RIAA Wants Right To Hack

An Anonymous Coward writes: "According to Wired, the recording industry wants the right to hack into your computer and delete your stolen MP3s." From the article: "It's no joke. Lobbyists for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) tried to glue this hacking-authorization amendment onto a mammoth anti-terrorism bill that Congress approved last week. A copy of an RIAA-drafted amendment obtained by Wired News would immunize all copyright holders -- including the movie and e-book industry -- for any data losses caused by their hacking efforts or other computer intrusions 'that are reasonably intended to impede or prevent' electronic piracy." Does this give you the right to crack RIAA systems to make sure no one there is selling copies of your term paper?

Comments

Farenheit 451 is here early.

[dave-fu]

If this story is true (and I doubt it is, as seen with The Register's recent retraction) then it's the scariest freaking thing I've heard of in a long time. Don't want people surreptitiously going behind my back and torching my legitimate (some of us rip our own CDs, thankyouverymuch) music collection on my hard drive.
Running with the possibility that this is true, hopefully the folks who would hack into peoples' computers will be tried as terrorists under the US's spankin' fresh new bills.

Question for the RIAA + Justice dept.

[Rob.Mathers]

Under the proposed anti-terrorism laws, wouldn't this make the RIAA a terrorist organisation?

Making your own MP3s for hacking

[Midnight Thunder]

If this got through then in theory a hacker could create their own 'tune', copyright it and let it wander the net. Then after a couple of months claim that the reason they were breaking into the FBI computer was to check that they didn't have any illegal copies of your MP3.

Are we really surprised?

[spacefem]

We all saw this coming, but that's beside the point, you know what my main thought is today?

Who are these people?

They have that much time on their hands that they're willing to hack into individual people's computers to look for their files?

At dinner parties, do they go off about mp3's and how every college kid is going to kill the record industry?

Movements like this say "passion" to me, they're passionate about their copywrites, it's what they eat, sleep, and breath. Do they have nothing better to do? Are there this many idiots in the world?

Maybe I just haven't seen enough corporate America yet, but I can't believe people make their lives out of something this petty.

Re:Are we really surprised?

[Ogerman]

And yes, once you've been in corporate America, you'll see that this shitty money grabbing politics happens all the time. Enjoy college while you can.


Then don't work for 'corporate America,' silly. There's no law saying you have to. What's more important? -- living in a giant-box two story house in the suburbanite jungle with two cars and an SUV or fighting for freedom and goodness and doing your best to help make the world a better place by helping others. That's not to say all corporate jobs are bad or that all big business is corrupt, but in the areas geeks gravitate towards (in which 'intellectual property' is the focus), you really have to weigh the ethical pros and cons with who you work for. Money and success matter not. PEOPLE matter. Don't waste your life. Enjoy college while you can, then go make a difference.

Re:Are we really surprised?

[No-op]

For some people, we don't have the choice of throwing away money just to help people. not everyone comes from pristine beginnings and has the luxury of an all expense paid visit to collegeland.

I busted my ass working 2 jobs to get through school and I sold my soul the minute I could. that paid for things like a working car, a clean house, good food, and other things I never had until then.

I'm all for helping people and working to better the community but please realize that the lower on the food chain you are, the less idealistic your goals tend to be. homeless people don't worry about your MP3s or your digitally-encrypted whatever. they care about food, warm places to sleep and other basics.

sometimes there's a certain degree of perspective to be gained.

ROFL! oh wait...its not april fool's day.

[fjordboy]

Ok, something like this begs several questions: First of all, how would they determined that the mp3s and whatnot on my computer aren't legal? I happen to own cds for almost every single mp3 on my computer.

Second of all, how would they go about hacking into our computers? If these guys are stupid enough to come up with such an idiotic proposal, how can we expect them to be able to hack a 386 running windows 3.1 on a network running win NT with no patches applied?

To get to the point, this is the stupidest idea I think i've ever heard in my life.

So let me see

[haplo21112]

Hacking is terrorism, but Hacking to defend copyrights is legal if you have enough Cash to by a Congressman, and get him to make legislation that says so? Have I got that right?

Re:So let me see

[imadork]

Hacking is terrorism, but Hacking to defend copyrights is legal if you have enough Cash to by a Congressman, and get him to make legislation that says so? Have I got that right?

Remember, one man's Terrorist is another man's Freedom Fighter.

Re:So let me see

[Twylite]

Terrorism involves the murder of innocents, terrorism is for cowards who have no respect for human life.

Innocence is subjective. As is terrorism.

America is bombing a nation that has supported terrorism against America. It does this after imposing sanctions against a country allied to that nation, sanctions that are causing slow death as millions starve. This act forms part of the motive for the terrorism against America. In bombing Afganistan, America is inflicting further civilian casualties.

Where is the respect for human life? America is as much to blame for murdering innocents as Bin Laden or the Taliban. Yet few people see it this way: economic sanctions, although often more crippling than all-out war, are socially acceptable. Bin Laden struck at the heart of America's economic power; an 'appropriate' response to abuse of that power.

Terrorism comes in many forms.

