Tennessee's Super-DMCA Rises From The Grave 245
Tsar writes "Members of the Tennessee Digital Freedom Network turned out in force as Tennessee's Super-DMCA Bill, its hour come round at last, slouched back to Nashville's Legislative Plaza. The industry heavyweights made their pitches, but were thwarted by thoughtful, intelligent comments and questions from the newly-formed Joint Committee on Communications Security. My favorite quote of the day: 'I stand here before you as representing the MPAA, one of the leading advocates of First Amendment rights...' I think I blacked out for a minute after that."
When will it end? (Score:5, Insightful)
On one hand, you have 60 million American felons, on the other hand, you wrestle control away from fat, rich corporations. It seems like a no-brainer.
Why black out? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure they spend millions trying to fight our attempts to freely use the stuff we have bought. However they spend billions producing junk^M^M^M^M^art that aught to be sensord for the preservation of what little intellect remains on this planet.
Your Typical Tin-Foil Hat Rant (Score:3, Insightful)
On a side note, the -IAA crowd couldn't buy off Congress all at once to get their way, so they're purchasing state legislatures one-at-a-time now? Why don't they just save up for a few months or years or whatever to get what they want? It's what the rest of us have to do!
Re:When will it end? (Score:5, Insightful)
We are now living in a society which is growing increasingly at odds with the original intent of those who created this nation. We are subjugated by the twin pathological powers of corporate special interest cartels and judicial tyranny.
Re:Slashdotted (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:what freedom do u guys actually have? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now America's actions on the international scene are simply awful, no question.
If you believe your choice of media (often) protraying the difficulties of living in America (e.g. everyone's mother was a crack whore, crime is terrible), then you're simply missing part of the picture.
The same bias is applied to the Netherlands: many people seem to think that the Netherlands is very liberal, supporting prostitution, soft drugs, etc. when, in fact, the society is quite conservative. The laws governing the "liberal" things are really just (good) ways of dealing with problems. Leagalizing hash and a war-on-drugs are simply different ways of dealing with an unavoidable market.
Re:When will it end? (Score:5, Insightful)
What has changed is _not_ only technology, but goal and policy. Our culture is by large not our anymore. Our knowledge is neither.
We the people, need to take back what is our.
Proving Damages and Loss (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue becomes blurrier in the case where - at the end of their season - the onion company ends up with a lot of rotten onions that they can't sell. They cannot claim unequivocally that the individual onion thief caused them any damage. They would have to know whether the onion thief would have bought the onions he stole, or whether those seven onions would have rotted with the rest.
In the case of cable tv or music downloads, it seems to me that a company has to be able to show that a given individual thief would have bought the item in question.
In other words, a million dollars in "theft" probably only amounts to a thousand dollars in actual damages. And that's a generous estimate.
Obviously companies have to sustain themselves somehow. However, it ought to be done in ways that make creative use of the newest technologies. It ought to be done through adaptation, not through shortsighted legal scheming.
If I were the President of Show Business I'd tell the music and movie folks to suck it up and send the lawyers home. The present may seem scary, but there's no need to panic and start making kooky demands. In the longer view this is just a little bump in the road.
Flat-rate charging the culprit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, residential customers really like flat rate plans because they know exactly how much they'll spend every month. But they have a Faustian downside: they give the carriers an excuse to severely limit and control how you use the service. Just as all-you-can-eat cafeterias have rules that regular restaurants do not (e.g., against sharing food or taking it home) most flat-rate broadband plans prohibit connection sharing, business use, running servers, etc.
If the carriers instead charged by usage for the shared part of their network, then they would have far less of an arguable case (i.e., none whatsoever) for claiming that a NAT box, even if you use it to provide service to your neighbor, constitutes "theft of service". If you pay for those bits, they're clearly yours to give away.
I know it's unpopular to argue for usage-based billing. But if I'm forced to choose (and I think I will be) between flat rate plans with lots of heavy-handed restrictions and a pay-as-you-go plan with no restrictions at all, I know what I'd do.
