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MPAA Requests Immunity to Commit Cyber-Crimes
The news has been buzzing around for the last couple of days that Representative Berman, whose palm has been crossed with silver by the entertainment industry, would introduce a bill permitting copyright holders to hack or DoS people allegedly distributing their works without permission. Well, the bill has been introduced - read it and weep. Although the bill wouldn't allow copyright owners to alter or delete files on your machine, they would be allowed to DoS you in essentially any other way. Let me restate that: the MPAA and RIAA are asking that they be allowed to perform what would otherwise be federal and state criminal acts and civil torts, and you will have essentially no remedy against them under any laws of the United States.
Ok, so its open season. Fine. Game on.
If you've been living under a rock, now is the time to realize how deep it really is in Washington now.
This is complete and utter bullshit. My money stays home if this passes. Anyone read any good books lately?
As of a few days ago if citizen do these same things they can be considered terrorists and subject to a maximum sentance of life in prison. Now who again is being helped by our lawmakers now?
jello.
aka aron.
As long as it applies to any "copyright holder" then it will pass muster. The trick would be to then see to it that the RIAA or MPAA ends up illegally distributing some kiddies' copyrighted work, at which point that particular kiddie could DDOS the hell out of either organization.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
MPAA - 'Can we have immunity from laws designed to protect the computer infrastructure and commit damaging acts against networks and computers that don't belong to us?' - Pending
John Ashcroft and Federal LEO's - 'Can we have immunity from the fourth ammendment and commit invasion of privacy against americans?' - Denied up until 9-11, then granted, despite the fact that they already had information about the WTC attacks. Permanent acception is pending the Patriot act's expiration date.
George Bush and Oil Industry CEOs - 'Can we have immunity from laws protecting the environment and virgin wilderness in order to increase our profits and control of the energy industry by drilling in Alaskan wilderness and completely ignoring global warming and any other environmental concerns that are too expensive for us to worry about?' - Pending.
What's next?
Preists - 'Can we have immunity from laws protecting children from molestation and rape so we can get our jollies with 9 year olds?'
Corporate Executives - 'Can we have immunity from laws protecting our investors and the general public so that we can pad our pocketbooks and live lives of luxury?'
Police - 'Can we have immunity from laws protecting citezens from police brutality so that we can beat, maim or kill with impunity?'
The Rich - 'Can we have immunity from laws protecting people from slavery and oppression so that we can further entrench our selves in oligarchy and profit from the abuse of our fellow humans'?
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
It would still be the law until the Supreme Court rules it unconstitutional, if it passes. A lot of laws that are contrary to the constitution don't get challenged, so the Supreme Court can't strike them down. Hopefully, we can keep it from passing. It is time for everyone to start faxing their Congressmen. E-mail is too easy to ignore, and snailmail takes too long if it even gets there. When elections come around in November, anyone who supported this should be voted out. Slashdotters need to get politically involved.
Also, consumers can boycott the movie and music industries. It is our money they use to bribe Congressmen and Senators. Don't give them any.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
We should still be writing our representatives but at the same time I don't really think this bill stands much of a chance. Congress usually understands when they are making something that is on the books illegal into something legal for elite groups. They know that if they pass the bill and it gets some publicity that there will be huge public outcry, probably enough to keep at least some of them from being re-elected.
Even if it passes its obviously unconstitutional and any judge in his right mind will strike it down.
(if it passes the house and goes to the Senate then I'll worry)
The Anti-Blog
Did the person who wrote the Slashdot editorialization for this story even read the bill?
..."
The very first page says:
"Notwithstanding any State or Federal statute or other law
Which indicates to me that you WOULD have "remedy against them" under whatever laws of the United States existed before this bill.
Furthermore, the bill makes it very clear that the copyright holder can only mess with your computer's ability to transfer copyrighted material, not anything else, and only if it does not adversely impact your computer with regards to anything other than the copyrighted material which is being illegally transferred.
And, far from being "allowed to DoS you in essentially any other way", they could only block, divert, or otherwise impair the UNAUTHORIZED transfer of copyrighted material. Whatever that other way of DoSing you is that you are worried about, it could only be used so long as it interferes only with the unauthorized transfer of copyrighted material. And only if it only causes economic loss to you of less than $50 per impairment to the property of the affected copyright holder, and only if it does not economically or materially impact anyone else.
I would say that this bill simply tries to put forth the notion that they copyright holders ought to be allowed to block illegal transfer of their copyrighted works, within very tight boundaries of conduct which ensures that they do not inadvertently cause any harm to any one else, or even to the illegal transferrer except for impairing their ability to make illegal transfers.
I am not saying that I agree or disagree with this bill, but the editorializer has clearly overstated the scope and effect of this bill. This seems to be a common tactic of those who rabidly defend an anti-copyright position with regards to modern file sharing.
You must be a troll (or a cartel lackey ... the hotmail account should give it away I suppose).
... they are preparing the public consciousness for exactly this event ... having the industry and government thugs come into our personal lives and, in a very personal way, tell us exactly what we can and cannot do.
A lot of people around here think there's no harm in hackers doing that to other people's computers, going so far to squeal when they get "ratted out" by others or end up in court for their actions.
Very few here thing that illegally cracking system security and breaking into computer systems is a "good thing." A fair number of people take exception to the absurd disparity between sentences and the severity of the crime, but few (if any) argue that engaging in this sort of behavior is in any way a positive act.
But when governments and large corporations can go around vandalizing and harming people legally, and the law makes it illegal to defend against such acts (by perhaps doing the same thing) for individuals, then, by any definition, we live under tyranny.
As uncool to say, and as extreme as it sounds, the digital sky is truly falling. Our freedom of expression is under wholesale and organized and concerted attack from both the media cartels and Microsoft, and the tame politicians they have in their pockets, and the reasonable sounding denials of these very stark facts don't make them any less true. We will either wake up and get involved politically and socially, educating our representatives and the lay public about these issues, or, just like the British Crown did with the printing press when it enacted the first iteration of copyright law, we will have the modern, digital equivelent of the printing press taken from us. In other words, our ability to speak and publish freely, and be heard, will be taken from us, and modern general purpose computers as we've come to know them will become a very restricted item.
Even Microsoft is publicly admitting that the end of open computing is at hand
If you are such a lackey, or so blinded by your own petty greed or agenda, that you cannot see this coming, then you will no doubt be getting exactly what you deserve. Unfortunately, the rest of us, who have the observational and congnative skills that exceed those of the common garden slug, will be taken down into the pit along with you.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Write your representative online here
Unfortunately for me, my rep is Lamar Smith (R-TX) who is one of the bill's sponsors.
I wrote him yesterday (before I knew he was a sponsor) and made several objectsions to the bill:
1) It's vigilante justice. False positives -- the MPAA and RIAA have a strong market pressure to ignore false positives, because alternative methods of distribution challenge their business model
2) The "digital piracy" problem is not a problem
3) The MPAA and RIAA have subverted the democratic process and the will of the people regarding copyright law
4) Trying to stop file-trading is futile. Free Speech and "Total Control" Copyright are fundamentally incompatible. The People would rather have Free Speech than the MPAA and RIAA.
I wrote him today and told him I would vote against him.
> As long as it applies to any "copyright holder" then it will pass muster. The trick would be to then see to it that the RIAA or MPAA ends up illegally distributing some kiddies' copyrighted work, at which point that particular kiddie could DDOS the hell out of either organization.
Better than that, even.
So long as no actual damage to those RIAA and MPAA computers/networks is done, anything you might happen to download from their computers would be fair game. No harm/LITERALLY no foul.
Have you ever wondered what kinds of internal emails or other docs might be avaiable to bolster cases of fraud, restraint of trade, etc. Now's your chance to find out, free of charge(s).
First, copyright holders were allowed to take you to civil court for theft of copyrighted material, which was all well and good. Then, the big guys realized that civil proceedings cost them money, so they paid for a law (DMCA) that would make copyright violations a criminal offense so the government would foot the bill. And now that they aren't getting the results they wanted from the government they want to legalize vigilante justice? I guess buying your politicians in bulk really pays off...
do not read this line twice.
Sure you could use the link above to write in electronically, and that's fine, but you should more or less expect that if you don't write a physical letter then you'll be ignored. It's not always competely true, but it's true enough. If you don't write your rep and this thing passes then you've pretty much forfieted your bitching rights.
Behold the Power of Cheese!
Like COPA, they can put an injunction on it -- which effectively puts the law on hold until the constitutionality can be figured out by the courts.
If the MPAA or RIAA decides they want to DDoS him for sharing their material, it's darn sure going to impact my EverQuest and Warcraft III connections (as well as whatever more "legitimate" uses I may be putting my bandwidth to).
Will non-infringers who suffer such collateral damage have any recourse against the companies or trade groups who are "protecting their rights"?
Hmm...no cancelled checks in my account made out to any Congressmen, so I somehow doubt it.
What this bill boils down to, is that a group wants a special privelege to defend itself against a crime that has technically not occurred. They're asking for the ability to act as an arm of the judicial system, wherein they can determine whether a crime has been committed and determine the proper remedy, and then become an agent of the executive, and actually dole out the punishment.
Not a whole lot of due process going on here.
Everytime this appears we get a bunch of "we'll show them posters" threatening all kinds of interesting punishments. Forget it.
If/When the law passes each attempt to hack into their computers for any reason will be met with the recently passes "capital crime" of hacking punishment.
You are an individual. They are a corporation.
You are a terrorist. They are protecting the rights of American copyright holders.
You will get 5 - 25 years. They will get new releases on how good a job they are doing stopping these kids from stealing their products.
They donate large sums of money to congress. You are listed as a non-voting demographic. [Better than opposition party or extremist, you are a non-entity.]
I will be surprised if this makes the nightly news anywhere. They want this to be a non-story and will pay plenty to keep it that way. Any story that does arise will be spinning the "protecting America against copyright theft."
If you really want to do something, take five minutes, right now and FAX your representatives [You could try email. Are they any better at reading them today than last year?].
Be polite, be firm and be specific. DMCA got passed because many people expected someone else(our representatives) to see the lunacy in the approach. This just proves we can never underestimate the ability of smart people to do dumb things with the right incentive.
Here are the contacts:
Senate Locator
House of Representative Locator
Do it now
It's simple. Pirates are very determined to continue piracy. If the MPAA, RIAA, or whoever start hacking, three things will happen.
1. The outcome will be true to the traditional form of computer security: the more people you have banging on something, the better it'll get in the long run. People who design and develop the P2P networks and the systems they run on will have intense motivation to make those systems more secure against crackers. More bugs will be found and squashed since the attackers in this case are not afraid of legal ramifications.
2. Pirates'll change their software. Most pirates are probably on fairly insecure systems at the moment. When they find themselves being shut down in this manner, they'll move to more secure platforms and services.
3. Whoever these entities are will eventually blunder such that they will destroy both their credibility and make them look like jackasses. In time, they are going to hire people who will abuse this to the maximum possible extent. There's also the extreme likelihood that some attacks will be waged on critical systems for businesses or whoever (someone sets of a warez depot on their company's xyz server).
These people who want this nonsense fail to realize exactly how pointless all this is. They don't understand that they are dealing with an animal that heals faster than it can be injured. When they took out Napster, a dozen file sharing services popped up to take its place. Likewise today, when they start cracking to take down sharing networks and systems, the users will only build them up stronger. Not to mention that no matter at what scale they launch these attacks, the MPAA, RIAA, or whoever could never have enough attackers to even make a dent on the whole system. There's at least an order of magnitude more pirates than there are people stopping them. Again, they will make themselves look like jackasses.
Damn fools. Greed makes them both blind and stupid. They could spend some time coming up with a fair business model that could survive out there today without a lot of extra bullshit (Palladium, DRM, etc). That would require a lot less time and money.
Why bother.
- (B) causes economic loss to any person
other than affected file traders; or
- (C) causes economic loss of more than $50.00 per impairment to the property of the affected file trader, other than economic loss involving computer files or data made available through a publicly accessible peer-to-peer file trading network that contain works in which the owner has an exclusive right granted under section 106;
This means that if they dos someone on my local cable segment then I can sue them if it impacts my bandwidth, Comcast can sue if it deprives their customers of service and/or uses their resources, and all the backbones and other service providers whose bandwidth is eaten up can call for reimbursement.The two downsides of this is that the bill is not limited to dos. It is pretty wide open in that they can do pretty much anything technologically which has the effect of "disabling, interfering with, blocking, diverting, or otherwise impairing the unauthorized distribution, display, performance, or reproduction" of their material. Which includes crashing or otherwise rendering inoperable network communications on the computer.
Not only that, but anyone who tries to face up to them needs very deep pockets to fight them - even if they caused more than $50 of damage they'll still have to prove it in court.
In other words, "Shoot now, ask questions later" and "You are guilty until proven innocent" should be stamped across this bill.
Translation: Fight the bill here and now. It'll be ten times more difficult and costly to remove it from law than it is to keep it from being placed there in the first place.
-Adam
The top industries supporting Howard L. Berman are:
1 TV/Movies/Music $186,891
2 Lawyers/Law Firms $97,100
The top industries supporting Howard Coble are:
1 Lawyers/Law Firms $35,515
2 TV/Movies/Music $33,483
There is nothing these two "gentlemen" would not to to keep sucking at the media industry tit. Even to the degree of drafting such nonsensical law that clearly violates the "equal treament" under privilege or immunity of the 14th Amendment by immunizing corporations against felonious activities conducted by them against citizens without considering due process.
