Posts by Gareth Ward
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The Telecommunications Carriers Forum has written the draft code for its members and is negotiating with RIANZ et al. But that doesn't cover the other parties likely to be regarded as ISPs under the law.
Thanks - so I guess it's a more informal thing with Government deciding if most major parties seem to be happy enough.
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If no agreement by then, it will be suspended.
Who is the group that provides formal agreement?
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I do understand that the copyright owners have felt under siege on this one.
I feel for them too - people want no-DRM, full-access, free-to-distribute, easily-copied examples of their work and seem to see no ground to be given.
As much as DRM is a shite response (and 92A a million times worst), I do sometimes think that maybe the legitimate consumer might have to give a bit of ground.
I'm not close enough to the workings to know what that might be though (registered devices that play copies? an acceptance of limited-numbers-of-copies per purchase etc etc?) -
Ha, this thread turned rather hilarious didn't it? A bunch of people relatively calmly wading through the practical implications of the legislation, before one of the lead drivers of that legislation weighs in, tells everyone they know nothing about prison as a deterrent because they don't have a background like his and then complains nobody wants to discuss the bill!
That aside, my thanks to Graeme for his research, analysis and writing efforts to outline the real-world implications off all this (by real world I mean avoiding the shouting of political, media, and "independent political advocacy groups")
(Plus thanks to Sophie for I'm not middle, I'm all class ) -
The Village People: I've always wondered if they were gay.
According to wiki:
Victor Edward Willis... [was the] original lead singer of the disco group Village People. He was also the only straight member of the original group. His persona was the "Cop" and "Naval Officer". -
They're not just not 'judging the risk that closely': by and large they don't know what the sentence IS. Ergo changing it isn't going to make the blindest bit of difference as far as deterrance goes. (Though because of the publicity obviously this bill is different.)
Yup, that's my point. But in the case of this law they may well know what the sentence is for that third strike, in the loosest, I-saw-it-on-that-news-shit sort of way.
Deterrence is normally unworkable because it requires massive sentences to really affect the rationality assumptions that underpin that argument. And those massive sentences would normally be unjust - but here we may have a circumstance where actual sentences imposed aren't manfestly unjust but the "potential criminal" perception is that the penalty is massive.I am literally talking about one or two people though - those who are treating very serious assaults etc a little too lightly and rationally - with the majority ignoring it as per. So I'm not convinced this hypothetical effect is all that significant.
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I mostly resorted to scowling at the DNA samples to try and make them behave.
Funily enough this is exactly how Simon Powers intends to bring the crime rate down with his new DNA seizure laws...
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Summary of this thought: This law is not aimed at the minds of criminals, who it considers to be lost causes. It's aimed at the society in which they are offending, which can be made happier and safer.
Yup I would largely agree with that.
Although I have been arguing for a while that deterrence doesn't work by adding a couple of years to a possible sentence (no offender would really be judging the risk that closely, assuming any of them fully understand the sentencing implications of their crime) - to work it has to be a really significant, well-known punishment. Yet I couldn't see how that would end up being an overall "fair and just" sentencing regime. This law does seem to deliver in that manner, although I agree that the overall deterrence is going to be insignificant in the scheme of things.
But you might just find one or two serious offenders who now think "life imprison for the next serious one, might be a bit more careful now" in a way that would never have happened with minor toughening up of sentences. Is it worth the messing with base principles of sentencing? Not sure - would have certainly said no originally, but Graeme's analysis suggests that it's pretty tightly focussed -
I saw years ago in a book or magazine this kitchen that looked like a library full of old leather-bound books. Strange combination, I thought, since that's where you cook and get stuff all greasy. But it got worse: it turns out they weren't actual books. They were just spines from old books from libraries (public and private) in Eastern Europe that had to sell all their books, and people in the States started buying them as decorative objects, sometimes - as in this case - ripping the books themselves apart (the shelves in this kitchen were fake, they had no depth, if you know what I mean.)
I visited some distant step-relation-in-laws in the UK and January - and they had done EXACTLY this. In a brand-new home. Themselves.
If you walked down a corridor there was what seemed a bookshelf at the end, stacked with a variety of modern classics. But on closer inspection they were only 5cm or so deep. Each had been bought and cut individually by the owner, with some on wonky angles and all at different depths for that realistic feeling. By using one particular book as a handle you opened two doors into the kitchen. The other side of those doors were panelled like the other kitchen cabinets - so it was a double-sided secret door! -
It just gets more and more liberal :-)
Interesting - the fewer and fewer circumstances in which it will apply seems like a good thing. Effectively they are giving the sentencing judge some leeway in deciding what's a strike, although clearly a pretty-damn-serious-enough chain of crimes will trigger that 25yr sentence. So it does seem to have narrowed down that trigger to a particular set of circumstances where few people will feel a great deal of sympathy for the offender.
Given that most serious violent criminals are unlikely to have a lovely Mr Edgeler explaining the underlying permutations but may see the "3 strikes and you're out" headlines, it may even end up providing the occasional deterrence to boot given it's first-glance seriousness.