EU Parliament rejects law allowing Internet cutoff

[bemildred]

Source: AP

STRASBOURG, France (AP) — Worried about trampling on the rights of innocent consumers, the European Parliament rejected Wednesday attempts by EU governments to crack down on people who illegally download copyright-protected music and movies over the Internet.

The EU assembly voted 407 to 57 to reject a compromise reached with EU governments a few weeks ago. It would have allowed France to continue its push to cut off Internet access to those caught downloading illegal copies of songs and movies.

Viviane Reding, the EU's telecoms commissioner appeared to back the rejection, saying the parliament's move was "an important restatement of the fundamental rights of EU citizens."

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hbQs1AJVSkR8sD9iNUc0J1mrQSTAD980SU0O0

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:applause:

[Speciesamused]

1. Ships Ahoy Matey....

But seriously they cannot start to interfere with
our internet. This is good news. The Brits are tough too.
One-

[aquart]

2. I hate having to depend on Europe to be sane.

Wish it was us.

[msongs]

3. yeah, let's make burglary and stealing your computer legal too :-) nt

[digidigido]

4. Hate to say it but it's a shame they did this. It says stealing intellectual property

is ok. Piracy is piracy, whether it's a boat full of gold, or a musicians hard work. If the work of artists is not
treated as something of value, there will not be artists who can make a living. That was the only sane idea
presented on how to stop piracy. Take away the internet from pirates. I do not understand how you expect
to develop a business model for music and movies that can exist when people can easily steal the same
product. Shawn Fanning created a generation of people who think music is free. We have a generation
that knows no consequences of stealing art. It's pathetic.

[bemildred]

5. There has to be due legal process.

You can't just have a bunch of authority wannabes making these decisions all by themselves.

[digidigido]

13. There has to be a mechanism to do it fairly, but the punishment fits the crime

[bemildred]

14. Exactly, so first you have to have legal process to determine that a crime has been committed.

Then you have a variety of legal sanctions on the table, fines, incarceration, etc. But a process wherein your internet access is restricted or removed by exercise of arbitrary power, and it is up to you to sue to get it back, is not acceptable. The media already have copyright protections and means to exercise them. The problem is that there is massive disobedience of the law. But the solution to that is not massive increases in arbitrary government power.

[Tempest]

15. In this case there is no mechanism

And yet you are defending the punishment.

[jordi_fanclub]

7. Interesting...

By the same logic, what is exactly your proposition about what to do with the xerox machines?

[digidigido]

12. That's so disingenuous, you are comparing apples and oranges

seriously, a xerox machine is not connected to everybody's home computer

[JonLP24]

8. It's technically sharing. But since it is over the internet it is illegal.

It doesn't bother me at all that it is illegal because whatever music I want to hear or whatever scene I want to watch from a favorite TV show I go to youtube.com. It's all free over there.

[digidigido]

11. there is a difference between watching and downloading

[conspirator]

9. If you are talking about music, the artists themselves don't care about it

it's the filthy parasite corporations that want make people pay for enjoying themselves.

[digidigido]

10. B.S. ask Metallica if they care that they are being robbed? you are rationalizing theft

[Vidar]

6. Good for Europe.