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Congress Creates Copyright Cops
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Dec 07, 2007 08:44 AM
from the story-you-are-about-to-see-is-a-fib-but-its-short dept.
from the story-you-are-about-to-see-is-a-fib-but-its-short dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Not satisfied with pitiful potential penalties of $150,000 for infringing upon a $0.99 song, Congress is proposing new copyright cops in the "'PRO IP' Act of 2007, specifically the creation of the Office of the United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative (USIPER). They also feel that the authorities need the authority to seize any computers used for infringement and to send copyright cops abroad to help other countries enforce US laws. MPAA boss Dan Glickman praised the bill saying that, 'films left costs foreign and domestic distributors, retailers and others $18 billion a year,' though Ars points out that it allegedly costs the studios only $6 billion."
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Firehose:Congress Creates Copyright Cops by Anonymous Coward
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Politics: Congressman Hollywood Wants To Make DMCA Tougher 228 comments
Stormy seas writes "Congressman 'Hollywood' Howard Berman (D-CA) used a House subcommittee hearing today to express his view that the DMCA was in need of a rewrite. In his view, it doesn't go far enough. During his opening remarks for a hearing on the PRO-IP Act, Berman said that the DMCA's Safe Harbor needs further scrutiny and that it might be time to make filtering mandatory. There's more: Berman also 'wants to examine the "effectiveness of takedown notices" under the DMCA, and he'd like to take another look at whether filtering technology has advanced to the point where Congress ought to mandate it in certain situations.'"
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Controversial Section of PRO-IP Act Cut 101 comments
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Rep. Berman (D-CA) has removed the controversial section 104 from his PRO-IP Act. That section would have multiplied the already excessive statutory damages for infringement in the case of compilations, making the damages for infringing upon the copyrights of a single average CD rise into the millions of dollars. This change came after proponents of the amendment were unable to cite even one case where the statutory damages recovered were insufficient. But don't let the article fool you into thinking that the PRO-IP Act is no longer controversial now that this one section is gone, the act still creates copyright cops who are authorized to seize people's computers."
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PRO-IP Act Passes Judiciary Committee 185 comments
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The Pro-IP Act has passed the Judiciary Committee unanimously, thanks to the support of committee chairman Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). We've discussed this before — it's the same bill which would create copyright cops with the power to seize computers, when powers like that have been systematically abused in other areas. But, apparently, they think the bill is just wonderful now, simply because they cut the provision that would've increased statutory damages while keeping the rest. This is the same bill that William Patry called the 'most outrageously gluttonous IP bill ever introduced in the US.'"
While we're on the subject of intellectual property, Canadian law professor Michael Geist gave a talk on Monday about "copyright myths."
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PRO-IP and PIRATE Acts Fused Into New Bill 324 comments
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) have just sponsored a new bill, the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008, which would combine the worst parts of the PRO-IP Act and the PIRATE Act. The basic idea is pretty simple: expand the Federal government to create something like the Department of Homeland Security for IP. The Copyright Czar then polices the internet and clogs the courts with thousands of civil lawsuits against individual infringers so the RIAA doesn't have to. Feel free to contact your representatives with your feelings about this bill. Right now, they believe the bill (PDF) will 'protect jobs.'"
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As a none resident of the USA (Score:5, Funny)
*ahem* sorry, but the summary just forced me to say that.
WTO Membership (Score:5, Insightful)
Man this is scary. Just the very idea of federal government running around to arrest people on a CIVIL issue where the burden of proof is ( basically ) reversed is frightening and completely contray to the constitution. WTF ?!?!
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Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
"the last thing we need is another government organization"
There, fixed that for you.
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Re:WTF (Score:5, Interesting)
Besides, I'll bet the federal courts strike this law down as being unconstitutional.
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Re:As a none resident of the USA (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:what happend to state soverignty (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, UN is only a loss of sovereignty for nations that do not have veto power on the security council. I know you were kidding, but I just had a 3 hour debate on this yesterday with a friend. So the ideas are clear in my mind. Sovereignty is not lost unless the overseeing administrative unit has enforcement power that the (more) local administrative unit cannot legally stop. The only enforcement power that UN has is Article 7 security council resolutions. They are the ones whose violation authorizes enforcement (as in use of weapons) by member nations. Since US has veto power over all security council resolutions, US sovereignty is not lost to the UN. But all the nations outside of the 5 permanent members have lost their sovereignty.
A better example of loss of sovereignty is probably NATO. Because the NATO supreme commander (as far as I understand -- don't quote me on it) has the power to order actions by armies of member nations.
If we were to ever enter into an international treaty that gave some overseeing administrative unit a clear power to veto our laws and was combined with an alliance that gave some supreme commander unequivocal power to order our FBI or military around, then we would (pretty much by definition) lose sovereignty. As it stands, we may still have the power to say "No" to a decision of any international organization that we've joined.
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Re:what happend to state soverignty (Score:5, Interesting)
NATO is more interesting, but as I understand it individual countries supply forces to NATO on an ongoing or as required basis, as opposed to NATO commanders simply choosing and using NATO members troops at will.
In any case I would suggest that sovereignty can only be lost if a country enters an agreement it cannot later unilaterally remove itself from, I would suggest that the individual states of the USA have lost much of their sovereignty but not all (they can still leave?) and EU member states are reducing their own sovereignty but are no where near having lost it. A loss of sovereignty can really only come about by losing a war and being put in a position where you no longer hold any powers of ther region that was your country.
