That still implies that the filesharer has actually committed some sort of crime. This is nothing but spin and propaganda talking. Weeding out this kind of bullshit is the first step towards any “respect”.

And, let’s not pull any punches here!…

What kind of message is Adams delivering, anyway?
Does he feel he deserves some sort of respect from the fan? And, does he so strongly feel that way that he also feels the need to “teach” this respect??

Are the fans not an important part of the equation?
Without them, you’ve got no market. If anything, that “respect” he talks about is ideally a MUTUAL sentiment. And, like it or not, when someone wants to hear your music, whether or not you think they’re “stealing” from you, you’ve got a fan. Alienate ANY of your fans, and you effectively dilute that fan base. They downloaded your music because they wanted to hear it!

It’s already been proven over and over that many filesharers download music and still BUY the product, and being able to download that track and sample it was the SELLER. It’s also been proven that many downloads that don’t incite a purchase still get heard by others who do purchase. (An example of free “viral” promotion.)

It’s time to start examining the baseless crap, told to both the artists and the ignorant public at large, by these pig-headed, self-destructive cartels that call themselves “labels”.

It’s time to start thinking for yourselves.
You’re already quite aware of the politics used by the MAFIAA you’re dealing with. You know they’re willing to do everything they can to completely criminalize every new technology and its users in their desperate attempt to save a failing business model, while not sparing any expense (lots of it being money that should have rightly gone to artists, I should mention) in spreading the lies that help accomplish this.

It’s always been my position that teaching respect for (not to be confused with “fear of”) the creative industries is the only viable long-term weapon against piracy, but I hadn’t thought of that particular application, before.

First, encryption is not an effective countermeasure against file-sharing monitoring to begin with, so it’s unlikely that things such as three-strikes plans would promote the use of encryption (although I suppose rumors could lead to the widespread adoption of encryption by those ignorant of how the system works, even though it’s not effective). While encryption can protect against deep packet inspection systems such as Comcast’s BitTorrent throttling and (hypothetical) content filters, to find someone (or, more accurately, some IP address) sharing copyrighted files on a P2P network all you need to do is connect to the network like a client and search for/download files from other people. As you’re the legitimate recipient of the file, it doesn’t matter if encryption is used – you have the encryption key to begin with. Darknets, anonymous VPN hosts, and things like Tor are the big threat to things like these three-strikes laws (oh yeah, and little things like “due process”); there are also “anonymous” P2P networks coming out, but I’m not knowledgeable enough with how those work to give an informed opinion on their effectiveness.

Second, only the entirely clueless (and short-lived) cyber-criminal isn’t already using encryption, for all the cases where encryption would be effective at making it harder to track them down. If you know enough to create a buffer overflow or SQL injection or some other type of “hard hack” (things where you have to figure out how to do it yourself, based on a particular computer’s vulnerabilities), you most definitely know enough about computers to know when encryption would help you cover your tracks. Even people who can spoof URLs in a plausible way probably know that much. About the only cyber-criminals that wouldn’t be expected to know basic cyber-security are script kiddies that simply run hacking programs other people engineer and write, without knowing anything about how they work; and I’d wager those are fairly low on the threat list as far as cyber-crime is concerned.

The same could be said for terrorists: if they’re too incompetent to use even the most basic cyber-security measures right now, they’re probably too incompetent to pose any actual threat. For truly dangerous terrorists, strong cyber-security is mandatory, not coincidental.

That’s easy, according to the Canadian, American, and British Governments – EVERYONE is a terrorist!
(And, we should ALL be afraid of them.)

How do you find the real terrorist in all that snow?

That and sneaker nets. The labels will eventually push too far. Imagine one cd purchased per 50 or so people in a sneakernet. How do you think THAT will affect royalties ? It would ba shame, since the artists aren’t the ones to blame, it’s the politicians and the labels, but the artists will be the ones shafted the most.

“Illegal Sites”, “Illegal filesharing”, “Illicit P2P programs”, “Bandwidth hogs”, “Stealing songs”, “Spoiling it for others who use their connection legally”…
It just doesn’t end!

No wonder people who aren’t into this stuff are confused.

Whose gaffe is this? The Guardian’s? Mandelson’s? Somebody is suffering from some arse/elbow confusion.

But the UK police are actually talking sense: this plan would undoubtedly be the last straw that makes encryption the default mode for file sharing programs (and, I suppose, “illegal sites” – should such places actually exist).