Sherlock confirms that ‘Irish SOPA’ has been signed into law

ottostreet wrote: »

Looks a bit suspicious alright. He is allowed have personal email addresses though but why would he reply from them?

upandcumming wrote: »

Doesn't matter either way. Prepare yourself Royal Marine to be signed up to every piece of shit online.

Dear Minster Sean Sherlock.

Yesterday Thursday March 1st you signed off on an Internet anti-piracy law using a statutory instrument that has been dubbed the Irish SOPA. Even though millions of people around the world protested against such a law and SOPA, PIPA and ACTA were defeated. For some reason you thought it would be a good idea to ignore the cries of the majority of Internet users including the people who elected you, the 80,000 Irish people who protested against it and instead you listened to a rich minority of corporate big wigs in the music and film industry.

The law is so vague that it's hard to say what qualifies as a transgression. For example if I am at a wedding and I use my phone to film 30 seconds of the bride and groom on the dance floor. I then share it with my friends on Facebook only to receive a strike from my ISP or a fine or Facebook could be even be sued because of the copyrighted material I just uploaded. I'm of course referring to the background music that was playing while they were dancing. This is what this law is capable of doing and the Irish courts will be at the mercy of the corporations and rights holders. I will remind you that the concept of governments being controlled by corporations is one of the definitions of fascism.

So obviously Facebook, who have offices here in Ireland and employ a couple of hundred people and want to double their Dublin-based workforce aren't going to take the risk of being sued constantly. I mean how many times do people share a link or a picture on their Facebook wall that someone else owns? Every second of every day. Facebook Ireland won't be sustainable. They'll get in trouble and the courts run by a bunch of old out-of-touch guys will force ISPs to block Facebook and indeed Twitter for the same reasons. Facebook will leave Ireland and Irish people will lose jobs.

Internet users in Ireland and indeed around the world spend most of their time on social networking sites. They contain massive amounts of content that either does breach copyright or because of the vagueness of the law could be interpreted to be doing so and they will all be blocked. Wikipedia will also be an easy target. They have already protested fervently against such laws. Why would anyone use the Internet if they lack access to the web's most popular sites?

All of this is being done in broad brush stroke legislation that has been implemented to prevent websites like The Pirate Bay and others from being used. Fair enough if thats what they wish to do I won't argue. But the way in which this is being done, will (A) not do that at all because pirates will circumvent that easily enough, (B) it's actually effecting innocent oblivious users going about their day who are not criminals. This is the end of social networking in Ireland and I've spoken previously, about how social networking has become a pivotal tool in rallying people together globally to create civil society groups and transnational solidarity networks. The occupy movement could not have been organised without social networking, it has become not only a crucial instrument for business but also for democracy. It pushes across boundaries as the Internet was designed to do. Under SOPA, freedom of information and free speech are all gone because forums can be closed too for the same reason.

This is so silly it destroys the Internet and makes it unusable. This is going to scare away foreign investment to Ireland. Google have their European headquarters in Dublin, they'll be one of the biggest 'offenders' of this law and they'll leave the country.
The nation is in a really bad state economically and we've picked this time to introduce a draconian law that will put many Irish people out of work and fracture Ireland off from the rest of the world. Minister Sherlock you speak in riddles of political rhetoric when you say this is being introduced to create innovation in the IT industry. Ironically it will destroy our knowledge economy and kill innovation.

I'm ashamed to be Irish today, I'm embarrassed when talking to foreigners about this because it makes Ireland seem backwards and stupid. All this because you believed that if you introduced this that it would put Ireland at the forefront of the fight against piracy. You were naive enough to be seduced and manipulated by the film TV and music industries who baffled you with their corporate propaganda....

....and for what? So that they can protect their out of date business models? You have presided over a dark day in the history of Irish democracy and we the people will not tolerate this or comply with the consequences of this law.

Sincerely.
Disappointed.

strobe wrote: »

Just one more reason why I believe Direct Democracy is the only way forward if politics in this country is ever to be of the people, by the people and for the people to paraphrase that stovepipe hat model guy. If DD was in place now not only would Shitbag Sherlock be facing a recall election right now and be getting dumped out of the Dail but an initiative could easily be successfully brought forward to have the statute struck.

DD my friends, good for boobs, good for politics.

kumate_champ07 wrote: »

this is why I love the internet and why it should not be taken over and restricted by corporate interests, good luck with the project!

Robdude wrote: »

Direct Democracy is nothing but mob-rule.

It's great when you are part of the majority. But it does nothing to prevent the rights of the minority from being trampled.