Groups like those opposing the Tennessee bill should educate their lawmakers that it's simply not their job to protect unsustainable business models. Although broadband service is frequently provided over cable TV facilities, it is nothing like cable TV. With usage-based billing, even your average legislator might see how analogies between NAT boxes, which support a two-way telecommunications service, and illegal cable descramblers, which gain access to a one-way broadcast service, simply don't apply.
Imagine also the public outrage that would finally be directed against Microsoft when end-users have to pay for all the traffic generated by their worm-infested machines. Not only might that create an incentive to get such machines quickly off the net, we just might see a lot of ordinary Joes defenestrating their copies of Windows. Clearly a good thing.
Even the MPAA and RIAA couldn't complain, since usage-sensitive billing would discourage file sharing. (We don't have to tell them that everyone would simply revert to the way music was widely pirated long before the Internet: by exchanging physical media.)
Oh, and the spammers would have to pay more, too. Wouldn't that alone make it worthwhile?
Re:DMCA could be bad news for Debian/apt-get (Score:4, Insightful)
- would certianaly destroy the entirety of what we now know as the Internet.
Exactly. Don't you think the AAs would be happy to see the internet dissapear?Re:what freedom do u guys actually have? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong Statement (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but this have nothing to do with the president (we all know who we are all talking about). This is about the faillings of this so called democratic govenment.
In a democratic government we have people electing their representatives so they can have their interests defended and laws supporting their needs and opinions. The way US government is organized it just doesn't happen this way.
The legislative is mostly supported by huge corporations that use their power and money to buy the ones that was supposed to defend the people interests.
And what happens then? Then we have draconian laws that protect most corporations, harming just a few of them, aproved, even if them simply don't bring any good to the people. That's the case of DMCA, for examplo.
What can be done? We can try changing the way we vote, and the way we participate, avoiding being confused and manipulated by huge organizations and voting in politicians that really represent us.
IMO we need even more. Politicians should not be allowed to be paid by corporations. Corporations should not even participate in politcs decisions. Politics campains should be maid on the streets, squares, not on TV. We should be able to contact in person our representatives.
Will that be true someday?
Re:what freedom do u guys actually have? (Score:2, Insightful)
> have lived in the Netherlands long enough that I
> have grown used to the society and love it. But
> what became clear is that the Netherlands is, in
> many ways, a very controlled society (self
> control, government control, etc.). In that
> sense > I feel more free in America. This goes
> hand in hand with the common belief that
> anything is possible (i.e. "I want to be an
> Astronaut!", response: "Great! go for it!").
> You can argue that this is overly optimistic,
> but in the end this attitude often leads to
> life satisfaction.
> I honestly believe that the quality of life is
> good when living in America; yes, better than
> many places. Switzerland also seems quite nice,
> if you're Swiss.
You, like so many, are very confused.
You confuse freedom of action with freedom of mind. As long as the USA has a society that spits on differently thinking people, and accuss them of all kinds of bad things for the mere reason they think differently, the USA is a long way from freedom.
Both freedoms are important, but freedm of action is a farce without freedom of mind.
Interestingly, I lived in both the USA and th eNetherlands, and I know a whole lot of Americans living in the Netherlands..they turn out to agree without exception that the USA offers a lot less freedom of mind then north-western europe, and esp. the Netherlands..
Ah well, good for you you movd to the USA, but I'd rather suggest you open your eyes for the mental oppression that is very common in the society you live in now before calling it free.
Your Sig (Score:0, Insightful)
I'm assuming that, because you are posting on slashdot:
1) You have a computer
2) You have the leisure to post
3) You are probably not blind or mentally retarded.
4) You probably went to school - in other words, had access to education, and did not have to work instead.
5) Probably do not live under an oppressive government that forbids private use of things like the internet.
I could go on, but I hope the point is made. Compare to many of the people in the world, and especially compared to many people throughout history, life has already been unfair in your favor (as it has in mine).
