Slashdot Mirror
Legalizing Attacks on P2P Networks
miniver writes: "Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) wants to legalize DoS attacks on P2P networks such as Kazaa and Morpheus by 'copyright holders.' The Washington Post reports on his proposed legislation here. Berman's bill, to be introduced in the next several weeks, would attempt to minimize the illegal trading of copyrighted songs and other content on "peer-to-peer" (P2P) networks by permitting copyright holders to use technology against pirates. As can be expected, the RIAA is in favor of the proposed legislation."
No wonder we never understand politicians.
RIAA can suck my CD's
-- RTFM:Slackware::Beer:Saturday
Fuckers.
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
While I think that technology is really the only thing that's going to realistically provide the media industry the defense they've been searching for, I'm wondering what exactly this law will permit. For example, I produce copyrighted works on a daily basis on my website, at my office, etc. So do I then, suddenly, have the right to launch attacks on P2P networks? Furthermore, what kinds of attacks will be legitmized. Would be rather bizarre to have a nasty and dangerous worm become legal simply because it was launched against a P2P network.
Seems like another case of a congress critter trying to bring the law into an area he truely does not understand..
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
1. Copyright Song.
2. Wait for someone to e-mail it to someone else on AOL.
3. Massive DOS Attack on AOL tottaly taking it out forever.
4. ???
5. Profit.
"Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) wants to legalize DoS attacks on P2P networks such as Kazaa and Morpheus by "copyright holders".
Umm okay. They can have that right if I can have the right to DoS the RIAA for infringing on my fair use rights. After all, all men are created equal.
"Derp de derp."
They want to make it ok to take the law into your own hands, well, their hands anyway.
Isn't it the job of the local,state and federal law enforcement agencies to enforce the laws? Deputizing the RIAA doesn't really sound like a good idea.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
where does it say anything about DoS attacks? From the article:
... "
"His bill would allow copyright holders to set up decoy files and use other techno-tricks like file-blocking and redirection to throw P2P pirates off the trail, but it would forbid those holders from employing tactics that would damage or destroy pirates' own computer systems"
And further along....
A copyright owner should not be allowed to damage the property of a P2P file trader or any intermediaries, including ISPs," Berman said. "(I) wouldn't want to let a particularly incensed copyright owner introduce a virus that would disable the computer from which copyrighted works are made available
Don't get me wrong, I don't think this is a good thing, but I also don't think we need to blow it out of proportion, who does that really help in the end? No one.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
His bill would allow copyright holders to set up decoy files and use other techno-tricks like file-blocking and redirection to throw P2P pirates off the trail, but it would forbid those holders from employing tactics that would damage or destroy pirates' own computer systems.
It seems like a futile attempt, however, as people can always route around trouble, and if such tactics become commonplace, software will soon adapt so even the most clueless newbie can be autoupdated with the latest and greatest roadblocks to avoid.
There is only one flaw in your argument - going after specifically targeted songs is one thing, but a DoS attack disables the entire network regardless of what is crossing its wires. Now if you still think they have a right to do this, then by this same logic, banks should have the right to disable the entire transportation network, as some people use that network to carry large sums of cash they just got done steeling it from their banks. Or we should just allow cars, as some people use them for infringing purposes - robberies, hit and runs, drunk driving, reckless endangerment, kidnappings, etc.
www.enthea.org
Everyone who has already knee-jerked at the Slashdot summary and decided that this means the RIAA can start ping-flooding people on P2P networks needs to read the article.
"Copyright infringers are by definition in the wrong and copyright holders should have the legal means of stopping them."
Until our rights as consumers are defined (i.e. you have the right to have a backup copy of your music...) then the RIAA has no business being 'armed'.
I don't have the right to put a bomb in my car and make it explode if somebody steals it. The RIAA should never be given the right to harass anybody. If they have a complaint about somebody in particular, they have laws they can sue them with. If that's not enough, then maybe they need to reconsider their business plan.
"Derp de derp."
Try re-reading the article. All it's saying is that you can offer up a fake version of "(your garage band)-(your hit).mp3". It's not carte blanche to take down the P2P server or even other users sharing your file.
You're absolutely right: people automatically think flooding or hacking when they hear DoS. But denial of service attacks can mean rendering a network virtually useless in what it's supposed to provide. In the case of a web server, you use up so many connections no one else (ie: valid clients) can connect. In the case of Morpheus, you imitate so many false matches that clients can't get valid results (they can't retrieve the information, even though the information is available and the server -- or network -- should technically be able to produce it).
The RIAA has already started doing this -- by posting songs with repeated choruses or large sections of the songs faded to silence, but the calibur has been relatively small -- you can usually pull off a legitimate copy after a few searches.
Legalizing this operation would give the RIAA a defense for using these mechanisms, and they could avoid [further] bad publicity. They would also be permitted to store massive amounts of slightly varied mp3 names that house illegitimate or incomplete songs, register numerous Kazaa/Morpheus/etc. accounts and attempt to pose as valid song providers, flooding the network with useless information.
His bill would allow copyright holders to set up decoy files and use other techno-tricks like file-blocking and redirection to throw P2P pirates off the trail, but it would forbid those holders from employing tactics that would damage or destroy pirates' own computer systems.
P2P systems should copyright and copy protect the out-of-band packets (the ones used to search, return search results, etc), then use the DMCA to prevent these types of DoS attacks. At the very least they should also specify in the EULA that intentionally supplying misleading files will result in being banned from the P2P network.
_______
2B1ASK1
As an example, one of the things that normally stops child pornography from getting too popular is that people are embarrassed to look at it, and will express strong social disapproval of anyone who makes it or uses it.
Another example is that if there's a social vacuum surrounding a P2P network, then there's not much incentive to donate bandwidth and disk space. Nobody gives you a pat on the back for running a useful node.
Free speech doesn't mean that the ideal social environment is one where your speech has no consequences.
Find free books.
Someone posts the IP addresses of the "legit hackers" on the web? You can bet that all the script kiddies will come out of the woodwork then...
As for the dummy files, what about a system that allows people to A) vouch for their songs, and B) give an MD5 hash?
Sure...pass this stupid bill; the ramifications will be FAR worse. You cut off one head of this monster, and 10 heads will grow in its place.
Instead of passing this shit, why not give people an INCENTIVE for buying the cds (like free coupons, chance to meet the band, concert tickets, login to their website, etc.)
Let's see when radio first came out the record companies freaked. They figure that no one would buy a record if you could get here it over the radio. They were wrong.
::sigh::
When the tape cassette came out, the record companies freaked, everybody would copy thier friends tape or tape off the radio. They figure no one would buy would buy their tapes. They were wrong.
When the vcr first came on the scene, the movie industry freaked, who would go see movies if you watch it for free? They figured people would stop going to movies. They were wrong.
Don't have the stats but I would guess that the above three all made them more money than without them.
Now, we have recordable cd's and dvd's, and they are freaked. Who will buy music/movies if people can copy it over the internet?
I believe I am sounding like a broken record, but these folks are obtuse.
Flip forward 150 years, and those who copy data without the authors' permission are called pirates. Fearsome mercenaries of the sea, to be sure. But in an ironic turnabout, California wants to make it legal for mercenaries to get under the skin of these modern pirates.
I wonder what they'll call these P2P mercenaries once the states change their minds?
As can be expected, the RIAA is in favor of the proposed legislation.
Should read,
As can be expected, the RIAA proposed the legislation.
;)
I stole this Sig
"The difference is that stealing music is not covered by your fair use rights."
... well that's a little different, isn't it? What if the person on the other end downloading it owns the song? This is the type of case that could go on for quite a while.
It's not their place to judge. Since our rights aren't defined in this area, then all they can do is attack this little guy and that little guy.
A guy stealing a car is a theif. A guy uploading an MP3
"Derp de derp."
Here's the big thing. Who will this affect? If the RIAA has any say at all (and this goes above and beyond whatever means they use) it will affect everyone. That would be everyone in the world. Everyone in the world regardless of whether or not the US Constitution even affects them.
Sure it's been said, and maybe not even necessary for this topic, but I can see no good coming of this when a US bill gives the RIAA power over everyone in the world. That's impossible, but very likely that it will be taken as such. No bill in the world, save from maybe a direct mandate by the UN, can give a company this power (and the UN is a little busy right now trying to stop people from killing each other, not making sure I don't download the latest N'sync auditory torture). Why don't we just launch targeted deterrents against everyone pirating music? Oh, wait. We can't. Sure we "can", but it would be illegal in THEIR country and wide open to a good old All-American lawsuit, just like everybody else. Or maybe we just forgot this little fact.
