Slashdot Mirror
Berman Bill Dead in the Water?
Masem writes "Last summer, Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) introduced a bill that would legitimize computer attacks by copyright owners on those users that they believed were illegally trading copyright material; the bill recieved a fair amount of criticism for the potental viligante tactics it suggested. That session of Congress ended without resolution of the bill, though Rep. Berman promised to reintroduce it this session. However, the LA Times reports that support for the bill is nowhere as strong as before, and many believe that laws already exist that allow copyright owners to punish illegal traders; as a result, Berman appears to be unwilling to support the bill further. For example, while the MPAA supported the bill, some of the liabilities introduced into it to punish those copyright holders that went too far in their attacks were too much for the Hollywood group." Unfortunately, the LA Times site requires registration.
Not similar at all.
The police are the government. The MPAA isn't.
In all I've read about the Berman bill, I've never completely understood why vigilantism was considered OK in this instance. For instance, I would not be allowed to shoot a man should he rape my girlfriend; nor would I be able to steal back my property from a robber. Why are copyright holders special? Why is copyright infringement so heinous?
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
Or, better yet, when a law is being broken by millions of people every day, we should examine the law to see if it's really something the people of this democracy want/need.
Someone says that you stole something from them, only you didn't steal anything. Do you want this decided by a third party (concerned with upholding justice), or by the side with the biggest resources (muscle, lawyers, army)?
The Other Nate
Now now, I'm sure there's a clause buried in there somewhere to prevent the people of the US from enjoying the same right that corporations would have...
The neighborhood watch kicking in the door that they might think might be a drug dealer and demand that they prove that they are not drug dealers by giving blood tests, urin tests, the bugging of telephones, and the installation of cameras in every room of the house.
Fight Spammers!
While Hollywood is utterly liberal and constantly bashing the convervative point of view, there is one thing you must remember: There are some VERY rich people in Hollywood. And if there is one thing that conservatives will protect more than anything else, it's the rich.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
It's unfortunate how naive you techies are: such sweet innocence. Good riddance to bad legislation, huh? Well here's the slashdot word of the day: rider. Can you say rider boys and girls?
Rider - An amendment, usually not germane, that it's sponsor hopes to get through more easily by including it in other legislation. Riders become laws if the bills they are attached to are enacted. The House, unlike the Senate, has strict germaneness rules, so riders are usually Senate devices to get legislation enacted quickly or to bypass possible opposition.
Legislation is usually mostly good with some bad, this was simply bad on it's own.
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
Well... even though the GOP hates the liberals in Hollywood and the media, taking the anti-IP stance would conflict with their pro-business stance. They are essentially between a rock and a hard place. Indifference seems like the best choice.
--
"What do you want me to do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? Cause I'm married."
sPh
I have exchanged numerous emails with my congressman (Rep Robert Wexler, 19th district FL) on this topic, as he is a cosigner of the bill. As recently as this weekend, I received another message from him indicating his ongoing support for the legislation. Perhaps if Berman drops it, this will be the end of the discussion. Nonetheless, /.ers may find this humorous:
I have repeatedly criticised the bill to him on the grounds that it is prima facie impossible for a P2P vigilante to launch an attack against a file trader without collateral damage to innocents on the same network who necessarily suffer loss of quality of service simply by virtue of having to share bandwidth with one more person (the vigilante). In spite of several attempts to put this idea into much simpler terms than presented here, the message never seemed to get through to him. He remains confident that by writing the law to explicitly forbid damages to nonparticipating networks or computers, that this will somehow make it so. It sort of reminds me of the legends of a proposal in the Indiana legislature (though this is probably just a Kentuckian joke) that pi should be exactly 22/7. It may be physically impossible, but goldurnit, we're gonna write the law anyway!
So, basically what they would do is pass a law that made it legal for copyright owners to disrupt P2P networks, but write it in such a way that it would be impossible for the vigilantes to exercise that right because they couldn't do so without engaging in prohibited activity: namely reduction in QoS for users who were not participating in the exchange. It's either a fantastic example of pure congressional ignorance of technological (heck, basic physical) reality, or evidence of a level of cynicism previously unimagined; that they would spend all this time tossing a bone to the *AAs with a rubber band attached.
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
Suppose a piece of artwork in a gallery is copyrighted. You take a picture knowing that doing so is illegal. Perhaps you even do this covertly. You go home and you reproduce the photograph life-size and hang it on your livingroom wall or something. You may show it to a few friends, but you're the only one who has it.
One evening, armed burgulars hired by the gallery break into your house, and steal the photo from you. Well, maybe under the words of the bill, they might just take photos of the the photo hanging on your wall, but they still broke into your house. Imagine if that were legal. Quite scary.
Oh yeah, I forgot the part where you go to jail and reimburse the gallery for breaking into your house and pay them whatever damages they incurred from the photo that was hanging on your wall.
They aren't?
*blink*
You're sure?
If I lived in the USA I would definately register myself as a corporation. Then I could pay ZERO taxes (microsoft.com) and KILL people (union carbide / dow.com) and flood p2p networks with crap (riaa.com) and all kinds of other shit that would have a regular person in the slammer faster than you can blink...
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
Is this a refernece to things such as Palladium, "Trusted Computing", and DRM?
No, I think it was a reference to using the protections of existing laws instead of creating new ones.
Yoda of Borg am I! Assimilated shall you be! Futile resistance is, hmm?
Naive? Us? ;)
;)
Seriously, you can't paint all of Slashdot with one brush. Nope, it takes several brushes, multiple coats, and you still miss a few highly mobile spots. After all, you've got youngsters still in school, college students, and old hands with a decade or two or more of experience from the US, Canada, and other parts of the world. Some are going to be a bit naive, but not all of us.
As for the rider idea, sorry, it's been tried already. A version of this bill was first attempted as a rider to the USA PATRIOT Act. Congress had enough wisdom to detach it before the act was passed. A great pity for the cause of liberty that the whole act was not tossed in the round file.
It flopped as both a rider and a bill. I doubt it has a ghost of a chance of passing now without intervention from on high. Disney would have to do some serious shrub worship, both in financial contributions and a movie about a heroic planting on fire with a courageous crusade to topple evildoers worldwide.
"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
George W. Bush, December 18, 2002
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
I believe the difference is in the scope of the "crime" being committed. While the entertainment cartels love to spout how many billions of dollars they are "losing" to "theft", they have never once proven any harm to their business. Indeed, they can't because their knee-jerk lawsuits and injunctions prevent any possibility for any data to be gathered that might prove otherwise!
Lessig said it best in The Future of Ideas (a book I highly recommend to anyone with a desire to understand these topics):
This is not about "theft", "piracy" or even "crime". It is about control and the unproven, possibly mistaken, belief by the entertainment cartels that control of distribution == profit and their unwillingness to allow for the possibility that P2P == profit.
--K.
Sig: Bad people happen. Try to avoid being one of them.
As a corporation, you get those "privileges". But you as a person do not.
Taxes: You have to keep your personal funds separate from your corporate funds. In most cases this is done simply by paying yourself a salary. That salary is taxed. If you don't pay yourself a salary, the IRS and SEC are going to start wondering how you're buying your groceries.
Murder: The perpetrator of the crime will go to jail, and hopefully do the "electric dance". The corporation won't. The person will. You are that person. You commit a crime as a person and you will be tried for that crime as a person.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned