RIAA & MPAA Seek Authority To Pretext 263
msblack writes "The RIAA and MPAA are lobbying California legislators for an exemption to proposed legislation that would outlaw pretexting. Pretexting is the practice of pretending to be someone else in order to obtain personal information on a person, such as telephone or banking records. According to an article in the LA Times, the RIAA and MPAA sometimes need to lie in their pursuit of bootleggers. They would like the legislation to exempt anyone who owns a copyright, patent, trademark, or trade secret from restrictions against pretexting. An interesting line from the article is, '[RIAA's Brad] Buckles said the recording industry had never, nor would it ever, assume someone's identity to access that person's phone or bank records.' Fortunately, Senator Corbert, the bill's author, is unlikely to accept these hostile changes."
Anyone who owns a copyright? (Score:5, Interesting)
Let us call it what it IS (Score:4, Interesting)
If it walks like a duck... (Score:2, Interesting)
"Basically, we want criminals to feel comfortable that who they're dealing with is probably some other criminal and let us in on what's going on," said Brad Buckles, the RIAA's executive vice president for anti-piracy.
I think the word "other" in the preceding should have been given the emphasis. What these clowns want to do is play a criminal in real life, but not be accountable for it. Disgusting, IMO.
Don't they already do it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I love lawyers and their doublespeak (Score:4, Interesting)
No, it's worse: the very fact that scumbag lawyers are even trying to get this exemption proves that they feel they have a chance to get it, which says a lot about the incompetence and/or corruption of the legislators. That alone is sad and worrying.
Fascist mentality and methods (Score:3, Interesting)
Does anyone else get the feeling.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I do.
TLF
Re:Anyone who owns a copyright? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Don't they already do it? (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if this would pan out in court.
Judge: how do you plead in the charges of illegaly downloading and distributing copyrighted materials.
ME: no guilty your honor.
Judge: would the prosecution like to present their evidence.
RIAA: we put these files on a program designed to share songs videos and other files and this program automatically re-shares the files when you down load them. We noticed this person downloaded these files and we logged the information necessary to track him down
Me: Your honor, if they placed the stuff in a program that they understand to operate in this fasion, doesn't that imply they gave consent to download and redistribute?
Judge: Umm.. case dismissed.
If only it were true..lol
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:That's True (Score:3, Interesting)
For me, the question of whether the limits on government power apply to private agencies doesn't seem to make much sense, since the ultimate limit is already in place: private agencies don't have the government's powers to do these things *at all*.
I'm not from the USA, of course, though, so it would be great if someone could explain this to me.
Interesting, but this would apply to everyone... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Pretexting? (Score:5, Interesting)
And so is me transfering money to another person. It might however become a legal issue still depending on why I transfered that money, whom I transfered it to, and what they are going to use it for.
And lying is a perfectly legal activity when it is not done to further a crime.
Try that one when giving a testimony under oath. Even if what you lied about has no relevance to the case at hand, does not further any crimes or anything, it is still punishable. There are many more cases where lying has been made explicitly illegal.
The fact that lying in general isn't illegal is because usually it is too small an issue to deal with it by law, and most cases of lying are better dealt with by parents or employers or such.
Arguing that lying in itself is not illegal is fine from a technical point of view, but you may want to think about the consequences of allowing lying EXPLICITLY by law.
What part of Privacy don't they get? (Score:2, Interesting)