Oh please let someone in Belgium sue the RIAA. It would just be funny.
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
How does downloading an MP3s of Hanson music constitute as terrorism
Playing these MP3s within anybody's earshot would certainly qualify as terrorism, I think.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Rep. Howard Berman ought to read up on message digests and then try his "file decoy" strategy. Many P2P's today employ some kind of hashing which isn't too easily fooled by file naming dissemblance.
There is only one flaw in your argument - going after specifically targeted songs is one thing, but a DoS attack disables the entire network regardless of what is crossing its wires
Are you sure you know what you are talking about? There are many types of DoS attacks. You can DoS attack a whole network, a single host, or just a single protocol. The effect of targetted decoy tracks is to disrupt the activities of people who are specifically looking for those tracks (a DoS attack). The rest of the users (who are presumably trading recipes or something) shouldn't be affected. Neither the article, nor the message you replied to, was advocating other types of DoS attacks, such as ping-bombs.
-a
How to rationalize theft.
I think they care a lot. About making sure that no-one can record, sell, or even give away music through in any way without their memebers getting involved. Why, competing companies and individual musicians might make money! And making money when you're not an RIAA member is the same as theft!
Check out OpenSecrets.org if you want to see who's financing this guy's campaign. Top donors, surprise surprise, are: Walt Disney, AOL Time Warner, Viviendi Universal, Viacom, DreamWorks, and Sony. Gee, no bias there.
There's nothing like a little adversity to foster innovation. Of course there are gaping holes in the current suite of P2P apps. The upshot to RIAA or the record companies trying to disrupt service is that it will force people to sit down and actually think about these weaknesses, and fix them. End result: much more secure, robust P2P networks. Just off the top of my head, adding PGP-style "webs of trust" on top of any of the current P2P networks would seem like a good way to circumvent this sort of attack. Someone sends you white noise in place of your Black Sabbath? Shitlist them. Similarly, clients that you repeatedly, successfully transact with become "trusted" in your eyes. And depending on how much you trust them, their "trustees" become trusted (and their shitlisteed, erm... shitted) to you, as well. Granted, it's 12:50AM and I'm babbling, but the beauty of this approach is that it harnesses the inherent power of the a distributed network. There's no single point of failure, so there's no way a rogue client could spoof these webs of trust. Every client speaks for itself. Get enough shithits (God, the lingo alone makes fleshing this system out worthwhile) on a certain client--for the sake of discussion, we'll call him "dmca.riaa.org"--and you just start ignoring it. And so does everyone that trusts you, etc. etc. etc. This type of system has I'm sure been worked out in much more detail and analyzed for potential weaknesses than I'm capable of doing at the moment. Anyways, moral of the story is that this sort of forced evolution, even though it usually gets painful and ugly in the short-term, is often be a good thing in the long-run. (If you haven't guessed yet, you're speaking to someone who treats capitalism as a religion and social Darwinism as God's gift to man :)
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Consider this portion of the article:
The DMCA has been used to threaten suspected copyright violators, but questions about what constitutes legal sharing and illegal piracy continue to dilute the law's power.
This suggests that the DMCA isn't even clear. The proposed legislation would allow the RIAA to make that determination, which is clearly not within its jurisdiction. The RIAA is a professional association, not an extension of the government.
Just the same, I wish all those who are proponents of illegal file sharing would pull their heads and realize that they can do far more damage to the RIAA if they just stop buying its product.
The problem with this, if you didn't see it already, is not that it allows them to attack, it's that is gives them the ability to enforce the law.
It makes the copyright holder a law enforcer without all the nagging issues about due process.
If something like this is passed, how likely do you think it would be that is would include statues for just cause or disclosure? They could empy it just on the off chance they "think" something illegal is going on, and if they get in trouble they can plead ignorance. It could vary easily be used by companies against individuals or companies against companies.
A good example -- and one where I pick on microsoft too -- would be easy. Owing that this legislation simply says "copyrigth holders" and not "musical copyright holders", it could be used by anyone. So, suppose Microsoft wanted to buy some technology from a company, and the company didn't want play ball? Well, Microsoft could do around the clock DDOS attacks to tie up all ther bandwidth (which the company would be unable to stop, as it would be illegal under such a law), and cause the company to be able to do no business and as such go out of business -- and they could do this all under the guise of "well, they were using a pirated copy of Excel 97".
