Berman Retreats, But Only To Regroup 231
thefinite writes "It looks like the P2P vigilante bill sponsored by Berman is going to have to be rewritten even just to be considered. A ZDNet story talks about the likelihood that the bill will get anywhere as currently written. Hopefully, the second time around will make it clear that the idea is flawed, not just the text."
I'm getting cynical. (Score:5, Interesting)
It doesn't matter if the idea is flawed or not. What matters is that the congressman get's his way or not. There are egos involved, and big money, and the responsibilites to the citizens. (Guess which of the three is most important to the congressman).
How do they figure this stuff out? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd be interested where/how they figured this. A p2p network should disperse very little information about actual distribution of copyrighted works.
Alec French: Also, see Freenet [freenetproject.org]
What would get passed? (Score:5, Interesting)
The article hints that one of the problems might be lack of clearly defined techniques could be used to fight a p2p node.
Are there any "valid" techniques, at least valid as far as congress would be concerned to fight individual nodes, or the p2p networks themselves that could be used to fight against supposed violations of this bill.
Also, does this bill specify what proof if any has to exist before these attacks could take place? Could you sue someone excerising the powers give by this if it did get passed?
It is dead. (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it's a great idea (Score:5, Interesting)
What's the difference? It's just me damaging someone else's property because I feel they are violating my rights. Having the government mediate in disputes is so inefficient.
He's -gotta- be aware it's gonna piss people off. (Score:3, Interesting)
Bad precident. (Score:4, Interesting)
If this legislation does go through imagine the potential impact on the open source movement...
It will be all to easy to apply the same logic to Open Source developers/providers adding another avenue of attack to corporations that feel threatened by open source...
well, what exactly is flawed? (Score:4, Interesting)
What it boils down to is that we anti-copyright crusaders have always maintained that digital "media" is just a bunch of 1's and 0's. A file is no more than a certain number, and how can one person or corporation own a number? To me, this has always been an extremely pursuasive argument. So now let's look at hacking over a network. What is it? Well, really it's just 1's and 0's being sent to your computer on the network. Some specific number, or series of numbers, is going to break your computer or make it impossible to use (DOS attack), but is the solution to outlaw that number altogether? In my opinion, the record industry shouldn't need this law, because all computer hacking should be legal.
How could this work, though? Well, first of all, TCP/IP has got to go. It doesn't have any authentication or security built in to it, and it's obvious that it's flawed. We need to redesign the Internet and the protocol it uses, not just to increase the address space as is being done in IP2, but to make hacking technically impossible. Then, legislation or no, we will finally all be safe.
Re:well, what exactly is flawed? (Score:2, Interesting)
Someone has recently discovered that there exists a prime number which, when parsed in a certain way, yields the source code to DeCSS. Since it is illegal to distribute DeCSS, people have begun distributing the prime number.
If it becomes a passable defense that distributing a prime number can not be illegal, then all the P2P haxxors have to do is find prime numbers which can be parsed to yield Adobe Photoshop, Maya, Quake 3, or whatever.
Simple.
Well (Score:0, Interesting)
The article hints that one of the problems might be a lack of clearly defined techniques could be used to fight a P2P node.
Are there any valid techniques, at least valid as far as congress would be concerned to fight individual nodes, or the P2P networks themselves that could be used to fight against supposed violations of this bill?
Also, does this bill specify what proof if any has to exist before these attacks could take place? Could you sue someone excerising the powers give by this if it did get passed?
Big Business is finally shoved back, a bit (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Stupid question...5 Nov -great day for election (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It's just a job... (Score:2, Interesting)
That's just _WRONG_, it's so wrong!
The entertainment industry execs each get ONE (1) vote because they each are one citizen, not 1e6 because they each gave 1e6 $$$ to the campaign!!!
Who are his employers????
It's the people, stupid!!!!!!
This is so wrong.
Don't reply telling me "you're an idealist, THIS is how it really works". I know, i know it does! Your comment reflects the implied reality of the situation, but the paragraph comparing it to our job is SO bad... there's no way you can even suggest that it's the same thing, there's no way the congressman should be allowed to think like that, and you shouldn't encourage him.
We _are_ being paid by our employers. If the employer does something truely illegal, you should report him, but sometimes, true, we might do something borderline shaky that we don't approve. But it's the job, and he's paying us.
But the officials are paid by us, by taxes. The industry pays taxes too, true, but the officials aren't elected with votes proportional to taxes paid, they're elected by votes coming from every citizen who does vote.
This bill is so wrong, i wouldn't know where to start; there just isn't ANY way it can be spun to show that it's needed for the economy or to protect you americans.
I'm from Montreal, so what do i care?
If those sorts of bills pass down south, the pression will be tremendous up here too.
+, i care about you
I'm sure you don't think it's ok, no more than i do, and i'm not implying you sold your soul... i just had to react to how wrong it felt reading your comment
Free for All - The End of The Internet! wo0O0ot! (Score:3, Interesting)
If you were to put all the crap you make on a webpage likeo rs/cantreverseenginner.htm
:www.mysecretpage.com/supersecreturl/DMCAviolat
you could basically assume that some one had 'broken your security' and start searching p2p networks for anything called: index.html, picture.gif, song.mp3, ect.
Then D0S everyone you see. They all *could* have your files.
Yes, this is stupid. But that's what they want. Of course, it will be changed to 'Real' copyright owners (read XXAA) and exclude you, but hey, thats how Corporate Congress works.
Re:I'm getting cynical. (Score:3, Interesting)
That'll piss some people off!
Re:What would get passed? (Score:4, Interesting)
Would DOS attacks, but not intrusions, be OK? Crapflooding P2P networks with bad files? Or is the bottom line here the mindset of the Ask Slashdot questioners with problems like, "My college limits Kazaa bandwidth. What can I do about it? Isn't that the whole point of college? This is a violation of my civil rights!"
To my mind, any active attacks on sharers should be illegal, but I have no problem with poisoning P2P networks. I'd also guess that that's a legislation that would go through.
Re:Stupid question... (Score:2, Interesting)
Howard Berman is the remaining guy of what used to be called the Waxman/Berman Machine. Essentially, this is the political machine that directs most of the Hollywood political contributions. There is no possiblity of him ever running in a district where he could lose and his finacial base is so strong that he could easily outspend any opponent 100 to 1. Berman is the conduit for a major portion of the party funds. He is literally undefeatable. And it is very much in the party interest to make sure the money keeps flowing so his invulnerability will remain for the forseeable future.
Re:How do they figure this stuff out? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ban the typewriter?
I didn't see the Printing press banned when it was created...
Slowing inovation to protect old economic models is never a good thing. The music industry should impliment something better than p2p if they think it's such a big threat.
It's a fairly simple argument, the copyright is granted by the people. If the people no longer honor the copyright, the copyright is no longer granted by the people. Making the people illegal in order to keep the copyright dosen't work well does it?
Re:Stupid question... (Score:1, Interesting)
So far, not a peep (no pun intended) from the porn industry. Porn sells more porn I guess..