Re:Why black out? (Score:3, Insightful)
They block attempts by the GOVERNMENT to censor what artists can say, but they willfully censor artists themselves. With the vast majority of the movie theaters in this nation controlled by the MPAA and its standards, any attempt to freely reach an audience requires that you jump through hoops by A) making a movie with the MPAA, B) making sure that its content isn't too controversial to be carried by an MPAA distributor (The Passion is the most recent example of this), C) making sure that it's censored so it won't get an NC-17 rating (like Quentin Tarantino did with Kill Bill and the House of Blue Leaves scene) or censoring it down to PG-13 if you REALLY want to reach an audience, and D) paying them every step of the way for the privilege of letting them screw with you and your work.
But hey, that's not "censorship" or anything, because you're perfectly free to release whatever type of movie you want... in the backwoods of upstate New York in a theater with a seat capacity of twelve. At 12:47AM. On a Wednesday. Provided it's not raining.
I've already said it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:When will it end? (Score:3, Insightful)
Others in this thread have correctly identified Jefferson as a proponent of a particular limited version of patents. If that is what you had in mind, you should have said so. Because anyone who says "The Founding Fathers believed..." has no knowledge of history. With the possible exception of independence from England, there is no single issue which all of the Founders were of one mind about. They tended to be sharply divided over most of the crucial issues which went into forming our Constitution. It therefore makes no sense to make them into one monolithic body, "the Founding Fathers," whose "intentions" can be quoted like Scripture.
Re:what freedom do u guys actually have? (Score:1, Insightful)
i dont see any attractive stuff at your place, and it gets scarier every day, and the paces have gained in speed since the bush administration....
I'm going to have to post this as an Anonymous Coward, and even then I don't really feel comfortable saying what I feel to be true, but I am going to openly and candidly speak of how I feel about being born and raised here in the US.
It's a nice place to live, and if you fit in marginally well while growing up, chances are you will have a very comfortable life in the US. And yes, I have a comfortable life.
But freedom is mostly an illusion no matter where you live. In the US, the illusion is very strong because the things you are permitted to do are most likely things you were interested in doing in the first place. It's kind of like being free to do the things you're allowed to do, but I don't know if that qualifies as a free country. I'm free to do things like being a consumer of legitamate goods and services, hanging out with apathetic do-nothing friends, watching TV, etc... You're free to do that so long as you have enough money (or credit), and of course you are free to have the stupidest, most assinine opinions (and voice them) without any basis or reason behind them, and please don't point out the irony that I felt the need to post this as an AC.
Yeah, you can talk trash over here as much as you want! You can get away with statements like, "I think GWB is a supidhead!!!" and no one will drag you off to prison. Now if you threaten GWB, then that's a whole different story, and you will go to jail. No one would argue against that policy either. If someone threaten me, I'd want them locked up too!
BTW: That whole free speech thing is pretty cool, but unless people actually pay attention, what good is it? I think that's why we're allowed to have and keep our opinions. The powers that be probably realized that no one really cares what everyone else thinks, and nothing revolutionary will ever come of a speach. (I keep thinking Martin Luther King Jr., but that's probably not a good example...)
And all those other rights and priviledges are mostly smoke and mirrors. Yeah, you have a right to bare arms... blah, blah, blah... Just don't try to carry a gun down the city street with you. (doh!) If you're really that interested in playing with firearms, there's a socially acceptable way of doing that, but you have to follow all the rules of the beaurocracy. It's such a hassle that most people just don't bother. It also costs a lot of money too, so that's another issue.
Without money, your options are limited and your influence is nill. I have just enough money to pay my bills and keep my nose to the grindstone. How is that free? It's not, but I live in a free country. Go figure.
Now watch how many people will come back with the diatribe about how I can go to school and get an education to work my way up and so on and so on... Sorry, but I didn't make very good grades in school, and the local trade schools are just interested in getting me enough financing to give a lifetime supply of college debt. I hold a decent enough job, and if I attempt to better myself I will probably forget to dot and i or cross a t and screw up the decent living I've made for myself so far.
