Tag: Tom Watson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?vY87jzY66iy8 I've been a bit lax in posting about copyleft issues - partly because, apart from the SOPA/PIPA win it's been mostly a deluge of shit, nasty political fudging (eh, Dave?), endless cases like Megaupload (love that the NZ court finally got some balls and told FBI where to go on deleting all the data) and a lot of sneaky 'let's just rename the bill and submit it when they're not looking' games playing. One case really bothers me though and keeps popping back up - it's the Richard O'Dwyer TV Shack case. This is for two reasons: 1) That special rendition extradition law - I thought this was supposed to be for terrorists? Oh copyright is terrorism now? (and no downloading Buffy is not supporting the Mafia, as much as you might want it to). The extradition law is worrying for many reasons - the current one is political as with Julian Assange's 100m dash to the Ecuadorean Embassy, he should go for the Olympics! Not the act of a calm man thinking that real justice will be done. This is because the US will never release any of it's citizens without due process but has lent on many countries to not do that for their citizens. And sadly the UK - under the panic around 9/11 or 7/7 I'm guessing - agreed. And so there's a fast track extradition for our citizens, but say there was someone the UK wanted it doesn't work the other way. 2) In this case Richard O'Dwyer hasn't broken any UK law, and it's questionable he broke any US laws either. I don't see how handing UK citizens over to a foreign country makes anyone happier or safer, especially when they seem innocent of any charges? The US as with Megaupload is acting as copyright police to the world, and seeking to have paramilitary actions in foreign lands over copyright. In fact they've just changed their law to make killing non-US citizens abroad legal in the US (it did say US citizens, but strangely the US citizens didn't like that. But killing some forrin' mostly brown dudes - hell yeah!). It might sound paranoid and slightly over-dramatic but I am starting to wonder the 'Holy WW3' I've been expecting next will be about copyright and trade, and not religion or oil. America was founded on copyright infringement, getting rich like China did copying other people's IP cheaper than the competition and not signing up to copyright treaties until much later after the $$$s were in. It's how the film industry started in fact, and put the likes of Pathe and Melies out of business with their copying. Strange how they now want to force other places to be exactly the opposite of what they were in their industrial/'second world' stage? What next? Copyright drones* taking out the offices Mediafire and Rapidgator? And It's nice to see that Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales and Tom Watson agree on this. This case is disturbing and sets a precedent where the US can extradite (and in future maybe kill? Only partly joking on that one...) whoever it likes for whatever reason it likes, either copyright, terrorism or just doesn't like the look of you. * Oh and Americans I said DRONES. D-R-O-N-E-S. *waves hands in front through static haze* I'm starting to wonder if there's a Great Firewall blocking all drones references in the US, or just people are too brainwashed to notice/care that Flying Mechanised Killing Machines are blowing up random people in foreign countries. I mean hello? Skynet or what? Scary stuff that people seem to not be freaked by, did I wake up with a new pair of special shades a few months ago or something? No-one I know in the US ever comments on my drones posts, it's like they don't exist. Sadly I suspect people are fine with their way of life being subsidised by whole families being blown up, sometimes in error? Well if your margin of error was a rather shocking 32% of all fatalities apparently and 175 children. Oh those terrorist children! As long as you have cheap oil, American Idol and pretend to have the American Dream and just not think about what's going on in your name, it's OK, eh? I feel like Johnny Rotten in 1977 about this, I wonder is there a codeword that starts the deprogramming? Or is there a climate of fear talking about something that is apparently a verboten subject by the CIA? I hope I am wrong, but there's so many people who look the other way then prattle on about the footy, X Factor, American Idol, Will & Kate, Olympics or such other invented distraction that I do wonder that if the revolution comes, I'll just keep my head down and let the shooting gallery do it's work. Yes like Mr Rotten I do care, I care too much and think people deserve so much better - but I do wonder why I bother sometimes when met by deathly silence. Oh at least at this rate there won't be anyone left to say 'I told you so'...

Tag: Tom Watson

Here Come The Drones: Extradition & Copyright

Milly Dowler, Soham and News International

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