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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."

15 of 410 comments (clear)

  1. go aussies go!!! by hummer357 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, since a lot of movies are being made in Aussieland, maybe wel'll get to see a lot of visiting MIAA and RIAA people being thrown in the slammer!

    Go Aussies Go!!!

    or maybe they'll blackmail the Australian government into passing similar legislation, on the threat that there won't be any more films made in their country (so: bye bye dollars...)

    1. Re:go aussies go!!! by adamjaskie · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Another big reason is the scenery. In NZ i have heard that there is great varaity of scenery. I.E. it goes from grassy plains -> forest -> rocky etc very quickly. Good for making a movie that has many different environments. Also, much of the land looks very "ancient" so it is ideal for movies such as LOTR.

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      /usr/games/fortune
  2. Re:Amendment by spongman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    yeah, like the chief of staff needs a vote in congress (a law) anymore to go to war. the constitution has long gone out the window...

  3. the joys of global law. by benson+hedges · · Score: 2, Interesting

    those are the problems that can, and will arise more and more, the more we communicate and exchange globally. remember the Yahoo! lawsuit where a french court ordered them to block french people from access to neonazi sites? Same problem. In the us, there is no law that would block you from viewing nazi stuff (I'm not from the us, but I think that's covered by the 2nd amandment to the constitution), but in france, it's illegal. Or, the story about the italian police shutting down an us-based website because of blasphemous content. It's the same in realworld-land. say, you go to holland, smoke a joint in a coffeeshop, and then go to a land where the consumation of marijuana is illegal. eventhough you smoked it in holland, where you are allowed to, you can still get fined for drug abuse elsewhere. we live in a global word (sorry for that buzzing), with laws that apply to local groups. this will be a problem for quite some time. just think, there are probably lands where child porn is legal, or where critical writing about politicans is illegal.. all sorts of problems. the only solutions I can think of would be "one global law" (which is pretty much impossible before there is one global land), specific "net laws" that state that "analog laws" do not apply to the internet anymore, or anarchy. don't ask me what would be best, I'm a geek, not a philosopher. :)

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    Karma : Soylent Green (Mostly due to eating junk food and mocking religion)
  4. Um, look again folks, this is a strange one... by gorehog · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "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."

    and

    "...if Californian Democrat congressman Howard Berman's copyright protection bill, which allows cracking of computers, passes into law."

    Well, it seems to me that if the American bill does become a law then it will not be a long journey to find sympathy among the Australian government. Keep in mind that Australia and the US have good relations, particularly when it comes to law enforcement. The pasing of this law by the American Government may be all the "lawful authority" that the Australians require. The important thing is to write your congressman and senators, to anyone you can. Point out that this law would be like allowing business owners to booby-trap their places of business. It would also open a loophole by which ANY vicious hacker would gain the "right" to viciously hack, simply by releasing an album on his own label and then "finding" mp3's being shared on peer-to-peer.

  5. Re:Lawful authority? - OT by BoBaBrain · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For the record, in 1732 England opened Georgia as a penal colony.

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    I am a Karma Library.
  6. Lawful authority, but only in the US by Saint+Fnordius · · Score: 4, Interesting


    The way I see it, the Australians are calling the game right. What the law is essentialy allowing is vigilante vandalism within the US. It's the same as if the MPAA/RIAA sent goons over to whack your home entertainment system with baseball bats.

    Now even if this were allowed in the USA, it ain't allowed in Australia*. Even if the target is an American, as soon as the goons start vandalising Australian property, they're subject to Australian jurisdiction. Their corporate masters could aso be charged for giving the orders ("taking out a contract").

  7. Re:�The Computer Misuse Act 1990� Section 1; by iainr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Bit more complicated if the box/complaint were north of the border since they'd also have to talk the Scottish parliament into nobbling the procurator fiscal responsible. that might prove a bit more tricky.

  8. Re:Maybe I need to RTFA by Xaoswolf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I thought that this went for any country other than Australia. I mean, if you commit a crime in another country, you can be charged there if you ever go there. Is Australia the only country speaking up, or are there other countries talking too?

  9. all too easy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Make a small bitmap file. Use a hex editor, if you must, but call the image your own, copyrighted work. Then put it on your website, with an EULA stating that the visitor agrees that the image must be deleted from the visitor's machine within 5 minutes from loading of the page. Write some program that logs visitor ip's, waits for 7-10 minutes, and launches an attack, if the visitor ip is "good", whatever that means. If you have a large enough site, some representative of the abovementioned corporations will certainly visit it sooner or later. And, hurrah, you have the right-to-attack.

    Just prey this bill gets passed :) And make sure the EULA is at least 3-4 pages long, with all sorts of legal bullshit on it. It has to work!

  10. EULA by Jacer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What if the P2P hackers (coders) were to include a clause into the EULA about no profit organization can use the software, make it a license violation if the mpaa or the riaa use the software. I'm not saying it's a solution, however, it may buy some time. That or we can pay the kids at their isp to null route them into an intranet

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    --fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
    1. Re:EULA by HiThere · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well, if that's the license, and you suspect them of copyright violation, it would be your right to check, by breaking in to their computers.

      Perhaps some kind of public corporation could be formed, with membership limited to, say, humans who could be identified with a physical body. And stock could be purchased by submitting a work of GPL software for ownership by the corporation (so that there would be a large number of pieces of copyright stuff to check for). (I didn't say it had to be good software. Perhaps a variation of "Hello, World." would suffice.) Then all owners of the corporation would be entitled to check for the presence of copyrighted works on suspect computers. (Bet'cha they've got something substantially similar of one of the thousands of variations of "Hello, World." that would be owned by the corporation.)

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      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  11. Re:Amendment by tomhudson · · Score: 3, Interesting
    They also can face up to 5 years in jail and up to $1,000,000 in fines per incident in Canada under existing laws regarding destruction of other peoples' data, which (your data) is protected under copyright law.

    Unlike mafiaboy, these are supposedly adults. They won't get the benefit of going through the juvenile court system.

  12. Re:Lawful authority? by ruhk · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Then again, Australia has a long and distinguished record of being a penal colony for the British...
    One thing I hate about the American educational system is the way in which we cover history. America was used more extensively by Britain as a penal dumping ground than any other Crown colony bar none. Further, Australia was barely used as a penal colony. The vast majority of colonists in Australia were neither indentured nor criminal. They chose to go. Of course, teaching history in such a way that we don't paint ourselves as The Greatest Country In The World (Now With Extra Freedom!) (tm) would be unpatriotic.
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    404 Error: .sig not found.
  13. Re:Its O.K, Australia is safe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    International law, however, has tried to put Kissinger on the stand to testify in regard to his relation with Pinochet. He was served with a summons in Paris, but skipped town on the first flight available.