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Piracy Deterrence and Education Act Introduced
Bootsy Collins writes "Last Thursday in the U.S. Congress,
H.R. 2517
was quietly introduced and referred to the House Judiciary Committee. The bill, authored by Lamar Smith (R-TX) and co-sponsored by Howard Berman (D-CA),
directs the FBI
to develop methods of deterring copyright violation through use of peer-to-peer networks, including efforts to facilitate sharing information about suspected violators amongst law enforcement agencies. It also directs the Justice Department to develop programs to educate the American public on why copyright violation is bad. Berman, you may remember, introduce a bill last year that would give the RIAA and MPAA wide latitude to
crack suspected violators' computers.
" Update: 06/23 17:03 GMT by S : We also covered a variant of this story on Saturday.
Will any of you actually write your congress critters about this?
... I feel much safer with pot smokers and warez kiddies behind bars.
God forbid the FBI go after dangerous criminals
I swear the faster future tech and future laws spring up, the more and more I find myself in a future looking a lot like Judge Dredd. This particular saying bugs the sh** outta me: "Quietly introduced" What exactly does that mean...that these people will try and make up some sort of law and unless people are aware enough and rebel against it, there's a good chance it will come to pass? Not to be pessimistic...ahem, but as far as I know, countries go to war without consent of the people. You can bloody bet that laws can be "Quietly introduced" without the will of the people. QD
This should make a good "Fleecing of America" or "Your Money" episode, oh that's right, I'm talking about responsible journalism! Never mind! It's nice to know how my tax dollars are being pissed away, and I will remember that when it is time to vote!
Uhm..excuse me...but shouldn't the FBI be out chasing violent criminals and terrorists, rather than busting teenagers for downloading Britney Spears? Besides...it seems to me that all these wasted hours protecting the obsolete business models of private companies like the RIAA and MPAA might also be spent training agents more....as in making the 'intelligence' community a bit more intelligent.
develop a program to deter members of the public from committing acts of copyright infringement
What exactly qualifies as a "program?"
I know a lot of us are picturing armed FBI raids, computer seizures, kids being drug down the streets in chains for the crime of filesharing and being made into examples. It's possible... hell it's already happening.
However, I'm hoping it's more something like the current drug compaigns. Public awareness on "filesharing" and "piracy" as a crime. Consequences, that type of thing. I also hope that if it becomes obvious enough, people will wake up and Joe Average (tm) will finally realize the type of bullsh*t that corps like the RIAA are trying to pull with the law.
SERIOUSLY, the FBI has no place at all getting involved with copyright issues. There are a lot more things they can do that are a hell of a lot more productive, like preventing 9-11 mark II. We don't need them tapping our internet lines, tracing our IP's, or dragging more people in to court.
I think the USA needs a little bit of seperation between government and corporation - thought by now we all know who is really running the country anyways.
Read the text of the bill (I can't find the link offhand, but it's out there) -- some of the paragraphs are downright laughable, particularly the one directing the FBI to educate citizens about the dangers of connecting to "unauthorized" P2P services.
Maybe one of these days Congress will stop trying to prop up a failing business model by turning the US into a police state. But I'm not holding my breath...
And what exactly would be so bad about that?
Judging from some of the comments and attitudes that are prevalent here, I think a lot of people need to be told what copyright is, and what it's supposed to do.
If nothing else, how can you possibly make an informed argument against something if you don't know exactly what you're arguing against? (Or for, for that matter)
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Oh! You mean downloading music without paying anybody for it is illegal?! Oh!! In that case I think I'll just stop.
::gasp:: the RIAA. And it hurts the artists. Well, it would if the music industry stays in it's current form. For the hundreth time, the market is changing. Perhaps, RIAA, you are no longer required. Please, Senate, don't ruin the industry squelching a change simply to support a company that makes large campign contributions.
I'm glad that education campaign is there, jeez, I didn't know that on my own. It hurts
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
It seems that everyone always gets upset when the government cracks down. The whole point in pirating/ copyright infringment is illegal. Its wrong to take something that someone is not giving away and use it. The fact that you can share your files with all the anonymous cowards on the internet doesn't mean you should.
Do people download music they wouldn't buy, sure. Is there legitimate use for p2p, yes. But it also can be used easily to set out your own inexpensive publishing house and give away what others sell for free.
Information has value, especially in the new economy. I sometimes think people get to bent out of shape when people/companies try to protect that value.
