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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.
I would love to see a war between the RIAA and techies. I wonder who will win?
LoRider
Wow!
Hopefully Rep. Berman (who is seemengly regretting his latest bill, or at least what he supported) will realise this won't do any good to his image or that of his fellow cronies images and not push for this bill.
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.
What are the implications for the Internet's functionality when the inevitable arms race develops?
I love this comparison. This indeed seems like an arms race.
On one side you have the big corps armed with heavy lawyers and lots of money.
On the other side, groups of hackers, filesharers, IT-rights activists. We're armed with technology, innovation, and a whole lotta people
RIAA can probably buy the techs though, this evens things somewhat.
It's the case of the an army of the elite Vs the large army of gorillas. The elite may have a lot of neat tricks, but it will probably really hurt if the gorillas manage to close enough to make a few punches.
They don't really have a moral right at all, legal or not. I'll be damned if they hack me "incidentally" to checking for copyrighted material.
"...interdiction, which would attempt to suck up a user's outbound file sharing connections with repeated attempts to download a copyrighted file. Interdiction would prevent human users from downloading that file, eventually frustrating them and forcing them to move on, he said.
Isn't this notion of "interdiction" essentially a DoS attack?
And if I'm getting DoS'd -- or if my corporate firewall is getting DoS'd because the RIAA is mistakenly 'interdicting' me -- then I could care less who's doing it.
Will the RIAA get some sort of legal, uber-exemption? And if so, do I receive warning before I'm DoS'd?
I dunno, all this seems frightening. Who controls the RIAA's interdiction efforts?
This article on CNN gives good voice to the "anti" side of things. In fact, the "anti" quotes were much better. I would never have expected that, when you consider who owns CNN. Hillary Rosen sounded quite false. "I can't foresee any scenario where it would be in our interest to go into anybody's computer and delete a file," but you want a law written so that you could get away with that? Does she think Americans will believe any corporations now that say "Trust us"?
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
From Berman's quote in the News.com article..."There is no excuse or justification for P2P piracy. Of course, consumers would like free music at the click of a mouse," he said. "They would also like gasoline for less than $1 dollar a gallon. But we don't confiscate people's property and pass it out because people want it for free."
A more legit comparison would be if I were to steal gas. Lets look at that, shall we...
I pull up to a gas station and fill up w/o paying.
What happens now?
Does Texico come by by house and slash my tires? Does Chevron sneak in and fill my tank with water? No. They call the cops.
The Way It Should Be!
I still don't get why the RIAA thinks that age old method should differ for them.
If you give enough power to almost anybody they will abuse it. It is scary to see how easy it would be for the RIAA to abuse this power and kill off any legitimate uses for P2P networks.
Overgrown military establisments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as par
This was a very interesting hearing, and by interesting, I mean distorted half-truths and the like. It was a full packed room, and the people around me could barely contain their scoffing of some of the dramatics.
Prior to the hearing, while waiting, I talked to an MPAA lobbyist (brand new to the game, he was complaining of having to stay up the prior night and bone up on the subject). When I said, half in jest, so you guys support this bill--he responded by saying it does not have all they would like, they really want to go after irc channels as well. I hope there is never a hearing on irc, with videod demos showing irc channel traffic (as there was showing a d/l of "save the best for last" off of KaZZa).
The two main contradictions I saw were this:
1)RIAA described how big the IP industry was, and how important it is to preserve it with these laws. However, she then bemoaned the fact that they are engaged in litigation with Verizon who is much bigger then them, in fact bigger then the whole RIAA member companies. Umm, so shouldn't we then focus on the ISPs, if according to her logic, we need to help the big industries? Also, she characterized the lawsuit as just a disagreement over a minor legal technicality (you know, the LAW is a minor technicality--the case revolves around RIAA demanding names of Verizon subscribers that they properly need subpeonas to obtain, but are not getting, it is to protect subscribers privacy).
2)Rosen also said that they need this bill to stop piracy b/c the DoJ is too busy with other matters to enforce the laws, and civil suits cost so much money, more than the recoverable damages. YET, she claims that they would be under bigger restrictions with the bill passed, b/c there are remedies for users that they can bring up in civil case (which I guess would not be expensive to do????) or the DoJ can enforce criminal sanctions (which they have a lot of time to do over a few missing files, or whatever--no one would say what they want to do with the powers granted by the bill). Just such distortions.
On the plus side, Boucher was great when he brought up the letters referring to the harry potter book report (again a stupid RIAA response: "our members would not do that." Boucher responded, "it was done by the copyright holder"--AOL/TW, which I believe is a member of RIAA). Also Zoe Lofgren pointed out the meaningless aspect of the remedies for innocent hacked users. I gained a new respect for her, and I am on the other side of the aisle.
The american flag has been hung on ever piece of real estate on earth, its on the moon, its been painted on walls, draped over coffins, worn as clothing, burned, tatooed, planted in flowers to be visible from space, improvised from shirts, rags, and drawn in dust with blood. It is probably the most recognised symbol on the planet, second only to the cross. You dont need to get it perfect for people to recognize it and understand what it stands for.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Where does it stop then? If the RIAA can break into my computer to verify I "stole" copyrighted materials, and disable my computer (but not damage it) then where will it end? Can I say then if i suspect someone stole my property, can I break into their house to verify it was stolen? And then render their house unusable until my stolen items are returned?
This essentially allows the RIAA to take justice into their own hands, by-passing due process, and presuming suspects guilty rather than innocent. I highly doubt this will fly, and if it does, it just confirms who's lining who's pockets with cash.
America - Land of the tightly controlled free.
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
"The door (would be) wide open for abuse by the copyright owner and harm to computer users," Sohn said. "For example, the limitations on altering and deleting files...conceivably would not prevent a copyright owner from cutting a user's DSL (digital subscriber line) or even his phone line or knocking his satellite dish off his roof."
Not only that, but this opens the door for all kinds of shady business practices (Not that this is a big leap for the Big-5)
They could look around your computer, find other legal mp3's (from non-RIAA) and delete them. Or more likely corrupt them so it mysteriously doesn't work. They could plant Trojan Horses on your computer so that whenever anyone in the FUTURE connects to your computer, they can then track that person.
It doesn't have to end with RIAA and MPAA. It could open the door for Software companies. Root around your computer and see if ANY application is pirated. If so, then fubar your whole machine.
> > What are the implications for the Internet's functionality when the inevitable arms race develops?
> I love this comparison. This indeed seems like an arms race.
> On one side you have the big corps armed with heavy lawyers and lots of money.
> On the other side, groups of hackers, filesharers, IT-rights activists. We're armed with technology, innovation, and a whole lotta people
It's been done before. Look at the history of alt.religion.scientology -- the Scienos on one side with money, & lawyers, a bunch of activists on the other with hackers & a clue about the Internet. So far it's been a quagmire for the Scienos, whose ideology won't allow them to compromise, let alone cut their loses & run.
Unfortunately, it's not been all that fun for the other side: this little battle has taken its toll in money, careers, & burnout. However, practically every current Scientologist will become an ex-scientologist & thus be interested in picking up the fight where another has left off.
One thing about this one fight is that it has provided a battle plan for Hollywood to follow in its own approach to the Internet & protecting content. A number of actors & musicians are Scienos, & there are only a finite number of lawyers who specialize in media law: anecdotes & experiences from the Scienos battle with the Internet have undoubtedly seeped into the studios & recording music offices. Thus Rosen's interest in attacking the personal computers of anyone connected to the Internet -- something David Miscavige, the head of the CoS, would give his right theta for.
As a result, Hollywood believes they have to fight a war where there really isn't one: as it has been said before, all but a negligible amount of this ``piracy" would vanish if simply music & films were easier to buy or rent online. The industry would make more money, consumers would have more choice -- a win-win situation.
Fortunately, these industries are far more interested in making money than in pushing an ideological point-of-view. Hopefully if we keep defeating these misguided acts, the PHB running these companies will get the message, & at last see how to make money by offering an effective online point of sale.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
The Berman-Coble bill creates a safe harbor for technological self help to impair infringing file-sharing on peer-to-peer networks. The relevant passage reads "a copyright owner shall not be liable...for disabling, interfering with, blocking, diverting, or otherwise impairing the unauthorized distribution...of his or her copyrighted work on a publicly accessible peer-to-peer file trading network." This would appear to create safe harbor for the system described above, despite the costs it might create for ISPs, universities and users. However, section (B)(1)(b) creates an exception to the safe harbor if the copyright holder "causes economic loss to any person other than affected file traders" It would seem that any large scale scanning or impairment system would cause economic loss by virtue of increased bandwidth costs to affected ISPs or other network owners.
Whether or not infringement and impairment systems can meet the economic loss exception of the Berman-Coble bill, the costs for development and implementation of any scanning and impairment system will likely be passed on to consumers. Because copyright attempts to strike a balance between access to copyrighted works and incentives to creators, the Berman-Coble bill could increase incentives and thus increase the creation of new works because it creates a new means of self-help for rights holders. However, this might not fully be the case. Because costs for this system will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices, demand for works might be decreased. Further, it has been argued that users of peer-to-peer systems are low-reserve price consumers of music who are willing to spend time, but not money on acquiring music. Raising prices to cover the additional enforcement costs will add to the pool of consumers for whom the market price is above their reserve price--users of peer-to-peer networks. However, since the aim of the Berman-Coble bill is to impair the ability of peer-to-peer networks to traffic in copyrighted works, it will eliminate whatever social value these networks created through the increased access to copyrighted works. If low reserve consumers weren't going to buy music anyway (thereby creating no new incentives for creators), the reduction in their access to it is essentially deadweight loss. Since the Berman-Coble bill will likely result in increased prices for music, possible economic loss for ISPs, and reduced access to works, it would seem to reduce overall social welfare, while at the same time overtly shifting the balance of copyright from access towards protection of incentives.
Have you purchased a firearm lately. When you finally get your rifle or what have you, you are usually given NRA material.
Not only that but If you purchased you gun from a show or Gun Shop then you would have seen all of the NRA pamphlets and posters while shopping.
Add all of that to the 1 or 2 membership letters that one usually receives after a gun purchase and you begin to understand why they have such a large membership (and influence.)
How many computer stores or music/video stores have you been to that you've seen EFF membership info everywhere you turn. I don't see them at Best Buy or Comp USA.
The only way that we can help the EFF is to make them as well known as the NRA. Every gun shop and most gun owners support the NRA. Do your relatives even know about the EFF?
Don't just donate. Talk to people. Let them know what is at stake and where they can go to help. Give flyer's out at Best Buy. Take a speech class and give all of your speeches on the DMCA(worked for me and got me researching.) Anything to get the word out.
We might not be able to get a "Support the EFF" sticker sent out with every PC but we can get the word out any way we can...Bill Boards anyone?
..which just shows that the human brain is ill-adapted for thinking and was probably designed for cooling the blood-T P