Ocram’s Blog

From 1 October 2006, new laws protect workers from age discrimination. The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations make it illegal for employers to discriminate against employees, trainees or job seekers because of their age and ensure that all workers, regardless of age, have the same rights in terms of training and promotion

Employment Equality (Age) Regulations

From everything that I’ve read, this law seems to be aimed at preventing discrimination against older people. OK, that’s great, but what about younger people? I’m currently looking for a job, and about half of the positions I’ve looked at have contained something in reference to experience. Who is least likely to have experience? School leavers, for instance.

In society’s effort to give everybody an equal opportunity, have we in fact begun to discriminate against the majority? I’m sure that this law and laws like this were written/passed with the best of intentions, but combine political correctness with the complete incompetence of the government, and they only seem to shift the discrimination from one group to another. And, like laws to ‘prevent terrorism’ and ‘protect the children’, who wants to be the person who objects to them?

This story comes to mind when talking about discrimination. The guy was refused the position because of the colour of his skin as a result of a law which was supposed to prevent discrimination. Isn’t that the fucking definition of discrimination? But, he was white, so it must be OK?

Don’t get me wrong, I have the greatest respect for Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and anybody who has stood up for the right to be treated as equals. I think that discrimination on any grounds (race, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, etc… ) is a disgusting practice, but it seems to me that most laws actually seem to have the adverse effect, and end up discriminating against the majority. In most situations, the above traits are irrelevant, and should not be considered. However, there are positions where certain traits are advantageous. I am hardly suited to becoming a priest, and anybody to suggest otherwise is a moron. If I am refused that position simply because I am not religious, is that discrimination? I would say no, but it would not surprise me if I could sue the church for turning me down because of that. And damn it, if everybody else gets an equal opportunity, I want one too!

I’m a white, agnostic, heterosexual male aged 18-35. Is it actually possible for me to be discriminated against? In the eyes of the law, I suspect not.

Wall Street Journal article

Are they trying to encourage consumers to break the law?

My budget for anything is rather limited. Most of my music is downloaded through eMusic or AllofMP3. I have no problem with paying £5 per month for a subscription to eMusic, even if I only download one album a month the cost of the subscription is less than what it would cost to purchase that album in a physical form. If the album isn’t available on eMusic, I’ll download it from AllofMP3. I do occasionally purchase CDs, from artists whose music has either been recommended from a friend, or I’ve downloaded from AllofMP3.

As a Linux user, I already have to break the DRM every time I play a DVD. While I am not sure if this is against the law in the UK, it is certainly a violation of the DMCA. Now they want to add the same copy protection to music? I listen to most of my music on my PC or an MP3 player which means I would have to rip the tracks, breaking the law in the process. According to the Wall Street Journal article there will be pre ripped tracks on the DVD, but these will be ‘essentially identical’ to those downloadable from iTunes, which probably includes the DRM. There is no iTunes for Linux, and I’m not willing to switch back to Windows or get a Mac, so again I’ll end up breaking the law should I have to convert these into a usable format. Whatever I do, I’m going to end up breaking the law, so why not just download the music illegally
anyway?

This makes me wonder, is the music industry trying to move to a new business model of suing it’s customers?

Of course, this new format will also have to be more expensive than current CDs.