Euro Parliament Shoots Down Internet Piracy Proposal

"The vote shows that MEPs want to strike a balance between the interests of rights holders and those of consumers, and that big measures like cutting off Internet access shouldn't be used."

Thus spoke a European spokeswoman for the European Parliament after the European Parliament voted down a proposed measure that would have thrown off the Internet those suspected of file-sharing.

Well, here's to the European Union government for doing something bloody right, for once!

(Although the likelihood is that the measure was struck down more because at present it couldn't be adequately implemented.)

As far as this writer is concerned, the real human interest here is not about supposed human right to download music for free (I find it mind-boggling how many too-virtuous-for-you people find the way to justify downloading whole albums and movies. I mean, I can see being angry at the jacked-up prices and the fact that most of the profit in that goes to the record label or movie producer and not the musicians or the writers, but...uh, paying the price is the only bloody way of getting said musicians and writers paid their royalties, upon which they count to do things like put food in their mouths.).

No, this was an issue of yet more potential intrusion into the world of the internet--and this would have been the most pernicious and diabolical of all such partnerships, one forged between companies and governments. It would have meant more closet porn-seekers called bureaucrats directly monitoring what people have been Net-surfing for and downloading, playing the role of spy for both private industry and big government.

The ISPs stated right from the start that: it's not their responsibility to act as content police; if they had given in to government pressure to be such police, then they would have been the ones held legally accountable for the actions of relentless "pirates" and the slobbering teams of lawyers would have been constantly at their doors; the vast amount of people using the Internet makes this just about impossible to police, especially when there are so many ever-evolving methods of encryption; and permanently banned users means lost business in a vast array of areas for a vast array of merchants. Especially when legitimate users are banned for some fault in the automated systems that would inevitably have had to be implemented-and with all that data and all that technology there would, indeed, have been scores of unintentionally banned users who had done nothing wrong but would likely have to pay a lawyer to prove it. Bloggers who don't copyright their material come to mind.

All of these practical matters were in addition to the obviously evil precedent that would have been set: now government would have, in principle, the power to throw anyone it chooses off of the Internet; all it has to do is pass enough of the right laws banning this, that, and th'other thing. And big business would have had lobbyists en masse advising government on just what such banned things they should be (whatever their competitors offer).

Inevitably, the masses of good would suffer for the sins of a few, and everyone would have their freedom of speech curtailed even more than it already is. Government is already looking for a way in on controlling the Net-that's what the American Demidiotcrats' disgusting Internet tax proposals are all about.

But as I'm sure the Europeans will lead the way to this particular perdition, we are, for now, safe free. Somewhat.