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Alternatives to the CBDTPA?
badBillStomper asks: "In the next few days I will be meeting with my Congresswomen to discus the effects of a Sen. Hollings CBDTPA on your average customer/techie. I have read tens (if not hundreds) of comments on the various OSDN sites explaining the very obvious reasons why the CBDTPA would cause a great deal of harm to the technology sector as well as consumers. Unfortunately the only postings/articles I have seen which offer a resolution to online piracy have been limited to ways in which the entertainment industry needs to change its business model. While this may be a valid argument, it does not provide a legislative alternative (something which many on Capitol Hill are scratching for). Therefore my question to the slashdot community is what new legislation would you support which would make those who engage in online piracy easier to track? Most internet users are familiar with the fact that someone with an intermediate amount of network knowledge can tap into data which is sent from one location to another. Vice President Al Gore was the first to link the internet to the idea of the 'information superhighway.' Since Americans are already used to this term, what would the effects of the creation of a kind of 'net traffic cops;' i.e. a law enforcement type of agency which monitors web traffic and fines individuals which break laws, i.e. distribute copyrighted information?"
The proposed solution is MUCH worse than the original law. A law that requires copy protection can be gotten around. It might make me a criminal to do so, but my chances of actually getting busted for it is quite slim.
On the other hand, a law which gives the government explicit permission to tap my net communications any time they like so they can check and see if I might be engaged in piracy is one of the most horrifying things I can imagine in terms of violations of civil liberties. It makes Carnivore insignificant. Christ! This idea makes Holling's proposed legislation look downright benevolent!
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Great, here come the thought police. For fsck's sake, when will politicians get something even close to resembling a clue? How the hell do they think they'll be able to monitor petabytes of information, in thousands of different encryption formats, being chaoticilly strewn about the world's networks? I think that such a thing is literally impossible. I for one will do everything I can to derail such notions. Dumbasses.
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
Not aiming to flame/troll, but frankly I do not see why it should be the government's responsibility. If the RIAA/MPAA are so concerned about piracy, then shouldn't -they- be the ones to fund some 'superhighway cops' to keep an eye on things and find those who are breaking the law? It's obvious from some quotes in the past by people like Hillary Rosen that both these industries are of the mindset that EVERYONE sharing ANYTHING is pirating or doing something illegal. If that's the case then let THEM invest in the money and staff to track people down. If they are crying so hard about the loss of their IP, then shouldn't they put the money and people into protecting it without screaming for legislation that will also harm consumers who have done nothing wrong? Not only will they see that sharing can be done legally, but they will spare the taxpayers who just want to listen to their CDs, watch their DVDs, and have a computer that's not a set-top box some money and a heap of aggravation.
--Kylus
Idiot-proof something, and Life will build a better Idiot.
They've consistently been rejected by the market, which should tell Congress something.
Current copyright law (flawed though it may be) gives copyright holders all the legislative muscle they need to bring suit against potential infringers. Anything above that gets into the realm of presumed guilt and having copyright holders in control of stuff they don't need to touch.
Tell your Congressfolk that there are already existing laws that need to be applied before adding new ones. I don't see the MPAA/RIAA/etc. actually attempting to go after violators with copyright law - the issue is one of control of content and technology, and the copyright issue is just the smokescreen.
They want to squash our Fair Use, so as a "comprimise" include a rider bill that requires any producer of physical content that does not allow fair use to require a 100% replacement gaurentee within 7 days of notification for the length of the copyright on the content (100 years now??).
This would be fair since it puts as much burdon on the associations of "content providers" as it does to the whole technology sector. Maybe some will then see how obsurd the whole thing is since they already have a good amount of protection.
The fundamental problem is that Content companies want more control over how we use their products. They are not currently allowed to dictate to us how we use their product, short of using things like the DMCA to force limitations on manufacturers(e.g. region coding).
It's one part this and one part that.
They need to aggressively enforce their copyrights to protect their content. A simple search on Google is frequently capable of turning up multiple violations. I don't understand why they don't have enforcement teams on the payroll that work in conjunction with lawyers and the local law enforcement to use copyright law to prosecute. Sure, it will give you a bad image with consumers, but people may actually become scared enough to start obeying copyright law. They may also start lobbying to get laws changed, but hey. The problem is not protection of their content, that's impossible as Bruce Schneier likes to tell us, since every protection scheme can be broken, but of enforcement.
Read my lips, no new laws.
Oh God, I hope so. Maybe they could use it to find some good writers.
