Super DMCA Bill In Tennessee 33
fowlerserpent writes "Middle Tennessee State University's student newspaper Sidelines reports the Super DMCA bill is the hot topic in the state legislature. After a fierce debate the bill has been amended to take the edge off. The Tennessee Digital Freedom Network caught the telecom lobby in the state offguard last year when they put up fierce opposition to the legislation. The original bill would have even made firewall illegal in your home or to be sold in the state, so some of the opponents say."
Let me guess (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Let me guess (Score:1)
The example is to just show that the language is unclear because it disallows items that nobody could possibly disapprove of.
Re:Let me guess (Score:1)
My friend Pappie, tells me all the time, "Would you like it if some one walked in your house and started messing with you stuff? It's the same with you computer."
In all reality its true. How you like it if Microsoft came in and started messing with stuff, or how about t
Is this the one? (Score:5, Funny)
Article text (Score:4, Informative)
Joint committee passes revamped telecommunications theft bill
By Patrick Chinnery
Published: Wednesday, January 28, 2004
After almost a year of contentious debate, Tennessee's telecommunications theft bill moved one step closer to becoming law Monday.
A joint committee created specifically to address the conflict created by the bill unanimously passed a significantly revamped version of House Bill 457/Senate Bill 213, one that has both proponents and opponents of the original bill unsatisfied.
However, Sen. Larry Trail (D-Murfreesboro), said in the meeting that that was exactly the reaction he wanted.
"It was our consensus, because we were ... unable to pull the two sides any closer together, we asked Mr. [Tom] Tigue [legislative attorney] to draft a bill that might be equally unacceptable to both sides," Trail said. "He came up with a bill that sent a lot of people crying to my office, so he must have done a pretty good job."
Lawmakers are trying to address theft of digital cable services (including television and high-speed Internet access) and Pay-Per-View movies. Items and actions that the legislature are trying to ban include digital cable descramblers, theft of Internet access through wireless "hotspots," and some encryption devices.
Though they could have been construed as illegal in the original draft, devices such as routers (Internet service splitters to be used inside a home or office) and firewalls (software designed to prevent unauthorized access into a computer) would be acceptable with the new legislation.
The cable industry claims that current telecommunications theft law provides too weak of a deterrent.
"We've had a problem in getting judgements, getting the courts to award sufficient damages when we find people that are stealing cable," said John Ferris, an attorney hired by cable companies.
The Monday's amended bill includes revised criminal and civil penalties.
After Monday's amendment was added, a first offense of less than $1,000 of theft would be punished by fine only, although an offense involving five or more communications devices would automatically be construed as a class D felony.
Damages an aggrieved party could pursue in a civil case include the actual damages suffered and any profits made by the violator or statutory damages between $750 and $5,000 for each offense, with judicial discretion to reduce the minimum or exceed the maximum. The original bill prescribed penalties ranging from $1,500 to $10,000 per offense, per day.
A key point of contention during the debate over the bill has been the phrase "intent to defraud." The original bill submitted in April by Rep. Rob Briley (D-Nashville) and Sen. Curtis Person (R-Shelby Co.) was model legislation drafted by the Motion Picture Association of America and didn't contain the phrase.
The amended version makes it clear that merely possessing the unlawful device isn't enough to constitute a violation of the law - a person must use "deceit, trickery, misrepresentation or subterfuge" with a device.
Several notable groups are behind the bill, notably the Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association (a lobbying effort of cable companies like Comcast and TimeWarner Cable) and the Motion Picture Association of America. When introduced, those groups claimed it was an innocuous housecleaning bill, meant only to update current legislation to encompass new technologies.
However, opponents of the original bill thought it went much too far.
"House Bill 457 was promoted as addressing theft of cable and Internet service, but this overly broad legislation instead threatens the manufacture, sale and use of legitimate products such as computers, televisions and personal video recorders," Douglas K. Johnson, senior director for technology policy of the Consumer Electronics Association (the l
Re:Article text (Score:2)
Anyone who tries to claim a bill doesn't change the law is lying. It's probably the number one red flag that someone is trying to pass bad law.
