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RIAA Abandons Hacking Amendment
CJMClark writes "Looks like the RIAA has come to its senses (partially, at least). This update on Wired News apparently indicates that the RIAA has decided to back down from its earlier proposed amendment that would allow copyright owners to be absolved of responsibility for collateral damage due to hacking into an individual's PC to delete copyrighted files."
This has gotta be fictitious.
was simply a red herring. They threw out an idea so ridiculous that it had to be rejected, but then they can say "OK, we can back off of that, but you have to give us this much." The this in this case is probably none too pleasant either...
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
Regardless of their "failure" to get this passed, that doesn't mean they won't quit trying. Of course, the word's out now on what they tried to do. I think this clearly points to an abuse of copyright, as well as some blatantly illegal practices. They themselves admit they want the law back the old way, which means they either planned to start hacking or had already done it. What's it gonna take to get the DoJ to wake up and realize the companies that make up the recording industry are a worse trust as Microsoft?
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
This is one of the problems with lawmaking, that the legislature can throw whatever they want into a bill. Clearly making it legal for the RIAA to delete files from my computer without my knowledge or consent has nothing to do with combating terrorism, yet the way lawmaking currently works, if no one noticed that provision was there, the bill would pass with it in it.
Thanks,
Travis
forkspoon@hotmail.com
Uh, the reason why we do not let vigilante justice reign supreme, is because "evidence" is sometimes very subjective, and judicial oversight keeps witchhunts from occuring.
And those "pirate" servers are usually small to medium sized businesses servers who would lose money and time if you "shut them down". The servers are being hijacked, but you would probably say it is their problem since they didn't patch their crappy Micro$oft serverware they probably pirated in the first place.
Of course you probably know these things which is why you posted your flamebait as an AC. And here I am, hook, line, and sinker.
...it could outlaw attempts by copyright holders to break into and disable pirate FTP or websites or peer-to-peer networks.
... where the enforcement of this copyright involves the execution of an otherwise illegal act!
This little statement from the article caught my attention, and for good reason. Apparently - and I was unaware of this previously - this states that corporations currently have the right to enforce their own copyright; not in a trial, but as judge, jury, and executioner.
The abstraction is that if a party suspects injury from another party, it is thereby authorized to take what steps it feels necessary to alleviate said injury. Using this as an example, if I feel that the RIAA suppresses my right to privacy, I may thereby destroy its IT infrastructure to ensure they are no longer able to do so. (Of course, I would have to incorporate myself, first.) Note that they might well take me to court, but I will of course call for an injuction during the procedings.
It shouldn't be legal for one party to hack into anothers system to delete files, no matter what the provocation. These people sound like the pigs from Orwell's Animal Farm
That kind of thinking is both disgusting and dangerous!
...in the last 20 years. Pressure group floats a ridiculous and unbelievable trial balloon. Public outcry ensues. Pressure group "retreats" to a "compromise" position, showing its "reasonableness" to legislators and the courts. The so-called "compromise" position is 120% of what the presssure group wanted in the first place, to give them a little more wiggle room.
I think you can be pretty sure this will be followed by a similar proposal, probably slipped under the radar screen by a pet legislator.
sPh
This is why we HAVE law enforcement, so we don't have to rely on vigilante justice. This isn't the old west anymore.
"Da ist ein Technölüst in mein Unterpanten!"
But it does not give you the "right" to go to that criminals house and retrieve your stuff, that is the job of the PROPER AUTHORITIES...
RIAA does NOT fall under that category
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Your rights get violated. Guess what, you need to go to court to get this fixed. How much time and money can you spend on court versus BigCorporateEntity/Watchgroup/Association? By the time all this is settled, a new law striping more rights away is in place. Ready for round two?
It seems nowdays that they quite literally are the law. Any law they are willing to pay for, that is. Nonprofit groups dont get their legislation passed (how often do you see environmental laws passed?) but corps do.
I find this increasingly disturbing.
Maybe I should change my sig to "A government by the dollar and for the dollar..."
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
For its part, the RIAA is still trying to get a copy of its revised amendment -- that it would not provide a copy of -- included in the anti-terrorism bill called the USA Act.
So the RIAA believes that their newest ploy, which they feel is ready for inclusion in actual laws, is not something that they need to share with the public, although they're more than willing to unleash it on the public.