No, something WILL happen, because in this case, it will be a law that corporations have to abide by. If you look at copyright, it's always by attacking corporations that the copyright holders fight their battle against pirace. Very seldom (if ever) are individuals taken to court for having a few illegal pieces of software or some downloaded MP3s.
The problem comes when a large business has these things, or even worse, distributes them. Look at the Napster case and the pending cases against other P2P software companies. The RIAA/MPAA DO NOT ATTACK INDIVIDUALS. What the CBDTPA will do is make sure that corporations follow the rules by only creating devices that comply with the legislation, therby limiting what a consumer will do. If a company produces a device that does not comply, the RIAA/MPAA are guaranteed to notice, and that comapny is guaranteed to be taken to court.
Legislation IS NOT the answer to this problem - copyright is a job for the courts, on a case by case basis. Copyright is not intended to limit consumer rights, which is what the CBDTPA will do. Copyright exists to protect content creators, but that protection is and should be limited in time and scope.
Regardless of the immediate consequences of Hollings' bill, it will open the door for more and more intrusions on our "right" to fair use (which is more of a historical trend than a right, and it should be treated as such. Fair use does not allow the copying of works we have not paid for or the distribution of copyrighted works to others without consent. In this light, much P2P software use is illegal, which ahs been shown in the courts.). The question is not how this bill, as horrible as it is, will affect us, but what is to come after it. I'm afraid of some day not being able to easily record MY guitar on MY computer without paying/contacting/registering with some central authority. It is in our FUTURE rights that the CBDTPA's true danger lies.
The time of day is 29:33.
I agree. Policing copyright infringement is not the responsibility of the government but the copyright holder. It is their responsibility to detect and to prove copyright infringement.
/. have shown that many people are already willing to pay about this amount (or more) to download a copy of a song that they want.
Another point:
"and fines individuals which break laws, i.e. distribute copyrighted information?"
Where would these fines come from? Copyright infringement has two types: Civil and Criminal. Criminal copyright infringement has set fines (the ones you see in a video's FBI warning) but the penalty for civil copyright infringment is only for damages. In other words, the cost of the CD or video. You have to make a significant amount of money before your copyright infringement becomes criminal. If you make no money at all from the transaction, your infringement is clearly civil.
In an extreme case scenario where such web tracking existed let's say that I am caught copying or providing a copy of a copywritten song. I am held accountable and under civil copyright penalties must pay the copyright holder damages. Let's see, average CD: $17, average # songs: 12 = $1.41 per song.
It seems foolish for anyone to press legal action for a dollar fifty which is why individual consumers are not busted.
Previous discussions on
How about if the industry just changes its business model and offers this as a service instead of making the government into big brother and the citizents into criminals?
(Sorry for posting AC, I'm on the kitchen computer)
Because, today, they have the technology. Just as piracy has been around for over 20 years, so has attempts to prevent it. Remember copy-protected floppy discs? How about VHS videos that skipped when you ran the signal through a second VCR? This is just the latest technology they can exploit to dishonestly maintain their market-share.
Especially a law that won't even solve the problem (wrt overseas pirates whose governments look the other way).
Teh best arguement is that legislation is not going to solve the problem. If they only sell hardware in this country that has protection methods but other countries don't I will get what I need from the other countries hurting U.S. Businesses. It's like throwing a small rock in the Mississippi and expecting it to stop the flow, the river will find another way, even if you use a very big rock.
I agree with this, in a way.
The original length of copyright was 14 years. Returning copyrights to this length would:
a) Allow better enforcement of copyrights with less public resources.
b) Eliminate most of the copyright grey areas, such as Emulation, Abandonware, sharing of classic music, etc. Most content that is exchanged in these grey areas is over 14 years old.
Fair use would need to be guaranteed, and we would need a guarantee that the content would be accessible to the public after this period. But the current "Forever plus five years" copyright term has no benefit to anyone, with the possible exception of Disney.
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
Ask Milton Freedman. This situation cries out for a market solution, not a legislative one. Why in hell should there be a legislative alternative?
In the first place, I've never pirated a song. Never visited Napster. So why should I pay a penalty - isn't this the land of "presumed innocent"? Used to be anyway.
On the other hand, its true that I haven't bought a CD in a while. That's because the content providers aren't selling anything I want, not because I'm a pirate. Eisner is an idiot if he thinks otherwise.
The way around what little piracy there is, is for the content providers to supply the market with what it wants. IMHO, that means selling songs one track at a time, for fractions of a dollar. They cannot continue to try to force consumers to buy 16 tracks on a CD to get the one track they want.