And suppose it doesn't lay out what kind of retaliation is allowed, or on what medium? Suppose ClearChannel Communications (who own 87% of all radio in the USA) "though" that some mom&pop station iun Bumsville, Iowa was inteding to rebroadcast one of their programs? There stand a good chance that CC would be allowed (under such a law) to jam the offending stations signal until they got satisfaction.
Ever play Shadowrun, a game where giant corporation war against each other?
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
Simple solution. Totally black list any riaa sites from the rest of the net. Enter their ips on the major backbone routers, and blackhole their traffic. Think about it, you dos someone, and we blackhole 100% of your traffic. No email, no vpn's, no nothing for you riaa pigs. A dos attack is an abuse of the net. And if the fascists want to abuse the net, then they simply dont need it. And i think its likely that the riaa WOULD get their net nuts cut off if they started this crap, simply because a dos is against any kind of TOS (terms of service) in existance. If your uunet, exodus, etc, would you tolerate that kind of crap on your network? i sure as hell wouldnt.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
Even better, the RIAA wants to launch DoS attacks on networks full of (presumably) relatively computer savvy people with high speed connections??? Now c'mon, that's just dumb. Sure they can hit the "routers" or look for central nodes, but they're still gonna end up pinging normal users right off the net. That's going to do nothing but get the script kiddies all riled up enough to start launching packets back in the other direction.
I almost hope this passes just to see the logs that are going to come from this one. Maybe we can print them out and mail them to Mr. Berman demanding to be reimbursed for the downtime we have while trying to coax our overworked routers out from under the floor tiles...
I heard a story of a guy who put razorblades around his stereo. A would-be thief sued him over it and won.
.. well.. gone! The MPAA thinks that I should pay for the Star Wars Triology again if I want to watch it again. I think I should be able to download it if somebody was nice enough to backup their copy.
There's another story about a guy who boobytrapped his wallet. When he was pickpocketed, it exploded and blew the thief's hands off. The 'victim' got to pay the handless thief for the rest of his life. (Note: That may be an urban legend.)
The law doesn't allow you to do things like that. I can only guess at the reason.
It seems to me that a DoS (yes I know that's not what the article's about, don't wast your time telling me I didnt read it) attack on P2P would fall under that law. If anybody does get attacked in any way by the RIAA, they could probaby take them to court and teach them a lesson.
What really irks me is that the law conflicts a bit. If I have the right to make a backup of a CD, shouldn't that allow one to make that backup available to others? The MPAA/RIAA calls that piracy. I don't call it piracy until somebody retrieves the backup who hasn't paid for a license.
I bought the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition a few years ago. The tapes disappeared when I moved. I didn't sell them, they just
The law supports both what I think and what the MPAA/RIAA thinks. It is for this reason, that I do not believe that either of these organizations should be given the ability to pass judgement against me. Instead, USA should do what DigitalConsumer.org suggestions: Create a set of rights for internet users.
If the law says 'you can backup your media', then the RIAA cannot sue me for having an MP3 copy of a song from a CD I purchased. Since an MP3 is a backup copy (can't play an MP3 in the standard CD Player...), then transmitting it to somebody else isn't a crime. It's not my job to judge who's licensed and who isn't. That's between the RIAA and whoever is violating it.
Frankly, I see this as a serious flaw to the DMCA. It creates provisions for fair use, but doesn't define them. So really, anybody can twist the wording to their own ends. Imagine if gun laws were like that. It'd be like "You can own a gun,
"Derp de derp."
This is great news, however the bill is too limited in scope to be really effective.
The bill should be expanded to allow the victms of all crime to directly take action against those who commit crimes against them, be it copyright infringement, property theft, assult, or murder.
Imagine a world where the RIAA can commit DOS attacks on those who they claim would infringe their copyright. Imagine a world where a rape victim could stalk and ultimately castrate her attacker. Imagine a world where parents of murdered children could take the life of the person accused of that crime.
Allowing the RIAA to DOS p2p networks is legalising revnge and retribution. Keep going down that road, and you will find the above examples. I cant beleive there are people in your government that actually believe this would be a good thing. I only hope such people dont exist in ours.... Unfortunately Im beginning to think they do.
