PIRATE Act Introduced in Congress

certron writes "Xeni Jardin has written a story for Wired about the "Protecting Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation Act of 2004" aka the PIRATE Act. It and another related bill are designed to criminalize P2P filesharing by lowering the burden of proof for law enforcement and proposing jail terms of up to 10 years. The bill was introduced by Sens. Orrin Hatch and Patrick Leahy, both of whom received large contributions from the entertainment industries. Under the bill, even sharing a single file (if a judge decides the value is over $10,000) could land a user in jail. Read the full text of Orrin Hatch's remarks."

Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall.

[The I Shing]

A bunch of college kids are sharing copyrighted corporate products (music and maybe movies), so we have to put them in prison because people who share music and movies online are a bunch of child molesters and terrorists. Yeah, makes sense to me.

This is the kind of thing that Frank Zappa warned us was going to happen.

Sure, we say it all the time, "Corporations are running the country," meaning that corporations have undue influence over lawmakers; but it's getting to the point that we're going to have to find a stronger statement, like "Corporations are completely and utterly in charge of every aspect of our daily lives, using the government and their nearly exclusive control of all media content to keep it that way." Or something shorter if we can think of it.

Mein Gott, what can we do?

Something shorter?

[LionKimbro]

...you mean, like...

ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US! ..?

You mean something like that?

Re:Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall.

[turnstyle]

"This is the kind of thing that Frank Zappa warned us was going to happen."

Well, Frank's widdow protects [yahoo.com] her copyright interests in Frank's works...

Re:Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall.

[The I Shing]

You're right, she does. Gail Zappa goes after cover bands who use Frank Zappa's name, forcing them to take all references and photos of him off of their websites and their flyers. The most they can do is say something like 'Performing the music of FZ" or "...the music of a guy named Frank," and the whole thing starts to look ridiculous.

Really, to smother Frank Zappa's name and image under a mountain of lawyers like that seems kind of odd, especially considering how much disdain the man himself had for the music industry's choke-hold on everything.

Oh, well.

Re:Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall.

[Jim Starx]

Cover bands are legally allowed and don't represent an endorsement by the original author. Your Neo-Nazi argument is an extreem even without the Nazi refferences. The title "Frank Zappa would agree: blah blah blah" is obviosly an unauthorized endorsement. But a Frank Zappa cover band that states "[so and so] performing the music of Frank Zappa", is perfectly fine in both a legal and moral sense. This is all really irrelevent anyway, the yahoo article was about a zappa song used in an advertisement, not about cover bands.

Re:Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall.

[thogard]

You haven't been paying attention have you? Cover bands are derivative works but the RIAA hasn't been going after them in the same way. Coverbands aren't legal unless they do far more paperwork than they tend to do. I know one band that chases down the copy right so they do do legal covers. They are called the Grand Wazoo --The band of a 1000 Dances and do some of the stuff Zappa would do and and they have music online [ozmp3.com] for free. They don't make money from CD sales (they sell for cheap and give half the money to the local eye hospital) but they make their money from live shows.

Re:Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall.

[Safety Cap]

~ any band should be able to just go ahead and use Frank Zappa's image and name in their own commercial work, without any oversight whatsoever?

Uh, yeah, seeing as he stopped benefiting from his image and/or name on December 4, 1993, why shouldn't his name and work pass to the public domain? He is not gaining further financial benefit; the dead can't own property.

Wait, wait! I propose that dead people get perpetual license to restrict use of their ideas. Do you know how liberating that will be?! That means that virtually ALL COMEDY (which traces its lineage to Menander [imagi-nation.com]) will become illegal. No more vacuous shows like Family Guy, King of Queens, Friends, Will & Grace, etc. Oh ye gods, one can only hope...

Re:Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall.

[rzbx]

That first statement just shines of intelligence.

Legacy eh? So if it is HIS legacy, why would it be up to his estate to deal with HIS legacy? So she sees what in his legacy? Is it the financial aspect? or is it for continuing his legacy? How will the act of making it harder for others to continue his legacy (in a way) be good for anyone besides her and her lawyers monetarily? There is already abuse. The second one believes that they have a right to have complete control over a work that is in the minds of others and acts on his impulse to control is abuse.
I can only agree to one thing, and that is preventing lies. If someone is going around claiming authorship to a work by another or not giving credit where it is due, then it is completely undestandable when one brings the law down upon them.

Re:Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall.

[Catbeller]

"That first statement just shines of intelligence."

Well, I'll help out here. You might be too young to remember a '70's era joke, so:

"Jane, you ignorant slut" was the first line out of... um, back up a sec, more background:

The 60 Minutes show in the '70's had a brief end-of-every-show segment called "Point:Counterpoint". In it, a conservative pundit and a liberal pundit each had a minute to speak on a point. One side spoke, and then the other side counterpointed.

Now, on Saturday Night Live, a parody was run every week as well. In it, Dan Akroyd was the conservative reactionary and Jane Curtin the liberal representative. Every week, Jane went first. Then, the Angry Conservative would respond.

The first line out of his thin-lipped mask of anger was: "Jane, you ignorant slut." Then he went on to further insult her.

Back in the day, this was parody. Now, it's the basis of Fox News/MS-NBC news "coverage" every day, NOT meant as a joke, but I digress.

The poster was being self-deprecating, not insulting. Hope I helped.

Re:Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall.

[fucksl4shd0t]

Question: What's more vacuous than putting Family Guy into the same category as Friends?

Answer: Wondering "what's more vacuous than putting Family Guy into the same category as Friends".

Re:Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall.

[cbreaker]

Not everyone's goal is to screw everyone all the time.

Re:Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall.

[jon787]

Not everyone's goal is to screw everyone all the time.

Somebody wasn't paying attention in biology class...

Regarding the issue of control...

[Faust7]

"Corporations are completely and utterly in charge of every aspect of our daily lives,

Well, in some sense they always will be. We're consumers, the objects of our consumption need an origin, and corporations are that origin. How they choose to design products, manufacture products, market products, and lobby for legislation regarding products will always exert an incredible level of completely transparent control over our lives.

It's up to individual consumers to render that control opaque -- but total opacity is very, very, very difficult.

Re:Regarding the issue of control...

[AmigaAvenger]

we USED to be consumers, that is the old model of thinking at least. The current trend is that once a industry has a stranglehold on the consumer, we become the enemy, the opponent, since no natural opponent no longer exists.

think of all the current examples of the huge media conglomerates which are doing things to screw the consumer. what is stopping them... nothing. consumer backlash no longer means anything.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Regarding the issue of control...

[richieb]

Theft is theft.

Correct. But copyright violation is not theft. If it were, we wouldn't need new laws. Theft is already illegal.

Read about the use of words here [gnu.org]

Re:Regarding the issue of control...

[zerocool^]

Theft is theft. If thieves were going into each and every one of your neighbors houses day and ripping them off every day, I can guarentee there will be some dead thieves and a lot of people applauding -- well except for the thieves who will be claiming that civil rights are being taken away and everyone else is a bunch of nazis.

If you want to talk about huge conglomerates screwing over the average consumer, you better be sure that the average consumer isn't fucking things up for those few honest consumers out there first...

