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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
It also directs the Justice Department to develop programs to educate the American public on why copyright violation is bad
Piracy's bad......mmmmkay?
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
I wonder what they're considering a "file." If they're counting the gifs and jpegs for smileys, emoticons, ads, backgrounds for the chat clients and whatnot, that doesn't seem like a fair comparisson.
What am I saying? This is Congress at work...
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
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.
Distributing copyrighted materials without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal. This is true regardless of what you might think about the fairness of either the behaviour of the copyright owner or of the copyright law itself.
This bill is unique. It seems rational. In a world where senators advocate allowing copyright owners to (without due process) destroy or hack computers in an attempt to halt unlawful distribution of their materials, this seems sane.
It does nothing more than encourage law enforcement to cooperate in fighting crime, and puts the American people on notice that breaking the law is wrong, and that the people distributing many popular p2p programs plan spyware in their programs, and that the use of p2p carries risks for the safety of your computer, especially if they are used unwisely (like shareing an entire drive.)
You say
I'm sure I'm going to get flamed for this, but Corporations and copyright holders deserve protection under the law too. If not the FBI then who should be involved with copyright issues? The FBI is not the CIA, or the military, it's the government association responsible for enforcing most federal laws. Stealing copyrighted materials violates a federal law, hence the FBI should get involved. Unless you want to abolish copyrights, or create another law enforcement body to handle this sort of thing, then it is the FBI's business, this law would just make it a higher priority for them .
And you're hoping it's like the drug campaigns? The war on drugs is one of the most enormous failures that hte US government has ever embarked upon. It's caused increased violence, helped to fund terrorism, and not slowed down the drug problem.
Feel free to mod me "-1 - Angry Jerk".
Is this a trick question?
Hate me!
Not too many conservative lawmakers representing Vermont these days ;)
I did, however, write with regularity to my conservative N.C. representatives when I lived there. I figured every minute some monkey spent reading a letter from a flaming liberal commie asshole like me was one less minute they could be holding prayer meetings or what have you.
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
I don't think you're taking this seriously enough.
According to this article today's Guardian, pirates killed or injured 145 people at sea in the first three months of this year. There are calls for the Royal Navy to station warships in the affected areas, to protect trade routes.
So you see, piracy is an ongoing and deadly threat... oh wait... *reads thread again*... Somebody seems to have started using the word "piracy" to mean "copyright violation". What an odd thing to do.