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Hearing on Hollywood Hacking Bill
DaveAtFraud writes "CNN says that Hilary Rosen and the RIAA are once again lobbying Congress for the right to sabotage P2P networks. Of course, Hilary says that the RIAA wouldn't abuse this capability. Luckily, some of the lawmakers are dubious. Also, Rep. Rick Boucher asked, 'What are the implications for the Internet's functionality when the inevitable arms race develops?' and pointed out that overzealous attempts to enforce existing copyright law had all too often targetted legitimate postings." There's also a News.com story.
They tacitly approve of these nasty tactics from the RIAA, then turn around and sell MP3 players for their Clies and Playstation 2s? I don't get it.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Does anyone else have a problem with the word suspect in that sentence. So this bill would grant someone the "right" to take away my pursuit of happiness (most definitely found on most P2P networks) without the due process of law?
The next (il)logical step would be to allow bill collectors to hack into your bank accounts to collect on past-due accounts.
I see in the RIAA a group acting out of desperation. I think they have been spouting on about piracy for so long that they have begun to believe their own propoganda. Until they restructure the way in which their business is conducted, they will be in constant fear of the internet bankrupting them. I think in five years they will have either changed or succumbed to their own shortcomings. Either way will, IMHO, be for the benefit of the listener.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
..is a quick telling of why this would cause problems for even what the RIAA calls "law abiding netziens." The RIAA/MPAA claim that "law abiding" people wont be affected by the proposed legislation.
In actuality, if the RIAA were to launch a DoS attack against a P2P node, other nearby nodes (eg, cable modems) would also become affected from the influx of incoming traffic against that node. The reason for this is because of how computer networks work and operate.
When writing to your congressman, include this tidbit of info and why that it is the case. Include a short discussion of why it's the case in terms they will understand. Analogies work great for things like this.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
In many countries around the world (like the on I'm living in at the moment) a fee or tax is charged for every blank media such as CD or Tape, which is then paid to copyright holder organizations. I can coun't 20 disks on my backup spindle and about 4 in my garbage and today I brought some sources to my client and he burned some specs one one that I took back to my office. I hope the support is appreciated.
Say my DSL account got shut down one day and I found out it was because my daughter did a book report on a band and it had mentioned song titles in it. I use my connection for business, as I'm a freelancer. I wonder what legal action one could take against them. I have a feeling it would become quit expensive for them.
First of all, this would be a prime example of Fair Use, so legally they couldn't do a damn thing about it.
Not that they should be trusted however. If they were to take action against you for this, it would pretty much be up to you to prove that you were in the right (side note: isn't it supposed to be innocent until proven guilty? that's not what is happening nowadays). I'd give you some estimates on how much that would cost, but I don't want to give you nightmares. You would of course be legally clear here, and clear according to any AUP your ISP might have, but don't expect overzealous IP lawyers to give a damn about your rights.
It is quite sad how our legal system has been reduced to a system of "survival of the wealthiest."
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to disrupt music downloads, told lawmakers Thursday that some tactics his software can use are legally questionable under U.S. computer crime laws. One such technique, called "interdiction," deliberately downloads pirated material very slowly so that other users can't.
What if the file being downloaded in question happens to be my own copyrighted file that I allow everyone to view except MediaDefender Inc.? If they're downloading it from my machine, doesn't that violate existing copyright law even with the proposed legislation? If not, does that mean I can download copyrighted files from others with the intention of protecting that copyright? I guess I would need to own the copyright in order to protect it, but then wouldn't MediaDefender need to own it as well? Confusing...
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
What about the other customers of the ISP that the suspected criminal is using? A denial of service attack will obviously affect the ISP's bandwidth and the Internet as a whole.
If someone is breaking the law shouldn't they be charged with a crime and shouldn't we use the judicial system and due process?
If someone steals something from my house I don't have a right to break into their house and steal it back, or burn their house down.
This is outrageous.
LoRider
This is a very real possibility:
Much of the PTP swapping happens on university networks.
Universities often have medical facilities, and share the network.
Say the RIAA launches an attack which inadvertently damages a medical database -- someone gets the wrong prescription or diagnosis and dies as a result of the RIAA.
Or the RIAA launches a DOS attack which just happens to deny service to an important medical service, as a result some patient's treatment is delayed/denied and dies.
Deaths would be acceptable "collateral damage" to the RIAA perhaps, but I have to wonder WTF legislators are thinking when they give even one picosecond of consideration to this bill.
This isn't as unlikely as it sounds. Despite what one might think, university hospital systems are more often than not NOT FIREWALLED and NOT PROTECTED and suffer from the same poor security as the rest of the university networks.
She described the P2P scene as a harbor, where everyone has their "house" on the shore. There's a lot of traffic in the harbor, and the RIAA is going to "interdict" in this traffic to prevent illegal file transfers from taking place. She completely glossed over the fact that this involves interfering with my property and privacy. She assumed that there was some reason that the citizens of the United States should transfer police duties to a corporate funded self-interest group.
