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Berman Retreats, But Only To Regroup
thefinite writes "It looks like the P2P vigilante bill sponsored by Berman is going to have to be rewritten even just to be considered. A ZDNet story talks about the likelihood that the bill will get anywhere as currently written. Hopefully, the second time around will make it clear that the idea is flawed, not just the text."
Which of course isn't so much Hollywood as it is porn .... he's not really worried so much about the Lord of the Rings 4" as he is "Debbie does Dallas #76" ... which is probabloy much more likely to be on some p2p network anyway ....
In one sense, every communication between two systems is peer-to-peer, including everything from getting email to browsing the web. Unless you want to call one of the systems a "server", and then I guess it's okay.
It seems to me that a peer-to-peer network exists whenever one system talks to another. Are VOIP telephones part of a p2p net? Do I own a peer-to-peer network when I print to my printer? What if I print to the parallel port?
So, when my computer sync's my calendar with my PDA, I guess I'm doing something bad?
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
NO fair use is piracy, that's why it's called FAIR use! The two are mutually exclusive...either you're breaking the law, or you aren't. This is not a good sign. If assistant Secretary of Commerce doesn't understand this, what hope do we have for the general public?
I may be wrong, but isn't this some form of "unreasonable search and seizure"? I don't think that any music company should be allowed to practice vigilante justice, no matter how many of their copyrighted works are in jeopardy - especially if it violates my fourth amendment rights.
All the slashdotters in Berman's district need to mobilize, and get out the vote for his opponent. November 5, the election, is a week from tuesday.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
I doubt they have any real statistics at all.
A while back I worked for a software company that specialized in data-gathering tools. The issue of copyright infringement came up alot. Our lawyers explained that the test was whether the system in question had "substantial non-infringing uses". Since a lot of post-Napster P2P networks allow generic sharing (news, chat, media of all types) one could argue that many of them meet that test.
This completely ignores the argument that specific tools don't perform illegal acts, people do. But I guess it's oh so much harder to actually prosecute people according to real laws, when we can just make up a law du jour to go after the hardware and infrastructure. So, correct me if I'm wrong, but if their claim is accepted, and since P2P networks operate over TCP/IP, therefore TCP/IP should be illegal as well, and all DDOS attacks are hereby rendered legal and in support of the legal disruption of P2P traffic!
"That naive cube! How long must I suffer this!" --Sheldon J. Plankton
Am I the only one who sees the similarity to the modern Anti-Terrorism Plan and the old Salem Witch Hunts? Now they have hotlines and numbers to call in if you suspect some one is involved in Terrorist Activities, or other likewise mischief. So, how are we, the supposed great nation, going to fall back to the Witch Hunts by fingering somebody a Terrorist.... Hey!, I saw that guy wearing a white robe, he's a terrorist.. I saw that lady acting suspicous,, she's an Al-Qaida member.... We were all tought of the attrocities in Salem and other locations for supposed Witches, and now we are doing the same thing again.. How many innocent people have been killed by Terrorism this year, last year, all years?.. How many innocents will be killed, or imprisoned for life because of Anti-Terrorism?? Hopefully our elected officials will be wise enough to see what's going on, and to stop accusing everything of being a "Terrorist" network or activitiy.
In general, I'd have to say we've got a fairly cool system of government. The constitution is really clever in many ways, and the ideas that the US were founded on were definitely revolutionary. But, like any complex-but-good idea, there are problems in the first few drafts. One of those is this:
The Constitution of the United States of America is, by its own declaration, the supreme law of the land. It defines, among other things, the Supreme Court to be the highest court in the land. So one would suspect that if a person were to be found by the highest court in the land to have violated, beyond a shadow of a doubt, with willful premeditation, that supreme law of the land, that the punishment they would be sentenced to would be severe in the extreme.
One would be wrong.
Take, as an excellent example, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, often referred to as the Bill of Rights. They are powerfully and clearly worded. They say such things as "Congress shall make no law which..." and "The Right of the People [...] shall not be infringed." But what if congress does make such a law? What if the rights of the people are infringed? It happens all too often. There are laws passed by congress that clearly and blatantly ignore these amendments. In many ways, it's much like civil disobedience, but somewhat different. I shall call it federal disobedience. Sometimes these violations are so obvious that they are seen to be so not only by me and every other citizen, but by the Supreme Court itself. And the people who originally perpetrated this crime, the senators and congressmen who proposed, supported, amended, and ultimately voted to accept these laws are not held accountable. They are not fined. They are not imprisoned. They are not prevented in any way from committing the same crime again. They are left in the position that they started in, with the full means, motive, and opportunity to become repeat offenders. If I were to break a local parking ordinance, I might have to pay $50 or so. If, on the other hand, I get myself elected to public office, and once in that public office, if I blatantly disobey the supreme law of the land, the fine that I face is exactly nothing. That is horribly, horribly wrong.
Pound! Bang! Bin! Bash! is this a shell script or a Batman comic?
Berman works for his employers (the entertainment industry), who have him stationed in Washington, almost like a consultant/outsourcing kind of deal.
His job is to push custom-designed legislation, as designated by his employer. He may realize it's dead-on-arrival. He scores brownie points for making the sales pitch, even if he can't "close the deal".
Think of your job. Haven't we all been involved in some sort of management-led initiative that we were less-than-thrilled about? I can think of a handful of instances, and I shed no tears when such things crash and burn.
Berman, Fritz, and others are paid to push these "suicide bomber" initiatives, in search of a "compromise" that is pretty much the real target to begin with.
Personally, I can't wait for the first wave of P2P vigilantes. The reprisals ought to be spectacular. The whole concept of a technologically-challenged industry battling against the world's top hackers is like Saddam Hussein sending the Iraqi navy to invade New York City. The RIAA battleship will be on the ocean floor, US law regarding the Internet will be as meaningless as a UN resolution, the net result being freedom through anarchy.
Elegantly put. Wish I had mod points today.
The technique of introducing "straw man" legislation to see how it plays is not a bug, it's a feature. It's how the system is designed to operate, in a dialog of discovering what's important to each of the constituencies involved. At best, creative win-win solutions emerge. At worst, watered down compromises. In the middle, no action is taken and we try again next year.
Politics isn't evil, it's life.
Unfortunately, it's only taken me 40 years or so to figure this out...