Some people over here make statements about how much worse it is in other countries to make you feel guilty for not being more grateful that you are a US citizen. I've never been to those other countries, and there's no practical way for me to choose to live in another country to find out. Oh sure, you'll get endless testimonials from people who've claimed to live abroad, but living outside the US has never been an option for me. What do I care if they chop up people in "BFE" for talking back to the local prince? I'm likely never to have the opporuntiy to live there, or any other country. I can only tavel so far, and I hit an impass like "no more money for travel". Sometimes
Incredulous Assertions==Lies (Score:4, Insightful)
Here is a population/household stat on Memphis. [areaconnect.com]
Memphis Population: 650100
Male Population: 307643
Female Population: 342457
Households: 250721
Median Age: 32
Average Household Size: 2.52
Taking this information: 60,000 illegal cable user is roughly 25% of households and therefor the cable company is claiming that when you drive down the street every 4th house is stealing cable services.
Do you believe that?
Re:what freedom do u guys actually have? (Score:5, Insightful)
If by that you mean we have a royal family (which we share with Canada and a whole lot of other countries too, by the way), then you're right.
But I hardly see how that's relevant. In the UK, our head of state is the Queen, who in many ways has fewer rights than the average citizen (for one thing, she can't vote), and has only a minor consitutional role - she has no say in how the country is governed, in deciding the law, etc.
In fact, for all practical purposes, the Queen is just a glorified ambassador, which is all I want from my head of state. The real power lies with the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, all elected officials.
There's arguably more of a class system in America than in Britain. In the US, if you're poor and need expensive medical treatment then you're probably shit out of luck. But in Britain, or almost anywhere else in Europe, you'll get it (perhaps not straight away, but you will get it).
Also, further education is more attainable in Britain than it is in the US. It might not be as free as it once was, but British students don't need six figure bank balances to get there degrees. If you're from a poor background but smart, where would you rather be? A country that wants to see your green before it lets you realise your potential or one that is happy to help you attain it?
Want to attain office? Well, better hope that daddy and his friends have deep pockets. The fathers of our last three Prime Ministers were a shopkeeper, a circus performer and a university lecturer. A humble start in life doesn't stop you from running the country over here but can you say the same in the US? Heck, if you don't have millions of dollars to your name you don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of even running for Congress, let alone be elected!
There are other examples but I'll only bore you further. Suffice to say class (or, to give it it's proper name, wealth) is more of a barrier in the US as it is in UK or elsewhere.
Re:what freedom do u guys actually have? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, my African-American friends say much the same things about the USA, only they aren't recent immigrants but have been there for several generations.
Turks and Marocans aren't very likely to be gunned down in their homes [about.com], or have a broomstick jammed up their arses [about.com] by arresting police officers in the Netherlands either. Are these typical? Of course not, but such incidents do happen with a disturbing regularity in the USA and I can't recall ever hearing of such events in the Netherlands.
Tolerance just to ideas is also lacking. Try critizing the Dutch government in front of them, they'll either 1) tell you how broken American government is in response or 2) tell you you're clueless because you don't know how brilliant the Dutch system is.
Yeah, I think that's right. However, in my experience, they're far less strident than the United States in their defence of 'my country right or wrong', and I can perfectly understand their unwillingness to be lectured on how they should run their government from an American. I certainly don't have the sense that the only way to achieve high political office in the Netherlands is by being in thrall to vested interests. In reference to Rush Limbaugh or Pat Buchanan, did you not hear about Pim Fortuin? He wasn't as hateful as good ole Rush or Pat, but he was pretty radical in views
I don't think Fortuin was comparable for a moment -- and if anything, Fortuin is a pretty good counter-example to the things that you're saying.
Firstly, he was gay. Can you even begin to contemplate a gay Jesse Helms?
Secondly, he was critical of the existing Dutch system -- and gained an immense amount of support from the population for expressing what were effectively heretical views that broke with the longstanding liberal consensus.
Finally, Fortuin wasn't opposed to immigrants simply because they were different -- inferior mongrel races -- but rather, was concerned about the impact that immigrants from certain other cultures were having on the Dutch way of life -- and most particularly, those enlightenment values of tolerance, equality, etc. that the Netherlands has worked so hard to enshrine.
This isn't an issue that's ever likely to arise in the USA because you insist that every immigrant pledge allegiance to the flag, motherhood and apple pie before they ever get citizenship, and the moment you begin to even start perceiving them as a potential threat you start locking them up or expelling them [amnestyusa.org], regardless of the evidence against them.
Don't get me wrong. The USA has many great qualities and I love the place as much -- perhaps even more -- than I love the Netherlands. But freedom and tolerance just aren't the first things that spring to mind when I think about the place and I often have to struggle to reconcile the good things I like about the political system there (such as the very spirited defence of freedoms of speech and expression, the constitution, etc.) with the reality of how that system actually operates.
Aren't Buchanan and Limbaugh voices of dissent? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hold on a second. First you accuse the USA of being intolerant of dissent, and then you boast about how the Netherlands don't have a Pat Bunchanan or a Rush Limbaugh?..
Are you under the impression that those two represent the American mainstream? In the Netherlands people with their views would certainly be considered "voices of dissent," so why aren't you willing to be tolerant of them?
Or, wait, was it only left wing voices of dissent we should encourage? Gotcha!
Re:Don't you dare comment! (Score:4, Insightful)
I really thought I had stumbled onto a piece of horror sci-fi when I saw the full extent what the DMCA was about to criminalise. If I own a DVD, IMHO I have paid for the right to watch the content on that DVD. All means to the same end are equally valid - nobody {except the irreversible laws of Nature; and she's reckoned to be a deity precisely because it doesn't do mortals any good arguing with her} can dictate to me how I may watch that DVD. Only in a fascist police state would it be considered "theft" to use software received as a gift with the blessing of the author, to watch a paid-for DVD, on equipment you already own. The only thing you haven't done is paid money to some DVD player manufacturer, but as you haven't made any use of their goods or services, you don't owe them anything. That would be like a consortium of bra manufacturers calling Charlie Dimmock [google.co.uk] a thief!
And, of course, it's totally unenforceable - unless you actually spend more money on enforcing a stupid law than you would have lost through it getting broken in the first place. But you do get to blame it on "criminals", even although it was only your law that made them criminals in the first place.
And then, of course, you have to remember that it could be the thin end of the wedge. How long till the Bakery Products Association of America start busting bread machine users?
Not dissent if they represent the majority party. (Score:1, Insightful)
Founding Fathers (Score:5, Insightful)
But when referring to the Constitution, we assume the "Founding Fathers" were the ones whose ideals were codified. Many of the ones about copyrights orginated with Thomas Jefferson, just like the banking system came from Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson and the rest of the Founding Fathers were able to find compromises between those who believed free spread of information was important, and those who believed that business would suffer without the monopolies granted by copyright. These compromises are what made our system flexible enough to survive. In this instance, the compromise was that there would be monopolies, they would be granted to the creators (rather than the publishers), and they would exist for a LIMITED time.
Today, we are violating the spirit of this. Big business has wrested control of many of the copyrights from the creators for music, and made a good effort to do the same for books back in the 1970s. And the time limit is almost useless. Rather than 17 years with one possible renewal, it is now life + 50 years and growing. We have also contracted with Europe to defend this practice, so it is unlikely that the U.S. can fix it internally.
Many stories published on the early internet came with copyright notices that allowed the works to become public domain after 120 days. There is little reason for computer books to keep their copyrights beyond a decade, as the technology could be obsolete in 4 years. Creators can limit their own copyrights, and many do. Big business will never relinquish anything unless forced by law. It will probably take another revolution for the public to win back control of ideas.
