
Netherlands bans illegal downloading - renang
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftweakers.net%2Fnieuws%2F95335%2Fkabinet-nederland-heeft-per-direct-downloadverbod.html&edit-text=&act=url
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fauigerzigerk
Quite a funny headline. Maybe someone should think about issuing a blanket ban
of everything illegal? ;-)

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waps
Well, the Netherlands had a problematic court case some time back, and this
fixes it. Well, if you're a copyright owner it was problematic.

You see copyright law technically doesn't restrict illegal downloading. It
only limits distribution, and technically that means uploading, not
downloading. So there was a series of court cases that said as much [1].

So now that case has been invalidated, and downloading material without a
licence is now judged illegal in the Netherlands (like everywhere else).

One caveat that this case has for copyright holders is that it was judged to
be a civil offence, not a criminal one. So illegal downloading cannot use
police resources, and the copyright owner must sue (or appoint someone to sue
on their behalf) before any action can be taken by the courts. Such action can
only include financial sanctions [2], no jail time or impounding.

[1]
[http://www.pcworld.com/article/113968/article.html](http://www.pcworld.com/article/113968/article.html)
[2] keep in mind that not paying a court-ordered restitution IS a criminal
offence. So turning a civil offence into a criminal one is possible. It has
historically not been done (meaning in the last century, before that it was
actually common).

~~~
eloisant
Well, then it wasn't "illegal downloading" before the law passes.

~~~
waps
Heh, true.

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dep_b
When will the world catch up with the fact that The Netherlands is not more
the liberal country it once was? The boringness of Denmark combined with the
social problems of the UK, that's where it's heading.

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theorique
As well as a migrant population whose extremist religious observance tests the
patience of the long-standing Dutch tolerance and liberal values.

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gizmo
Let's not forget that the tension is in large part because of institutional
discrimination against those (religious) minorities.

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waps
If that's true, how would you explain that tensions like that, and much, much,
much worse exist everywhere that minority lives ? Especially in places where
said minority is in fact a majority.

I mean, I'm all for tolerance. But denying the problem makes it worse. Even
denying that this particular "minority" is particularly problematic, it might
seem discriminatory, but it's also the blatant in-your-face truth. That makes
it worth pointing out, and worth asking the simple question : why ?

In most religions the founder was the instigator of large-scale warfare
(usually a foreignor or otherwise non-local person that managed to whip a
large group of people into open revolt, like Moses or Muhammad). In islam,
this is particularly obvious, as it's prophet probably came from Syria, and is
responsible for massacres totalling at least 10000 bodies.

But islam is an exception in the opposite way of Christianity. Where
Christianity is famous for choosing not to fight in situations where
reasonable people would probably have picked up arms. Additionally
Christianity is famous for having guilt for actions that Christians at best
contributed to, but that no reasonable person can consider state actions.
America is a good example, who feel guilty for massacring native Americans.
Well, reading the history books, tell me this : what killed native Americans ?
Conflict with the colonists ? Or diseases the colonists carried (which they
did not know they carried at the time. And yes, some assholes existed. But
look at historical massacres in, say, India. Tell me this : were they an
accidental situation + a few assholes ? Or were they a systematically
coordinated extermination campaign organized and carried out by an army ?).
Good look finding a Turk that feels guilt about the Armenian massacre. Or a
Pakistani that feels guilty about the partition massacres, about causing the
biggest massacre of the 20th century, and then doing it again a decade later.
Or an Iranian that feels guilt about the massacres they committed recently
(ie. 30 years ago) in Iraq. Or an Iraqi that feels guilty about what Irak's
army did in Iran. Or a Maroccan that feels guilty about what happened in
Western Sahara to the indigenous population. Or ... Sorry to state the
obvious, but this is part of muslim culture.

Islam is famous for committing huge massacres in small conflicts. This was
true when islam was 1 year old (and 200 years away from being a religion), and
it's true today. And yes, we do know islam was famous for committing massacres
when it was very young, because we have written accounts of negotations
between the prophet's emissaries and local leaders that say exactly that, both
in the islamic history version of them, and in kept records. Muslim religious
history accounts, incidentally, don't deny this : Islam massacred an entire
city in a conflict was essentially about the location of Muhammad's tent camp,
which was judged not sufficiently prestigious by him (He was a slave -and
other wares- trader at the time). Another city was massacred because they did
not let a woman "marry" one of the muslim commanders. This is not denied in
those historical accounts, this is told, and presented as the way people
should behave. What was massacred in the name of Islam recently, I don't think
requires any real explanations.

But all this sort of talk, while it can prepare one for what is coming ("he
who doesn't know history is doomed to repeat it" and all), is water under the
bridge. Whether or not we tolerate islam is not a decision we can make, or
anyone can make really. This is going to frustrate a lot of people, but it is
simply not how history works. Everybody seems to be under the ridiculous
impression that this is the first time Europe sees massive muslim immigration,
that racism is new, or that current attitudes to immigrants are particularly
innovative somehow ... when of course in reality it's more like the tenth time
this happens. Of course, the ten previous times can pretty much be summarized
like this : muslims move in, get into ever more conflicts, commit genocide but
suffer military defeat, get shot/knifed in large numbers and islam gets
outlawed.

So let's ask ourselves the question : if history is to be learned from, what's
coming is a large scale "terrorist" act, not with a single perpetrator, but a
large group of muslims (say 500-1000 or more) committing a large scale
massacre in a large European city, then the local army moves in, and after the
soldiers see the dead bodies "somehow" every muslim gets killed, including a
couple hundred that weren't part of the "terrorist" act.

What will the response to that be ?

And sorry to point out the obvious : most people are against war because of
the very real costs wars have on normal people. That is the real cause of
tolerance, not some moral imperative. The (justified) fear of war, fear of
conflict. Needless to say, when the generally observed cost of not going to
war massively exceeds the cost of going to war, this will reverse. So the
response of modern states is not going to be all that different from the
response of the hundreds of states that have historically faced this issue.

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Luc
Look man, nobody cares about how much you love Jesus and hate Mohammed. Just
start a blog and leave us alone.

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waps
As I said, I don't care. I don't believe anyone has any choice in this, so
opinions don't matter. Yours. Mine. That doesn't stop me from stating my
opinion. Really, I see this as nothing more than a writing exercise. It's more
fun than the writing I do at my job, and that, well I need that.

Also I work in the US. I have controversial opinions, which I believe to be
based on obvious facts, but for obvious reasons I don't express them at work.

So here we are. What should we do ?

~~~
Luc
Since you can stop yourself stating these obvious facts at work, can you stop
doing it here, too, please?

~~~
gargarplex
I disagree with that charge and am actively against it. I am grateful for
waps's insight. It is absolutely dead-on based on my experiences and not only
that, it was good writing. It helped me express in words some unconscious
ideas _and emotions_ that I've been having.

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daenney
This is not specific to The Netherlands, it holds for all EU member states
that did not already have laws declaring downloading of copyrighted material
illegal.

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probably_wrong
The case for Germany is kind of weird, though: downloading is illegal, but
streaming is not (or, to be more precise, it's the streaming service's job to
make sure they don't host illegal content[1]).

So essentially I'm not allowed to download a movie, but I'm allowed to load it
in my browser and watch it later.

However! If I copy the file from the browser's cache to another directory,
then that's again illegal. I find this puzzling, but then again, I won't be
the one who complains for having a loophole (or is it?) that allows me to
download any movie without fear of retribution.

[1] [https://torrentfreak.com/viewing-pirated-streams-is-not-
ille...](https://torrentfreak.com/viewing-pirated-streams-is-not-illegal-
german-govt-says-140109/)

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ttty
Just keeps all your movies in the cache folder :D

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bulte-rs
even better; name your mountpoint /cache! Problem solved.

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codfrantic
To Clarify, banning illegal downloading sounds quite logical.

Until now, downloading of copyrighted material such as movies, tv shows and
music was allowed for personal use. This apparently has been overruled by an
EU court. Quite interested to see what this is going to change....

~~~
KhalPanda
Surely if it was legal to download copyrighted material before, for personal
use, then it wasn't... illegal.

So what they've actually done is ban the downloading of copyrighted material,
not ban the illegality of downloading copyright material since that's a
double-negative.

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pieter_mj
No, they banned the downloading of copyrighted material from illegal sources.
You may still copy and/or download copyrighted material from legal sources for
personal use.

The law hasn't changed. It's been clarified by the European court and the
Dutch Government follows this interpretation as of now.

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gpvos
The Netherlands was actually one of the few (European) countries without a
download ban. The EU court now overruled that.

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CmonDev
Thus fixing the most important problem the EU is currently facing. Life will
be good again now.

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pearjuice
Quite staggering how a non-elected instance can make major decisions for an
entire country. Just like that.

~~~
cyphax
Well, it can be quite the double edged sword. After all, the same non-elected
instance has recently enforced net neutrality in the EU (and it certainly
received a lot of praise for that). It has also recently introduced a ban on
roaming charges on mobile networks abroad (but within the EU). In the case of
the Netherlands, it has recently ruled a law, which forces providers to store
metadata of their clients for 6 to 24 months, illegal, due to a violation of
our privacy . These decisions are beneficial for EU citizens, consumers.

You gain some, you lose some. :)

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jacquesm
The problem is not that 'you gain some, you lose some'. The problem is that
you lose some and then you lose some more.

When the EU declared the DRD no longer in force the Dutch national entities
enforcing it immediately stepped up to make sure that it was made clear that
nothing would change. And now that downloading from non-sanctioned sources is
made illegal there will possibly be prosecution of individuals or renewed
efforts to block certain websites. And on top of that all the copy levy will
most likely continue to exist.

If there were any balance in this I'd be happy about it.

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easy_rider
Here is the legal stuff [1]

[1]
[http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&doc...](http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=150786&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN)

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jsumrall
The headline seems misleading, since this was a decision by the EU Court of
Justice that said the Dutch would have to stop downloading. The Netherlands
themselves didn't ban anything.

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romanovcode
Not really that of a news. Wasn't Netherlands also one of the biggest NSA
hotspots in all EU?

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easy_rider
the AMSX trunks should be boxed yes.

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rikkus
If something is illegal, isn't it already banned?

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wsc981
Not necessarily. For example, in the Netherlands one cannot be punished for
being illegal here[0].

 _Edit:_ added a link for clarity.

[0]:
[http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2014/04/cabinet_drops_...](http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2014/04/cabinet_drops_controversial_pl.php)

~~~
buro9
> in the Netherlands one cannot be punished for being illegal here

This doesn't make sense as a sentence. Surely the Netherlands has a justice
system and prisons, and surely those people in prison are there because they
were convicted of doing something illegal. So it stands that you can and will
be punished in the Netherlands for doing something illegal.

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Cthulhu_
wsc981 made an unfortunate language error / directly translated a Dutch
expression to english; 'being illegal' in his example translates to living in
the Netherlands as an illegal immigrant, which, while 'illegal', is not
actually enforced as a crime.

~~~
creatio
Not be picky or anything. What precisely is the language error? I read the
sentence and understood the meaning conveyed.

~~~
drcube
How does one "be illegal"? I think it doesn't make sense (or is at least
ambiguous and confusing) unless you replace it with "being here illegally".

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easy_rider
You wouldn't download a car.

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rurban
Is this a late April 1 joke?