It's lobbying like this that is completely destroying our government. Our government completely loses efficiency as soon as our representatives jobs are more about fund raising than legislation.
Of course, with all of the war hullabaloo, we're not going to hear about any of the other new legislation that is being passed for the next 6 months to a year, if not longer -- Condit distracted us while they killed off campaign finance reform, Lewinsky distracted us while they made the initial changes necessary to open up the Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling -- the only thing I fear more than the physical repercussions of this war are the things that they will try to slip past us while the media is dancing on a pin trying to dig up any news from the middle east -- we need homeland security against our own government -- it should be the media, but we can't trust them.
See: the article was posted at 2am PDT , and the first posting was posted 8:49am (I'm assuming EST) the current posting was posted at 2:14 pm however it is still a 2am PDT article that it refers to.
Here's how it goes (the original posting was more accurate.):
RIAA abandons hacking amendment, seeks new amendment.
or, in other words:
The king is dead, long live the king.
Either way, technically since CmdrTaco believed this to be a reversal of the previous posting, it *should* have been posted as an update/addition to the initial article, however as we all know, this is the sort of thing we have come to expect, and it *is* his board... and well, he can do whatever he wants with it.. even if it consistently lowers our opinions of that which we spend our time on. Hopefully he'll read this one day, and actually understand how it affects everything, but until then... maybe I'll just get some karma for this posting... but then again... *sigh*
You have the right to make archival copies. The DMCA has taken away this right if you buy materials that have a copy protection scheme in place, but this has yet to be challenged in court. I find it hard to believe that a court challenge would allow this new law to continue, but of course challenging the law would require having lawyers who could stand up to the RIAA.
Basically, it's another case of corporations purchasing "illegal" legislation through lobbying, while knowing full well that even if they're passing unconstitutional laws, they're economically untouchable.
Until we get some campaign finance reform rolling in this country, it's only going to get worse.
I won't even get into the argument as to whether or not the RIAA should be allowed to infiltrate people's computers in an effort to remove all copyright-infringed mp3s. What I want to know is, how the hell would they know what I have in my 'CD Case' and what I don't have. When I rip my CDs, I take the default settings, which usually includes leaving the copyright information blank. How would the RIAA know whether or not I actually have the CD, where the fair-use policy would allow me to have a digital 'copy' of that song.
You can walk into a Waterbeds N' Stuff store and buy a bong. Sure we all know who uses them, but they are allowed to sell them because there is a legal use for the item. You can smoke tobacco in it. I know most law-enforcement agencies will consider that to be drug paraphenilia, but would just the act of buying one allow the DEA to bust your door down and search your sugar jar for crack or marijuana?
There needs to be a line drawn between fair-use and probable cause. Just like it's illegal to shoot someone with a gun, it doesn't mean that I'm going to do that just because I own a gun.
Maybe we should crack into the RIAA's computer to make sure that some of the money that we spend on their $20 CDs are actually going to the artists. What proof do we have? None.
Does anyone out there have any relatively accurate statistics about how much (if at all) the RIAA's sales have dropped since the inception of services like Napster and Gnutella. Maybe if they would stop being such greedy bastards they would increase their sales. There's no way in hell I'm going to pay $15-$20 for a cd that has maybe 1 or 2 good songs on it.
And they said zombies weren't real!
None of this applies. The Constitition is a contract between the Federal government and its citizens ONLY. It does not restrict what one citizen (say, the RIAA) can or cannot do to another (say, you).
As far as I understand, when you purchase a CD (or other form of music media) you are purchasing the 'right' to listen to that CD as well as reproduce the content of that CD for personal use. A perfect example of this would be converting my CD collection into mp3 format, to then transfer onto a single CD, to then play in my Car MP3 player. In this case, I own the CD's, but I am listening to the content of those CD's in a different format.
If that is considered fair-use, my question to you is: Why are CD's now coming out that are unconvertable to any other format? I was always under the consideration that when you bought a CD you bought the right to listen to the music in any format you choose. With the new so-called "anti-piracy" features added to CD's that are now being manufactured, I can no longer easily turn the CD tracks into mp3 format to play in my car stereo.
Now, I can understand your point. With P2P file sharing applications running rampant, and the "free" mp3's available left and right, you need a way to combat that issue. However, I personally spent a lot of money to buy a car stereo that has the capability of playing mp3s that were burned onto a CDR. I love this feature, I can listen to hours upon hours of music without having to change a disc. It makes long road trips a lot easier.
