https://torrentfreak.com/pirating-uk-student-to-be-extradited-to-the-us-120313/

Considering my involvement with various filesharing websites, and my anti-US Government position. I see this coming to Canada soon, and it scares the hell out of me (they have already done it with the Casino site guys). How could a country be so subservient to another country that they are willing to sell out their own citizens?

Richard O’Dwyer, the UK-based ex-administrator of the video linking website TVShack will be extradited to the US to face copyright infringement charges. Despite public outrage Home Secretary Theresa May approved the extradition order today. The 23-year-old student has never visited United States, but now faces several years in a US prison.

Last year Richard O’Dwyer was arrested by police for operating TVShack, a website that carried links to copyrighted TV-shows.

Following his detention in the UK’s largest prison, the site owner fought a looming extradition to the US, but without success.

After a UK judge gave the green light to extradite the student two months ago, Home Secretary Theresa May officially approved the request from US authorities today.

via “Pirating” UK Student to be Extradited to the US | TorrentFreak.

http://falkvinge.net/2012/03/20/stop-being-lazy-encryptsign-your-email/

Most people think about their own protections when they sign/encrypt their email, what people don’t consider is the privacy and protection of their friends and family. If your mail is intercepted or someone spoofs your address to send an email to your friends, your lack of signed/encrypted email puts you both at risk.

via Stop Being Lazy: Encrypt/Sign Your Email – Falkvinge on Infopolicy.

Running in election 41 ( #ELXN41 ) has taught me a lot about running in a campaign, doing debates, and screwing with (unfortunately now elected) @HedyFry and the Conservative candidate Jen Clarke, who both work together to represent everything I hate about politics. I have no regrets for any of the election process but here are a few things that I want to fix for next election:

I will not neglect my core voters. I felt that I would have the pro-internet crowed in the bag, so I didn’t really do any advertising on Facebook/Adsense/forums etc. This failed for me, because there are a lot less internet-savvy folks who know of the Pirate Party than I thought.

Focus on myself more, and promoting me rather than promoting minority voting. While inspiring, the call for a minor party voting should be something I do outside of elections. I spent too much time at green party rallies and events for other parties trying to network and encourage people to vote for minor parties that I neglected myself and my own party.

Organize volunteers better. Even on my party for election night I wound up only having one other supporter there with me. We need a better system which should actually be built by the party itself to make getting members connected with candidates. Also organize team activities to make sure everyone knows about me.

I will also do more effort in actual on-the-street canvassing and talking to people, maybe make some signs so when I approach them they are not thinking I am a sales person or any other type of canvasser.

I am ready to move forward, luckily my networking has provided me great opportunities to find a job within some organization which will allow me to protect the environment or protect democracy. I will also be putting in my request to volunteer for SSCS soon too! So I can spend my mornings working with them protecting the seas.

Sad days are ahead with a Conservative majority, which was not the will of the people but only the will of 40% of the voters. We must stand strong and stand up for our rights and protect ourselves at home and protect our internet. Keep on rocking Canada, O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

We need to move forward, and realize that the world isn’t as scary as people in power want us to believe it is. The simple fact is that the more fear that a government creates within it’s citizens, the more motivated they are to support them. Self preservation will always be an issue that brings a person to the polls, and you can count on the fact that the people in power know that.

The Internet is not some great abyss that is only used by criminals to do horrible things, terrorists have no strong interest in hurting Canadians (outside of the abuses that were carried out under the current Prime Minister), and the big pushers of child pornography are not sharing their collections using means that would be detectable by these methods. The government can make a nice shiny graphic to show you the dangers of the world but the dangers are not real. Crime is down in Canada, more people use machetes for murder than long guns, and we have a pretty high population happiness.

So the incredibly rich, dumb, and technologically inferrior RIAA had mad this (very long thought out) post on their website a couple weeks ago:

June 28, 2010

Add our voice to those who disagree with a recent summary judgment ruling in the court case between Viacom and YouTube.

We believe that the district court’s dangerously expansive reading of the liability immunity provisions of the DMCA upsets the careful balance struck within the law and is bad public policy.  It will actually discourage service providers from taking steps to minimize the illegal exchange of copyrighted works on their sites.  As the White House recently noted in its strategic plan to combat intellectual property theft (http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/22/releasing-joint-strategic-plan-combat-intellectual-property-theft) it is essential for service providers and intermediaries generally to work collaboratively with content owners to seek practical and efficient solutions to address infringement.  We need businesses to be more proactive in addressing infringement, not less.  We expect the Court of Appeals will better understand the balance Congress struck when it enacted the DMCA.

Cary Sherman

Yes, they are upset that Content Providers do not have to pre-filter content. Apparently, it is WAAAY too much work for them to send a sound / video sample to YouTube and have them automatically go through their entire video archive and remove content (even though the work constitutes fair use in many cases). Whats more is that YouTubes approach is not even a viable option for most start-up web sites, which kills growth of our industry.

What type of free internet is it, when you have to have a million dollars to start up a website? The RIAA does not care about the people, the future, or even the artists they represent, they just care about the money. This is their right, I fight for things that benefit me too (a free and open culture would be best for my life, and my children’s when I have them)… But people need to be aware that their motivations are financial.

If you care about the future, you will support a free internet without unreasonable limitations.

Honestly in the debate between the two bloggers (there is another contestant as well over at Matthews blog as well, that he references), they get down to a battle of who Intellectual Property laws were designed to benefit. One claims that Intellectual Property laws are there to aide the consumer, and was developed so that a media can eventually be released for free; and the other says that its designed to aide the artist, and allow them to grow and be able to make a profit off their work.

I fail to see how either of these points are valid or good at all. We have two extremes trying to fight for why they are right and the other is wrong and unfortunately copyright and patent laws are not that black and white… So lets look at this from a real persons point of view.

The current failed copyright system gives a copyright to its owner for their entire life plus 70 years. Clearly this is not for the benefit of the artist, because the artist will not be able to make any gains off those additional 70 years. Thats why the system is flawed, instead of allowing defunct artists music to be put into the public domain so that more people can learn, grow, and build off of it… the current system discourages respecting the late artist by not allowing there to be education based off their work. These laws are, however, in place for the artist.

Matthew also claims that because of the length of this copyright term that art should be released for free, and I feel that it was more of a creative way of twisting words and facts to gather more supporters for your cause (which is admittedly a noble one). We cannot expect artists to release music and not get paid for them, thats why I suggest copyrights, but on a much smaller scale. An artist has the right to make money, and recoup losses from the production of music. However, after a few years the artist’s primary income focuses on live tours and merchandise anyway.

I feel that the reason that drug patents are so short is because the Government realizes that we need short patents to drive innovation. While they would rather neglect artistic innovation, and only embrace being the worlds health care leader. As this shows, not only do short patent times not “kill innovation” as some say it will, but it also drives innovation and can be contributed into the United States great contributions to science.

We cannot be battling any more on black and white issues, and the time is to rally in support of real copyright and patent reform so that we can learn from our medical innovations, and apply that great system to media, and code as well. By allowing people to build off code after 7 years opposed to the rest of your lifetime… we develop better projects. By allowing music to be mixed, we create more innovation in what music is and what it can be.

Whats funny is that the answer to the question is simple:
Who does (current) Intellectual Property Laws help? Management
Who does (current) Intellectual Property Laws hurt? Anyone who wants to learn.