Technology has changed the need for copyrights. Historically, they were granted to a specific publisher to prevent other publishers from stealing popular works. Then they were granted to the creators, to encourage them to create more. Then the publishers bought them from the creators. But every law assumes that the COPYING takes effort, and that is no longer true. I did not need to publish this as a pamphlet and try to sell them on street corners for a penny each. I wrote it; I published it; you are reading it, and any costs in the process are subsumed in the overhead of having a computer attached to the internet.
---
I would like to use a well-thought license that allows works to enter public domain for most purposes within 20 years, but still allows me to benefit if Disney decides to turn my work into a movie. Of course, this clause in itself would prevent Disney from making a movie from my books, because they only publish material if they can retain all the profits. They wouldn't publish something like Star Wars because Lucas insisted on keeping the associated toy franchise. Why should they make my book into a movie when there are still tons of material already in the public domain from before their efforts to extend copyright into eternity?
Re:Aren't Buchanan and Limbaugh voices of dissent? (Score:3, Insightful)
It isn't a boast, it's an observation. I live in the UK. We have our own Pat n' Rush equivalents in people like Richard Littlejohn and Norman Tebbit.
Are you under the impression that those two represent the American mainstream?
Remind me, who is the American president again? George W. Bush, right? Yeah, they don't seem to be too far from the mark to me.
In the Netherlands people with their views would certainly be considered "voices of dissent," so why aren't you willing to be tolerant of them?
Where do I say that I'm not? I may well (indeed I do) disagree with them. I may also think that they contribute hugely to the atmosphere of intolerance and moral rectitude that I see as being prevalent in the USA today, but I believe they have every right to air those views for as long as they can find an audience willing to listen to them.
In fact, I imply as much in my post.
Gotcha
Not really, but thanks for playing. Better luck next time.
Re:what freedom do u guys actually have? (Score:5, Insightful)
Small mistake. USA has approx 12% of its population living below the poverty line. That is absolutely unheard of in western europe for example.
Ah, I see - the world consists of Western Europe and North America, and the rest of the world doesn't count. My bad.
But I didn't mention poverty level, did I? I mentioned death by starvation. According to the World Health Organization [who.int], Protein-Energy Malnutrition (PEM), the most lethal form of malnutrition, affects 1 out of every 4 children worldwide. "...more than 70% of PEM children live in Asia, 26% in Africa and 4% in Latin America and the Caribbean." The United States isn't mentioned. Neither is Europe. If I were a child, I'd rather live in the US or Europe than, say, Asia or Africa - nevermind the climate, I'd like to eat on a regular basis!
Now let's take a look at that 12% figure. If you'll reread my previous post, you'll notice that I said that even the poor of America might be considered wealthy by the standards of many other nations. According to the US Census Bureau, 12.6% of all Americans over the age of 15 earn less than or equal to the dollar amount which it says defines the "poverty level" income of an individual. This excludes government aid payments, and every person is counted - including non-working teens aged 15-18 who live with their parents (even if those parents are wealthy), people who need not work because their spouses make money by the bushel, retired people who live on pensions, savings, and Social Security retirement benefits, permanently and temporarily disabled people who live on Social Security disability benefits and private disability insurance, and those whose wages are paid "under the table" and do not report or pay taxes on their income.
"Poverty level" is defined by the US Census Bureau strictly by individual income per year, and doesn't take into account the income of other family members, government aid income, or "allowances" such as the $5,000/month Little Rich Johnny gets from his parents every month while he attends college out of town.
Note that I didn't say that American poor were wealthy by the standards of the United Kingdom, or France, or Sweden - I said "many nations". Places like Ethiopia, Somalia, Laos, Cambodia, Bhutan, Malawi, Haiti, and so forth. Places where you're likely to see Sally Struthers pitching another Save The Children fund-raising campaign.