The content providers are creating the conditions for piracy. It they will change, so will piracy. If they don't change, no amount of legislation will change piracy. Ain't gonna happen.
So, tell me again why you think we need a legislative response to piracy?
Imagine if, a hundred years ago, the buggy whip manufacturing association and foreseen this day, and managed to convince the Congress that it must preserve their industry by law. That Henry Ford! He must be imprisoned for ruining our industry!
The major record companies (and less so, the major motion picture studios) are the buggy whip manufacturers of our day. At one time, record production was expensive. Large, expensive equipment was needed to mass produce musical recordings. An artist really had no choice but to sign up with a major label. A lot of maney was spent to manufacture and distribute music.
Today, the manufacture and distribution of music costs next to nothing. Yet the major record labels are charging more money than ever for their services.
The major record labels have had their day, just as the buggy whip manufacturers had their day. No one mourns the loss of the horse and buggy -- or almost no one. The major record labels' fate is the same.
They might try to legislate their place in the market, but even if they do, artists will eventually realize that the major record labels offer them nothing anymore.
I second the "Mod this guy up" clause.
I wrote a similar article on a few weeks back. It is simply unjust to force an entire industry to bear any of the burden of protecting an entirely different industry.
In a relationship like the entertainment industry has with the hardware industry, this is espescailly true. The hardware industry makes it possible for the entertainment to make any money at all; Now the entertainment industry wants to bite the hand that feeds it by forcing the hardware industry - which has already made it possible for the entertainment industry to become as large as it has - to be legislated into forking over the R&D+implementation money so that the entertainment industry can feel warm and fuzzy inside.
As long as there's a way to purchase electronic parts (eg. Radio Shack), somebody will distribute the plans on how to create devices to break any copyright scheme.
Although "privacy" advocates will be very much against it, the actual burden of enforcement falls on the heads of the entertainment industry, and the Federal Government (in the USA, at least).
I use the term "privacy" advocates sarcastcally simply because many aren't really interested in keeping their habits/information private, as they are interested in not getting caught
Personal rant:
Many Slashdotters want to mismatch the term privacy with breaking laws while remaining anonymous.
eg: File-sharing of copyrighted music is illegal. Yes, music is over-priced. Yes, the artists are not getting their fair share.
Shaking your fists at the net and screaming isn't going to change the legality of this. There is a big difference between justice and law.
Whether it is just for the entertainment industry to charge consumers so much and pay their artists, and support staff (audio engineers, etc.) so little has nothing to to do with the actual legality of how business is done. There have been plenty of unjust laws passed (and sometimes repealed) in the world.
Arguing that allowing downloading of music enhances CD sales is not an argument of why the law isn't valid. Providing the music industry a hidden benefit doesn't change the fact that the law on the books states that such activity is illegal.
What many people need to do is that although they believe that closed/proprietary/etc is "wrong," this is an ethical argument, and the law cares little about whether something is ethical or not. It cares if the rules have been obeyed. After that is satisfied, it will listen to an argument. But the purely philosophical argument that "information wants to be free" means exactly nothing in a court of law. Law states that whatever your belief on the justice of the law, distribution of any kind of copyrighted material is illegal. The law has the penalties outlined. Don't like it? Tough; You knew the rules and broke them anyway. Off to prision with you.
Sure, there's civil disobediance. Ghandi proved it. But he also spent a long time in prision for his beliefs.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Because politicians must do something about this problem that bothers their owne^H^H^H^Hlocal industry.
Is there any compromise between doing nothing and Disney's Law?
If they must pass a law... how about something along the lines of... If the owner of digital content places a unique serial number on a given bit of digital content it is illegal to remove or modify that serial number, and doing so has penalty X....
Sure, modifiying someone else's copyrighted works is already illegal, but this would allow people to modify their own works in a very specific way and still keep their copyright... it would also spell out a specific penalty for removing such a serial number.
With legal protection of serial numbers on digital content, lawsuits against the people who illegally release pirated content are possible. It's hard to sue every kid who has a pirated Brittney Spears CD, but this would help you sue the kid who made the original illegal copy.
The entertainment folks can then negotiate with the hardware manufacturers to get some sort of serial number scheme thet would be difficult to bypass... and the law would help stop the few people with the ability to bypass the technology.
Personally, I'd rather not have any more laws... I just tried to think of a way to let the entertainment industry save face, but avoid too many negative consequences... so please don't mod me as a troll just because I actually tried to answer the question... however, please do flame my idea all you want..
