Making The Justice Dept. A Copyright Busybody 381
This bill, put forward by your friends and mine, Msrs. Leahy and Hatch, would task the JD with filing civil actions against "pirates" - essentially putting your tax dollars to work bringing civil actions against college students in the name of the very largest Copyright holders, allowing them even more spare pocket change to spend lobbying to restrict your already shrinking online freedoms. A choice snippet from the floor: "For too long, Federal prosecutors have been hindered in their pursuit of pirates, by the fact that they were limited to bringing criminal charges with high burdens of proof..."
And it gets better: "In the long run, I believe that we must find better mechanisms to ensure that our most vulnerable citizens--our children--are not being constantly tempted to infringe the copyrights that have made America a world leader in the production of creative works." Hold on to your wallets folks, they're telling us to "think of the children" again..."
Wait a minute.... (Score:5, Funny)
In other news..... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Let the endless arguement begin. Good vs Evil (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Song of the piracy apologist (Score:4, Funny)
I've tried fast track, Gnuttela2 and Edonkey, all of them have found nothing!!
3% per year?!? (Score:2, Funny)
I have to pay 3% of the remaining value on the computer to the local county
Good God, where do you live, Soviet Russia?
Yikes!
People around here are damned near ready to go to war over 0.095% per year.
Re:Children? (Score:2, Funny)
I just love the logic ... (Score:4, Funny)
"In the long run, I believe that we must find better mechanisms to ensure that our most vulnerable citizens--our children--are not being constantly tempted to infringe the copyrights..."
Yes, and the best way to make sure little Billy doesn't become a mean ol' evil pirate is to have the DOJ prosecute his ass the moment he downloads Barney's latest hit ... :)
(Not that people who listen to Barney's latest hit shouldn't be prosecuted, obviously ... but for different reasons, damnit!)
Yeah (Score:1, Funny)
Yeah, because a person who has a 0 day copy of Star Wars cost the studios about 10 bucks. Personally, I don't think you go far enough. I think we should kill people who have 0 day copies of movies because after all, protecting George Lucas *has* to be important or else maybe he'll get bored and not make another great great star wars movie.
Penalties should get higher and higher and higher until people *learn* their lesson.
In other news, the house judiciary approved the removal of hands for stealing bread. Bakers everywhere breathed a sigh of relief.
four new Bills (Score:0, Funny)
Re:Copyright should become a tax (Score:3, Funny)
Piracy Segwayed (Score:3, Funny)
Why dont the holier-than-thou anti-piracy types justify their position. The reason they dont, I believe, is because to them being on the side of the law is all that matters.
Either that or they believe in the "free market" and that by engaging in piracy you are somehow
'distorting' the market. As though there were such a thing as a free market in the music business.
Why you would defend the music establishment is beyond me. This is an industry whos meat & potatoes revolves entirely around leveraging as much dosh as possible out of Mom & Pops wallets by way of their children.
And they're fucking good at it too. When asked what they think they will be when they grow up, surveys show that the kids of today all basically think they're going to be fuckin famous. It's patently absurd. I really feel sorry for the little buggers actually. Not only are they constantly fed shit ideas/products but they have little to no exercise as well, and are so fat that it is believed a whole generation of kids are going to have serious heart problems by their mid-30's!
Oh Yes, I can see the future now. An entire generation of fat thirty-somethings living at home still clinging to the belief that a talent scout will 'find' them and shower them with fame, fortune and a triple by-pass operation.
Now what was I talking about, oh yeah piracy....
Re:Copyright should become a tax (Score:3, Funny)