Da Blog
Yeah, this is so disgusting. I'm embarassed for our entire nation and how this makes us, the USA, look to the rest of the civilized universe (the Register article is a good example how others are viewing this.) These Congress clowns have institutionalized graft via campaign contributions and don't care that they aren't serving the common good, they even flaunt it in our faces with this kind of crap. Doesn't seem to matter if they're Dems or Pubs, we get the same results regardless. Almost every one of them has been bought by someone or another.
I'm fed up with this BS to the point of supporting publicly-funded campaigns. Anyone running for elected office who takes so much as a penny either directly or indirectly from anyone else (business or individual) while running for or serving in elected office wins a minimum ten year "office" with Jerome, the ButtBuddy from Hell, cell block#. This means hard time in a standard prison, not some cushy "Club Fed" type facility with golf courses, tennis courts, etc.
They should also be prohibited by both law and severe penalty from going to work (directly or indirectly) for any company or in any industry which gained favor by a bill submitted, co-authored, co-sponsored, or voted favorably on. Lastly, they should never, ever be allowed to work lobbying for any company or industry before the elected body in which they served.
Sorry for the rant, but I'm really steamed. Here's the dictionary.com definition for graft.
graft (2)
n.
Unscrupulous use of one's position to derive profit or advantages; extortion.
Money or an advantage gained or yielded by unscrupulous means.
tr. & intr.v. grafted, grafting, grafts
To gain by or practice unscrupulous use of one's position.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
Boycotts, legal challenges, and voting people out are all fine after the fact, but the best way to stop this is to stick a real damaging spin on it before it becomes law. The usual anti-MPAA/RIAA and copyright rants probably won't win enough media interest in time to stop this, but politicians could be convinced if the "corporate vigilante immunity law" is lumped in with the recent accounting scandals.
Write a letter or call your congressional representatives, senators, activists, and/or media outlets pointing out the audacity of big corporations to ask for special privileges and less accountability even in the face of the ongoing accounting and financial investigations. Ask them how we are supposed to trust big corporations with legal immunity from federal laws when we can't even trust them to tell the truth. Tell them that CEO's still just don't get it and that this proposed legislation is further proof that corporate lobbyists are out of control and out of touch with reality. Tell them that allowing corporations to legally unleash hackers on private citizens will be the first step on a slippery slope of immunity and abuse. Tell them that corporations can't be trusted to a lower standard than citizens - if anything they should be held to a higher standard.
Ask candidates if they are planning to support legal immunity for greedy companies that take the law into their own hands or if they are going to take a stand against corporate excess and fight this latest example of abuse of trust. Ask them if they'll stand up for the little guy, or if they plan to let corporations get away with anti-consumer vigilante tactics. With a little suggestion and the upcoming elections in mind, somebody should recognize the opportunity to run with this issue and make it totally unpaletable before it ever passes.
My next sig will be ready soon, but friends can beat the rush!
DoS attacks shouldn't be illegal in the first place.
EXCUSE ME?? You (or some script kiddie) have ZERO right to impede the use of MY computer. None. Zip. Zilch. There is no justifiable reason on Earth why you, or anyone else, should have the ability to maliciously attack my computer, denying me service that I have paid for, let alone any sort of income I may be gathering from said service.
Your rights end at the tip of my cat5, and unless you can come up with some reason why your attacking me better serves the public good than my being online, you have no business interfering with mine.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
It ends when you participate in your democracy, contact your representatives, and don't allow it to happen.
The DoJ doesn't have to approve what you do (yeah, I did read the bill to check), you just have to notify them. I guess if they don't stop you in 7 days, nobody will.
By the way, since I assume you're on the Internet, you should probably know that the entire Internet falls under the definition of "publicly accessible peer-to-peer file trading network".
I quote:
"(2) 'peer-to-peer file trading network' means two or more computers which are connected by computer software that (A) is primarily designed to (i) enable the connected computers to transmit files or data to other connected computers (ii) enable the connected computers to request the transmission of files or data from other connected computers; and (iii) enable the designation of files or data on the connected computers as available for transmission; and (B) does not permanently route all file or data inquiries or searches through a designated, central computer located in the United States"
In other words, you are on a peer-to-peer network if you use your computer's web browser (software) to connect to the MPAA's web server (another computer). You're presumably doing so primarily to transfer files from them (HTML, images). They're also able to "request" files from your computer (cookies).