Theft is theft. Peer-to-Peer is not theft.

If you have an apple, and I take it away from you, the number of apples in the global sense has not changed; the change is purely relative: I have one more apple than I had previously, and you have one less apple than you had previously.

If, on the other hand, you have an apple, and I clone the apple, the global number of apples has increased. You have not lost an apple, but I have gained one.

There is no theft involved in the 2nd.

I'm not going to try and claim to you that you're in the wrong here. It would fall on deaf ears anyway. However, if I asked you to prove that you're losing money because of P2P or whatever, you'd have to show that everyone that "pirates" your software would have bought it in the first place.

I.E. if I download a copy of Maya or something off of a P2P network, I know that I have done something illegal (copyright infringement), however, I also know that the company has lost no money from this act, as I would never have bought it in the first place.

Please remember two things about peer-to-peer:

1.) The vast majority of illegally copied software and multimedia files would not have been purchased at the asking price; therefore corporations in reality lose very little money.
2.) Very few pieces of software are worth the asking price, and even fewer corporations need the price that they're asking. It is this exhuberant overpricing that drives many people to download.

Case in point: It is illegal to download photoshop. It is also absolutely absurd that it costs $600. It's not worth $600, and Adobe doesn't need $600 per copy.
Case 2 in point: Windows. It is illegal to download windows. It is also absurd how much money it costs - $100 per copy. Times millions of copies a year. Microsoft doesn't need that money. Microsoft has $36,000,000,000 in the bank, in cash. If they never, ever sold another piece of software, they could continue as a corporation, and pay all of their employees at their current salary rates, solely on the interest of the money they have.

So, in closing. Downloading software is illegal. Fucking consumers is immoral.

~Will

Re:Regarding the issue of control...

[cgenman]

consumer backlash no longer means anything.

Most of the people I know consider P2P a form of nonviolent protest. It's a way of voicing our discontent with the way our consumerist society corners us with the belief that there are no alternatives. Well there are alternatives, many of them, and no matter what the rich white men in suits may believe we can actualize these alternatives into something they can't touch! P2P is our protest! P2P is our power, our voice, our constitutionally protected free speech! Outlawing P2P is outlawing free speech!

Well, not really. But that argument is no dumber than what has been coming out the the copyright companies. Like saying that in an economy that is down %10 due to a massive worldwide recession record sales are down %10 because of... computers. Or that the value of a copy of a song which the sell for 4 dollars suddenly becomes 10,000 dollars because it was put on a P2P network. Or that computer hacking is terrorism and terrorism is treason and treason is punishable by death but hacking to protect copyrights is a noble form of copyprotection and stopping someone from hacking to protect their copyright is a violation of the DMCA.

Sigh. All I want is a little sanity in our legal system.

Re:Regarding the issue of control...

[Moofie]

What planet are you on?

The cable company.
The phone company.
The electric company.
Microsoft.
Viacom.

These companies have NO ACCOUNTABILITY WHATSOEVER to the public. They can do whatever the hell they want, pass whatever laws they want, charge whatever prices they want, and people don't have another option.

What do they have in common? They're all monopolies. Those are bad, remember?

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Regarding the issue of control...

[AstroDrabb]

Believe me, I do not like this "PIRATE Act" either, but it is a piece of legislation and needs to be addressed that way. Write a letter to your senators / presidential candidate.

For this to be effective, remember to include a personal check for no less then $10,000 USD!

Re:Regarding the issue of control...

[red floyd]

Stolen from someone's sig...

I am not a "consumer". I am a CITIZEN of the United States of America.

Social Evolution of Corporate Power

[handy_vandal]

Sure, we say it all the time, "Corporations are running the country," meaning that corporations have undue influence over lawmakers; but it's getting to the point that we're going to have to find a stronger statement, like "Corporations are completely and utterly in charge of every aspect of our daily lives, using the government and their nearly exclusive control of all media content to keep it that way."

Social evolution in action: corporations are more efficient -- better adapted to their environment -- than nation-states.

Nation-states, in their day, were more efficient than kingdoms; which were more efficient than city-states; which were more efficient than tribes; which were more efficient than individuals.

I don't like it, but I accept that it's nature's way: the strong flourish, the weak fail.

Mein Gott, what can we do?

About corporate power? We can do nothing.

Live your life well, try to bring more love than hate into the world. That's all. No big stuff -- no Revolution, no Topple the State, no Stop the Corporations. Work to your scale, as an individual; the rest is History.

-kgj

Re:Social Evolution of Corporate Power

[CrookedFinger]

Or you could continue to take part in the development of newer, more distributed models of power that are more efficient than large corporations...

Re:Social Evolution of Corporate Power

[Fnkmaster]

Corporations are more efficient at creating wealth than nation-states, but they are essentially just an expression of capitalist tribalism within the nation-state. They aren't necessarily or always more efficient at maximizing happiness or utility or any of the other measures of what is "good" in the world than the nation-state.

Laissez faire wasn't handed to us by the gods, and it doesn't necessarily maximize utility within the nation-state to adopt that position. I don't have an answer to the other poster's challenge about providing better alternatives to the corporate structure for efficiently organizing economic resources, except to note that especially in the centers of wealth, we are moving to a service-based economy in this country. And services are often better performed in semi-collaborative trade groups or professional service corporations, like legal partnerships and medical practices. I'd love to see better structures for organizing larger, product-oriented companies, such as networks of collaborating service or trade groups that cooperate for mutual economic benefit.

Re:Social Evolution of Corporate Power

[fferreres]

Corporations are more efficient at creating wealth than nation-states

Correction: Corporations and their laws are more efficient at extracting wealth. They do not necesarily create wealth. For example, a company can be granted a monopoly, and become the most valued company on earth (Microsoft as one of the examples). But that does not create wealth at all. They are charging you more than they are offering in return, because you or your other companies have no other option than to pay the extra "price". And all other companies and their citizens earn less. The thing becomes worst with patents, as they can not only extract wealth from everyone else, they can STOP progress by laying mines of restriction on what everyone else in the world can do. That's not only granted by the pantents themselves, but by the assimestric nature of justice (big company dumps 100 millons in lawers and you have to defend yourself with much less...in effect).

So no, companies PER SE, are not better at creating wealth, only humans create wealth, after all, it's all our work.

Re:Social Evolution of Corporate Power

[RickHunter]

Congradulations, are you happy being part of the problem?

Ignore anyone who tells you that you can't do anything. That you're powerless. That its inevitable, that its good for you. Ignore anyone that tells you to sit down, shut up, and eat whatever shit they feed you. Because they're wrong. You can do something, and that's what they're scared of. All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing.

And no, corporate power isn't better-adapted to its environment than nation-states. To be more specific, Darwinian theories of evolution do NOT apply, as there IS NO ENVIRONMENT. What we have here is a power grab by a small segment of the population, one trying to return us to the "glory days" of late-19th-century Industrial Feudalism. The fact that they're using a philosophy as weak and repulsive as Social Darwinism to support their position is just the icing on the cake.

Re:Social Evolution of Corporate Power

[petabyte]

You're misusing the definition of a nation-state. A nation is a group of people that feel like they belong together as a group. A state is large government agency. Americans are a nation that have a state. You don't have to have a state to be a nation though - the Palestinans are a nation as are the Kurds (I tried to avoid those examples due to the feelings involved but couldn't think of nothing else).

Anyway, getting back to the matter - a kingdom can be a nation-state, as can a city-state for that matter. The question really becomes how big a group of people do you need to have to be a "nation" but thats neither here nor there.

Live your life well, try to bring more love than hate into the world. That's all. No big stuff -- no Revolution, no Topple the State, no Stop the Corporations. Work to your scale, as an individual; the rest is History.

That quote is deeply disturbing. I can't tell if you're playing Snowball in Animal Farm or the Ministry of Truth in 1984. I'm not about to advocate revolution but sitting back and letting others decide your life has to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

Re:Social Evolution of Corporate Power

[Kirijini]

Bullshit.

Regardless of your claim that corporations are more efficient than nation states (which is a whole other argument, and is like comparing apples to oranges), I dispute that we should accept corporations as our government. Why? Because I believe that the best government is that which is for the people, and responsible to them. Efficiency is totally irrelevant - the question of what is the best government is a question of morals, beliefs, passions, and theology, not mathematics and work-motion studies.

Furthurmore, resolving that, since you are an individual, you have neither influence nor potential for influence at a national level is dead-end thinking and as repulsive a philosophy as handing government over to corporations. I could point out that people in power are individuals, and such an empirical argument is enough refutation, but taking it to a normative level is more satisfying: You can say that small scale things, like helping people out of a burning building, or giving directions to lost people, are good and important, but involving yourself in a cause you believe will improve everyones lives, like participating in a campaign to roll back the influence of corporations in national politics, is inherently superior in goodness and importance. I hate to quote a movie here, but "The greatest evil is the indifference of good men."

And finally, it isn't social evolution, it'd be political evolution.

Re:Social Evolution of Corporate Power

[fferreres]

We can do nothing.

Yes we can, and we will (I hope). Look at your evolution trend:

Individuals -> Tribes -> Cities -> Kingdoms -> Countries...

Now follow the line of reasoning: ... Countries -> Multicountry pseudo governments (like EU) -> World Government

The trend is for organizations to become wider. The day many people WORLDWIDE are fucked up, because capital respects no country, and cares about nobody, is the day that you'll begin to see a push for a worldwide government that can regulate capitalists worldwide...they will have nowhere to hide.

Some thing will be governed worldwide, some others in a regional way, just like Federal and State governments can peacefully coexist, so will countries. But the shift will not be swift...

The other alternative is that 99% of the population become slaves or exterminated (less jobs available than people, remember automation?).

US corporations own you

[Anonymous Coward]

I once laughed at the way OCP ran everything in Robocop.

I've stopped laughing...

Excuse me while I RTFA

[C10H14N2]

What is going on is that even the evil forces of people like Orrin Hatch are realizing that criminal penalties are _not_ appropriate, that branding "otherwise law-abiding" people as felons for something that is individually rather trivial, but on a massive scale certainly non-trivial. It would behoove people to at least give them the credit for that observation rather than run headlong into Orwellian nightmares. Frankly, I don't feel sorry for anyone involved in this argument. No one is forcing you to play their game, but if you want their products, it shouldn't surprise you that they will do everything to ensure that you play by their rules.

What are we to do? Ignore them. Don't steal their products. Don't buy their products. Don't even listen to or watch their products wherever they might be. In the end, maybe by ignoring them for long enough they'll all go broke and die. In the meantime, get out of the damned house, go to a pub and throw your sheckles in the hats of your local musicians who really DO need the money. Buy their CDs. If you have a business, sponsor their gigs. You might even enjoy life a little more in the process.

Re:Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall.

[Ridgelift]

This is the kind of thing that Frank Zappa warned us was going to happen. Sure, we say it all the time, "Corporations are running the country," meaning that corporations have undue influence over lawmakers; but it's getting to the point that we're going to have to find a stronger statement...

Take a look at The Corporation [thecorporation.tv] as a stronger statement. Here's the synopsis:

"Considering the odd legal fiction that deems a corporation a "person" in the eyes of the law, the feature documentary employs a checklist, based on actual diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization and DSM IV, the standard tool of psychiatrists and psychologists. What emerges is a disturbing diagnosis.

Self-interested, amoral, callous and deceitful, a corporation's operational principles make it anti-social. It breaches social and legal standards to get its way even while it mimics the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism. It suffers no guilt. Diagnosis: the institutional embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism fully meets the diagnostic criteria of a psychopath ."

Bill Gates might not be psychotic, but his "person" the Microsoft Corporation is a psychopath if there ever was one. Add also the RIAA, MPAA, SCO...psychopath, psychopath, psychopath.

Re:Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall.

[Anonymous Coward]

Artists make very little percentage off of CD sales when they are signed by major labels. Artists make there real money off of touring live, thats why every group does it, alot. Basically CD's are just a way to advertise there concert. Which in all reality, sending songs over the internet is more effective at that. The only people who really care about CD sales and song downloads enough to sue people and put them in jail are the corporations and record labels who make all of their money off of CD sales.

Personally, I could care less about about the major record labels and would rather them go bankrupt.

Re:Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall.

[paganizer]

And the inventors of automobiles were really unfair to the horse & buggy industry.
If the business model is obsolete, then it's obsolete, get over it.
What amazes me is that it's obviously pretty clear that the majority of citizens of the U.S. aren't going to agree with this crap, but we just set back and let it happen.
I'm not a big fan of mob rule, but this is ridiculous.

and really unfair to public transportation...

[rsilvergun]

The free market does not always know best. Car companies in the early twentieth century bought up public transportation and shut it down to force people to buy cars. They're still discouraging pubic transportation from developing even today. This goes against the interest of everyone but a few rich car dealers and manufaturers. All of society is made to suffer because that's how it works in a 'free' market.

And I think you overestimate how smart US citizens are (a remarkably easy thing to do). They don't think too far ahead. When it's really obvious they're getting screwed (like it was with Divx) they don't fall for it. But when it's less obvious (DRM in iTunes anyone?) they fall like a ton 'o bricks. And pretty soon broadband with be ubiquitous enough that they can start phasing out physical media all together. Heck, the Ignorant Masses will probably look forward to that day: no more carrying around 500 CDs. Which is all well and good untill you're paying 5 cents every time you listen to an AAC.

Re:Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall.

[stephenisu]

Furthermore, downloading songs for free hardly qualifies as a "business model".

Next thing you know, money laundering will no longer be a legitimate business model..

Re:Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall.

[ethanms]

I agree... these things are illegal... but it's frightening that the potential monetary damages and jail time are so high!

I've been watching Animal Planet all day... guy starves his dog to the brink of death, leaves it outside, he gets a $500 fine... no jail time, etc...

But allowing someone to copy a music file has routinely caused people to get multi-thousand dollar judgments held against them...

Now we're talking jail time + fines...

If even one or two people are financially ruined and left with a shattered life, it will be a tragedy.