...is to provide federal funding to run ads against candidates or referenda which would weaken intellectual property laws such as the DMCA, the super-DMCAs, the CDBPTA (did I spell that right?), etc.
Why wouldn't they? They've already started doing it about candidates and referenda that try to legalize medical marijuana.
Sunlit World Scheme. Weird and different.
They certainly should go after all software, music, and movie pirates, and take them down hard. If they make software piracy a lot more difficult, then it will force people to turn to free software alternatives. If they make music piracy a lot more difficult, then maybe folks will turn to lesser-known bands who allow mp3 downloads of their product and possibly find better-quality (but not as well-packaged, commercially) music. And if they make movie piracy a lot more difficult, then...uh...I dunno. I'm sure there's a good reason for that, other than the whole legality issue.
Law enforcement agencies sharing information and teaching kids about why breaking the law is a bad thing. That honestly sounds like a good idea to me. Kids are taught that drugs are bad, that you don't shoot people - why not also teach them tearing away at the foundation of the economy is also a bad thing. Yes, the way the RIAA and MPAA approach things sucks, their business model is old, and they litigate to save themselves. But that doesn't mean that copyright is a bad thing, per se.
Around here, as much as people argue that open-source is the way for the world to go, every one of us has to admit that it's only our day jobs which allows us to spend our nights cutting code for open-source projects. Copyright is a Very, Very, Very Good Thing (TM). I don't think that fact is lessened by some idiotic laws which these guys have tried to pass in the past.
When copyrights were introduced to the U.S., they had a very restricted time frame (fourteen years I believe, without looking it up).
In the intervening years, various parties have managed to get the copyright period extended to a ludicrous extent, and it's for *one* reason: Walt Disney corporation can't come up with anything NEW that's any good, so they've gotta keep protecting Mickey and Donald and Goofy and all those other characters that, by rights, would have passed into the public domain decades ago.
Essentially, legislation and litigation are a poor but workable substitute for innovation and invention.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
I mean really. Everyone here knows that the industry needs to change. They know it too. But the real problem here is that WE the US citizens are not being shielded. We elect these people into office and they work for us. However, at some point since they had the power they decided to give themselves more power. In the end, we have a Congressional body that obviously caters to the all mighty dollar. Therefore, screaming about it does no good. For those you tell don't care. Honestl, they don't.
Here's the insightful bit:
Since when did the US government guarantee that a corporation will earn money one way or another? I mean instead of letting the companies attempt to crack down on piracy their own way the companies beg and plead that the US government step in and be the daddy. The problem is that the government is not supposed to be involved in such matters. The ONLY thing the governement to supposed to do receive taxes to defend our countries citizens from outside attacks. Not police the world, bend to the will of a common nation governemnt (UN), or be involved in corporate legalities that do not directly affect the us citizens.
Online music piracy (incorrectly identified BTW), is nothing more than an easier way to "tape" a CD. We all know this. They know this. The bottom line is that the corporation needs to address this NOT the fucking government!!!
We OWN the governement. We are the BOSSES! They seemed to forget this. And we citizens find ourselves electing these people to office to only have them incorporate themselves upon entering office and then immediately being hired by a lobbyist firm as a contractor. This is why it's not called bribery. They are getting paid as if they worked there.
But I could be wrong...
Rivendahl
... there is nothing that has not already been thought
I know where you're coming from - to disclose, I like the general idea of copyright, and think it would be fine without industry shills. Today, copyright duration is, what, life + 3000 years? And fair use means that copying stuff for home use is only a misdemeanor instead of a felony?
My problem in light of above is, yes, the law sounds great on paper...but only there. Education is fine, but what about the inter-agency info sharing? Again, I would have not problem if it were used to get blatant commercial-mp3-only sharers, but lately it's been used to go after kids who basically build search engines. And I don't like that.
So it's like this - the law sounds good, but do you support a just law if you know for sure that it will be implemented in a monstrously unjust manner? That has to be considered, because a law in a vacuum is nothing. Consider sodomy laws on the books in most states - they are horrendously discriminatory against homosexuals and other people the Christian Coalition considers "deviants" - but I don't really care because they're not enforced at all, and amount to nothing more than a quaint little nuiscance. This law, on the other hand, while it sounds nice, has the potential to take down a lot of people who have the gall to allow people a way of sharing information without policing that information. And I don't like that at all.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Isn't the FBI stretched really thin as it is? Unless a lot of money is involved, they won't look at you twice. Are they going to run down every college student in the country who is sharing a few MP3's? No.
