Completely agree about giving money to EFF. Some may remember the days when browsers with strong encryption were restricted (some for using within the US and some could not be exported). Yes, it was THE LAW and, OMG, people were doing something illegal by writing the strong encryption that the government could not break. Anyway, this issue ended up in court and EFF fought for consumer's right and the law was reverted based on the freedom of expression and now strong encryption is allowed. This has tremendously benefited many industries and the secure banking that we all enjoy need to say a big thanks to EFF. Please support them.

As an alternative measure to infringing copyright, I see buying used movies and sharing your copies as a great model. A boxed set of some show can be purchased used for $50, instead of $150 new, so buy that, watch it and resell it again for $50. Use Craigs List to buy/sell content. This way you can watch legally (under the current law) and not pay a dime to the copyright owners. Internet allows taking that sharing to the next level of efficiency. The law that fights the efficiency will not survive in the long run.

A sure way to avoid the enforcement of rights is not to produce the work that requires the enforcement.

Bear with me here for a second. The "Happy Birthday" song is under a copyright and any public performance of over 6 people requires a payment of royalties and expressed permission under the current copyright law. Now, your question is still valid, "how can a copyright holder enforce?" Guess what, technically the copyright holder can deploy agents at every playground at every restaurant to see if anyone sings Happy Birthday, or hums along (which requires a license for derivative work). That's the only way, but realistically it shows how broken the copyright law is. The copyright law is the reason why most restaurants ditched singing Happy Birthday song. Are we really better off with that? What benefit to the society was achieved? Someone may say that "the composition work performed requires compensation" but the reason why Happy Birthday became popular in the first place is BECAUSE sharing was possible without complications with a compensation. That's how all knowledge was spread.

Idea is interesting, but it doesn't work under the current copyright law. The fact that anyone is downloading any material does not make that an infringement. "Making available" or sharing the copyrighted work is the only infringement that is a violation. In your case, only the server that hosts the file might be infringing on the copyright, not the people downloading.

Yes, I absolutely would like to rather get a notice from the copyright holder. However, given the nature of the Internet connection, I cannot ever agree to my ISP giving out my details to any third party at their will. I also cannot assume any responsibility for some IP address that was leased to me by my ISP and was not spelled out as a part of my contract. That also means that when I have the internet connection, I should be able to share it to whomever I want to share and not have some artificial anti-competitive limitation that states that for some wacky reason I cannot share my connection. I'm also not an IP address, I'm a human being, unless RIIA has some specific evidence that I (and not some arbitrary technology) somehow infringed on it's precious rights, do not even bother me sending some notices.

This game of blocking the sites cannot be won. Let’s say it takes, at best, one month from BPI or copyright holder to figure out that one site is infringing the copyright, file a suite and have a verdict against the infringing site. That process takes time and money. On the other hand, duplicating the site’s content on some other IP and the alternative name can happen overnight and is virtually free. So there will always be sites providing free access to any works.

What is more concerning here is that none of the sites blocked hosted the copyrighted works. This is something that only few really consider as a serious shift in the court system. None of the sites blocked for copyright infringement host copyrighted works! What will be the next step? Someone will create a site that will list all the blocked sites along with the new mirrored sites that can be accessed within the UK. Should this new site be blocked? Based on what? It doesn’t host any copyrighted works, nor provides an index to the copyrighted works. Let’s say that the UK block-thirsty judges will issue a new verdict to block the sites that list mirrors. What next? Someone will write a browser plugin that will automatically redirect to the current working mirror of the blocked sites and users will continue to use the sites without even noticing any blocking and without using any VPN. Should browser plugins be blocked or any sites that host browser plugins? Someone will say that it will be good enough if less people are aware of the options. But how did we get to the point that more users are aware of thepiratebay than about the legal ways of obtaining the same material? The reason is that thepiratebay does better consolidating all the media (even that that cannot be purchased anywhere) in one spot at an attractive price point. Offer something better and people will pick the alternative. Otherwise, blocking will not solve any problem that BPI thinks exists.

From the TFA, the message from Comcast reads:

There are absolutely no details about who the copyright owner is, what specific content was infringed, when the alleged infringement was made, what details identifies MY "Internet service", etc.

A more legally correct wording could state "Someone who claims to be the copyright owner, claims that the copyright was infringed from the specific IP which we, Comcast, claim to be belonging to your account at the claimed time of the infringement." But that would be just too many "claims"!

If only Internets had the same borders as the physical states... then you could just pack up and go to another internet!