Now, let's take a look at someone who is part of that 12.6% who's under the poverty level - me. My income put me below the "poverty level" last year, as well as 2001, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1994, and every year from 1988-1993. I will probably just barely clear the poverty level this year, but only if the Dow Jones doesn't close out for the year any lower than its level as of last Friday (capital losses due to drops in stock prices deduct from your Adjusted Gross Income dollar-per-dollar). I own a modest but nice 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom house with a mixture of new hardwood floors and new carpet, on a 1/2-acre level lot, in a good neighborhood. I own it outright - no mortgage. I own a 1996 Ford full-sized pickup truck outright, no payments. I have 4 computers, a cellular phone, thousands of dollars worth of books, cable television with 300 or so channels, high-bandwidth internet access, a refrigerator full of food, a Ridgeway grandfather clock/curio cabinet made from cherry wood, and about $9500 in savings. But according to the US Census Bureau, I've been hovering right around the poverty level since I became old enough to be included in the statistics, with the exception of 2 years when I lucked out and made a "middle-class" income. According to the rhetoric spewed forth by the liberals, I've been screwed over by the rich, and should be getting big fat checks every month, financed by the "wealthiest 10%" - which, BTW, means those making about $65,000 a year or more.
Don't be so ready to accept statistics blindly. Sir Benjamin Disreali was right - there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Re:Someone clue me in... (Score:5, Insightful)
(B) sounds an awful lot like it would be illegal for me to spoof an email header, browse the web through a proxy server, or perhaps even use Freenet.
Note that the language of this bill specifies a "device," but does not require that the device must be hardware. "Device" is defined later in the bill as "any type of electronic mechanism, transmission lines or connections and appurtenances thereto, instrument, drive, machine, equipment, technology, or software." Freenet is, by its very nature, a "device" which attempts to "conceal the place of origin or destination of [a] communication."
The major problem with this bill is that the language is too broad - apparently by design: The bill allows for felony charges for violations, and allows for $1,500 - $10,000 fines per device. The bill stipulates that counts and fines shall be imposed per day, that is, if you use 2 unauthorized "communications devices" for a week, you're guilty of 14 violations of this bill (well beyond the qualification for a felony charge) and you're liable for anywhere from $21,000 to $140,000 in fines.
This bill needs to die, or to have its language strictly clarified. If neither of these things happen, don't be surprised when you see "TN Resident Gets 15 Year Sentence for Open WAP" in the YRO section.
State power will always have its abusers. (Score:2, Insightful)
We should not be surprised when corporations seek to use the power of the state to their advantage, since business are about nothing more than self advantage. So are many individuals - and that is perfectly fine. The problem lies with the government that holds enough power to make such abuses possible, not with the corporations that try to benefit. And yet many think that we can get rid of "big business", or limit its activities somehow, and thereby solve this problem.
In communist countries, where no corporations exist but the power of the state is unlimited, private citizens always attempt to "work the system" at the cost of their neighbors - but nobody claims to be "anti-human" as a result. That would be ridiculous, of course. But it is also ridiculous to be anti-"a large group of humans that have joined together for business purposes", which is all that corporations are.
Unfortunately, any intelligent understanding of this topic has long since been drowned in a flood of thoroughly conventional leftist talk of the "oligarchy" and the "plutocracy" trampling on the "people". But is this old Marxist dichotomy useful? I think not. The division of society into private and public sectors - now that makes more sense, as do these simple rules:1) Always expect private entities to act in self-interest. To do otherwise is the worst kind of utopianism.
2) Design the government in such a way as to never benefit private entity A at the expense of private entity B.
3) If your goal is to end abuses of intellectual property legislation, then enlist the aid of libertarians - but stop scaring them away with talk of the big bad corporations. It is, after all, reasonable that those who seek to do away with intellectual property will move on to get rid of property of all kinds, resulting in fascism or socialism (which are really the same thing anyway). And try to remember that at least SOME people really did invent some new idea, and deserve to profit by it. Many slashdotters will probably find themselves in this position sooner or later, and it won't do to cry about it then!
Of course, maybe it is worthwhile to be a bit extreme when the opponents are so extreme on the other side - but remember to tone it down when you actually start winning.