[pp.int.general] !! Denmark censors Internet, blocks The Pirate Bay

[Ole Husgaard]

Carlos Ayala wrote:
> What I think RIcardo was saying -as he said it as an answer to my 
> former mail- is that it would be dangerous that people finally think 
> of circumvention of laws as a solution against harmful laws/court 
> judgments. Not only because of becoming criminals shouldn't be found 
> acceptable -as I said in my former mail, not only using but even just 
> having DRM-circumventing tools is considered a crime against common 
> law-, but if people find themselves comfortable with that idea of "no 
> problem if X law/court judgment does not allow me to do Y, I'll 
> circumvent the prohibition", I think they won't probably be worried 
> anymore about the true problem: the very existence of that law or the 
> reasons for that judge to release that judgment.
Yes, this is a serious problem.

For example, many danish pirates do not see the blocking of TPB as a 
serious issue because they know it is trivially easy to circumvent. They 
do not realize that IFPI probably likes that it is easy to circumvent 
right now because it causes less protests, and that in a few years IFPI 
is going to demand censorship that is harder to circumvent (and a lot 
more expensive for the ISPs).

And today I had to give up on arranging a demonstration against the 
internet censorship. Problem is that without the danish pirate group 
(piratgruppen.org) I can only find half a dozen people who want to 
participate. The danish pirate group does not want to participate in a 
demonstration because they think some other things should be done first. 
One of these things is to set up a web site educating people on how to 
circumvent the blocking of TPB.

> Of course we can find the best metaphors to make people understand the 
> dangers of censorship, the dangers of privacy loss, etc; however, what 
> if -and I say this not just as an hypothesis, but because this has 
> already happened to us in Spain- people answer us "indeed, you're 
> right, but who cares? while I can find CDs without levies/ways to 
> circumvent DRM/ways to access Pirate Bay/etc, it's not my problem 
> anymore".
Same problem here in Denmark. Very few blank CDs/DVDs are sold here. 
Instead people buy them in Sweden or Germany (where the levy is lower) 
and think they pay no levy.

> So I believe that's our challenge: we should be able to make people 
> understand that now is the time to stop traditional politicians, 
> preventing them from setting and consolidating within the society 
> liberticide laws, preventing them from creating case laws; because if 
> we don't prevent them to do such things, in some years from now it 
> will be extremely difficult, and today's ways to circumvent such 
> harmful laws/judgments will be mercilessly forbidden and punished 
> -with also most of society not finding anything worrying in that ... 
> because as years pass they become habited to such laws/judgments-.
This is very important.

Circumvention is not a solution; it's a part of the problem.

Best Regards,

Ole Husgaard.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.pirateweb.net/pipermail/pp.international.general/attachments/20080205/c8136388/attachment.htm