There's plenty wrong with copyright laws in this country. Instead of fixing those things though, the government want ISPs to do their dirty work, monitor everything you download and ban users from the internet if they download copyrighted material. There are so many things wrong with this I don't know where to start!

1. It's an invasion of privacy. This is the most immediately obvious problem. That's fair enough if you're one of those downloading illegal content, but it's essentially treating everyone as guilty (by stripping them of their right to privacy) until proven innocent. There isn't even a "reasonable grounds for suspicion" protection.

2. It's not technologically feasible. Discussing this very issue, one ISP that monitors the types of traffic on their network quite closely reports that 40% of BitTorrent (a popular filesharing application) is now encrypted. What this means is that the technology already exists, and is quite widely used, to prevent interception and examination of data. It's not the first time the politicians have gone riding in half-cocked without understanding what they're talking about when it comes to the series of tubes known in technical circles as "the internet" though. Did they really think 22 MPs signing an Early Day Motion "demanding" faster broadband speeds in the countryside would alter the laws of physics?

3. It would be expensive. The government keeps talking about its priority to improve broadband access (there's even a minister responsible for it!). How is that objective going to be affected when ISPs have to jack up their prices to pay for the development and/or purchase of this monitoring software which will probably prove ineffective in the longrun anyway?

There's a few issues to start with anyway (and I've not even touched on the many ways in which piracy actually benefits consumers by forcing big companies to reform their monopoly-abusing habits, that's for another day). As I've said before, there are bigger issues with UK copyright law as it stands than spotty teenagers downloading music or films in their darkened bedrooms and the government are coming at this, as government is inclined to do, from completely the wrong side of the argument.

As I said previously, I will (unlike some journalists) try and reserve judgement on The Wind That Shakes The Barley until I get a chance to see it, however it seems that my initial initial doubts over the director's mental state (apparently he's on the 'national council' of the Respect coalition too) may have been valid after all.

I stumbled across an interview with Ken Loach tonight while looking for Northern Ireland news and I'm glad I did, because I've been enlightened. For you see not only is Ken Loach an award winning film-maker, he has actually uncovered the genesis of the "Irish problem". It's all Britain's fault. No, I'm not being overly dramatic to emphasise my point, he actually believes the whole problem here is the "entire" responsibility of the British.

"The IRA of the 60s and 70s was a product of the despicable treaty that the British imposed at the point of a gun. If the British hadn't imposed partition, there would be no Provisional IRA. The entire responsibility lies with the British state. The entire responsibility. Everything that has emerged has been a protest, sometimes a violent protest, sometimes an aberrant protest, but nevertheless a protest, from the brutality of the British and the brutality of the British Empire embodied in bastards like Churchill, who not only sent the troops into Ireland, he sent the troops against Welsh miners in his own country when they wanted a decent wage. So I mean we should have no tolerance at all for these questions that try to indicate that somehow the resistance to British brutality is not acceptable."
Ken Loach, director of The Wind That Shakes The Barley [original emphasis used]

By the way, from what I can find (just through a couple of minutes searching mind you) it seems the troops were only on standby to assist the police. I won't even comment on the hypocricy of deeming Wales "his own country" but not Northern Ireland.

The Irish blogosphere was all buzz this morning with the news that an Irish film had one the about the presentation of the Palme d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival to an film about the Irish war of independence. Meanwhile a storm is brewing in the British tabloids. The film, The Wind That Shook The Barley, which was partly funded by National Lottery money, shows British soldiers as indiscriminately violent - a depiction that the film's director Ken Loach claims is accurate, asserting that "Their brutality is legendary - no one would question that."

It was described by Harry MacAdam in the Sun (not available online) as the "most pro-IRA film ever... designed to drag the reputation of our nation through the mud". Ruth Dudley Edwards, writing in the Daily Mail, notes "the portrayal of the British as sadists and the Irish as romantic, idealistic resistance fighters."

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12 years now since the first IRA ceasefire and Northen Ireland seems to have as much trouble with its image as ever. Myself and the girlfriend watched Mind Hunters last night. I'm no good at classifying films into genres but I'd describe it as a low-brow, popcorn munching psychological thriller. It should interest the sort of folk who watch CSI.

The main reason I'm commenting on it is a line near the start, when the characters, FBI agents on a training exercise to test their psychological profiling abilities, arrive on a purpose-built navy training facility. One of the agents, in an English accent, declares "It's like a cross between Beirut and Belfast."

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