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Sen Hatch Would Like To Destroy Filetraders' PCs
CBackSlash writes "Sen. Hatch is interested in technology to remotely destroy computers. But it would only be used if you're downloading copyrighted material, and only the copyright owner should be able to wield this awesome power, since having the feds do it would be against the law. Here is the AP story from Yahoo!."
And there is an excuse for vandalizing a PC?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah
Don't fool yourself and think it's only the republicans.
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
This is not just about file-sharing. It's about the ability of the government to remotely wipe out your computer, and creating the mindset that people whose computers are wiped out must be bad and therefore unworthy of notice or protection.
No, this is about allowing powerful corporations to legally take vigilante action to protect their revenue streams. At the click of a button, without filling out any paperwork. This is, of course, far far worse.
The government can already cease your computer for years for 'analysis'. This is a de facto punishment for hacking imposed by law enforcement. Not good, but at least they have to drive out to your house and fill out some forms.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
If our constitutional rights are colliding with the interests of the content industry, the proper solution is not to destroy our constitutional rights but rather to destroy the content industry. This is especially the case considering how, in the grand scheme of multinational business, movies and records are small potatoes.
If copyright cannot coexist with freedom of speech, the right to privacy, and due process of law, it is time for copyright to go.
Put it that way to the content industry, and maybe they'll have a strong incentive to think of a workable and non-subversive way to run their businesses.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Enron contributed to democrats. And most of their really bad shit was done during Clinton's watch? Remember the summer of 2000's rolling blackouts?
Only in slashdot are posts of solidarity modded at -1 Redundant, while posts of antagonism are modded as -1 Flamebait.
Before my private property is seized or destroyed, I expect my constututional rights, specifically, those spelled out in the 4th amendment, to be respected.
The Government must not seize or destroy private property without that property's owner being granted due process. And I surely do not consent to a private industry lobbying group (the RIAA) taking the place of The Government, and trouncing that right, either.
If you have done so, please do not continue to advocate the destruction of private property, even under The Best Intentions(tm), or "boosting commerce". If you want to advocate the seizure or destruction of personal assets under ANY circumstances, please only consider doing so after granting the intended victim their constitutionally-guaranteed right of due process.
I, for one, just quit the Republican Party, and sent the good Senator a nice message telling him why. I would STRONGLY urge all of you to do the same. Here's a nice little template to follow:
Dear Senator Hatch,
I'm writing to you after reading an Associated Press news article in which you stated your support to destroy the computers of those who infringe on copyrights.
"If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize..." you were quoted as saying.
While I do agree with you that folks downloading entire catalogs of music en masse from the internet are basically thieves, I think this is quite the extreme and wrong stance, especially given the sad state of copyright law that now exists.
It's pretty clear today that copyright now favors large entertainment companies instead of any kind of scientific and social progress as the founders had intended, with copyright terms now exceeding most people's life expectancies (what good is the public domain when the public that could benefit from it no longer exists.) and when laws like the DMCA makes it a crime to copy something for FAIR USE if it happens to be encrypted in the first place. It's also pretty clear that Congress now favors the entertainment companies rather than the people that elected them, when they're willing to advocate or condone a "solution" that would destroy the private property of their constituents, without so much even lip service paid to due process.
Well, if you're willing to be so extreme, Senator, so am I. I just quit the Republican Party. While I'm not from your state, and Pennsylvania is far from a Republican stronghold, I intend to encourage others to do the same.
Maybe a few hundred thousand of us, and you'll realize something.
Sincerely,
Ed R. Zahurak
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
No matter what there will be countermeasures by random hackers.
More to the point, there will be countermeasures by virus writers.
Imagine if the system Hatch proposed (at least, I think it was him at that point in the story) is implemented: two warnings, and your system is destroyed.
Now imagine a virus. If the capability is written into the hardware, all it has to do is trigger it locally. If the capability is somehow, magically, out there in RIAAland, all the virus has to do is download offending material and suppress the warnings.
The virus writer is nowhere to be seen, so the consumer's wrath is going to fall on the folks who put the weapon into the virus writer's hands.
Hmm.
Maybe slashdotters should *back* Hatch in this.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
I think a more respectful, mature tone might have better results:
Dear Senator Hatch,
I am writing in response to your comments today in support of allowing large corporations to destroy the property of individuals based on suspicion of trading in copyrighted works with any judicial oversight or review. I feel the need to remind you that we still have a justice system in this country that is already in place to handle infringement cases after proof is given. This justice system has even been slanted to give more power to companies and individuals based on the amount of money they can bring to the effort. I don't think allowing huge corporations to bypass even the decidedly un-level playing field of the court system is in the best interests of the people of the State of Utah or the United States of America. This would be akin to allowing Best Buy or Sears to imprison suspected shoplifters without trial or recourse. This cannot have been your intention.
Admittedly, I trust the media even less than I do large corporations so I am looking forward to a statement correcting your stance being available in the future.
Thank you for your time.
Respectfully,
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
Interesting you should use Sony as an example. In their last fiscal year they had some interesting results...
Profits of about $1billion (yes, that's a 'b') on sales of about $62billion, total. Which looks a lot more interesting when you break it down by division...
Sony Pictures showed operating income of $492million on sales of $6billion.
Sony Music showed an operating loss of $73million on sales of $5billion.
Sony Videogames showed an operating income of $942million on sales of $8billion.
Sony Electronics showed an operating income of $345million on sales of $41billion.
Sony is doing everything they can to stop IP piracy to protect their movie and entertainment divisions, because that's the best way they have to make money. They have to work a *lot* harder in their electronics division (8 times the sales) to make 2/3 the operating income of the movie division. 5 times more sales in electronics than in videogames, and they made 1/3 the income.
The profit margins in consumer electronics suck. The profit margins in movies/entertainment are great. They are making a conscious rational decision about how best to protect their profits.
Sales don't matter. Income and profits matter.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
I read with some dismay Senator Hatch's comments on copyright. Please remind him at the next opportunity of the text of the 8th clause of the constitution:
"The Congress shall have the power.... To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"
There is a critical point here, carefully obfuscated by the RIAA and it's minions - there is no such thing as "Intellectual Property."
There is a concept in law called a "Natural Right," and it is generally accepted that people have a natural right to propriety. But as Jefferson was explicitly clear on, there is no natural right to "own" an idea:
"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea..."
Copyright does not protect property, it is not about protecting property; it is about promoting science and the useful arts. Copyright is not a property right; it is a temporary monopoly. Violating copyright is not theft, it is not piracy; it is guerilla anti-trust.
This distinction is quite clear in the constitutional grant of exclusive right, that such grant would not be obviously self-justified as it would be for property, but that such right is justified only in as much as it fulfills the noble social good of "promoting the progress of science and the useful arts."
Larry Lessig's recent supreme court challenge to the CTEA hinged on the second phrase's "limited time." He argued unsuccessfully that the extensions provided by CTEA violated the phrase by establishing essentially perpetual copyright. The court asked if 120 years was not a finite time, and turned the claim down.
It would seem that a more powerful case would be made by asking if the CTEA, DMCA, NET, etc. fulfill the constitutionally required purpose: "to promote science and the useful arts."
Today fear of over-broad laws wielded by greedy institutions has a broad chilling effect on innovation: science and the useful arts. If found thus by the court, such laws would be unconstitutional.
Thomas Jefferson was quite clear on his views of copyright and these views are enshrined in the 8th clause. It is a grant of an "embarrassing monopoly" and not a right; explicitly the fugitive fermentations of a mind cannot be owned.
Senator Hatch needs to hear and understand his words:
"It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it, but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessen