

Politician Violates His Own Two-Strikes Anti-Piracy Plan - nextparadigms
https://torrentfreak.com/politician-violates-his-own-two-strikes-anti-piracy-plan-111001/

======
Bud
This trend of laws which attempt to take away a person's Internet access is
very scary. How is this to be enforced? By what logic is it considered a
proportional or effective punishment?

~~~
muuh-gnu
> How is this to be enforced?

Mass surverillance, mass punishment, mass censorship. You have a vast amount
of information that people are not allowed to communicate to each other, even
inside their most private communication.

> By what logic is it considered a proportional or effective punishment?

Nobody claimed that it is considered proportional. We're dealing with a topic
that key stakeholders like Mark Getty are describing as the "Oil of the 21'st
century". Considering that all copyright matters are decided completely behind
closed doors (ACTA for example has been even declared a "national security
secret" by the Obama administration, to prevent information about upcomming
laws to leak into the public, to decrease the amound of opposition before its
too late) and that all copyright jurisdiction is basically routing around
democracy and public participation since its emergence in monarchistic Europe,
they simply dont see the need to present those measures as proportional
because they know that (in the near future) no population will ever be allowed
to vote on it.

------
steipete
This is just great. Here's an even better article in german about the whole
story (from the german pirates)
[http://piratig.de/2011/09/30/kaudergate-2ndstrike-sehr-
geehr...](http://piratig.de/2011/09/30/kaudergate-2ndstrike-sehr-geehrter-
herr-kauder/).

Lucky for Kauder, as a politician he's immune to law, but its nevertheless
absolutely embarrassing.

~~~
delinka
Lawmakers that are above the law will always be a problem.

Edit: I do not mean that such will always exist, though I guess that's an
interesting debate in its own right.

~~~
nextparadigms
I agree. Is there a strong argument in favor of politicians having immunity,
other than the fact that they had the power to make that law for themselves?

~~~
herge
If a politician does not have political immunity, he can be arrested on
trumped up charges by the party in power.

~~~
pyre
At least in some cases, it would be better of politicians had to 'eat their
own dog food.'

------
DanBC
Politician's blog: (<http://www.siegfriedkauder.de/>)

Copied photo: (<http://www.vogtsbauernhof.org/content/view/full/213>)

Pretty clumsy move, especially for a lawyer, especially for a lawyer who
claims to want to protect copyright. He's not jsut kept the image in his
private collection, but is serving it to whoever many people visit his site. I
have no idea about Germany, but in England it's the sharing with other people
that becomes a problem.

~~~
RexRollman
He probably couldn't care less about protecting anyone's copyright. He is
probably benefiting in some way (personally or politically) and that is why he
is pushing for this.

~~~
stfu
"He is probably benefiting in some way (personally or politically)" ...
besides being a politician he is also the chairman of the German music
industry organisation. There you go.

------
etherealG
they should insist his site be taken down, under his own policy any other site
would have been for the initial infringement, irrelevant of the later change.

~~~
codeup
Of course this would be an obvious demand and ironic. But I suggest one should
only insist that he retreats from his policy aims: accept failure and/or step
down.

Asking for his site to be taken down in accordance with his own misguided
policy could give undue legitimacy to this policy.

------
earbitscom
Of all the comments here, @codeup is the most level-headed for the HN crowd.
Most people in these forums typically rail the RIAA, tell musicians they
should seek new business models, claim that piracy is not stealing, and defend
unethical behavior as it pertains to copyright tooth and nail. Then, when a
politician fighting for pro-copyright policy infringes, they want to see the
policy not just upheld, but to quote @dlikhten "on all devices/all his
locations? ...his office staff too..."

It just goes to show how weak the defense is for this side of the argument.
"See! It's so difficult. Let's just forget about the whole argument, but
punish this idiot first."

~~~
glimcat
"claim that piracy is not stealing"

Infringement is not stealing, or at least it wasn't before people started
trying to abuse marketing to induce linguistic drift in order to promote their
agenda.

I don't think "let's just punish this idiot first" is a reasonable can of
paint to use. It's more likely to be taken as proof that the nominally legal
or moral campaign of the copyright lobby is really just abusing the system for
profit and power. Copyright lawyer or politician goes on about how horrible
kids are for using Napster, is found committing plagiarism or lifting photos.

If anything, people want to punish them for abuse of power, not infringement.
At most, it's "let's hang this guy with his own rope."

~~~
earbitscom
Infringement may not be stealing, but it's just as illegal. He's trying to
implement a system for enforcing a law that already exists. In particular,
it's a law where you get a warning before anything happens. How is that
abusive?

Further, what is "nominally legal or moral" about protecting the rights of
artists to be paid for the use of their works? If you build software and
decide to charge for it, and someone else makes a bunch of copies of it and
makes it impossible for you to make money from it, do you not want the law
protecting you to be enforced? Last I checked, programmers have a hard time
making money from merch and touring.

~~~
glimcat
It's civil rather than criminal, or at least it used to be, so it is not
really accurate to call them "just as illegal." It used to be you had to show
damages and then sue for reparations. Regardless, conflating the two is
disingenuous.

> what is "nominally legal or moral" about protecting the rights of artists to
> be paid for the use of their works

"Nominally," as in, "in name." It is claimed to be done to "protect the
artist" - while the same people making this plea are and have been shafting
the content creators as hard as possible by any trickery and chicanery they
can get away with. There is a moral argument to be made, but the parties who
are usually first to go there are decidedly amoral.

~~~
earbitscom
The moral of the argument and the person making it should be kept separate.
Everyone thinks the RIAA should go fuck themselves. It doesn't mean there
should be a content free for all to spite them and pretend that it's not
hurting artists just as much.

