Good Thoughts on Naughty Lord Mandelson

One of the heartening things about the disheartening three-strikes saga currently playing out in the UK is the quality of the opposition that has provoked. I've already tweeted today about Cameron Neylon's splendid polemic - written with a rigour that only a scientist can provide - which I strongly urge you to read.

Meanwhile, here's an important point made by Monica Horten:

What he [Lord M.] doesn't get is that the Internet is not an entertainment system. It is a public communications network. The powers that he could acquire have serious implications for civil liberties, in particular for freedom of speech. Under the UK's own Human Rights Act, freedom of speech may only be restricted where there is a genuine public interest objective, and any measures must be specific and limited.

I think this goes to the heart of the problem with Lord Mandelson's intervention: he thinks the Internet is like radio or television, and does not appreciate how much bigger it is than that. As Horten points out, the UK's Human Rights Act may well provide the coup de grâce to his plans.

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Pin the eTail on the eDonkey

I thought that the Germans were tech-savvy, and then they go and do this. Still, people must be relieved that there is so little crime in Germany that their police have nothing better to do than acting as the heavy mob of the "entertainment" industry.

Strange, though, that eMusic is doing so well despite that fact that its music is completely defenceless in the face of cutlass-wielding piratical types, while the German recording industry, which spends most of its time trying to protect its monetized corporate intellectual property assets - sorry, music - fares so badly. Now, why could that be? (Via TechDirt.)