/b/tards and Pirates Beware
“If you want, I can teach you how to make a bomb out of a toilet paper roll and a stick of dynamite.”
There was an interesting article published yesterday on boingboing.net about Britain’s new Internet laws that I think students (and owners of Utorrent) may be interested in.
The author of the article, Cory Doctrow, highlighted some of the law’s more ridiculous points
It consists almost entirely of penalties for people who do things that upset the entertainment industry (including the “three-strikes” rule that allows your entire family to be cut off from the net if anyone who lives in your house is accused of copyright infringement, without proof or evidence or trial).
Doctrow also describes the strain placed on Internet Service Providers by the law
A duty on ISPs to spy on all their customers in case they find something that would help the record or film industry sue them (ISPs who refuse to cooperate can be fined £250,000).
Of course Internet freedoms, including censorship and file-sharing, has been a popular topic for discussion since its inception into mainstream culture. The question for Americans is now whether or not the law proves to be popular enough for this country’s legislation to run with the idea and respond in kind.
In any case, you know someone out there is trying to figure out a way to “Hoard me up some Internet cause the government’s gonna take it away”
Better head to Costco.
