Funny News - No more internet ?

RIAA wants the Internet shut down

Interesting argument of the day

By Nick Farrell: Wednesday 29 November 2006, 08:38

ONE OF THE lawyers involved in defending cases bought against people by the RIAA claims that if the music industry wins a crucial case, the Internet will have to be switched off.
Speaking on the DefectiveByDesign anti-DRM campaign site, Ray Beckerman said the case of Electro vs. Barker has become very important for the web's future.

Barker was being defended by Beckerman who made a motion to dismiss the case because the RIAA had forgot to provide any acts or dates or times of copyright infringement as the law normally requires.

The RIAA argued that by merely making files available on the Internet Barker was making a copyright infringement.

Beckerman said that it was a shocking argument because if it were accepted by the court it would probably shut down the entire Internet. If you send any file on the Net the RIAA will be allowed to suspect that you are in breach of copyright.

What was more disturbing is that the RIAA called up its mates in Washington to back it up. Apparently the United States Government has put in motions supporting the RIAA.

From here:
http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36027

LMAO It's a global thing - what are they going to do pull the plug worldwide? How can they shut down the internet? How are they even going to do it in America? Shut down ISP providers? Stop the public from subscribing to ISPs? I bet you that would break some Constitutional rights. It would be interesting to actually compare the tax revenue generated by the ISP subscriptions to the tax revenue generated by the movie/recording industries etc. The fact is that the media copying is damaging the profit margin of the artists ( debatably ) , developers & companies involved in the production of software/games/music/movies and someone is taking a hit to the pocket that they can probably afford but don't actually like so something has to be done or at least be seen to be being done. Talk about shutting down the internet is ludicrous and scare-mongering drivel.

Although this seems worrying I think it's plain funny that they decided to tell such stories that internet could be possibly shut down as a solution.