These people are all living in fantasyland. The senators keep it quiet because they know there will be a backlash. Berman is already saying "It's not my bill. It's his." The RIAA shows their idoicy by touting this bill that they haven't even read! Looking at his top contributors, I don't see the entertainment industry on there. Maybe he wants to get on their payroll?
I think the stealth with which this bill was put out indicates that the senators know that this type of legislation could damage their careers, but they want to keep the soft money coming in and keep writing up this crap.
-R
You know, it always amazes me listening to the slashdot rants and bitches about copyright protection. The "everything should be free, nobody should make money off of anything!" crap astounds me.
If someone creates something, be they a penniless mother of 6 living in a hovel someplace, or a big heartless, greedy corporation, they deserve to profit from it. Why should anyone create anything - programs, music, movies - and get nothing for it?
Before I get the "But Open Source" speech, wasn't that Linus I saw driving around in a very expensive Italian sports car? I more than suspect he knew his work would get him a very good paying job. Good for him. Just like a lot of other OS people are now getting paid well because of their work.
I'm a capitalist. People's inventions deserve to be protected, because it encourages them to keep on inventing.
To those of you who still say everything should be free, remember this:
Eventually your mom will kick you out of the basement, and you'll have to work to feed yourself. You better hope to God not too many people steal your company's product, or you'll be out looking for work again.
Most people who post here know piracy is illegal, and they know that large-scale p2p filesharing isn't legitimate fair use. (Although some folks don't seem to realize "fair use" is a legal definition, but, instead, speak as if they, as individuals, get to decide what constitutes fair use.)
A lot of the noise surrounding this issue is generated by people attempting to pose as intellectual property revolutionaries, convinced that the Internet makes all previous human experience obsolete. This is bogus, of course. Most of these folks just want free music and free movies. And, I'm sure you've noticed that comments typically and quickly descend into namecalling and slander. (Apparently, not having much useful to sa y about the issue, a lot of posters can only stamp their feet, swear, wave the anti-corporate flag, and call people "evil".)
Meanwhile, SLashdot goes on posting these stories in an effort to drum up business.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
As a frequent file trader who knows that the RIAA has records of my copyright enfringement (I was once banned from napster by "Dr. Dre") I don't think that I have anything to worry about. I don't host or download that much, especially when compared to other people. Since they will probably go after the big fish first that leaves me pretty far back in line for prosecution. By the time they get to me they will be bankrupt because they have sued all of their customers and won't have anyone to buy their crappy music.
On a philosophical note, if the only time you hear a song is when you download it from kazaa is it really piracy? In the strict sense of the word of course it is but think about it. If I hadn't downloaded the song I never would have heard of it so I wouldn't have bought the cd. My music isn't generally played on Clear Channel radio, which is all that is available in most markets, so I coudn't have heard it between dj prattle and metabolife commercials either so where is the harm?
Do me a favor and double it!
This was more or less an incencitive to call for innovation (make something new and usefull and we the *governement representationg the people* will give you for some years a monopoly on exploiting your invention*. But slowly it was perverted by the copyright holder. Nowadays they try to make it pass as a natural law protected "RIGHT" of them to exploit something, and if somebody break thier right it should be enforced harshly. The problem here, is that copyright has grown imbalanced and the public interrest are gone completly lost.
Yes BALANCED copyright is a very good things. UNBALANCED copyright is dangerous as it is drowning those for which it was made to begin with : the public interrest. And I think this is what the posted is protesting against. The law are becoming harsher for breaking a privilege octroyed to a small group than some crime with far more impact (rape, hold up, political corruption) and the middle and ways to fight for the "enforcing" of this privilege are becomming increasingly out of whack.
You know, the difference between a police state and an ultra corporatiste state may not be that big...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
> And what exactly would be so bad about that?
> Judging from some of the comments and attitudes that are prevalent here, I think
> a lot of people need to be told what copyright is, and what it's supposed to do.
You appear to be one of them.
Copyright was started to ensure the public gets an artists work, if they choose to copyright that work.
I dont see myself (being the public) getting any of these works.
I see plenty of laws making it illegal for me to better all of humanity by improving on someone elses idea however.
