Engineering News

Gee, that sounds familiar.

It's only a matter of time before the government gets their grubby mitts in the internet. The unfettered free speech that is enjoyed on the internet will never be allowed to stand.

There are plenty of existing laws to protect intellectual property..................all they have to do is enforce them.

Remember Napster.............................they didn't need SOPA to go after them.

Same story with gun laws over here. The laws in place before the Dunblane tradegy were sufficient to have removed the guns from the gunman - had they been applied. The local gun club had revoked the man's membership and reported the fact to the police, and had written to say they felt his licence to own should be revoked. Instead it was renewed without a premises inspection.

Instead of acknowledging this, the powers that be have sealed the inquiry records for 100 years (instead of the usual 30) and tighten laws to the point where our Olympic marksmen (and women) have to train abroad.

I never had and don't have a reason (yet?) to own a gun, but the blantant removal of public rights to cover up institutional failings is wrong.

On copyright issues, I'm kinda ambivalent...but I do object to the expectation that we will pay the same price for a (eg) 1970s reissue on CD/MP3 as for a new album. The 60s/70s/80s/90s artists got their money from us first time round...should they really fleece us a second time?

On the otherhand, there are many less well known artists of all types who really do make their living day-to-day with their art, and they need protection.

I guess it's a matter of how much is enough?

These very same arguments came out with the advent of the lowly VCR, and it all amounted to much ado over nothing. Music, movies, TV shows, etc. are all available cheap, securely, and legally over the net.

The money that is being lost, is not due to the little internet people that are willing to watch a lousy rendition of a feature film on their computer screen, it's due to the state sponsored piracy that takes place in places like China and North Korea, in which millions of high quality, illegal copies are made and distributed.

Much like SOPA in the US, Acta is simply the latest ploy of an overreaching government to inject themselves into the internet as a whole. They do not like having something so massive in existence, that they have no control over.

And before that with cassette tapes!

I agree wholeheartedly with what you've said.

I've still got some bootleg Bob Marley on cassette.

I'll see your BM and raise you a Deep Purple at Knebworth

Nice!!! Vinyl bootleg of Bonzo's Birthday party 1969. Zeppelin jamming and goofing off.

Unfortunately, it's in the possession of a former girlfriend that's 3000 miles away.............I don't know if I'll ever see it again.

I think I still have the "off the mixing desk" tape of Del Amitri....Where they do the brilliant segue from "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" into "Summer Loving" (and back again), earning my undying thanks as I'd been telling my far more musical friends for ages that it was possible , and none of them believed me. Imagine my shock when just the slide I'd been singing happened on stage!

Ah! Happy and innocent days