There is no "designated, central computer" located anywhere. I can't guess what they could have meant there. Maybe in a future bill they'll create a directory of "designated, central computers."
copyright infringement is not a crime. it's tort.
According to purchase history (aquired through our "affiliate" credit card and market research companies), this person hasn't purchased any of our products in some time. They must be getting them off p2p networks!
:)
But I kid.
The enemies of Democracy are
Societal problems usually can't be solved with technical solutions. The law is there to directly address societal conflicts - using the law to back a technical solution simply results in technical workarounds. This is just bad law.
- Fzz
I believe that the only moral response in such a case is to violate those laws. Screw the MPAA. Screw the RIAA. Screw Congress. It is time for freedom loving people to declare openly that they will not recognize copyrights held by the MPAA and RIAA.
Well, that is step one. Step two in a civil disobedience campaign would be to openly and publicly violate their copyright and fully accept the consequences of that act. You see, the point of civil disobedience is that you want to get arrested and charged under the unjust law, and you want to received the punishment mandated by that unjust law in the hopes of making the public at large aware of just how bad the law is.
Are you still down with that?
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
Heh, good point.
Ya know, reading this further, since it's on the "file trader" (I love that term) to notice and complain about the action, any time you lose a file or "get hacked", you should send a letter all of the MPAA/RIAA folks asking for a report on what they removed and why (See 2A through 2C).
Since there's no way to know who actually did it, and there doesn't appear to be any reason to believe the DoJ would care to tell you, you'd have write all of them to figure it out. Wonderful law eh!
In the U.S. (where the bill has been proposed), 2002 is an election year. All members of the House of Representatives, and one third of the members of the Sentate, are up for re-election. Every one of them has at least one opponent (both major parties have already held their local primary elections).
Sure, write your elected officials. But write the people running against them, too. We want to send a clear message, no matter who wins in November.
For extra credit, in addition to the letters to D.C., write one to each "committe to [re]elect" (a.k.a. "Friends of Blah Blah Blah"), and enclose a personal check to the committee. (Do not send cash!) It doesn't have to be big; ten or twenty dollars is enough to get a little attention. Our money talks, too!
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
Correct me if im wrong, but are their not bills which have been passed, or are in the process of being passed that make acts such as these considered terrorism?
Terrorism is wrong, unless your a big company....
FIRST, read the bill. Second, read Berman's analysis. Third, read Berman's statement.
Only then should you write a letter to your representative. And be sure to back up your statments very thoroughly if they contradict Berman's in any way.
If you'd like to have someone try to tear holes in your argument, feel free to reply here :).
That's already (almost) been done--or was last time around. I remember reading how the 'right to virus' they asked for was voted down. If you want to kill this inane bill, just tell them how the MPAA wants to "hire hackers to terrorize anyone who might be guilty of copyright infringement and to not be held responsible for any computers they damage in doing so." Not quite 100% accurate, but most people don't know the difference between a virus & DDoS, so it's close enough.
You could stop someone from physically trespassing on your property.
Not if the person is determined enough to break in.
Look at a jail, they stop people from trespassing all the time.
Without using the law, they would be unable to do that. I could break into a jail if I really wanted to. But I'd get caught, and probably shot, as a result. Without physical property laws, we'd have chaos. Without laws against hacking, we wouldn't.
You can't tap into a cable line that is on your property, because you don't own the mineral rights to the land most likely.
Mineral rights to the land? How does that apply?
I mean, by the same logic you should be able to tap into the electrical pole and bypass the meter because it's on "your" property
Oh, I see what you're saying. I was referring to a cable which was entering your house. As in, you pay for basic cable and then "steal" HBO. I don't think that should be illegal.
Well, I think we're all thinking one-dimensionally. There are other ways to attack a computer than flood it with packets. The bottom line is, if this bill passes, it's open game on your computer. No search warrant is required.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
Nothing in this bill states that a copyright holder has a right to perform electronic attacks against those they believe are infringing apon them. Rather, they simply will not be penalised if they find and exploit the means.
The distinction here is subtle, but can be summed up as this: no-one (including a copyright holders ISP!) is obliged to allow an attack to take place.
ISP: "I'm sorry sir, I know you can't get any network connectivity outside of our network, but that seems to be because you've violated their terms of service."
Any ISP which has an even remotely sane Terms of Service is well within their contractual rights to terminate, without compensation, any wrongdoers network link if they start abusing it - copyright holder or otherwise, regardless of whether this bill passes into law.
Irvu.