Re:So let me see

[WNight]

And US soldiers dropping bombs to kill Osama, who accept a few civilian casualties along the way... that's freedom fighting right? Because they kill civilians who aren't you.

Re:So let me see

[SubtleNuance]

After having bombed 15 seperate countries, in less than the last 30 years, killing 3,000,000 civilians (yes civilians), Id say that *America* is a rogue nation run by terrorists and tyrants.

Your being an American might feel that every one of those acts was justified, honourable and morally defensible. (why you think this way is a much bigger issue...)

Now, one mans freedom fighter is another mans terrorist starts to seem a little more clear.

Religion is a simple matter of geography - as is politics - when people assume absolute positions tainted by ethnocentrism and ignorance you see conflict like what is happening now, afterall, who many americans think that the 'founding fathers' that gave birth to the American REVOLUTION were not "TERRORISTS" to the Brits? USofA has a short memory and is a perfect example of why 'one mans freedom fighter is another mans terrorist.'

Not really

[GigsVT]

The RIAA just wants to be exempt from the new cyberterrorism regulations in the anti-terrorism bills.

They are afraid what they do all the time will be classified as cyberterrorism.

So really, even the RIAA is afraid of these new cyberterrorism regulations, and is trying to get their own loopholes put in.

Red Herring

[nyjx]

The wired article says that ammendment ddin't get through. Interestingly (from the wired article): "We might try and block somebody," Glazier said. "If we know someone is operating a server, a pirated music facility, we could try to take measures to try and prevent them from uploading or transmitting pirated documents."

It seems unlikely that hacking the individual machines would be the best solution for this (even if the law were to allow it). The cost would be very high. Much cheaper to do what they are now doing:

• Leaning on ISPs to cut off "abusing" users (without comeback - see previous slashdot stories)
• Suing the larger sites (napster obviously)
• Trying to stifle decryption technology.

In the long run these are likely to be 95% effective if the succeed. If their wording were to ever pass into law they would just be setting a dangerous precedent for anybody to go and explore somebody else's machine. I'm just off to RIAA's web site to "check" if they have a copy of my (copyrighted) memoires on the server...

Dangerous to respond/

[joshtimmons]

I worry about this scenario:

1. RIAA starts portscanning my box, testing buffer overflow exploits, etc. in an attempt to get into my system.
2. I notice the suspicious activity, but don't know who it is.
3. I decide to figure out what's going on by scanning the originator and applying other various security tools. This could be anything, but if someone is trying to get in and I don't know who it is, I'm going to be tempted to respond in some way to stop the attack.
4. I get convicted of a felony (in many states) or terrorism (hasn't passed yet) for trying to hack into the RIAA's system.
5. They don't even get a slap on the wrist because it's legal for them.

My point is that it puts knowledgable people in a very risky position because they don't know who is attacking their PC and would naturally try to respond.

Re:Time to get active

[fjordboy]

"STOP SUPPORTING THE RIAA"

Unfortunately, this is what Joseph Heller would call a Catch 22. One of those damned if you do, damned if you don't scenarios. If people stop buying stuff from RIAA members...then the problems would be even more dire. Then they would have "proof" that piracy is increasing because their sales are going down and people are obviously pirating the music they want. See? Either way is inefective. Sorry. I wish that would work...it would be a somewhat easy solution...get your way through economic pressure.

Re:This feature is built into the WIN XP license

[TeknoHog]

Who the fuck does MS think that they are putting something in the license that says that they can control what I have on my computer just b/c i use their OS? Excuse me but I own my computer, I own my HD, and I own their OS. They don't own me.

"The things you own end up owning you." - Tyler Durden

Re:did anyone actually read the proposed amendment

[mkoenecke]

Wrong. Read it again. "Impairment of the availability of data, a program, a system or information" (translation: Damage done to your programs/OS/data) IS hacking. What the amendment really says is that if such damage is caused to your computer, if the RIAA REASONABLY INTENDED to prevent the "unauthorized transmission" of copyrighted work (translation: if they thought you might be sharing MP3's), they cannot be held liable for the damages. Sure, they're trying to block transmissions. The problem is that the amendment says that they may do so with impunity; any damage they cause while attempting to do so, *whether or not justified* (only has to be "reasonable" intent) is *your* problem.

WAR OPPORTUNISM OF THE WORST SORT

[YIAAL]

The Bush Administration and the press had better be all over the RIAA and its Congressional sponsors. I can't think of a faster way to discredit the war on terrorism than opportunism like this.

Doesn't this remind you of a witch hunt?

[AntiFreeze]

I get it now... according to the RIAA, I'm guilty until proven innocent. They want to be able to crack my system in order to prove me innocent. Oh, and if they fry my system, sorry, but I can't do anything about it.

RIAA: "Well, we thought she was a witch, so we tied her up and threw her in the ocean. See, witches float, so if she was a witch, she would have floated and then we could have killed her."

Inspector: "Uh..."

RIAA: "So anyway, she drowned. She wasn't a witch, so we don't see the problem."

Inspector: "So, you're admitting you killed an innocent woman?"

RIAA: "No, we simply proved she wasn't a witch and that there's nothing wrong with her."

Inspector: "By killing her???"


I hope my analogy is clear.