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So would that make NAT illegal ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Tennessee could push the adoption of IPv6 [slashdot.org]
Lol (Score:3, Informative)
Everyday I lose more confidence in our ability to govern ourselves. limit -> 0
"crying about it" (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's what one of the legislooters had to say about it: "He came up with a bill that sent a lot of people crying to my office, so he must have done a pretty good job."
The thought never occurs to him that the reason a bunch of people are 'crying' about it is because it's yet another lame attempt at legislation drafted by a bunch of government goons who are completely clueless about technology.
The bright side of any legislation like this, is it really helps to grease the funds coming into the campaign coffers. That's why certain regulatory legislation comes up before congress every couple of years, so the lobbies of one side, the other, or both(!) can 'contribute' to make sure the legislootion never sees the light of day.
Telecoms are full of it (Score:4, Interesting)
The commercials of course don't say anything ABOUT the laws, they just say stuff like, "When the current laws were made, PDA stood for.. well public display of affection. But now PDAs are everywhere. We need to change the laws accordingly so we can bring you the future, today." So apparently, I don't like their definition of accordingly.
Re:Telecoms are full of it (Score:2)
Maybe it was a misquote--perhaps the quote should have been that telecoms are "bring us into OUR future," i.e. bringing us (the users) into the telecom's version of the future.
That would make more sense to me
(slightly cynical this evening)
Re:Telecoms are full of it (Score:1)
Re:Telecoms are full of it (Score:1)
Maybe VoIP will finally bring the telcom monopolies down.
Why isn't this article on the main page? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why isn't this article on the main page? (Score:2)
Slashdot is a large site, and it has many categories. Sometimes stories from a given category aren't seen as terribly interesting, so they don't make it to the front page (they're not front page news). These stories you'd only see if you were browsing the individual categories.
I personally hate this behavior, so I have that little checkbox turned on in my prefs, you know, the one that says something along the lines of "dump all stories onto the front page". I always laugh at t
Re:Why isn't this article on the main page? (Score:2)
I'll have to remember that. Thanks. The way I get a list of all stories is to press the "Search" button at the bottom of the front page, but leave the text box blank. This produces a list of all stories in reverse chronological order. This has a couple of (small) advantages: I can see all the sections and topics that a story has been posted in, and, based on the number of comments, I can make a guess as to whether it really is on the front page. A big disadvant
No! Not my router... *sob* (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No! Not my router... *sob* (Score:3, Funny)
Oops, ignore that. Wrong political debate.
Corporations changing rules into laws (Score:4, Insightful)
A truly dangerous trend is that large corporations are using their lobbying power to get their rules turned into laws.
When a corporation makes a draconian and/or stupid rule, there are usually pretty finite limits to the penalties they can impose. If a cable company wants to make a rule that NAT is not allowed on their network, the maximum penalty they can usually impose is the loss of service. Also, their draconian rule becomes a competitive disadvantage for them, especially as people become more educated. Corporate rules can also be changed easily if they realize the rectal-cranial inversion.
Making this rule into a law, however, expands the penalties drastically, removes the competitive disadvantage and leaves something lying around in the law books that is almost impossible to get rid of. This is a trend that really needs to be noticed and stopped.
Make everything illegal. (Score:2, Insightful)
Theft of cable? (Score:2, Funny)
Wait! So you mean it's illegal to steal cable in Tennessee? Thank god I don't live there! :)
Re:Theft of cable? (Score:1)
I would be considering moving again, otherwise...
TalibaN (Score:1, Troll)
DMCA? (Score:1)
Oh, and I do believe I read that firewalls and NAT boxes --WOULD-- now be allowed under the rewritten bill. Doesn't matter though, uneasy
Re:DMCA? (Score:1)
What is wrong with these guys? (Score:2)
They even make Tony B. Liar look good....
The wording (Score:1)
After Monday's amendment was added, a first offense of less than $1,000 of theft would be punished by fine only, although an offense involving five or more communications devices would automatically be construed as a class D felony.
I don't like the wording there. Five or more communications devices? Where would the boundary of responsibility for the accused end in that? If someone downloads a song through their cable modem, which uses their (apparently not illegal in the revision) router a