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Howard Berman Talks About P2P Piracy Prevention Act
An anonymous reader writes "I know Rep. Berman is not held in high regard on Slashdot, but he has posted an article on Findlaw where he discusses his self- help for P2P piracy bill. He has not convinced me that this is about preventing theft, rather than preserving old business models, but the bill does appear to have a lot of safeguards built-in." I'm confused about what measures Berman believes would be acceptable, after reading the many disclaimers here.
The fact of the matter is that the **AA, the copyright cartels, have not proved that their incomes, or the artists which they rip o.. er, represent, have been damaged by Kazaa et al.
Their shrieks and cries of doom, and destruction, on the contrary, echo their histrionic historical wailings, about every new media development under the sun, decimating their livelihoods.
None of that has come to pass.
Let a few truly independent investigations be run, on the claim that the copyright cartels have suffered loss that warrants such draconian laws, and then maybe, we can talk to them, and treat them as deserving of our "concern" (for want of a better term.)
At the moment, all we have is a bunch melodramatic control freaks, in a behaviour-loop, with no proven basis for their "concerns."
As such, people who know their track record (no pun intended) choose to treat them with the contempt they deserve, and will continue to deserve, until they stop lying, distorting, dissembling and duping, and come up with some independently verified, hard facts that merit that anything is done.
In my humble opinion.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
One of the issues not addressed by Berman in the article or the bill itself is this: the mere presence of an item on a p2p network does not prove infringement. How are the copyright holders supposed to prove that someone is infringing on their copyright?
Most of the time, determination that a violation of law has taken place is done by the court system. Berman's bill has no provision for determining whether a given copyright is actually being infringed, nor does it specify a process that a copyright holder would go through to determine that a copyright is being infringed.
This and this alone should be enough to cause problems. By allowing private entities to determine and prosecute violations of law, the bill essentially places police power in the hands of private entities.
Write your congressman to complain! Most of them are lawyers, so should understand reasonable arguments. One plus is the bill is relatively short, so should be easy to comprehend.
Only you can prevent Bad Law!
I'll feed the troll
He's not a troll. His words may be painful, but they sound pretty honest to me.
Do you relish the fact that you can't hit fast forward to skip the advertisements and copyright warnings on DVDs which you've rightfully purchased
I make a product, I can design it to work however I want. If I build the thing to play advertisements, and you still want to buy the thing, that's my decision.
Do you think that the RIAA has the right to impose the cumbersome, fragile CD format on everyone, by attempting to restrict more advanced, convenient means of media storage and playback
Yeah, they've just got a gun to your head and are forcing you to give up said music storage devices. Uh, huh. You can record your own music, or purchase music that isn't owned by them, and put it on your devices however you want. If they want to make a semi-broken "protected" CD, that's their choice, their product, and I don't see where you have any grounds for complaining. No one is forcing you to buy their products.
Do you enjoy being forced to watch commercials on your $50/mo cable TV service
(a) No one is forcing to watch commercials, or for that matter, even purchase TV service from said media companies. I have no interest in TV myself, and would happily not pay for TV service. (b) Would you rather watch TV that costs $50/mo to make? Trust me, it would suck. The commercials may not be entertaining, but unless you're willing to pay with greenbacks instead of being advertised to, the dollars to make the shows have to come from somewhere. It *could* be product placement throughout shows...
Would you prefer that your computer be artifically restricted in what it can and can't do, as opposed to being a general-purpose device whose capability is limited only by the imagination of software engineers?
TCPA/Palladium does *not* do this, dammit. You can use Linux and do whatever you want to with it. No one is forcing you to use Windows, and no one will ever force you to use Windows.
Would you like the federal government to pass laws which restrict you from loaning your favorite book to a friend?
I fail to see how this is relevant. You can load CDs to friends all you want. You just can't make copies of them. You said "loan" the book, not "mass-fucking Xerox" it.
May we never see th