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American Movie Execs Could Face Aussie Jails For Hacking
pegacat points to a story in the Melbourne Age which says that "American movie, recording and software executives could be arrested if they travel to Australia, could be prohibited from entering Australia, or could be extradited to face criminal charges if Californian Democrat congressman Howard Berman's copyright protection bill, which allows cracking
of computers, passes into law." That's because "Under section 9a of the Victorian Summary Offences Act (1966), 'a person must not gain access to, or enter, a computer system or part of a computer system without lawful authority to do so'. The penalty if convicted is up to six months' jail."
In the case of LoTR, the dude behind it, Peter Jackson, just happens to be a New Zealander. It's made here because Jackson is doing it at home instead of overseas.
BTW: Weta Studios are using Linux - oooeee I mentioned Linux on /.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
The conduct complained of here would also violate computer crime laws in most states. Thus, while Valenti might avoid federal prison for violation of the CFAA, he might still have to face charges and related civiil actions for violation of State laws in Florida.
Absent an express preemption clause, the bill would not have the desired effect for its authors -- and if they added an express preemption clause, the bill might become defective as unconstitutional under a host of theories.
I have doubts about that. The Dems supported the Copyright Act Amendments (Digital Agenda) Act 2000 (i.e. the Australian DMCA) and, like the Labor Party, tend to support the entertainment industry. Given their courting of the corporate dollar before last year's election (publicity of which they tried to avoid by holding fundraiser events at undisclosed locations), they're just a little too close to the vested interests in this issue for my tastes.
It's entirely possible that any sort of Bermanesque bill will pass without any significant opposition, which, given that the media tends to only report issues about which there is political conflict, means that there would probably not be much coverage at all.
Well yes, the executive always has controlled the armed forces, and even much of foreign affairs. However, the legislature could always just pass a law forbidding military action against X nation, and that'd be binding on the executive.
No it isn't. The president can invoke the War Powers Act of 1973. It allows for 60 days of war-like activity without the intervention of Congress. The president is required to consult with Congress first but that usually never happens. The issue of a president causing a war is only a problem when there is enough backlash to stop him/her from doing so. I'm not trolling but there won't be much backlash against a war ever since the Vietnam War caused so much division in the country. Anti-war advocates are generally written off as anti-American by the public and their cries for a halt to aggressiveness is largely ignored.
Blame the 60's and early 70's for america's war-like culture. Well, you can also blame other countries/organizations for trying to kill Americans just because they're Americans but people don't like to talk about that.
If the UK passed law like the RIAA DoS bill, then (1)(b) would be satisfied. It says an access is an offense if "(b) the access he intends to secure is unauthorised."
Since the wording of the present law does not say "unauthorised by the owner or user of the target computer," surely another bill authorizing certain attacks in certain circumstances would constitute the authorization needed under (1)(b).
It is no wonder the USA is so opposed to the International War Crimes Court, the international ban on land mines, and joins somalia as one of the only nations *not* to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Subverting emerging democracies, funding, training and arming terrorists, providing safe havens for the world's worst criminals, running drugs, raping children, defrauding pension funds, bombing prisoners, 'dissapearing' many thousands of people within the US and many tens of thousands of people outside of the US. is all part of a days work for the new emerging world order.
To me it's hardly a sustainable plan, but then maybe they know things I don't know.
maybe i am just too prepared to think the unthinkable.
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
Handing that kind of power to *anyone* who isn't strictly controlled by the government(of the people) is dangerous, not just to individuals(ie. consumers), but to companies as well. Remember when Blizzard got hit for their internal MP3 server? Remember (for computer techs out there) how many people stuck napster or kazaa or winmx or audiogalaxy satellite in their work machines? Allowing the music industry free reign over who can get hit means that an entire company(like blizzard) can get hit for the crime of a single user. It also opens up the threat of abuse("oops, we thought the MP3 server inside IndyRecords.com was hosting our content -- our bad").
As you can see, the consumer is not the only one who stands to be harmed. It's really "pro-anyone but the RIAA/MPAA" to have laws like "you can't hack into another persons computer -- PERIOD.", why this falls out of the realm of merely pro-consumer law and into the realm of criminal law. It hurts everyone to allow such behaviour.