Major Close Down

[Frankie Higgs]

On Tue, 2014-08-05 at 16:09 +0100, Jonathan H wrote:
> So, let me try and get this clear in my head...
> 
> Have you really just compared the deaths of millions of young men who
> sacrificed their lives in two world wars, to the voluntary closure of
> a site hosting stolen material?

Don't pretend to be surprised by someone's saying "My ancestors didn't
fight in WWn for this,"
It's a very common piece of rhetoric, and in this case isn't entirely
inappropriate.

If, as many do, Chris views the second world war as having been fought
to defend us from fascist values, then he is correct in arguing that
they were fought to prevent this sort of close down.

One important democratic freedom is the freedom to share culture and
information. The introduction of copyright to the UK was intended to
allow for easier censorship, and to prevent free culture. I'd recommend
reading http://ip.cream.org for the background.

What does genuinely continue to surprise me is that people continue to
compare copyright violation to theft.
I'm not even sure if we have the legal right to use iPlayer content in a
way the BBC don't explicitly allow, despite obviously having the moral
right, so I don't view what we use get_iplayer for as any different from
downloading these files from a P2P site.
(If there's anyone on the list who can explain our exact legal status,
I'd be grateful)