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Re:what happend to state soverignty (Score:5, Interesting)
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In Soviet Socialist States of America (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In Soviet Socialist States of America (Score:5, Insightful)
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Remember! (Score:5, Insightful)
Both in opposition to this bill and to state you general feelings that copyright law has become too broad and too far in favor of big media companies.
Do it now, email is good, paper is better.
Re:Remember! (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems that anti-copyright campaigners would much rather portray every copyright owner as being like Madonna, prince or Metallica, rich and arrogant, rather than the reality, which is that the vast majority of copyright holders by number are very small or one-man companies.
if you are an average-wage magazine column writer, copyright law helps protect you from being ripped off. If you are an author, musician or other content creator, the copyright law also helps protect you. the fact that the law also protects some big clueless, evil bastards that none of us like does not mean we should throw out the law. Laws against violence also protect politicians and business people that we hate, that doesn't mean the whole idea of those laws is bad too.
Copyright law needs to be clarified and reformed. But it also needs to be enforced. Writing to your elected representative is the correct way to achieve sensible laws. Breaking the law so you can watch spiderman 3 for free proves their point, not yours.
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Re:Remember! (Score:5, Insightful)
How does having a work protected by the government for years after the creator has passed on benefit anyone other than a corporation that is feeding off the works of others?
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Re:Remember! (Score:5, Insightful)
Because big media companies get to write it.
What is it that prevents this also helping out small media companies, and even individuals who create copyrighted works?
As one of those people, I can tell you that it does not help me.
Copyright law needs to be clarified and reformed.
Copyright should not be clarified and reformed, it should be taken back to its original design: about 20 years protection, required explicit registration, and no protection on content that has DRM applied to it. That's what copyright is.
The bullshit that passes as "coypright law" today is legalized extortion.
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Re:Remember! (Score:5, Funny)
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Just more evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
blackmail (Score:5, Insightful)
A determined enemy only has to have a few minutes access to your computer, download a few songs and then report you.
A Bigger Picture (Score:5, Informative)
Cool. Another War (Score:5, Insightful)
Then we had the WAR ON TERROR
Now we have the WAR ON COPYING
Funded by the taxpayer of course.
Re:Cool. Another War (Score:5, Interesting)
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These guys are not living in the modern world (Score:5, Insightful)
Their problem is that they're still living in a society where we had:
- No Internet.
- No home cinema systems.
- No media centers.
Many today don't even want to go to the cinemas because they think it's noisy and with annoying people in front of them, or even people telling about the events in the movie or constantly laughing at bad places. Or maybe they just want to easily go to the bathroom when they wish during a LOTR-like movie marathon. So then they pirate stuff instead of just twiddling their thumbs with a useless 50" home cinema system until the artificially delayed DVD/Blu-ray/HD-DVD release is made, usually also with artifically imposed regional restrictions.
I mean, there's a whole new field of technology at play here that completely seem to pass them. They still seem to think we are sitting on: a mix of cassette, vinyl, and CD players, and on CRT TV sets. That's what their business model is still geared for. And people today barely even own these relics anymore. They use the media in totally different ways than before.
We have money for this ? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no money for fixing schools. My property taxes have gone way up due to the fact the Current Administration is cutting school aid nationwide. Lucky for my kids we are in a rich area so the parents can still pay.
We are pissing away cubic dollars in Iraq on a scheme to keep Iraqi oil off the market, protect OPEC, and keep prices high.
But, we can set up an entire law enforcement apparatus to protect the richest industry on the planet ? Oops, almost forgot, that industry also owns the media outlets (thank you FCC for allowing mass ownership of media) which the wankers rely upon to be re elected.
Corporate America has gotten just about every Christmas Present it wanted under the Bush Administration. The Bankruptcy Bill was the first shot. Next, continue to subsidize Oil and Gas companies. Make sure that all worker protections, or public protection, is de-fanged, or given to the person who used to lobby against it. Flat top mountains in West Virginia. Allow utilities to continue to build 1950's era generation plants.
Meanwhile, block stem cell research, push "abstinence", and raise the prices of contraception for poor women while making abortion less available.
Bush was honest, once, when he stood before a gathering of huge corporate benefactors, and said "Some call you the elite...I call you my base".
Next up....roadside execution for speeding.
Especially scary (Score:5, Interesting)
This mean that these copyright cops will have the ability to go into a foriegn country, stomp all over the local legal system and then escape back to the US before they can be forced to account for their actions. These are not the actions of a country that wants to earn the respect of the world community.
This will not help the US cause in the long run as it will just cause even greater resentment in the countries on the receiving end of such treatment.
The obvious example is the pirate bay. If they really want to close the pirate bay they need to convince Sweden to pass tighter copyright laws, not go in and bust it illegally like they did. The problem now is that after that stunt it has made it much harder for them to convince the swedish people that such a change in law is neccessary. It has also made many european politicians scared on enacting said laws for fear of being accused of being a lapdog of a deeply unpopular president (Bush).
Maybe some of this situation will change when he leaves office but at the moment no other politician wants to appear to cosy with someone who has made some very questionable decisions and is going to be out of office soon anyway.
If the US really wants to try and encourage europe to adopt their laws, a much better start would be make some sort of concession to the european community. A good start would be allowing US troops to be prosecuted by a european criminal court for crimes they commit in Europe. We are not really that bad in Europe, we are also democratic nations who have very similar outlooks in a great many ways. If the US trusted us a little more that would most likely be reciprocated.
Re:which is bill number ???? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:People *WILL* stop watching and listening (Score:5, Informative)
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