"If I could only live my life with my threshold at 4... " -- Wil Wheaton
Considering that flooding a P2P network is easiest when you have the greatest resources to throw at the task, it's hard to imagine that this recourse would be viable for any but large corporate powers or those lucky enough to find themselves in the RIAAA's, etc, best graces. Thus this technique would have the effect of extending the monopolies of the most dominant players, and would choke off P2P distribution paths that could be used by any dangerous upstart rivals. Maintaining their distribution monopoly has, of course, long been the recording industry's primary concern.
It is also perfectly plausible that any organization with sufficient resources could squash any sort of offending content, beyond any specific type of media, rendering entirely useless existing P2P systems. Note, however, that by sufficient resources I don't mean just network resources. Rather, the most useful resource will be money. Since this is designed as a tool of harrasment, it's likely there would be lawsuits -- but small entities might not be able or willing to risk the cost of a lawsuit. That could work in favor of large entities in two ways: first to limit the ability of individual parties to sue those disrupting a network, and second to empower only the wealthiest entities to venture to disrupt that network. So once again the largest entities benefit at the expense of the little guy.
I don't see any mention of any special recourse unfairly targeted parties may have, but it's not far fetched to assume that by design any recourse wouldn't be very effective -- otherwse there wouldn't be any point having the law in the first place (It's hard to image much opportunity for recourse when the law is designed to inflict haphazard damage.) Without disincentives, why shouldn't companies spam & otherwise disrupt the P2P for any perceived or concocted reason?
Thus the system could be ripe for abuse, but without the opportunity for that inconvenient oversight afforded the wronged under our official legal system. But then again, that's why modern society doesn't tolerate vigalantes...
Of course these concerns are on top of the already harebrained notion that it would be a good idea to destroy the current implementations of an extremely popular emerging technology that can be (and is) used for legitimate purposes.
Finally, what's to prevent a broad interpretation of a law like this? At this point the details are too vague to comment on with certainty, but it's not far fetched to imagine that a few poorly worded lines could turn something like this in to another DMCA.
Fortunately for the 'net and the economy, it shouldn't be difficult to make someone -- even a typical luddite congressman -- understand that unleashing vigilante chaos on the Internet is a very bad idea. With only a small amount of luck this media industry power grab will be quickly defeated.
Finally, I would like you to consider that corporate censoship can be more dangerous than government censoship, since we do not have any direct individual control over corporate power as we do (theoretically) with our government. Plus, the more control corporate interests with agendas have over mass communication, the harder it is to democratically render grass roots changes. This self-reinforcing cycle of corporate media power is well evidenced by the proposed legislation.
Suprising, no. Meaningful, yes.
Campaign contribution is the same as if you tried to hand a cop a twenty before breaking the law.
There are laws against bribery in some contexts, why do we allow it in more important contexts?
A very close approximation don't you think? The RIAA gets to presume guilt and act towards anyone who they think may be violating copyright... even if they only find files with 'names' including their copyrighted material's reference. 'I hate tha Back Stret Boys.txt' is now a punishable offense and subject to DOS, Denial of Sovereignty.
In The Minority Report (I might get DOS'ed by Hollywood just for writing this), 'potential' murderers are hunted down and imprisoned because they 'will' commit murder. In the present day our government is considering a law which will allow a non-government body to hunt down and 'imprison' a person's right to fair use because they presume that it will lead to piracy.
In other news: guns, pencils, nunchakus, and gasoline are all deemed illegal because a person might in the future use them to commit crimes. Castration and hysterectomies are now required of all people because sexual organs and sex could lead to rape and/or abortion/murder. Literacy has been outlawed because it may lead someone to learn how to build bombs or start a revolution.
Cheers! Here's to the future of living in a prison state....
What ever happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
or even Life, Liberty and Property
...for those cynical historians out there.
Remember that fair use is part of Property, as in I can own a car AND I get to drive it, just not recklessly while in town.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
His bill would allow copyright holders to set up decoy files and use other techno-tricks like file-blocking and redirection to throw P2P pirates off the trail, but it would forbid those holders from employing tactics that would damage or destroy pirates' own computer systems.
Destroying, crashing or damaging people's computers, software or other technology systems is illegal under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as are many of the ideas Berman is suggesting should be available to content owners - though he said that viruses should not be used as defense mechanisms.
