about par for the course, as they say. the EU is nothing but double standards. how can all the so-called proponents of freedom, privacy, free speech and civil liberties in general, continue to tout their support for these things whilst at the same time standing by whilst individual member states do the opposite. they are also supposed to be against website blocking and censorship but that’s happening as well. even political parties are being forced to close website access via proxies!

Well, the commission has been kicked out once before for corruption and there is a number of inconsistencies through time with firing of whistleblowers and reports of widespread corruption getting burried etc.
Be aware that the commission is the definition of undemocratic when it comes to EU. They are personal friends of the prime ministers in the council getting the post only because of that. After the corruption scandal, there is a background screening of each member and the parliament have to accept or reject the commission as a whole. They have no way of pointing out the weak links and avoiding uncooperative people. The way they are elected combined with their power is the single biggest problem with EU and worst of all: Everyone knows and nobody dares to change it.

When it comes to the ACTA-provision, I am surprised that such language can fly: The presumption of innocence is a pillar in european law and the commission is actually not wrong in their defence of Karel de Gucht.
What Karel de Gucht is accused of is btw. peanuts compared to some other stories from his past.

if he is going to be investigated for ‘tax evasion’, it might be a good idea to see what ‘incentives’ he got and from whom/where, to promote ACTA. could be beneficial to kill two birds with one stone!

But Moody, think of the difference of the harm between the two cases!

-Not paying your taxes: You’re only doing the following ‘harm’ to others.
-Adding to the government’s debt
-Forcing government to raise taxes on everyone else who pays their taxes
-Forcing government to cut spending on assisting the needy, and investing in their own economy
-Forcing government to beg for hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts, causing interest rates on the nations debts to skyrocket and the economy to tank as a result of merely asking for bailout money

See? No big deal. Your 1.2 million dollars wouldn’t have helped. And it’s not like getting away without paying your taxes won’t encourage others to not pay their taxes either and add to government’s budget problems!

Now compare that to the harm of someone MAYBE sharing a single MP3 song over the Internet.
-Some big corporation representing 1,000’s of music artists it barely pays anything to may have just lost a $1 sale!

So, as you can clearly see, that $1 sale to a big corporation representing music artists is clearly MUCH more harmful then robbing the government of $1,000,000 of tax revenue! It may be ok to steal $1,000,000 from the government, but steal even $1 from a big corporation! Think of all the thousands of jobs you’re killing at that big corporation!

And who cares if studies show that free sample could encourage the guy you shared the MP3 with to buy more music from that big corporation, whereas tax cheats aren’t anymore likely to come back a year later and pay all the taxes they should have paid last year plus more unless the government starts coming after them for not paying those taxes?

Glyn, you try so hard, but you fail so bad.

Nobody is claiming any infringer as “guilty until proven innocent”, they are only wanting to make sure that they bring the right person to court to decide that issue.

Guilty or innocence has nothing to do with the process of identifying a given user. That would be more at a level of probably cause or reasonable levels of evidence, and not absolute, total, irrefutable proof beyond a reasonable doubt that is required to find guilt.

You are the one attempting to paint it as a guilt or innocence thing. It’s too bad this is a case where you are entirely, plainly, and completely wrong.

….”That’s not the way the legal system works.” for the poor….

/fixed that for ya

Notice how the kids in the Sandusky trial are being referred to as “victims” rather than “alleged victims”?

Are you suggesting that users should never be identified, that the guilty (as well as the innocent) should just be able to hide behind their ISP and never face any risk?

I’m suggesting that if you want to go after people, do it by the book and don’t go after people that are very clearly innocent. If the RIAA was interested in doing this, they wouldn’t have:

– Sued Larry Scantlebury, found he was dead, and gave the family 60 days to grieve before filing charges.
– Sued Tanya Andersen, even though they already found someone using the username matched to her IP address and admitted to downloading the songs in question, and proceeded to masquerade as her daughter’s grandmother to call her up during kindergarten and intimidate her so she’d beg her mom into settling.

The RIAA, by doing this, have made it clear that they’re going after low-hanging fruit and have no qualms about doing so. They’ve squandered whatever goodwill they had by insisting that all consumers are thieves. If this is the sort of risk you want all ISP users to be exposed to then you’re the one who’s moronic.

“It’s not how the legal system works, period. In both cases, it’s innocent until proven guilty. Glyn just stupidity takes revealing a user’s information
as making him guilty, which is not the case.”

So every public figure I accuse of something should have his financial records published.
If disclosure of identifying information does not implicate the presumption of innocence or any other right, let me accuse you of defamation and have your ISP publishing the name and details associated with your IP address.