Unfortunately, the EFF spokesperson wasn't much of a match for her. Her argument was too soft. If you're going up against a corporate self-interest group, go for the throat, go for blood, and go quickly. She should have pointed out that this sets a legal precedent to commit digital vandalism from afar with legal immunity (terrifying to the average person). She should have mentioned that there is no way for the RIAA to differentiate between American citizens legally exercising their fair-use rights and criminals (uninteresting, but...) and she should have likened this to burning books if the RIAA doesn't know how you got it (terrifying). She failed to represent the loss of privacy and liberty in the name of closed-market corporate profits.
She should have pointed out that TV studios don't sell TV shows for $18 each to consumers, newspapers don't derive their profits from selling content to readers, movies sell an in-theater experience for a reasonable price, and radio is free. We would need legislation to sell each of these to the consumer for $2 a song/article/episode, because doing so would artificially prop up a broken business model. Nobody complains about bands' merchandise and concert ticket sales - because consumers feel that there is value in these products. Take the hint - consumers do not want to pay $18 for crappy CDs.
Is this not an American market economy, where failing business models and unpopular products fail due to a lack of demand? It's looking more and more like a command economy where useless and unpopular products are perpetuated by beauracracy.
In summary, I was horrified to see Hilary Rosen acting like a complete fool, mocking the EFF name, spreading untruths, and all the while being accepted by the anchors as someone trying to do the right thing, while the EFF spokesperson was treated as some sort of hippy wacko. The EFF person should have been more cunning and critical, and she should have immediately and unquestionably taken up a stance as protecting the American people from corporate corruption, a very effective angle these days.
Obviously, technology is our first line of defense when we can't count on the law to be on our side against the RIAA. That doesn't mean that what they are doing is right or okay just because they can, though. That kind of thinking is what makes people believe that "might makes right" and leads to abuses of the powerless in our society.
Also, waging a technological war on the RIAA will only be possible if we are afforded the same legal advantages they are, in order to make the playing field level. I can guarantee if you are caught r00ting the RIAA's site that you'll be branded a terrorist and thrown in jail.
These people are not about fairness and freedom, so we need to do everything we can to constrain them legally.
"There has been a lot of misinformation about this bill," said Hilary Rosen, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America. "Some have characterized it as allowing copyright vigilantism or letting record companies and movie studios hack into people's computers and crash networks. These irresponsible descriptions at best reveal a misunderstanding of the text and purpose of the bill, and at worst purposely cloud the real issues."
Nice try Hilary. I think we all see what happens to artists who sign a contract with you.
I'm sure it doens't say anywhere in your contracts that you're allowed to make indentured servants out of your artists, but you are able to get your lawyers to do just that!
I envision a dream parody where all the senators are lined up to sign this bill. And afterwards Hilary cackles in glee, "All your future bills are belong to us!"
And then we see congressmen having to actually PAY money at the end of the year, just to stay in office. They propose bill after bill, but the RIAA denies all the ones they don't like. And then someday on slashdot, we'll all be asking, "Dude, why would anyone want to become a politician?", and we'll all answer, "Because the Big-5 lure them with big $$$ and fame!"
Wow, this is just so ridiculous that I can't even find words for it. ('course we have to pay an extra 'duty' to the record companies on blanking CD's but that's another /. story...)
This flies in the face of due process so much that it's insane! Ugh stupid governments always making more and more and more laws - even when there's perfectly cromulet (hehe) laws around to cover situations.
Unauthorized copying of music etc., is already illegal, they need to use those laws. And if they can't keep up, then tough crap. Cops can't keep up with all of the speeders, but that doesn't mean they can shoot the tires out of parked Ferraris because they suspect that the owners might use them to speed (of course they are using them to speed, but you still gotta catch 'em and ticket them).
Has anyone wondered why the RIAA and music labels don't figure out why people continue to download, and not buy CDs? It seems to me that P2P file sharing would decrease if we all had more incentive to actually buy CDs. I think the issues here are music quality (currently the majority sucks) and CD price (way too expensive). If the RIAA just took a short term hit, lowered CD prices, and produced higher quality music, people might go back to buying CDs, which would in turn make the record companies make more money again.
"But we don't confiscate people's property and pass it out because people want it for free."
Really? Thats exactly the largest part of the govenment. It's called income taxes and redistribution of wealth. Promise group X (senior citizens, single mothers ) that you'll tax the rich and give them everything for free.
Do I understand this correctly?
.08 per song and call it even. Is this sales they are losing or simple digital distribution costs. I find it hard to believe they think they are losing 2.88 BILLION per year. Is this a change for the RIAA? They gave up on the downloading prevents sales ploy, now its lost money on digital downloads too?
In his opening remarks, Rep. Berman (D-Calif.) claimed that 3 billion files a month were illegally downloaded. Since the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel charges eight cents per digital recording, Berman concluded that the industry is losing about $240 million per month.
I would gladly pay
Rosen must be a business genius, what other CEO can lose more in one year then they made in the last 5 combined, and still turn the same profit as the previous year!
