Bush Signs Law Targeting P2P Pirates 727
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by
Zonk
from the another-victory-in-the-war-on-terror dept.
from the another-victory-in-the-war-on-terror dept.
BlakeCaldwell writes "CNet is reporting that President Bush signed into law the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act (previously-reported).
A lawbreaker can land in jail for up to three years for distributing a single copy of a prerelease movie on the Internet. The MPAA's president Dan Glickman applauded the move, stating he wanted to 'thank the congressional sponsors of this legislation for their strong advocacy for intellectual property rights.'"
Re:the word sponsor just leaves a bad taste.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not just Americans (Score:5, Informative)
Extradition doesn't mean you enforce foreign law on your citizens, it means you agree to repatriate foreign countries' citizens if they're wanted by the courts.
Re:Not that bad... (Score:4, Informative)
This was covered yesterday [slashdot.org] (we have two Slashdot articles about the same thing from different sides.)
Personally, and I know this isn't a popular view here, I don't like this bill at all. It expands my "rights" in one area where I emphatically do not want them and feel the net result is a slap in the face to artists and the concept of artistic integrity.
In the other, it creates the danger of disproportionately high sentences for copyright infringers, which amongst other things threatens to discredit copyright (on top of the overly long copyright terms we see today and absurdities such as the restrictions on equipment we can use to access content we've bought copies of.) Beyond some extra funding of the Library of Congress, I really don't like this.
Re:Time Shift? (Score:5, Informative)
It also reasons that if I run an FTP server and password protect it (jim:jim), then it isn't "accessible to members of the public".
Re:Not that bad... (Score:4, Informative)
No. I just don't think it warrants a possible prison sentence of 3 years.
You can skip things that are offensive to you but not ads?
Ads are offensive to me; problem solved.
Quote from Alpha Centauri (Score:1, Informative)
- Academician Prokhor Zakharov, "For I have tasted the fruit"
Re:Quote from Alpha Centauri (Score:4, Informative)
For in his heart, he imagines himself your master. A lesson the Americans learned very painfully in Earth's final century, but incorrectly attributed; it was UN Commissioner Lal who said that.
Re:Funny that they stress "Family Entertainment". (Score:4, Informative)
For example, you could buy a DVD of "Monster", download an edit into your DVD player, and the player would play the entire thing through except without the big bad rape scene at the beginning (or knowing it ever happened), which, of course, wouldn't affect how you view the film or its message at all... (<foghorn-leghorn>that last bit's sarcasm boy, sar-casm.</foghorn-leghorn>)
Re:Not that bad... (Score:1, Informative)
In nevada, where I live, stealing a DVD from walmart would cost me $250 plus attourney's fees maximum. http://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-597.html#NRS59
I know that topic is about pre-releases, but 3 years is pretty goofy...
Re:Not that bad... (Score:4, Informative)
One issue I can think of is that the tool to do the filtering still needs to be as contracted by the DVDCCA. The DVDCCA's contract, IIRC, forbids allowing users to skip through parts of a DVD marked as unskippable. So a DVD manufacturer who implements this feature needs to make sure they do not allow the unskippable parts of DVDs (such as those you mention) be "editable" or else lose their license to make DVD players capable of playing CSS encapsulated content.
This, ultimately, could have extreme repurcussions. The better movies could become much more difficult to view because of artists not wanting their movies to be edited in this way, and so forcing the release of "unskippable" DVDs.
Suddenly DRM is going to look a lot more attractive to artists with integrity. This is a bad thing.
Re:Not that bad... (Score:5, Informative)
Thus, for a motion picture such as Battlestar Galactica, there is a reasonable expectation of commercial distribution, but it has not been commercially distributed. It has not been made available for viewing in a motion picture exhibition facility, however, since the definition for that term is: The term `motion picture exhibition facility' means a movie theater, screening room, or other venue that is being used primarily for the exhibition of a copyrighted motion picture, if such exhibition is open to the public or is made to an assembled group of viewers outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances.
So since only one or the other has to be satisfied, it is a work being prepared for commercial release. Willfully distributing it on a computer network (e.g. Bit Torrent) is a felony and can result in significant civil penalties.
Is it so hard to look at the text of the law in question?
Re:Quote from Alpha Centauri (Score:4, Informative)
Re:lets get drunk and drive... (Score:2, Informative)
Average citizen steals a movie, goes to jail for 3 years.
Senator/Representative with a known history of piss poor driving? 100 days in jail.
"According to police, Janklow was behind the wheel of his Cadillac on August 16 when he ran a stop sign at a rural intersection about 10 miles south of Flandreau. Scott, who was riding his motorcycle home from his father-in-law's 80th birthday party, crashed into the side of Janklow's car and was killed."
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/01/22/janklow.sentenc
http://www.geocities.com/hrlygator10/Anti-Janklow