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
The pro-gun lobby has for years cited two issues: "Guns don't kill people, criminals kill people" and "there are legitmate uses for guns."
These same arguments, substituting computers for guns, media for people and pirate for kill becomes: "Computers don't pirate media, criminals pirate media" and "there are legitimate uses for computers."
I've personally been anti-gun for years, but I can't help but conceed that their arguments are solid. The put the focus of the discusion on the action and away from the tools.
As we consider file swaping legislation, we need to remember that the public debate need to remain on the action and away from the tool.
This is a boring sig
Make the wording more specific:
Any producer of digital content that is technologically protected in such a manner that does not allow license holders to exercise fair use rights must issue replacement or duplicate copies within 7 days of request by the license holder. Replacement or extra copies may not be witheld for any reason, and license holders may request up to 6 copies per year for the duration of the original owner's copyright. Users may request copies of the media in ANY format that the copyrighted material has been published in that is of equal or lesser quality to the format the content was licensed under.
In addition, all copyrighted material will, at the time of application for copyright, be placed in escrow in a high-quality unencrypted and unencumbered digital format (equivalent in quality to the highest-quality protected format the copyrighted material is released under) with the Library of Congress for immediate public domain release at the expiration of copyright. In the event that the original copyright holder ceases publication of the material prior to the expiration of the copyright, license holders may request up to 6 copies per year of the material from the Library of Congress' escrow copy.
How about asking them to pass this:
1. Users have the right to "time-shift" content that they have legally acquired.
This gives you the right to record video or audio for later viewing or listening. For example, you can use a VCR to record a TV show and play it back later.
2. Users have the right to "space-shift" content that they have legally acquired.
This gives you the right to use your content in different places (as long as each use is personal and non-commercial). For example, you can copy a CD to a portable music player so that you can listen to the songs while you're jogging.
3. Users have the right to make backup copies of their content.
This gives you the right to make archival copies to be used in the event that your original copies are destroyed.
4. Users have the right to use legally acquired content on the platform of their choice.
This gives you the right to listen to music on your Rio, to watch TV on your iMac, and to view DVDs on your Linux computer.
5. Users have the right to translate legally acquired content into comparable formats.
This gives you the right to modify content in order to make it more usable. For example, a blind person can modify an electronic book so that the content can be read out loud.
6. Users have the right to use technology in order to achieve the rights previously mentioned.
This last right guarantees your ability to exercise your other rights. Certain recent copyright laws have paradoxical loopholes that claim to grant certain rights but then criminalize all technologies that could allow you to exercise those rights. In contrast, this Bill of Rights states that no technological barriers can deprive you of your other fair use rights.
jello.
aka aron.
The goal of such a policy would not be to prevent all uncompensated use, nor would it attempt to punish each and every infraction. Rather, the purpose would be to define norms of lawful, honest behavior that allow for the full use and enjoyment of works in digital form, with compensation to rightsholders. Flaunting of these norms would not result in guaranteed penalty, but habitual, intentional violators would be at significant risk. Determined pirates could still evade the law, just as determined shoplifters, drug users, and tax evaders do today. But most Americans do pay their taxes, voluntarily, similarly encouraged by the carrot of doing the right thing and the stick of potential legal consequence. If the Federal government can raise more than a trillion dollars a year this way, is it that naive to imagine that we can actually get authors and other rightsholders compensated using the same approach?
It is *mathematically impossible* to have any sort of "secure" media format. Attempting to legislate it into existance is tantamount to legislating gravity away. IT CANNOT BE DONE. What you NEED to do is make certian that she understands this simple fact of nature. There is no possible legislation that will work. None at all. The reason why people advocate the changing of business models by those that sell content is simply becuase that is the only possible alternative.
Imagine, if you will, the analogy of power companies wanting to base thier industry on oil, which for the moment is a in abundant supply. Imagine if over the years, they completely run out of oil, and I mean COMPLETELY run out. Now, in order to keep thier business going, they come up with the idea of using an over-unity (free-energy, perpetual motion, etc.) machine to supply them power. Since such a machine does not exist, and CAN NOT exist, which option seems more logical to you (and to your congresswoman): A) Legislate that a perpetual motion machine must be created by the year 2006, or B) Tell the power companies they they will simply have to think up a new business model and explore alternate means of power.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Therefore, allow me to present three proposals that will not prevent copying, but will make it difficult:
Hope the above list of suggestions helps.
[Insert pithy quote here]