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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.
The ZD sites also have more on this story. Some more details of interdiction and spoofing are discussed, along with comments from the representatives who actually asked the questions. Zoe Lofgren (representing Silicon Valley) actually seemed to know what she was talking about.
[The boss from Office Space] Umm, yeahhhh. Good job guys, now If we could just get you to stop sponsoring DRM chips and bills that allow broad interpretation of "illegal" activity that infringe on fair use, that'd be great, yeah.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
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?
...quite a bit about this subject, but I gotta quit eating up bandwidth by surfing so my copy of Star Wars Episode 2 can finish downloading over Kazaalite.
The next (il)logical step would be to allow bill collectors to hack into your bank accounts to collect on past-due accounts.
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.
..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.
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.
Funny, I bet lots of Slashdotters know what bullet could solve this problem.
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 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.
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.
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.
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'
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.
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.
(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.
Seriously. Just redirect the entire RIAA block to goatse or something.
"Here's a security hole for you!"