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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?
Allow me to translate (I speak evil):
Contrary to what you may have seen, read or heard the recording industry never lobbied congress to give us the ability to hack into PCs, plant viruses, destroy MP3 files on people's computers, and worse. That is complete nonsense, and totally untrue.
We don't want to make laws so we can haX0rZ j00.
in fact, a number of companies have developed the technology for these technical measures. Some of them may already be in use, but at RIAA, we've been analyzing the law to make sure that using these technical measures would be completely lawful.
We just want to watch you. This may involve sending you some packets. And HaX0rzING j00! f3WL!
when we looked at it, we found that one of the provisions in this massive bill would have changed existing law in a way that would prevent us from using technical measures that would otherwise have been perfectly lawful.
Senate F3wLz wanted to outlaw our HaX0rZing.
The provision wasn't aimed at anything we were doing or thinking of doing.
Congress would never F with us, we own them.
this change in the law would have prevented us from using technical measures to protect copyrighted works.
Congress got all scared, goofed, and forgot which side their bread was buttered on, by passing a law that would keep us from HaX0ring evil pirate thieves who are costing us billions by not buying cds! Give to us your billions!
. The staff confirmed that the effect on us was inadvertent, and asked us to propose a fix, a "patch" to eliminate the problem for our industry.
When we stepped up, F3Wlz realized they'd better let us HaX0r you or else!
There is nothing unusual about what happened here
We buy these people all the time. You are powerless. Move along.
It's one thing to be criticized for what we do - that's fair game.
Ya, ya, we're Satan.
But to be vilified for what we don't do - that's very disheartening.
We weren't really going to HaX0rZ you - unless you hadn't noticed and we'd snuck it into the bill.
Half of what is written about us is just plain wrong.
Half of what is written about us true, and the other half is true too but we're spending billions to convince you otherwise.
Sincerely, the well paid evil people.