I've been reading these forums for some months now but had to sign up for this thread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
Anyone... everyone... should consider it their duty as a citizen to uphold the law. Even if that only means dialing 911 when they see someone else being hurt.
No business is above the law, and if they can take steps where they have influence to cut back on illegal activities, there's no reason why they shouldn't.
I wasn't suggesting the ISPs would become the arm of the Justice Department... just that they should be willing to mitigate illegal activities that take place on their networks, and to alert authorities to activities they are aware of.
(Cue "Big Brother" responses now.)
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This is an important topic so I want to make sure I get the point across. If I sound aggressive or rude, I apologize in advance.
Are your realising what your are suggesting?
You cannot determine if some traffic is illegal without looking at it first and thus without looking at all the traffic. There is no other way. Your scheme would
completely remove all privacy on the internet. Anything less would not work. This is the very definition of Big Brother.
Of course you could argue that this is done completely automatic (which it cannot be) and any false positives would be deleted. But if mere copyright infringement (ie. no serious crime/felony) is policed this way, all other industries or police sections will want their share.
Typically, this is done the other way around: First you want something against terrorism/child porn. When the system is in place, you erode all privacy restrictions. See the European traffic logging laws effective as of January this year. Originally, they were against terrorism (only as a reactive measure of course), then serious crimes were added and now, the RIAA is asking for access in civilian law suits...
Secondly, yes, you are asking the ISPs or the relevant industry to police us and thereby reading
all our communications. Somebody has to do the filtering, after all, and the police is typically to busy with other things (provided the police wouldn't take the opportunity to misuse this power). This only leaves the ISPs or interested parties, thereby offloading
crucial state powers to civilian entities with financial interests in catching people...
If the RIAA is any indication, you do not want these people reading through all your internet traffic.
Thirdly, they are common carriers. Would you also demand, that the Postal Service reads all your mails to see if something is illegal? Or the police or some industries? Privacy laws are fundamental to any open society and free speech.
I'm always amazed how quickly people want to throw freedoms and privacy away. In counter-terrorism, this is already appalling but for a non-serious crime, this is ridiculous beyond reason.
Some links:
On a related note:
Personally, I agree with Eric. My problems with books aren't not having the money or inclination to buying them but rather not knowing
what to read or not knowing where to get them. As an example, after 4 weeks I still haven't received a Black Company book.
Also, there is a thing I don't understand. Why doesn't your industry release 80% of each book for free in public formats?
- If you want to finish reading the book, you will buy the missing 20%.
- There is no risk to the consumer of buying a book he will not like. Of course, this case would be a "lost sale" for the industry but on the other hand, consumers could simply pick a book and start reading. Surely this would increase exposure.