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
It's a long-term strategy, but if you really want to fix this, make sure you have GPG/PGP set up and start building up a web of trust. Maybe 10 years from now, everyone will either be nobody or somebody. Once you've got authentication, you've got reputation.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
?If this passess, then well they well be given the right to do what others would be jailed for. If I decide that I am against somthing, such as Paypal (just a example) and I decide to DOS them, and case damage by doing do. Then hell paypal is not ging to be happy and can get cops on me if thye wish.
... what ever, I can't get anyhting from RIAA.
Now we are saying that if this bill passess, then the RIAA well be alowed to DOS psp networks. Now considering how DOS works not only is the guy next to my house get DOS, but I get it to. It would affect the general area to be honest. Now lets say my system takes damage, software messed up
There are countless examples I can go into but hey my time is worth cash. But also noote one thing, this is a US bill. I am in canada, so what happens when they do a DOS attack that goes over the border. If my companey is hit because soem one ran kazaa on our network even tho its not alowed. Then well they can mess up corporate data and such. Now this just became a VERY tuchey subject.
my 2 cents plus 2 more
(Howard Coble)
and
(Howard Berman)
They both need to be marched into the woods for legal re-education. Copyright has nothing to do with property rights. All it represents is that someone has a temporary government-granted monopoly on copying a work. Someone does not "own" the work itself just because they have been granted the copying monopoly.
I understand the copying industry's desire to cast it in this light. After all, property law is much stronger than the actual copyright law they really fall under. In fact, they wouldn't be doing their jobs if they didn't try and twist the truth like this. But that doesn't mean we have to swallow it.
Most of the time I'm searching for live performances, outtakes, or out of print material etc. If I have no other avenue by which to acquire it, am I really violating copyright? Who does that material belong to, the artist or the record company? I've been researching this issue for quite some time and my initial conclusions still seem to be intact.
- Piracy is only piracy when the pirate is compensated; this does not happen in P2P networking since material is freely distributed.
- The idea that material freely distributed is equal to lost sales is simply wrong; what if I never intended to buy that record in the first place - it's not a lost sale if there was never going to be a sale.
- People like me have actually purchased more CDs since getting involved in file sharing due to increased exposure to more bands that I find I like. I would never have heard of more than half the CDs I bought in the last year were it not for P2P sharing. God knows the radio ain't playing any of it.
- Finding obscure and out of print material does not cost the record company a dime since they're not offering it for sale in the first place. Who the hell are they kidding?
- Most people don't download Britney Spears records from P2P networks - they tape it off each other or the radio. Honestly, why would someone take the time to download a song that gets played on the radio constantly? Besides, those artists that are already successful seem to be the most freaked out by this; does the equation 'Increased exposure equals increased sales' mean anything to anybody? I know I'd like as many people as possible to hear my band for free - that's marketing and exposure - but if someone charges for it and I don't see a dime then that's piracy (*which when it comes down to it, is exactly what record companies do the artists).
Finally, I'd really like to see Eminem kick the ass of 'those guys on the internet that are downloading my songs' as he so intelligently put it. Cripes, I think I'll go download as much Eminem as I possibly can, burn it to CD and then set it on fire. That'll show 'em.
-B
"Look, Smithers! I'm Davy Crockett!"
Just out of interest, has anyone here realized the potential weaponry we already have to stop potential attacks from the RIAA, MPAA, et al? Folks, we control the routers. Last time I looked, the internet was an organic beast controlled more or less by us. (checking my router monitoring CGI scripts) If you don't like the policies, or 'legitimately' fear an attack from a network, then isn't our responsibility to either route around them, or crank up some access-lists to block them? Attacks from a network certainly generate access-lists on my WAN routers.. I'll just leave you folks with that, and let you marinate on it...
You know, systems like Echelon and Carnivore are bound to hold quite a few copies of various emails I wrote (particularly as I like to throw in random "bomb", "terrorist", "attack" and "allah" keywords in there). I wonder if I could claim they are _sharing_ those emails (my copyrighted material) through that system...
You would of course be legally clear here, and clear according to any AUP your ISP might have, but don't expect overzealous IP lawyers to give a damn about your rights.
It is quite sad how our legal system has been reduced to a system of "survival of the wealthiest."
To the contrary -- and this is the point of why this bill is bad. Presently, a person who's business had been criminally or tortiously interefered with by Computer abuse would have very solid grounds for fighting back. In other words, "overzealous lawyers" would be fond of working for him as well as for the deep-pocketed bad guys.
Don't forget, there is a serious downside of having a deep pocket -- a judgment against you is highly collectible. These entities CANNOT risk crossing the line into tortious conduct, with the concommitant potential for punitive damages.
And that, at the end of the day, is why Hackback is a bad law -- giving deep pockets strong technical defenses for potentially malicious conduct allows them to use their pocketbooks risk-free to abuse us. At least today, an "overzealous lawyer" can make their life as awful as they can make the public's.