The major goal of this bill is probably not to give the RIAA and MPAA new tools against p2p pirates, but legitimize tactics that they're already using. I can't imagine that they haven't already started putting up bogus files - I mean, people are already doing this to each other (go find the Minority Report avi on gnutella and tell me if you like watching the Scorpion King trailer over and over and over again). What probably spurred on this proposal was that someone, somewhere within the RIAA and/or MPAA realized that they might be breaking some sort of laws relating to online misrepresentation or - god forbid - violating the Terms of Agreement of the p2p software, so they're just making loopholes in existing laws in order to wreak havoc legally.
What would happen if the RIAA violated the Morpheus terms of agreement? Would that mean we're allowed to redirect their network connections or flood them with bogus files, since they're using the software in ways other than it was originally intended? Does that misuse violate the DMCA, or are they going to write the bill so that they are allowed to get around the DMCA in order to protect their copyrights?
Finally, as someone else suggested, are they allowed to spew garbage traffic all over private networks on which these p2p apps are run? Of course, I'm sure Roadrunner (a la AOL Time Warner) won't mind, since they're aligned with the RIAA and the MPAA, but it should be interesting if someone sues because they can't legimately use their favorite p2p app because the record labels have been flooding its network.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
So, I guess you're either a copyright holder or you're not.
Congratulations, America. Just over 200 years and you've developed your very own class system.
There are som issues in this case that has to be sorted out if the proposal will be legal/law.
1. Since this will be an US law, and not a law in Sweden (where I live) and if they attack me it will be considered as an terroristattack from US to Sweden. Therefore they must now that they only attack within US.
2. If someone attacks you and you are only sharing legal data, they are actually stopping the free speech, and I do not now if it is illegal in US or not but in Sweden free speech is one of our most importand laws.
3. I can only guees how the next generation of P2P apps will work. Maybe they will defend themself and generate an enormous counterstrike and what will happen then?
This is why a person who has been accused of a crime had better be able to provide hard evidence that he didn't do the crime (unless it's murder - which only requires "reasonable doubt").
Ummm, no. You've got it backwards here pal. The burden of proof is on the prosecution, not the defense. Innocent until proven guilty is still, ostensibly, the law of the land. And requiring reasonable doubt is not limited to murder trials. It you are indeed telling the truth about having four lawyer friends, they must be pretty bad ones.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
A certain amount of "piracy" is CRUCIAL to keeping IP monopolies honest, and to keep prices reasonable.
When the day comes when there is NO WAY AT ALL to copy and distribute something (ie, unbreakable copy protection), the price of IP will have no brakes on it at all.
I'm not saying that it's right to "pirate" music/movies/software, etc, but that when the government grants what is, for all intents and purposes, a monopoly on IP to the IP rights holder (and the trend is to diminish if not completely eliminate any "fair use" rights), "piracy" becomes the only mechanism by which competition is introduced, and any pressure to NOT raise prices comes.
Do you think the RIAA really CARES if CD sales would fall by 50% if they jacked the price up to $60 a CD? No, they don't. Because they will find a point somewhere where they are saved money by being able to produce LESS, versus how many they can sell.
Indeed, the RIAA/MPAA would realistically rather have you IN a "pay to hear/view" situation than sell consumers copies of their stuff.
The upshot of all this is that "piracy" is the ONLY source of incentive for these guys to NOT jack up prices. Which is why they are so fanatical about eliminating it as a threat.
Of course, the best copy protection is reasonable prices. $20 for a CD, especially when I've not heard ALL the tracks is not reasonable. P2P is one way to do that before I do buy a CD.
There is also the fact that I'm perfectly willing to pay $30-40 a month for a fast, Napster like service. But they won't sell that to me at ANY price, which means that there is no way to obtain/swap MP3's legitimately.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
Moreover, this move makes for a more equitable social contract by placing the financial costs of copyright enforcement directly on the shoulders of those who benefit the most from said enforcement.
Isn't the free market grand? We ought to increase the number of representatives in Congress. With greater supply, the price should go down.
According to this explanation of the law, The Copyright Act of 1976 (Title 17 United States Code, Section 100 et seq.) allows natural copyrights without registration (basically that you hold a copyright to anything you create, and are not required to register with the Office).
funny munging
Only in civil court (eg the plaintiff is not The Government - "State of", "United States", etc). In criminal court (the state versus defendant), the prosecution must prove their case "beyond a reasonable doubt".
I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. Blah blah blah.
funny munging
At least not outside the priesthood.