-- There's no such thing as "illegal download"

From TFA: “In 2011, Visa, Mastercard and PayPal, cut off all donations to WikiLeaks, the controversial website headed by Julian Assange”

If assisting with cutting off funds to sites like Wikileaks is what Google is intending to do, this can set a very bad precedence. While WikiLeaks is controversial, it is not be illegal. It hasn’t been even charged with any crime. But let’s say it does get charged with some random US law from 1918 and, in the court of law, is pronounced to be “illegal” in the US, does it mean the funds will be cut off to Wikileaks globally? What if the Wikileaks is based in Sweden and I live in Norway, would I be able to give funds to Wikileaks? Would Google prevent me in any way? How far would this ban go?

What if Iran sued New York Times and declared it to be illegal. Should Google then prevent the transfer of funds to New York Times because it was found to be illegal there? If Google decides to have different blocking policies based on the geographical location of the user, this can lead to breaking up the internet. Besides, we know there are plenty of technologies that allow users to spoof/change the location on the web. Will banning VPN and Tor be the next big thing?

--
There’s no such thing as “illegal download”

The summary makes us think that one is guilty based on one victim's identification and the less-than precise DNA test. The problem with the current DNA test is that it does have false positives (where the test would conclude the match, but it would be the wrong person). Imagine if none of them committed the crime and the DNA test in this case has the false positive. What do the twins have to do?

Absolutely the police has to do the complete DNA test. Maybe they are afraid that it will show that neither is guilty?

This will not work and will create the wrong incentives for the patent office to reject even the innovative and patentable idea.

What should be the "large" fee? Let's say filing a patent is free and the rejection is $10,000. Reasonable? For a small investor, the $10,000 might be a large enough fee not to file even the most brilliant idea, but for a large company that currently spends thousands of dollars on filing each patent $10,000 is nothing. So the large companies will keep on filing the silliest ideas, and this time the filing will cost them nothing.

The patent office will soon realize that they can MAKE money by rejecting the patents. What is their incentives then? To reject as many patents as possible. Even worse, the process of accepting patents will become rather random, again, hitting the small guys first (large companies will be able to file more random ideas and some will fall through the cracks).

Software and UI patents should be abolished to solve the issue.

It's like saying that only the massacre in Sandy Hook made us aware of the violence issues that exists. Had that not happened, no one would even even know that!

The truth is, many people were informed about Aaron's achievements and were discussing the ideas.

If you are interested in meeting someone who knew Aaron personally and ask questions, I suggest you attend a great and free talk by Cory Doctorow. There will be a discussion about Aaron Swartz. Specific details are here: http://craphound.com/

Saturday Feb 9th in Salt Lake City, UT http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/event-141058-cory-doctorow-signing-and-reading-homeland.html

Sunday Feb 10th in Tempe, AZ http://events.azfamily.com/Cory_Doctorow_Homeland/269560116.html

"WikiLeaks itself was 'guilty of the same obfuscation"

The article misses the point of the premise for more government transparency. The main idea is that the more damage a particular entity can do, the more transparency there should be. If a government can decide whom to kill, there should be a full disclosure of the protocol and a way to correct any errors. If such entity is an organization (say that supplies drinking water), there should be an equal transparency for the same reason that any misstep can do a lot of harm.

This universal principle does not get limited to a case of government vs. citizens. For example, if we as people grant special powers to a policeman to detain anyone while on the job, there should be rigorous checks and disclosures in place at the time when that policeman has those special powers. On the other hand, when he goes home and has no such privileges, his privacy should be protected just as anyone’s else.

Wikileaks is not about disclosing “everything about everyone,” but rather about preventing the abuse of power, which is very much a basic requirement for a healthy and just society.

This is a great setup for insanely fun practical jokes.

It's not that the “job can be jeopardized” but rather a good and creative solution can be obtained without even intending to hiring the person.

I work in design industry. There not many people who can quickly come up with elegant solutions. I once was asked to have the fourth (!) interview with the same company that “didn’t make up the mind” and wanted to have all the VPs present just to make sure that we are the right fit. We talked about the experience and the past designs, but then they gave me the printouts of their current product that needed to be redesigned and asked me to take 30 minutes and then present my solutions. Having many years of experience in the field, I can usually spot most of the non-trivial issues right away. A half hour design session with a top designer can cost a lot of money, but the company wanted to do it for free as an “interview”. Needless to say, I just stated that this is “not ethical to ask such a question” and I will be happy to demonstrate my skills by redesigning any other product that is not done by that company. They were shocked and tried to save their faces by stating that everyone else they interviewed for the position completed this task. And I said “fine, hire them.” At the end, the company made me an offer, but I declined.

There are many people who have a huge experience and can charge thousands of dollars for essentially one hour of work. If you are good at debugging, you may be flying to a client who cannot figure out some problem in the production system. Guess what, you may come there and say “clear the cache” to resolve their issue. And it will cost them thousands of dollars. Yes, it can be that expensive. Can this company afford you? No. Would you want to work there? No. But they might be very likely be interested in getting some work done for free disguised as an interview.