I personally choose to better mankind by ignoring our current form of copyright.
While I do not do this by downloading music, I fully believe that if the artists dont want to play by the rules of copyright, they shouldnt expect us to either. So to all that arnt, more power to you.
The only reason i dont download music for free is because i dont care for the crap that is concidered music these days. But that is my personal opinion, and if I did want this music to enrich my life, i would at this point just take it.
What it's supposed to do, according to the Constitution, is promote the public domain. Can you tell me how the current 100+ year copyright terms, with unlimited retroactive extensions, promote the public domain?
Actually, since the laws benefit content providers, shouldn't they pay to educate us?
"Personally I'm fully in favor of a tenfold increase in the number of representatives in the House"
Are you also in favor of paying their salaries?
In all honesty, I doubt things would change that much if we have 8300 representatives vs. 435. It's not just a matter of having too many constituents that makes them unresponsive, it also has something to do with all of those campaign contributions and their own private dealings.
That might actually dilute some of the impact 'contributions' have on elected officials decisions. Or it might just spur more corporate spending to spread the payoffs thicker...
- Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
that violating a copyright, at least right now, in the United States, is not a 'crime' per se
Have you read Title 17, United States Code, section 506? Pay attention as well to the definition of "financial gain" in section 101.
Will I retire or break 10K?
So if the RIAA or MPAA are allowed to "crack" our computers, what does that mean for DMCA-related issues?
I mean, if I traded through, say, freenet - and they cracked/reverse engineered freenet (assuming they could, technically), does that mean the creators of freenet can sue based on DMCA violations? After all, they would have to reverse engineer the encrypted datastream to first see what was actually being traded - and as I recall, cracking encryption was at the very heart of the DMCA.
And Berman is a ultra conservative Republican??
Howard Berman (D-CA)
Oh yeah, he's not. DAMMIT, THIS IS NOT A PARTY ISSUE!!! If you want a political party to save you from this, vote Libertarian. Or if you want a political party to save you from this _and_ make SUVs illegal, vote Green (not my preference though).
Yup. I got that part.
Stop right there, pardner...
This is exactly what the reasonable slashdotter is railing against. Let's pause for a moment, catch our breath, then repeat after me:
There is nothing illegal about sharing files. Even if it's done it on-line. Even if it's done using p2p. Even if it's done in a large-scale operation.
I'd love to string-up those selfish miscreants who share infringing music on-line, and it's not just because they are using up all the bandwidth or getting something for free that I would have to pay to get (obviously different moral standards). But I see even more danger in people who would use the "disallow all file sharing" cure to solve the "some childish thieves" problem.
The Internet, as we know it, is about peer-to-peer sharing. All of the greatest features of the Internet (USENET, email, WWW, IRC, etc) were originally peer-to-peer, at least until the abuses forced us to CancelMoose, Spamblock, Filter, or Botban the functionality to useless castration. We need to ask ourselves if p2p is worth anything, because our elected officials are clearly already asking those questions. We need to be prepared to answer those questions. If we had to give-up sharing of infringing material, would we still want the Internet? Statements like "large-scale p2p filesharing isn't legitimate fair use" reinforce the idea that the Internet is just a copyright-infringment-orgy with no other use than facilitating copyright infringment. If that belief is allowed to hold sway, then the heavily taxed, heavily regulated, privacy-free and totally useless Internet will surely follow.
They're only going to let us make the same mistake so many times before they reach the conclusion nobody important actually uses that stuff anymore.
In my opinion, if we are opposed to legislation such as the proposed, then we have an obligation to a) share files like there's no tomorrow, b) avoid sharing any sort of copyright-infringing material, and c) shun with utmost prejudice anyone attempting to destroy the community we love by wasting the precious resources on their own childish quest to avoid paying their own fair share.
We've already tried writing our congressmen (or we've decided it wasn't worth wasting a stamp on trying) why not try a new tactic; one we're already familiar with, one right up our alley, one that's both totally legal and totally moral, one that's sure to make the xxAA freak; boycott on-line copyright-infringing material and promote the sharing of legitimate material instead.
Back the downloaders, but smack the freeloaders.
It will be interesting to see how quickly the RIAA backpedals once the on-line community equates anything Brittany with being an Internet freeloader.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
This kind of nonsense is not going to stop until the media giants are made fully obsolete by a mass shift to independent artists/film/etc. P2P is a tool to help this happen, but it's not the end solution. We need quality musicians to stop signing record label contracts and lead the revolution against the big media middle-men. We need musicians that can think like entrepreneurs, not employees.
