6 ms·

Why is IP being allowed to take precedence over civil liberties and cultural inheritance these days? WTF?

ulf 17y ago
Because nobody makes any money with civil liberties... "Police will have powers to enter private homes and seize posters, and will be able to stop people carrying non-sponsor items to sporting events." The second part is just as scary in my opinion
- ErrantX 17y ago
  Indeed - do you know if the Olympic grounds are public or private?
  - ulf 17y ago
    I would suspect they are private for the duration of the Games.
- Quarrelsome 17y ago
  Yea but how many policeman are actually going to do that? They already refused changes to enable them to possess guns due to the problems it would cause them. I wonder if they'd refuse to do this or not, or just "pretend" to do it and not actually bother.
  - Periodic 17y ago
    I doubt anyone will be seizing your Pepsi if the games were sponsored by Coke, but they might have a case for not letting you set up your Pepsi-points gear under the coke sign.
    - awa 17y ago
      This might happen and some sort of the does happen in Cricket. During the Cricket world cup the TV channel showing the event isn't allowed to show competitor's ads. Also, the players are not allowed to be part of any kind of competitor ad for the entire duration of the tournament. And yes, the English are used to this.
  - jey 17y ago
    That's still way too close for comfort. "Oh, don't mind these laws, we don't actually enforce them except when it's really necessary. We're on your side! Just trust us." It's just a small step from suddenly "needing" to question what constitutes "really necessary". We should be resisting tyranny as it creeps up on us, not remain complacent until after it becomes a true crisis.
- jwecker 17y ago
  If the venue is privately owned the second part doesn't scare me. I believe any privately owned property has the right to refuse entry to anyone they wish, and that that right trumps civil liberties. WHICH is why the first part of the story is a terrifying encroachment on liberty. No warrant? No laws broken? To have them simply enter and dictate what you're allowed to display on your own property? No way to refuse entry?
  - regularfry 17y ago
    What's frightening is that it's specifically a police power. If the private property owner wants to enforce private rules, they should pay for private security guards to do it. Why should public money be used for this? EDIT: On further thought, it's worse. The article implies that police will have the power to remove items from people on the way to an event. That would be hideous if true. I want a corroborative source before I get too worked up about this, though.
    - nicoara 17y ago
      here it is : http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jul/21/olympics2012-civil-liberties http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jul/21/olympics2012-civil-...
      - regularfry 17y ago
        That corroborates one part but not the other, more worrying (but less likely) aspect.
- uygtfgh 17y ago
  They had that power and more for Vancouver. They even copyrighted a line from the national anthem. What made Vancouver such a success is the low key policing. 6000 police + RCMP + army and they made 93 arrests (mostly drunk+disorderly), one policeman was slightly hurt when he broke a window stopping a fight. The result is the best press for the VPD in living memory. Now picture the Met's response to any sort of demo in London.
dantheman 17y ago
I hope their is a growing backlash to this type of behavior. I think more and more people are seeing the ridiculous positions of copyright holders and are losing respect for them. We see this in file sharing, and people upset that they cannot access content from another country -- eventually the IP laws will change. I also think people are waking up to SCAM that is the olympics. The IOC is private organization that profits from the games, by stealing taxpayer money to fund their events. I don't know why anyone would want to host the olympics anymore.
- kanwisher 17y ago
  My home town Atlanta was a total ghetto before the Olympics, it forced the city to reinvest into the downtown and it has been vibrant and a nice place to live since then. Perhaps cities shouldn't wait till an olympics comes to rebuild the city ;)
  - CWuestefeld 17y ago
    Who actually paid to beautify your city? Was it cost-effective? Were there other ways the money could have been better spent?
    - thechangelog 17y ago
      I can't believe your comment was downvoted. These are very valid questions.
    - danudey 17y ago
      Let's be honest; if Atlanta, on its own, dumped billions into revitalizing itself, no one would care except residents. Having a stage like the olympics to draw the world in, however, shows people the city and makes it more likely they will return. Likewise with Vancouver; one of our major downtown streets, Granville, got a complete overhaul. Gone were the old, broken stones, the cracked sidewalks, the run-down streets and sickly trees. It's now a much better place to walk around and explore. We also have a new mass-transit line connecting our downtown core with South Vancouver and Richmond, as well as the airport. Catching a flight used to be $25-35 by taxi, or god knows how much in parking. Now, it's about $4 per person, and that gets you there and back if you're dropping someone off. The project was a public-private partnership that was within budget and opened fifteen weeks early, and has made Richmond far easier to travel to and from (making everyone's life easier). The project was a no-brainer improvement to the region, but I doubt we would have had as much support and funding if we hadn't had the olympics coming to town. Whether the other renovations to the city will prove useful, it's hard to tell yet, but I'm cautiously optimistic that they will.
ulf 17y ago
Thinking some more about this, I come to the conclusion that there is only one way to incorporate civil liberties into nowadays world: We need an international tax that companies and organziations pay whenever they prune civic rights. Hard to get that one through all kinds of legislature, but I think it might work, once done.
- lucifer 17y ago
  That's not the winning attitude. We shouldn't have to beg to have our rights (back). Just remember how you got those rights in the first place.
  - nfnaaron 17y ago
    Some would say (have said, actually) that we never got them in the first place; we have them by nature, and we can only keep them or lose them.
- philwelch 17y ago
  The problem is when governments violate civil liberties, and you can't fix that by making a bigger government to enforce laws against the smaller governments.
lucifer 17y ago
Its basically a weasel strategy to keep "civil rights" on the books, yet practically emasculating those same rights in the courts. Welcome to global fascism. (Remember fascism means the union of the corporate and the state. Egomaniacs in funny uniforms and goose stepping is optional.) [grammar]
cturner 17y ago
All IP always takes precedence over civil liberties in all cases. It is an anti-right by its nature. There's a similar but less extreme generalisation to be made about its effect on cultural inheritance.
anigbrowl 17y ago
What I wonder is why they go about it so badly and stupidly. By chance, I took part in one of the first guerilla marketing exercises of this type about 20 years ago. Af enduring a night in the rain waiting to buy tickets for a tennis match at London's wimbledon, in the morning some nice people came along with a bunch of Batman t-shirts (the Time burton version was just being released) and of course chilly wet tennis fans were delighted to have another layer of clothing - and there were lots of Batman logos in the crowd when the match was televised later that day. I understand organizers of sporting events and people who have paid a lot of money for broadcast rights (public money, in the case of the BBC) don't want to give free advertising to other brands surfing on the popularity of the Olympics...but surely the way to approach this is to hold the brand owners responsible, and agree that organized displays outside normal commercial channels (front gardens vs. billboards along a marathon route, say) are the commercial equivalent of graffiti. Letting police come into people's houses because they can see objectionable material from the outside will end in tears. Sure, it's inappropriate if someone decks their house with ads for candy or cheap beer, but between poorly-drafted rules and over-enthusiastic police officers, I feel pretty certain that non-commercial displays of everything from political views to portraits of people who look overly sad or gloomy will become grounds for police censorship. I lived in the UK for about a decade and loved it. But between the plethora of security cameras and things like this, I just can't imagine living there now. Neither Labor and Conservative governments over the years have shown any real respect for civil liberties.

ulf 17y ago

Because nobody makes any money with civil liberties... "Police will have powers to enter private homes and seize posters, and will be able to stop people carrying non-sponsor items to sporting events." The second part is just as scary in my opinion

ErrantX 17y ago
Indeed - do you know if the Olympic grounds are public or private?
- ulf 17y ago
  I would suspect they are private for the duration of the Games.
Quarrelsome 17y ago
Yea but how many policeman are actually going to do that? They already refused changes to enable them to possess guns due to the problems it would cause them. I wonder if they'd refuse to do this or not, or just "pretend" to do it and not actually bother.
- Periodic 17y ago
  I doubt anyone will be seizing your Pepsi if the games were sponsored by Coke, but they might have a case for not letting you set up your Pepsi-points gear under the coke sign.
  - awa 17y ago
    This might happen and some sort of the does happen in Cricket. During the Cricket world cup the TV channel showing the event isn't allowed to show competitor's ads. Also, the players are not allowed to be part of any kind of competitor ad for the entire duration of the tournament. And yes, the English are used to this.
- jey 17y ago
  That's still way too close for comfort. "Oh, don't mind these laws, we don't actually enforce them except when it's really necessary. We're on your side! Just trust us." It's just a small step from suddenly "needing" to question what constitutes "really necessary". We should be resisting tyranny as it creeps up on us, not remain complacent until after it becomes a true crisis.
jwecker 17y ago
If the venue is privately owned the second part doesn't scare me. I believe any privately owned property has the right to refuse entry to anyone they wish, and that that right trumps civil liberties. WHICH is why the first part of the story is a terrifying encroachment on liberty. No warrant? No laws broken? To have them simply enter and dictate what you're allowed to display on your own property? No way to refuse entry?
- regularfry 17y ago
  What's frightening is that it's specifically a police power. If the private property owner wants to enforce private rules, they should pay for private security guards to do it. Why should public money be used for this? EDIT: On further thought, it's worse. The article implies that police will have the power to remove items from people on the way to an event. That would be hideous if true. I want a corroborative source before I get too worked up about this, though.
  - nicoara 17y ago
    here it is : http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jul/21/olympics2012-civil-liberties http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jul/21/olympics2012-civil-...
    - regularfry 17y ago
      That corroborates one part but not the other, more worrying (but less likely) aspect.
uygtfgh 17y ago
They had that power and more for Vancouver. They even copyrighted a line from the national anthem. What made Vancouver such a success is the low key policing. 6000 police + RCMP + army and they made 93 arrests (mostly drunk+disorderly), one policeman was slightly hurt when he broke a window stopping a fight. The result is the best press for the VPD in living memory. Now picture the Met's response to any sort of demo in London.

dantheman 17y ago

I hope their is a growing backlash to this type of behavior. I think more and more people are seeing the ridiculous positions of copyright holders and are losing respect for them. We see this in file sharing, and people upset that they cannot access content from another country -- eventually the IP laws will change. I also think people are waking up to SCAM that is the olympics. The IOC is private organization that profits from the games, by stealing taxpayer money to fund their events. I don't know why anyone would want to host the olympics anymore.

kanwisher 17y ago
My home town Atlanta was a total ghetto before the Olympics, it forced the city to reinvest into the downtown and it has been vibrant and a nice place to live since then. Perhaps cities shouldn't wait till an olympics comes to rebuild the city ;)
- CWuestefeld 17y ago
  Who actually paid to beautify your city? Was it cost-effective? Were there other ways the money could have been better spent?
  - thechangelog 17y ago
    I can't believe your comment was downvoted. These are very valid questions.
  - danudey 17y ago
    Let's be honest; if Atlanta, on its own, dumped billions into revitalizing itself, no one would care except residents. Having a stage like the olympics to draw the world in, however, shows people the city and makes it more likely they will return. Likewise with Vancouver; one of our major downtown streets, Granville, got a complete overhaul. Gone were the old, broken stones, the cracked sidewalks, the run-down streets and sickly trees. It's now a much better place to walk around and explore. We also have a new mass-transit line connecting our downtown core with South Vancouver and Richmond, as well as the airport. Catching a flight used to be $25-35 by taxi, or god knows how much in parking. Now, it's about $4 per person, and that gets you there and back if you're dropping someone off. The project was a public-private partnership that was within budget and opened fifteen weeks early, and has made Richmond far easier to travel to and from (making everyone's life easier). The project was a no-brainer improvement to the region, but I doubt we would have had as much support and funding if we hadn't had the olympics coming to town. Whether the other renovations to the city will prove useful, it's hard to tell yet, but I'm cautiously optimistic that they will.

ulf 17y ago

Thinking some more about this, I come to the conclusion that there is only one way to incorporate civil liberties into nowadays world: We need an international tax that companies and organziations pay whenever they prune civic rights. Hard to get that one through all kinds of legislature, but I think it might work, once done.

lucifer 17y ago
That's not the winning attitude. We shouldn't have to beg to have our rights (back). Just remember how you got those rights in the first place.
- nfnaaron 17y ago
  Some would say (have said, actually) that we never got them in the first place; we have them by nature, and we can only keep them or lose them.
philwelch 17y ago
The problem is when governments violate civil liberties, and you can't fix that by making a bigger government to enforce laws against the smaller governments.

lucifer 17y ago

Its basically a weasel strategy to keep "civil rights" on the books, yet practically emasculating those same rights in the courts. Welcome to global fascism. (Remember fascism means the union of the corporate and the state. Egomaniacs in funny uniforms and goose stepping is optional.) [grammar]

cturner 17y ago

All IP always takes precedence over civil liberties in all cases. It is an anti-right by its nature. There's a similar but less extreme generalisation to be made about its effect on cultural inheritance.

anigbrowl 17y ago

What I wonder is why they go about it so badly and stupidly. By chance, I took part in one of the first guerilla marketing exercises of this type about 20 years ago. Af enduring a night in the rain waiting to buy tickets for a tennis match at London's wimbledon, in the morning some nice people came along with a bunch of Batman t-shirts (the Time burton version was just being released) and of course chilly wet tennis fans were delighted to have another layer of clothing - and there were lots of Batman logos in the crowd when the match was televised later that day. I understand organizers of sporting events and people who have paid a lot of money for broadcast rights (public money, in the case of the BBC) don't want to give free advertising to other brands surfing on the popularity of the Olympics...but surely the way to approach this is to hold the brand owners responsible, and agree that organized displays outside normal commercial channels (front gardens vs. billboards along a marathon route, say) are the commercial equivalent of graffiti. Letting police come into people's houses because they can see objectionable material from the outside will end in tears. Sure, it's inappropriate if someone decks their house with ads for candy or cheap beer, but between poorly-drafted rules and over-enthusiastic police officers, I feel pretty certain that non-commercial displays of everything from political views to portraits of people who look overly sad or gloomy will become grounds for police censorship. I lived in the UK for about a decade and loved it. But between the plethora of security cameras and things like this, I just can't imagine living there now. Neither Labor and Conservative governments over the years have shown any real respect for civil liberties.