I'm just hoping this winds up like that FBI warning at the beginning of dvds and tapes... yeah, $250,000 fine and 20 years in jail for copying... ok...

Re:Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall.

[John Courtland]

But they need to offer an alternative. You can't just NOT compete with piracy. It exists, it is there, any amount of unconstitutional (8th amendment at least) laws cannot stop that. This is exactly like the horse and buggy. CD's and physical media in general are no longer needed to gain musical performances, aka the horse and buggy. Digital online music on demand is the car.

I'm gonna take a second here and digress. If I buy an album, let's take an example from my father, so say The Wall by Pink Floyd. He bought that fucking thing in the 1970's on vinyl. Why the fuck should he have to pay another $18 for a CD. He already has the license to play the music right? So why does he have to keep paying full price? If he had his receipt and original and went to RCA (I assume that's the producer, I'm sure I'm wrong) and demanded a CD, he'd be laughed the hell out of there. So then it seems he holds a simple physical item, like a camera for example. But the record industry wants to stop you from selling the album to someone else, or even making copies of it. They want it both ways. I say, fuck them and fuck them hard. I really want every person on Earth to steal as much music as they can until these shitbags realize they can't play dirty pool and get away with it.

Anyhow, these companies, in order to exist, have to adapt. The law should not adapt for them. They have to provide attractive, high quality and available music samples and songs for a reasonable price. That's so fucking simple it's goddamn amazing that only Apple has figured it out. I think the folks at the RIAA should have all their money taken away to feed orphans and they get to live on the street for the rest of their natural days. They have been suckling on the teat of popular entertainment and stifling innovative and creative music for ages.

Re:Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall.

[Jim Starx]

That's false. I work at a recording studio. We have several steady customers that come to us for recording their cd's. They distribute their cd's over the internet which brings them some profit but mainly serves to drum up intrest in their live shows which provide for the majority of their income. These aren't even locally large names, very smalltime. But the formula holds true for larger artists. Record sales pay the record company, artist profit from touring. Only the most wildly successfull albums make enough money for the artist to see a sizeable return after the record company takes it's cut.

Re:Excuse me while I smash my head into the wall.

[fucksl4shd0t]

All right, let Courtney say it again [salon.com].

The internet gives bands a way to finally break clear of record companies, and here you come along telling us that we need them. Do you work for the RIAA, by any chance?

Distributing CDs cost $4 [mixonic.com], you charge your customer however much you want and pocket the difference.

Recording [sourceforge.net] your [www.eca.cx] music [rosegardenmusic.com] doesn't cost a fortune, either, as long as you have the gear to make the music (which you obviously already have if you're playing gigs) and can make the basic connection from your gear to your computer's mic jack.

Any questions?

alright the acronym is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

sometimes it is just so blatantly obvious that people will go to great lengths to contrive clever acronyms despite the obvious redundancies within the actual expanded title.

come on now.

Re:alright the acronym is ridiculous

[MicktheMech]

How about N.O. A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.S. -- New Order Addressing Continuous Reuse of Novel Yet Meaningless Short-forms

Scary

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Under the bill, even sharing a single file (if a judge decides the value is over $10,000) could land a user in jail

Given the strength of the dollar these days, that's like the price of a single Anne Murray CD...

Re:Scary

[bfg9000]

If you're pirating Anne Murray, you have already suffered enough.

So what is this going to do?

[xactoguy]

Honestly, the prisons are full enough as it is with petty criminals, if they even attempt to enforce these they are going to fill them up even faster. And, who wants to put in jail? If this gets passed and starts getting actively enforced, hopefully someone is going to stand up against this. I hope you've all donated to EFF lately...

Prison is a big business

[MacFury]

and, who wants to put in jail?

I think you meant to ask, "who wants to put everyone in jail?"

Prison is a booming industry. People make massive amounts of money keeping others locked up. Prison's even have lobbyists to help guide harsher laws.

Of course, rich people seldom go to jail. Congressmen and high ranking government officials are rich and abstracted from the common man. They could care less about you. You're just dollar signs to them.

Re:So what is this going to do?

[maeka]

If you would read the linked articles you could see past the hype and realize that this proposed law is an attempt to punish file sharers through fines not jail time.

From Sen. Hatch's comments: (emphasis mine)

It is critical that we bring the moral force of the government to bear against those who knowingly violate the federal copyrights enshrined in our Constitution.

But many of us remain concerned that using criminal law enforcement remedies to act against these infringers could have an overly-harsh effect, perhaps, for example, putting thousands of otherwise law-abiding teenagers and college students in jail and branding them with the lifelong stigma of a felony criminal conviction.

The bill I join Senator Leahy in sponsoring today will allow the Department of Justice to supplement its existing criminal-enforcement powers through the new civil-enforcement mechanism. As a result, the Department will be able to impose stiff penalties for violating copyrights, but can avoid criminal action when warranted.

I'm not going to use the T word (theft), but let me just say that the casual breech of copyright is getting out of hand, and getting more and more government attention. Shouldn't we (American) Slashdotters be glad that Congress is discussing a law that increases civil penalties instead of making copyright infringement a criminal offense? With the MPAA and RIAA's tactics increasingly blurring that line between civil and criminal offense, I find that this law actually makes a sane and calm attempt to address the problem.

Re:So what is this going to do?

[cpt kangarooski]

let me just say that the casual breech of copyright is getting out of hand

I agree. The solution is not to punish infringement, it is to increasingly legalize infringement so that people's behavior need not significantly change, but they get to stay on the right side of the law.

It's a lot like prohibition. People totally ignored the law, and not only was the law bad by itself, but by being so especially bad, it gave a big boost to organized crime and fostered disrespect for the law.

Laws aren't automatically entitled to respect. They have to deserve respect by being sensible. There was little large scale infringement prior to the 1976 Act in no small part due to the fact that people didn't have a problem with complying with the law. Our laws today are so awful that of course no one obeys them.

I find that this law actually makes a sane and calm attempt to address the problem.

The people are not the problem. This law is just going to make things worse.

Re:So what is this going to do?

[mirio]

I agree. The solution is not to punish infringement, it is to increasingly legalize infringement so that people's behavior need not significantly change, but they get to stay on the right side of the law.

I agree completely for but for different reasons. I don't think laws should be ammended/discarded to keep people on the right side of the law. I do believe, however, that people are voting with their actions. People believe that casual, not-for-profit petty copying of copyrighted works should not be a crime. Can you name any other "crime" 30 million US citizens are guilty of? This bill would be...no...IS the ultimate in violation of the oath of public office. These politicians vow to represent the people of their districts and they think that the way to do this is to ignore the will of the people, pay close attention to the wishes of their contributors. The politicans of course know what's better for us than we do.

Oh good...

[Quaoar]

So now the prison system will be keeping DANGEROUS FILE SHARERS off the streets, while at the same time Los Angeles is releasing thousands of prisoners early becuase of a lack of funding. I'm sure glad that John Q. Empeethree won't be hassling our celebrities anymore! Whew!

Same coin, different sides

[aynrandfan]

This is from Hatch's own site . . .

- Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today joined Ranking Democrat Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) in introducing the "Protecting Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation Act" (the "PIRATE Act") to allow the Department of Justice to exercise its existing enforcement powers through a civil, rather than criminal, enforcement proceeding.

Does anyone need more proof that the Republicans and Dems have become just two sides of the same coin? After this, I don't trust them to do much of anything right. *sigh*

Couldn't help but notice...

[Faust7]

Tens of thousands of continuing civil enforcement actions might be needed to generate the necessary deterrence.

I'll be damned if that doesn't sound just a bit like SCO.

Yet another gun control law...

[tomstdenis]

Last I checked copyright infringement was still illegal. Does society need more laws that state copyright infringement with P2P is now illegal? ... I mean honestly P2P development is strict freedom of speech. Not to mention the good that comes from it [e.g. BitTorrent].

Laws like this make me proud to live in a backwards country such as Canada.

Tom

Re:Yet another gun control law...

[grub]

Laws like this make me proud to live in a backwards country such as Canada.

I hear ya man..

I think there will soon be a market in junkets to Canada for Americans that will want to (smoke pot|buy cheap prescription drugs|download movies and music)

I have 2 spare bedrooms for rent!

Re:Yet another gun control law...

[VValdo]

Last I checked copyright infringement was still illegal.

Yeah, but now it's illegaler.

W

Re:Yet another gun control law...

[tomstdenis]

Canada is like most other countries. The politicians are corrupt [e.g. voting their own raises, letting Quebec do whatever they want, Liberals misappropriating money] but at least they're not "oh lets kill people to make us more secure" randomly.

On the plus side though we don't have planes smashing into our office buildings...

tom

Bad idea...

[ameoba]

Any law that simultaniously lowers the burdens of proof while raising penalties seems like a fundamnentaly bad idea.

Tho, I guess after the War on Drugs put a generation of poor & minority youth in prision, they have to do something that has the same effect on whites & the middle class, lest they look racist (not an easy trick for a Republican from Utah to pull off).

It's time

[ericdano]

It's time to start outsource all that file sharing......just like all these companies are outsourcing jobs......

We all know this is unreasonable

[bigberk]

DMCA... PIRATE... Who do you think owns your country? I don't mean to offend you geeks in the US and EU, but your governments perpetually place the interests of large corporations above citizens. Your government is not acting in your best interest. Tell your elected officials that you disagree with what they are supporting, and command them to stop.

Leahy WAS one of the 'Good Guys'!!!

[MacDork]

What little faith I had in the US Government is now completely shattered. I expect this out of Hatch, that SOB authored the DMCA, but Leahy!?! Every time I see his name pop up on Slashdot, he's doing something right. I thank $DEITY that there is someone up there on the hill that actually has a clue. Back during the Napster hearings he said,

This could be a brilliant 19-year-old in a college dorm figuring out Gnutella or some like it. You can't stop it. You couldn't stop it even if you wanted to. What we need to do, I think, is make sure copyrights and patent laws actually reflect the new reality. [nytimes.com]

But that's all gone now. Apparently he's had a change of heart in the past few years. Now, instead of likening P2P to the VCR, he sees 60 million Americans as a gigantic cartel.

The very ease of duplication and distribution that is the hallmark of digital content has meant that piracy of that content is just as easy. The very real - and often realized - threat that creative works will simply be duplicated and distributed freely online has restricted, rather than enhanced, the amount and variety of creative works one can receive over the Internet. [senate.gov]

Without reading the text of the act, I can only speculate... but it appears that he is willing to hand the RIAA keys to a bottomless warchest to aid in their crusade against little girls. Until now I had a great deal of respect for the man. Seeing him 'turn to the dark side' is causing my faith in the system to go from shaken to crumbling. If Leahy bows to them, then who's left up there to speak for us?

Coincidence?

[Adam9]

Hmm.. let's see [opensecrets.org]:

Top Industries

The top industries supporting Patrick Leahy are:
1 Lawyers/Law Firms $320,845
2 TV/Movies/Music $178,000
3 Lobbyists $143,262

Just a coincidence, right?

"Enshrined in our Constitution."

[LionKimbro]

"It is critical that we bring the moral force of the government to bear against those who knowingly violate the federal copyrights enshrined in our Constitution."

Yeah. I'll feel guilty about it, when the fed actually proves that copyrights exist in order to [wikipedia.org] "promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

It sure doesn't feel like limited times.

You've heard it before. And you'll hear it many times over again.

Re:"Enshrined in our Constitution."

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress has altered the time span for copyrights a minimum of 40 times. At this point, the current limit is 95 years. Effectively, that is approaching unlimited, as any work created within our lifetime cannot be utilized effectively to promote the idea of the creator by anyone.

With congress's actions in increasing limits every time Valenti gives them a few bucks, the copyrights have, for all intents and purposes, become perpetual.

Even the British had more sense than that, with Queen Annes copyright limits taking precedent over the booksellers objections. Pity Congress cannot look past their campaign account, and look instead to the rights of the people of the US.

Copyright extensions at this point in time defeat the desire of the framers of the constitution, and thus are unconstitutional. By making copyright limits (de jure) unlimited, they have failed to uphold the constitution.

14 year old Johnny, sitting at home listening to downloaded music is not a terrorist, nor a pornographer, nor a criminal. The real criminals are the congressmen who vote by proxy for Jack Valenti and The MPAA/RIAA cartel, to perpetuate a legalistic imagery that is basically feudal in concept.

Jack Valenti represents the most malicious, vicious, and virulent breed of terrorist this planet has seen. With one stroke of a pen, he can pay congress to enact a minimum of 60 million American citizens into the ranks of the criminal. Your rights are reduced, as you are obviously a criminal, and you have no recourse, as you cannot afford $250.000 for a defense.

Jack Valenti is a traitor to the constitution of the United States, and should be arrested, charged, and tried for that treason.

Re:"Enshrined in our Constitution."

[smchris]

It's gotten pretty interesting in a purely scholarly way. We have a backlogged stockpile of literally 100 years of audio and video entertainment now. I mean, how much can a person consume? Entertainment _should_, by economic laws of supply and demand, be as cheap as tap water.

Ergo, draconian protectionism. Something has to give.

Another excuse for throwing your enemies in jail.

[Anonymous Coward]

Million and millions of Americans take part in the sharing of illegal programs/music/movies on the internet, often without their knowledge. At the risk of sounding hackneyed, this kind of law makes it even easier for "Big Brother" to throw potential troublemakers in jail.

Definately the wrong answer...

[gaijin99]

Prison sentences for non-violent crimes seem like a bad idea from every angle I look at them. Prison sentences for stealing a single copy of the new Madonna song sound incredibly stupid.

"Sharing" music on a P2P network is stealing, yes, but under what odd twisting of logic can it be worse than shoplifting the CD?

We are seeing the music industry going steadily more insane every day, and when something with that much money goes mad life gets interesting. Piracy isn't right, but it is inevitable during the transition between the RIAA and whatever distribution/compensation model we invent to replace it. Draconian laws with punishments as inappropriate as this one wants are definately not the solution to theft of music.

