the courts ruled that the killer's "rights" had been "violated" because the wrong fucking piece of paper was used! No more of that bullshit. It's called the "good faith" exception. As long as the cop is acting in "good faith" and not trying to get around the Bill of Rights and SCOTUS precedent, trial judges can't use ridiculous technicalities to throw out crucial evidence.

 

And, holy shit!, putting violent criminals in jail has resulted in 12 yr straight decline in violent crimes. Wow. Locking up thugs reduces crime. A stunning concept.

Edited November 24, 2006 by Pain_Man

[dbminter]

 

 

If you composite in an image of a mouse doing something here, I'm off! :&

[Pain_Man]

Shamus:

 

Where the hell do you get these pictures?!?

 

Catch your dog looking at canine porn?

 

I have to keep an eye on my rats or they're on line ordering shit all the time.

 

 

saw this on the news they are taking this to extreme and dangerous levels ,will they be able to stop you on the street and examine what you have on your IPOD ,computer ,any storage device

www.smh.com.au/news/technology/the-65000-question-do-you-own-an-ipod/2006/11/20/1163871308087.html

Politicians in Oz really are a pack of dickheads. I should pick up my things and move to the USA. The laws might be just as silly but at least I'll be able to sell my dog for a fortune.

 

[Shamus_McFartfinger]

 

 

If you composite in an image of a mouse doing something here, I'm off! :&

Did someone mention a mouse?

 

 

 

[Shamus_McFartfinger]

Shamus:

 

Where the hell do you get these pictures?!?

Nowhere is particular. A mate of mine emailed me the dog the other day.

[Pain_Man]

You could probably win money for some of these shots from certain TV shows.

 

My favorite is still the Satanic "bog" cover you came up with.

 

 

Shamus:

 

Where the hell do you get these pictures?!?

Nowhere is particular. A mate of mine emailed me the dog the other day.

[Pain_Man]

Shamus:

 

Where the hell do you get these pictures?!?

Nowhere is particular. A mate of mine emailed me the dog the other day.

[Pain_Man]

Shamus:

 

Where the hell do you get these pictures?!?

Nowhere is particular. A mate of mine emailed me the dog the other day.

[Pain_Man]

You could probably win money for some of these shots from certain TV shows.

 

My favorite is still the Satanic "bog" cover you came up with.

 

 

Shamus:

 

Where the hell do you get these pictures?!?

Nowhere is particular. A mate of mine emailed me the dog the other day.

[Pain_Man]

Nowhere is particular.

 

 

(Can't resist this one; in the best tradition of Emily Dickinson, it makes no sense at all!)

 

Nowhere is particular

They don't let just anyone in.

Somewhere they don't give a shit,

About who, why or when.

Anywhere's even worse--

There's no place you couldn't be

If you got there first.