What we need is a movement like Open Source but for music: a legal and unstoppable alternative to the corrupt monopolies that exist.
Artificial scarcity is becoming more and more artificial. Soon all literature, recorded music and video will fit on a cheap disk. If disk space doubles every year for the next 14, today's 120GB drive will become tomorrow's 1PB drive. The Internet Archive, by comparisson, is "only" 300TB.
At that point, the protectionism will become impossibly difficult to defend. When each person could be be given a copy of the Archive of Human Knowledge for the equivalent of 1 week's wage, the issue will resolve. There will be those societies who become enlightened, and those who wither in the greatest of dark ages.
I'm sorry but someone needs to kick these U.S. lawmakers is the ass (that means you people).
What happened to the U.S. government actually addressing serious issues in the world. We have a internal economy that is in shambles because the government can't enforce accounting regulations that (get this) ARE ALREADY ON THE BOOKS. The U.S. is in the mist of a international nightmare with two countries (Afganistan... remember them, and Iraq) waiting on us to clean up the messes we made flexing our stockpiled military hardware, and a global reputation as an angry child with a big stick.
And these Congressmen think some sort of priority should be set on protecting an ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY.
Please... I understand the law should be enforced but do you think a cop is going to write out parking ticket in the middle of a murder arrest. When the FBI can tell me that organized crime has been eliminated, all escaped fellons have been captured, all murders have been prevented and all the missing children have been found. Then maybe we should let them look at the music industries small copyright issues. (and I mean small... I don't believe the industry is suffering one bit, we made only XXX billions instead of XXXX billions.. BOOO HOOOO.)
Fucking mod parent up. If you buy into the two party system, you've already bought into the bullshit, no matter which one you choose.
In all honesty, I doubt things would change that much if we have 8300 representatives vs. 435.
yea, but can you image bribing 4151 representatives? I think even companies would be hard pressed to make a dent...
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
The term we need to use here is copyright infringment, and despite what geeks and lawmakers alike would love to believe, there is no way to codify the concept of copyright infringment in a way that a computer program or delusional person can always understand.
I have nothing againt an individual sharing copyrighted material, so long as he is authorized to do so. If somebody wants to share public domain stuff, that's okay. If somebody wants to share his own copyrighted material, that's okay. If somebody wants to share my copyrighted material with my explicit permission, that's okay. If somebody wants to share my copyrighted material without my explicit permission, but within the bounds of "fair use", I may not like it, but because we both live in this society and we've agreed that a concept of Fair Use is a good thing (and we're created laws specifically for that), that's okay, too.
But anyone sharing my copyrighted material against my wishes and for their own private gain (or to avoid their expense) is acting in a fashion which is illegal, selfish, and stupid. And it doesn't matter how corrupt our politicians are, or how evil the RIAA is, or how unreasonable copyright term is, or how many other people are doing it, or how slim their chance of getting caught is, or whether or not they would have paid for it otherwise, or how outdated the current business model is, or whether the author/artist would be "richer" or "better off" if he'd change his mind and allowed it to be shared, and so on. As far as I'm concerned, those are just the lame rationalizing of a delusional mind which has already admitted it is infringing someone elses copyright, but has decided to do it anyway for its own selfish reasons.
This is one of those things we can't really leave up to our computers or our lawmakers to decide. We have to decide for ourselves if we would rather live in a world where we have free access to all of the content produced by the RIAA and kin back when they existed, but nothing at any price since we killed them, or whether it's better off for us to respect the wishes of our valued authors and artists and acknowledge a right we know they can't well enforce in exchange for the things we will lose if we force them to enforce it poorly.
Thanks for letting me rant.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
Yeah, vote Libertarian as in end the drug war, legalize marijuana, and strike every law off the books that has anything to do with opening up a strip joint next to your neighborhood.
What were you saying about conservative Republican? If you find yourself at a loss for words, let me see if I can help you out. Freedom has a price. If you choose to live free and you are a liberal, you must come to terms with the idea that government can't solve social problems. If you choose to live free and you are a conservative, you must come to terms with the fact that the government can't legislate morality.
If you can't pay the cost for freedom, then I'll readily admit that you can't support it. Please understand, however, that I will hold you in the highest disdain.