I find it especially ironic that the same congress that can't seem to punish the aristocrats who steal millions from their employees wants to send people to jail for up to ten years for stealing a little music...

Re:Definately the wrong answer...

[Paddyish]

"Sharing" music on a P2P network is stealing, yes, but under what odd twisting of logic can it be worse than shoplifting the CD?

Sharing on a P2P network is not stealing. Copyright infringement is a completely different issue. Jail time is definately the wrong "solution".

boy, they have balls...

[Roger Keith Barrett]

...the P2P companies are trying to ransom the entertainment industries into accepting their networks as a distribution channel and source of revenue.

This is HILARIOUS! They're accusing P2P "companies" of trying to get a monopoly on music distribution? Isn't that a little like Napoleon accusing Hitler of being a dictator? Holy tamoly, these guys got balls.

Secondly... the fact that they use "companies" shows once again that they don't get it. Computer networks don't have to be sponsored by companies! These lawmakers are so deluded that they not only do they allow corporations to overrun the country, they refuse to acknowledge that indviduals even exist anymore.

It gets worse every day...

Consituents speak out

[plankers]

The way to stop this sort of thing is to be a constituent of Hatch or Leahy. If you are one, make it clear to them that they will not get re-elected with behaviour like this. And then tell your neighbors, friends, coworkers, etc. what these two guys are up to, and ask them outright to never vote for them again.

The rest of the country cannot get these two corrupt, entertainment industry pawns out of office. Only Vermont and Utah residents can. Do not re-elect these two. While it might seem they are doing good, they are doing long-term damage to the country, including your states.

Send a message to Leahy [senate.gov]

Send a message to Hatch [senate.gov]

Please do it now before these two turn the U.S. citizens into entertainment industry criminals and slaves, and infect every other nation with these ideas.

A serious question.

[mcc]

Out of curiousity.

Some time ago on Slashdot the possibility of a "geek PAC" was discussed.

This is a quesiton somewhat along the same lines. Essentially:

Exactly how much money would it require to do whatever necessary to* remove Mr. Orrin Hatch from a position of legislative power in the United States government?

I think you could find a variety of private citizens, from a number of corners, who would be ecstatic to donate to such a cause, due to the probable benefit it would have in terms of protecting the civil rights, artistic expression, and technological progress of this nation. Slashdotters annoyed at his attempts to introduce increasingly violent anti-file-sharing bills are just the tip of the iceberg.

* legally

I would give to EFPAC

[tepples]

Not practical. Look at the diversity of opinion on SlashDot

OK, then how about an Electronic Frontier PAC? NORML (the weed law reform organization) has both a charity and a PAC; why can't EFF?

Yay us!

[Spad]

Slashdotting the US Senate webserver - that's got to be a new high point for /.

amazing,,

[Roger Keith Barrett]

It's really amazing...

When jobs are oursourced overseas or we bring people in with H1 visas they tell us "let the free market decide" and that we shouldn't be "protectionist."

But when one of their corporate buddies starts to have a problem, they pull out the guns. It goes for music as well as drug companies (not allowing us to reimport drugs from Canada is definitely protectionist).

Boy... how long can any of us hold out faith in our government?

Great

[Azureflare]

Now, what does this bill accomplish?

Does it go after the big time pirates?

No, because those big time pirates are in other countries.

This bill will enable companies to destroy families by throwing the 16 year old kid in jail for sharing expensive applications.

What harm are file sharers doing to society? Why does their action warrant time in court and/or prison?

I fail to see how this will even help corporations who see piracy as a problem. Often the reason people download expensive software is because they can't afford the price. Sure, that's no excuse, BUT will those companies see increased revenue as result of these actions?

So, what does throwing these kids in jail accomplish?

It just makes our government look like it is under the thumb of the corporate world.

Actually, I think this is good, in a way. Perhaps it will start to move more people towards Open Source applications, where downloading software is not illegal. I honestly think the reason Windows is so popular is because of the initial ability of users to easily pirate the operating system.

I pray for a day in which people will not be put in jail for downloading programs. Perhaps 2005 really is the year of linux?

Read the article before submitting it

[humblecoder]

If you are going to criticize the PIRATE act, first do your homework and learn about it.

The PIRATE Act bill, the one sponsored by Sens Hatch and Leahy, gives the DOJ the power to pursue civil cases against file sharers. According to the article and Sen Hatch's remarks, it does not have the provisions about "up to 10 years in prison" or any of that stuff. According to the article, those provisions are part of a draft bill that hasn't been introduced. The description in the slashdot posting imply that these provisions are part of the PIRATE Act, which they are not.

It may seem like splitting hairs, but if you start writing to your Congresspeople about the PIRATE Act, you will have more credibility if you actually know what you are talking about. If you start talking about provisions that aren't even in the bill, your letter will probably receive very little, if any, consideration.

huh?

[Ender77]

Weird, Part of it says that more powers needs to be given to law enforcement to combat "Piracy" but then it contridictoraly says that, most antipiracy legislation has been unseccessfull. Um, whats the point then?

Also, out of the blue it suddenly throws in pornography? What is it about republicans and this constant crusade to stop porn? Someone please contact this fool and tell him that PORN IS NOT ILLEGAL! Sorry, when they start going after our porn, thats when they have GONE TOO FAR! :)

Draconian desperation

[Saeger]

The media cartels are obviously getting desperate if the best they can come up with is attempting to buy more draconian business-model-preservation law. First the DMCA and the NetAct, and now this.

I mean, 10 years for "expropriating" the potential sale of proprietary data that a judge deems "worth" more than $10,000? Give me a break. Actually, they probably will give me a break; 10 years is more than they want, and they'll compromise downward a bit for what they really wanted in the first place.

Still, the chilling effect of a law like this would only hasten the inevitable development of more secure P2P, and the spread of open source and open content [creativecommons.org].

Enforcing perpetual copyright is next to impossible [firstmonday.dk] without a global police state, and I'm much more likely to fund the Bruce Perens and Corey Doctorows of the world because they've earned my respect by choosing open licenses over the default "AllmineMineMINE!(C)(R)!".

--

So the kids will just start smoking pot again

[zakezuke]

America has enough in the way of issues with giving kids something to do. Dance clubs, live bands, and many forms of entertainment are 21+ only. This lack of entertainment gets worse the smaller the town.

I have nieces and nephews, and one thing I show them how to do is get media online. It sure beats drinking, doing drugs, and generally getting into trouble. Making what I perceive as a wholesom activity a criminal act will result in one less thing to do. Why risk 10 years in jail when you can just smoke some pot and risk only 2 years in jail?

Hatch's and Leahy's $$

[macdaddy]

For those that are interested...

Orrin Hatch [opensecrets.org]: TV/Movies/Music $152,360

Patrick Leahy [opensecrets.org]: TV/Movies/Music $178,000

Copyright assraping - always a bipartisan affair

[kaltkalt]

Remember when the Do-Not-Call anti-telemarketing registry was challenged by the terrorist marketing agencies and Billy Tauzin, chair of the House Commerce Committee, remarked that "50 million Americans cannot be wrong" (referring to the 50 million Americans who signed up for the Do-Not-Call Registry)? Well, taking that statement at face value, twice that many Americans download music off of the internet, so therefore downloading copyrighted material cannot be wrong simply because the threshold 50 million Americans do it. Of course, 50 million Americans can be wrong and usually are wrong, but at least with the telemarketing bill Congress was listening to the people. That's its job. Here, Congress is listening to special interest groups whose interests are anathema to much more than 50 million Americans. One more thing to notice is that the PIRATE Act, like all restrictive copyright legislation (such as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) that assfuck the rights of Americans, is sponsored by both a Republican and a Democrat. Screwing us on this issue is always a bipartisan affair. That's why these bills are never campaign issues. No matter which party you vote for, you are going to get screwed unless you are the RIAA or MPAA.

From Hatch's website

[focitrixilous P]

Indeed, our government recognizes that its enforcement powers are appropriate when protecting intellectual property and public safety. Recently, in a speech to the United States Chamber of Commerce, Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, Jr. asserted that the Department of Justice should assist private enforcement of intellectual property rights if any of three criteria are met: (1) the level of piracy becomes particularly egregious; (2) public health and safety are put at risk; or (3) private civil remedies fail to adequately deter illegal conduct.

When would that be? People aren't going around killing each other with p2p applications, nor do I know how that is even possible. What a moron. Let's put the blame on terrorism, way to go.

Auto-generated response

[Safety Cap]

"The `Protecting Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation Act of 2004' (aka the PIRATE Act) is designed to criminalize P2P filesharing by lowering the burden of proof for law enforcement and proposing jail terms of up to 10 years."

This article advocates a

( ) technical (x) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante

approach to fighting copyright violation. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work.
(One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may
have other flaws based upon your lack of understanding how the internet works.)

(x) People outside the reach of US law can easily continue to swap copyrighted works
( ) Networking and other legitimate p2p uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or slam him in the clink
(x) It is defenseless against encryption/sourcehiding
( ) It will stop p2p sharing for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of p2p networks will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from ISPs
( ) Assumes that no Freenet-style p2p networks will be developed
( ) Many p2p filesharers are children; when you bust them they will be paraded on TeeVee as an example of government excess
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(x) Lack of centrally controlling authority for the internet
( ) Open p2p networks in foreign countries
( ) Ease of developing circumventive technology
( ) Asshats
(x) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new laws
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all monitoring approaches
( ) Extreme availability of copyrighted files online
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
(x) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme intelligence of people who will fight you
( ) Kazaa

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on filename matching is unacceptable
(x) Network protocols should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Witchhunts suck
(x) We should be able to trade indi songs (that they themselves post to p2p) without being busted
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sharing any non-copyrighted files should be allowed
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatibility with open source or open source licenses
(x) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Roving bands of vigilantes tend to attack more innocent people than those who are committing crimes
( ) I don't want the government monitoring my net access
(x) Supporting a failed business model via the legal system is not sustainable over the long term (see SCO)

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
(x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.

Shifting cost away from RIAA/MPAA companies?

[thisissilly]

This is about Justice Department doing criminal prosecutions against P2P filesharers -- that means the RIAA/MPAA no longer have to foot the bill for lawyers to sue Joe Shmoe (x10000). Instead, as a criminal matter, the cost is born by the Justice Department, hence the US taxpayer winds up having to pay the bill, no matter how many lawyers it will take.

Winners and losers:

Justice Department gets more funding, more cases, can claim to be "tough on crime". Winners.

RIAA/MPAA no longer have to shell out bucks to sue people, they just report them to the Justice Department. Winners.

Court system, clogged already, gets further clogged with 1000s of P2P cases. Losers.

US Taxpayer has to pay for procsecuting P2P file shares. Losers.

P2P file sharers now get criminal records. Think about all the losses that brings in US society. In some states, that includes the right to vote. Big losers.

I've said it before, and I will say it again: the move of copyright infringment from civil law to criminal law is one of the most nasty and dangerous changes in recent copyright laws.

I hear that in some countries...

[Quiet Sound]

"The bill was introduced by Sens. Orrin Hatch and Patrick Leahy, both of whom received large contributions from the entertainment industries."

I hear that in some countries corruption is not only illegal but that corrupt politicians go to great lengths to hide their crookedness. Probably just a rumor though.

Translation of "Article"

[Artega VH]

Mr. President, I rise to join Senator Leahy in sponsoring the Protecting
Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation Act (the "PIRATE Act"), a
measure that will provide the Department of Justice with tools to combat the
rampant copyright piracy facilitated by peer-to-peer filesharing software.

Mr. President, I'm going to join with Senator Leahy and prove once and for all
that democrats and republicans are equally as corrupt when enough money is
waved under our noses. Our "owners" would like to stop people giving away
works which don't actually belong to them, but yet, they make a considerable
amount of money from as they signed prohibitively restrictive contracts
with the actual copyright owners. My "owners" would like to continue to
make money (and short of being given access to the money printing press)
want to prevent a tool which can actually harm their monopoly by providing
an efficient way for independant artists to distribute their works.

Let me underscore at the outset that our bill does not expand the scope of the
existing powers of the Department of Justice to prosecute persons who infringe
copyrights. Instead, our proposal will assist the Department in exercising
existing enforcement powers through a civil enforcement mechanism. After
considerable study, we have concluded that this is the most appropriate
mechanism.

Some of us want to lock these pirates up and throw away the key, but others
want to keep them hooked to my "owners" products. So basically we've decided
we want to destroyt their current lives, and still give them a chance to
buy our stuff.

Peer-to-peer file sharing software has created a dilemma for law-enforcement
agencies. Millions of otherwise law-abiding American citizens are using this
software to create and redistribute infringing copies of popular music, movies,
computer games and software.

We think that millions of law-abiding americans are criminals but don't want
to come out and say it like that, so we'll back-hand them instead.

Some who copy these works do not fully understand the illegality, or perhaps the
serious consequences, of their infringing activities. This group of filesharers
should not be the focus of federal law-enforcement efforts. Quite frankly, the
distributors of most filesharing software have failed to adequately educate the
children and young people who use their software about its legal and illegal
uses.

We don't want to harm the stupid ones since they probably don't know how to
cause serious harm anyway. And since most of my constituents are as thick
as two planks and I'd like to be re-elected I don't want this either.

A second group of filesharers consists of those who copy and redistribute
copyrighted works even though they do know that doing so violates federal law.
In many cases, these are college students or young people who think that they
will not get caught. Many of these filesharers are engaging in acts that could
now subject them to federal criminal prosecution for copyright piracy.

There do exist a group of people that would probably never vote for me anyway,
as they think I'm a complete turd, and who happen to be poor because our education
system is up shit creek without a paddle but still enjoy listening to music and
watching movies so they do share alot of these copyrighted works. They know its
wrong but since we continually shaft them most of the time anyway they do it
as a type of protest. Basically we want them to stop.

... But recently, some unscrupulous corporations may have exploited new technologies
and discovered that the narrow scope of civil contributory liability for
copyright infringement can be utilized so that ordinary consumers and children

Re:Ways around this

[DRUNK_BEAR]

Hello, this is your wake up call to reality. Do you really think a clause will stop law enforcement from finding criminals? Then commit a crime and put a clause on your doorstep that no law enforcement is to enter your home. Stay inside your home and get someone to do your stuff for you (groceries, etc). You should then be able to get away with free crimes!! Right???

Re:Ways around this

[nertz_oi]

are you joking?

read this [snopes.com] please.

Re:Best legal system money can buy..

[turnstyle]

Hmmm, doesn't anybody remember when the EFF used to argue that we shouldn't hold P2P tech accountable for how some may misuse it? And that they themselves suggestted suing infringers [com.com] rather than the technology?

Re:Best legal system money can buy..

[iminplaya]

Suing is one thing. Jail is quite another. Current copyright law protects the industry at the expense of the artist, and is worthy of nothing but contempt. As long as these kinds of laws remain on the books, all law becomes contemptable.

Re:Best legal system money can buy..

[Minna Kirai]

That is plainly wrong.

It's not so plain either way. There's plenty of truth in his claim.

For example, current copyright law has terms of 97 years. Only "the industry", in the form of large corporations, can profit from anything for that long of a time. The artists would get paid the same regardless of copyright lasting 15 years or 100.

Nobody plans out more than 10 years when considering an attempt to profit from creativity, whether by writing a novel or hiring a singer. All copyright revenues past 15-20 years is just free money for big publishers. (And the more money they collect from Elvis, the less they need to pay to today's performers)

Three problems

[tepples]

Copyright law protects the copyright holder, whether that happens to be a record company ... or the artists themselves

I see practical problems with this reasoning, based on the inability for an individual songwriter to retain the copyright and succeed in the music business:

• National brick-and-mortar retail chains tend to carry only recordings by "those artists who have signed away their rights."
• Commercial radio tends to play only recordings by "those artists who have signed away their rights," and I know of no promotion mechanism other than commercial radio that reaches captive listeners in moving vehicles in geographic areas whose FM spectrum is too crowded to admit college radio (such as my hometown).
• A singer-songwriter who hasn't signed up with a publisher the size of Warner Chappell often has trouble gaining access to expert musicologists who can verify whether or not a given song is in fact original, given that the space of legally unique melodies is provably finite [slashdot.org] and that commercial radio taints all listeners with "access", so he has no way of knowing whether it's safe to record a particular song that he wrote. If you don't believe me, ask the estate of George Harrison (read more [columbia.edu]).

Re:Best legal system money can buy..

[MacDork]

How exactly is the Government footing the bill for the RIAA's civil suits?

Ummm, I don't know, maybe by having the DOJ provide the lawyers and do the suing for them? Quoting Leahy's press release:

The Protecting Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation Act (PIRATE Act) would extend DOJ's current authority to permit its filing of civil copyright infringement cases. [senate.gov]

Wow! Now the RIAA doesn't even have to sue. Big Brother will do it for him.

Re:Best legal system money can buy..

[Anonymous Coward]

Suggests that something is wrong with the legal system when a man proven innocent in one court can then be found guilty in another court for a crime the law already said he didn't commit.

Re:one solution..

[ewhac]

Apart from armed rebellion, voting is the only meaningful feedback mechanism you have, and is considerably less messy, so I suggest you use it.

The press has been bought off. Shame is obsolete. Overt corruption has somehow morphed into an asset. Bald-faced lying to the public no longer surprises anyone, much less gets anyone in hot water. And, if you're not careful, voting will become just another CBS/Gallump/Diebold opinion poll, with every bit as much scientific and moral validity.

Don't give up the last lever you have.

Schwab

Another example I ran across today

[coltrane679]

http://www.wpxi.com/news/2954803/detail.html

Wh at ever happened to telling a kid's parents, and letting them kick her ass? Or just exposing her to public shame? Does everything have to involve draconian penalties imposed by the almighty nanny state? The prosecutor fabricates TWO very serious felonies to deliver "justice"--what a joke. The funny thing is, under this logic, if she just took the pictures of herself, and did nothing more, she would still be guilty of the "possession" felony!

Re:It's only "their" files

[rokzy]

>Would your disdain change at all if it was your single file that was being shared?

there's a response to this kind of argument (as seen on The West Wing):

-if your son/daughter were murdered, wouldn't you want the death penalty for the accused?
-yes, and that's why I don't think that victims' parents should be on the jury

this is the basis of being judged by your peers, not your victims, a principle which is all but lost in corporate-controlled America (and other countries)

Re:It's only "their" files

[FullCircle]

My problem is that the fine for shoplifting, or ACTUALLY stealing the CD, carries a minimal fine and a small mark on your record. Possibly a short stay in jail.

Why is it that when the "Intarweb" is involved, legislators suddenly lose touch with reality?

Yes, the record companies do have the right to protect their content. Those laws have been in place for years and did not lock people away for 10 years over 1 track from a $1 CD that they charge $20 for.

The punishment should fit the crime.

Declaration of war?

[Openstandards.net]

"Tens of thousands of continuing civil enforcement actions might be needed to generate the necessary deterrence." -- US Senator Orrin Hatch The "tends of thousands" phrase sounds more like a declaration of war against the citizens of America by the increasingly corporate owned government of ours. When 1.5 million people are downloading today in America, most of which are law abiding citizens that don't traffic in drugs, commit violent crimes, and pay for their groceries. Could this have happened if the RIAA and MPAA were not busy purchasing our congressional representatives? How do we stop this? I don't just mean the bill, I mean how do we stop the trend. How do we get politicians to represent the people again? One question I have is how are we a representative democracy if we are no longer represented? After years of this news growing, I still have not seen a coordinated large-scale effort to restore balance in our government so that it truly represents the people, and respects our principals. While I consider myself a free market capitalist, and personally choose not to download music that the creators do not offer for free, I completely disagree with treating the American people as dissidents, as this bill and other are increasingly doing. Is China becoming more like us, or are we becoming more like them?

Declaration of war

[Openstandards.net]

"Tens of thousands of continuing civil enforcement actions might be needed to generate the necessary deterrence." -- US Senator Orrin Hatch

The "tends of thousands" phrase sounds more like a declaration of war against the citizens of America by the increasingly corporate owned government of ours. At a minimum, it sounds like a crackdown on "dissidents". When 1.5 million people are downloading today in America, most of which are law-abiding citizens that don't traffic in drugs, commit violent crimes, and pay for their groceries.

Could this have happened if the RIAA and MPAA were not busy purchasing our congressional representatives?

How do we stop this? I don't just mean the bill; I mean how do we stop the trend. How do we get politicians to represent the people again?

One question I have is how are we a representative democracy if we are no longer represented?

After years of this news growing, I still have not seen a coordinated large-scale effort to restore balance in our government so that it truly represents the people, and respects our principals.

While I consider myself a free market capitalist, and personally choose not to download music that the creators do not offer for free, I completely disagree with treating the American people as dissidents, as this bill and other are increasingly doing.

Is China becoming more like us, or are we becoming more like them?