With this new technology, in order to utilize my own right to listen to the CD that I purchased legally from an authorized distributor, I am forced to seek illegal means to circumvent your technology. I personally do not know anything about reverse-engineering, but I do sometimes rely on members of the underground hacking community to release ways to do this for me.
Another problem I have with the CD copy protection technology:
In my opinion, CD's are horrible technology. Personally, I think digital will never be able to compete with the sound quality of Analog. Besides that, my major problem with CDs (also DVD's) is the fragile nature of the actual physical media. They have to be handled with extreme care, one slight mistake and the media is rendered useless. To combat this problem, every CD that I purchase, I make a copy of it. I put the original back in the case, and I listen to my copy. If the copy gets scratched, big deal, I'll make another one. Using this method, I never have to worry about having to purchase another copy of a CD that technically, I already own the rights to listen to.
Finishing up, am I abiding by copyright laws using CDs in the manner that I do? When I purchase a CD, am I purchasing the right to listen to the media contained within the CD in any format I choose? or am I purchasing the right to listen to the CD in the CD format only?
One last question: If I own a vinly copy of an album, but do not have a record player, and I download an mp3 from that album for my listening pleasure, am I correct in doing so?
I know this horse has been beaten to thiry-seven deaths, but "the RIAA has decided to back down from its earlier proposed amendment". Huh? What state do they represent? I think it's sad that corporations can buy congressman. I think it's one of the most disgusting perversions of our democracy ever seen. However, what bothers me most is that statements like this are made, and people don't blink. Corporations, technically speaking, can't introduce or amend bills (only elected representatives can do that). In practice, however, that proves to be incorrect, and we accept it. Pretty sad...
jason
jason
Have a good day?! Impossible! I'm at work!
The sickening part of this is that the RIAA is essentially using the deaths of thousands of people as cover to expand their power.
No matter how bad copyright infringment may be, it is much less morally repulsive than using a tragedy like this to advance a political agenda. The RIAA has stooped to a new low.
Buy Hex-Rated Stuff, fight the DMCA!
they aren't backing down, they're re-wording it. According to the RIAA spokesman in the article, they're trying to include in the amendment, statements to the fact that they already have permission to do as they please, which they don't. Essentially grandfathering in their future practice retroactively. It's a legalese time-machine.
As unpopular as the anti-terrorist legislation
is on Slashdot, it seems that we all want
its protection for our own computer systems.
It seems now it's the RIAA who doesn't want
*their* hacking to be thought of as terrorism.
One thing that the article didn't mention was the definition of piracy. Traditionally, "piracy" with respect to a copyrighted work has meant the duplication and selling of a copyrighted work. Think of street vendors in Hong Kong selling copies of pirated software such as Microsoft Office for $5. However, there is a disturbing trend amongst the RIAA, MPAA and other industry cartels to make the definition of piracy as broad as possible, including many activities currently protected by law as fair use. Did you rip that MP3 off that CD you purchased? Ha, say the RIAA, you're a PIRATE!
This overuse of the term "piracy" must be stopped because many members of the public already believe that any copying of a coprighted work is "piracy" and "illegal". This is not the case.
To undermine the RIAA's and MPAA's attempt to take away our legal rights, I urge all Slashdotters to use the term "piracy" only in the strict narrow sense of selling illegal copies for profit. The ripping of a CD you own into MP3's for your own personal use is not piracy. Downloading MP3 copies from a web site is not piracy if you already own legal copies of the tracks on CD, cassette tape or vinyl LP. Downloading MP3's if you don't legally own the tracks already is not "piracy": use the more neutral term "copyright infringement" for this activity if no money changed hands.
I will digress for a moment to explain how language is used by coporations and other powerful people. "Piracy" is an emotive word, which is deliberately used to provoke emotion. It invokes images of jolly rogers and sword-wielding bandits on the high seas. If they didn't want to provoke emotion, they would use a neutral term such as "copyright infringement". In short, if it's something allegedly bad that you're doing to them, it's "ouch, ouch, use emotive language", but if it's something bad they're doing to you, it's "softly, softly, use neutral language."
I would be interested to see how "piracy" is defined in the proposed legislation. The chances are good, however, that "piracy" is defined as broadly as possible, including many acts traditionally protected as "fair use" such as copying for your own personal use.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke