Slashdot Mirror
House Bill to Make File-Sharing an Automatic Felony
JAgostoni writes "Wired news has an article about a new bill that would make it a felony to upload a file to a P2P network." EFF has a copy of the bill online. Conyers and Berman both get over a quarter of their campaign funding from Hollywood, according to opensecrets.org. You may remember Berman from this bill and this one.
So if I want to share my own copyrighted works free of charge, would that make me a felon, or just anyone who downloads them and makes them available to others?
To understand recursion,
you must first understand recursion.
Please tell me again how many people in the US make use of p2p networks.
How many of those have voted for these politicians in the past and will be pissed off enough to vote for someone else?
How many that have not voted for these politicians and will vote for them now?
My guess is that the first number >>> second number. Exist Conyers and Berman
Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
There's no place I can be, since I found Serenity.
From the Wired Article:
"In addition, filming a movie in a theater without authorization would immediately qualify as a federal offense."
I wonder why they are so afraid of this? I can't imagine that anyone who would really want to see a movie would settle for watching something cammed off the screen as opposed to going to the theater or buying the DVD. If anything, they should be afraid of the high quality DVD DivX rips.
OpenSecrets is a great resource, and it's useful to not trust the article and actually look for yourself. The notion that Conyers gets 25% of his money from "Hollywood" struck me as odd, since he represents Detroit.
/. editors actually do any fact checking before they post???
In 2002 (last election), he got $49,859 from TV/Movies/Music, out of over $400,000 raised.
In 2003, he's gotten $2,860 out of $104,000.
Looks like he's gotten more like 10% of his money from the entertainment biz, not 25%. Do the
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
As someone who worked for Conyers for a few years as a legislative aide, I can only guess he's getting *very* bad advice from his current staff.
Conyers is one of the most liberal members of Congress, but I'd say someone on the Judiciary Committee minority staff is paying too much attention to money, and not enough to integrity.
His campaign slogan traditionally was "Justice, Jobs, Peace". So much for justice.
IANAL, but if I'm reading the bill correctly, I think what they're trying to do is ammend the law to the point where putting a file on a P2P network is equivalent to a level of traditional copying already defined as a felony. i.e. As it is already a felony to make >n copies, it is assumed that putting material on a P2P network permits that many copies to made.
What I can't believe (well, sadly, I can coming from this band of copyright thugs) is how they plan to redefine the law to make uploading, even if no downloading occurs, equivalent to making the physical copies for distribution. Looks an awfully lot like "pre-crime" to me, and I hope the sensible heads in Congress will give this piecve of crap the shredding it deserves.
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
Frequently, bills are introduced to Congress to test the waters, or distract attention from bills that are likely to passed to more outrageous bills, that will not be passed. While there is an outcry over the decoy bill, the actual bill, while not as bad, is still preposterous, is slid in quietly; on its own or as a rider. (Of course, in some instances the decoy bill actually does get passed, which is what appears to have happened with the PATRIOT Act; in part due to the name).
Quite frankly, I think this is a decoy bill. Where's the real one?
Sigs are like bumper stickers.
If you have a music (or other copyrighted work) file, and you didn't buy it, technically you stole it...
Completly wrong. All what you authored is your.
Mankind is not divided between Hollywood's accredited producers and the rest of the world's consumers.
I don't want to discuss the use of stole. I want to discuss the concept that creation is reserved to a very few.
Last year, some study by a French ministery revealled that about 1% of French people did author music using a computer. How are the digital rights of those 600000 peoples managed by all those schemes ?
jointly
\Joint"ly\, adv. In a joint manner; together; unitedly; in concert; not separately.
--Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
jointly
adv.
In common; together.
--The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
Somebody needs to buy a dictionary.
But seriously, if I copy a file and give the copy to my friend, how is that together, united, in concert, and not separate? Sharing means one copy, used together in the same place at the same time, or used individually, taking turns. So, the grandparent was exactly right: it's neither sharing nor stealing.
Whatever. 10 years ago, if I copied a bunch of songs onto a tape and gave it to someone else, the RIAA would have given me a fricking medal. It's free advertising on non-durable media. They LOVE their shoddy ass media.
I've got 2 milk crates of tapes that I bought for around 10 dollars a piece, and only about 1 in 10 still plays worth a damn. I've got around 500 cd's that I've bought for between 12 and 18 dollars a piece. Couple of years ago I had almost 900, but some crackhead busted a window out of my car and swiped 2 cases from my backseat.
I don't see them falling over themselves to defend my property rights. As far as they're concerned, that money I spent got me nothing but a cheap piece of plastic, and when that's broken or gone, that's my problem. Well, I disagee.
Far as I'm concerned, I can fileshare for 10 more years at the rate I'm going and the RIAA is STILL going to owe me money. They want to kick down my door, charge me 150000 a song and slap a felony on my ass so I can't vote against their little butt boys, they can give it their best shot.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
This is very interesting. Copyright and other intellectual property cases are to be prosecuted at the owner's level of effort in Civil Court. But when something becomes a criminal case, the government changes which court system you use, You go to the Criminal Courts. In criminal court, the government has to ensure certain things are available if needed such as a jury of your peers. Often times, the government has to offer legal council, and the government is always footing the bill for the prosecution in a criminal case as no other body has legitimacy in that role. This also creates a double standard in the world of intellectual property where copyrights are policed and defended by the government, while patents and trademarks are still owner policed and defended. With criminal cases, jail time, or publicly funded parole policing systems are almost always a result, while civil court simply determines awards that one party pays another in most cases. What we should do is explain to our governmental representation that this additional cost will severely cut into their pork projects, and constipate the judicial system with teenage felons whole swapped Britney Spears, while pissing off their now angry and voting parents. With this perspective in hand, a measure like this could be defeated.
Well, the problem is that "intellectual property" is not actual property, it's a colloquialism cooked up by people who wish it was actual property. You can buy and sell copyrights, and you can buy and sell copies. But making a copy of something isn't stealing, because it doesn't affect the copyright.
The only way to 'steal' a copyright would be to do something like hack falsely register someone else's work at the copyright office, or something like that.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
One of the things that's always disturbed me the most about our legislation-for-the-highest-bidder system is how utterly cheap it is. I mean, think about it: A law that can increase your global corp's profits by $500 million annually can be purchased for a one-time fee of less than a tenth of that. The ROI on bribery is insane! Wouldn't you expect legislation to be priced more concurrently with other costs of doing business, such that said hypothetical law would cost you enough that it took two or three years to really pay off? Seriously, our politicians are just too damn cheap.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
House Representatives have a 98% reelection rate. Why? Well, because they enjoy a 5 to 1 advantage in campaign funding over their opponent(s), and Joe Sixpack trusts the candidate who can afford to be "As Seen On TV".
The more evil Berman gets, the more he's likely to be reelected. Apparently it doesn't pay to be an honest politician.
But Berman isn't the problem, he's just a particularly blatant symbol of it. Contributing to the EFF is just papering over the cracks. Campaign reform, or civil disobedience, or outright revolt is the only way to get these parasites off of us.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
"Market forces should be deciding the fate of the music industry, not Congress"
Econ 101 doesn't apply here. Economics deals with the allocation of scarce resources. Information is a limitless resource; it can be transmitted and copied endlessly. Only the artificial construct of Copyright Law makes it scarce (not necessarily a bad thing if there is balance as the Founders intended). The means of reproduction, like printing presses, photocopiers, and computers, are a scarce resource, but they're getting cheaper all the time. Other things that go into an album like a musician's time and creativity are scarce, but that's a miniscule fraction of the price of a CD. A musician's time is more directly related to things like live concerts, and there you'll see market forces at work.
" Sharing usually involves taking something that belongs to you, and depriving yourself of it "
Get with the program.
File-Sharing is really license sharing. There's no need to be pedantic about that use of terminology. "Piracy" , "stealing" sure. But I think this is a widely accepted alternate definition of "sharing".
Where the cognative dissonance comes in - is the license terms forbid it, but everyday common sense does not.
(for example, someone blasting their boom box - are they necessarily sharing their license with anybody with in earshot? How about your wife listening to a CD you bought, and left in the car you share? Those are examples of common sense telling us there's no violation of license terms going on - but the LETTER, and some cases INTENT of the license terms IS being violated
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
(Prepare for some rambling)
Hi, my name is Nick, and I'm an mp3 addict. I have about 80GB of mp3's (60GB sorted into albums) which I download from usenets, kazaa, or get from friends. I also BUY a few CD's now and then (gasp!). Here are some reasonings for what I do and why I think my behavior is acceptable:
First, I never upload any copyrighted material to any network, and I make sure that my music folders are not shared. This (hopefully) will decrease my chances of getting busted by the RIAA.
Second, I buy CD's from artists that I really like or that are hard to find online. I admit to downloading albums from artists that I like - HOWEVER - I go to their concerts, which is where the ARTIST actually makes some money.
Third, I know every album that I have. It's not an exercise in "rat packing" or whatever, I actually listen to and enjoy everything that I have.
I spend a lot of money on DVD's these days, which cuts down on my budget for CD's. I download movies to check them out, and then buy them if I like them (for better video quality, of course, and the extras - I love commentary tracks, etc.). I'd probably buy more CD's if they had more "special features" like a DVD, interviews with the artist, behind the scenes, etc. (I'm aware some CD's have these, but not really artists that I'm interested in). Heck, lots of the DVD's I buy nowadays are less expensive than CD's! What's up with that? Anyway...
Lastly, I'm a college student, so I don't have that much money to spend on media in the first place.
To sum up, I don't share my files, I buy CD's, I go to concerts, I don't rat-pack, I buy DVD's because they have more entertainment value, and I have a limited budget. So tell me, what exactly am I doing wrong here? I think I pay my dues to the music industry.
But I guess the laws don't really operate on principle, do they? They have to be able to be nondescrimenant (sp.?) and broad.
P.S.
Please do not go on a tirade about "stealing" or "copyright infringement" - I know technically what I do is illegal, but in principle, is what I do wrong?
I belong to the ______ generation.
The Homeland Security system does seem to be heading toward the sort of exceedingly low-wage system of "employment" so desired by the folks who brought us H-1B -- and the felonization of P2P file systems is exactly in line with the rest of the war of terror on the population committed routinely by the folks who call the tunes.
Even slaves get food, shelter, clothing and medical care -- which is more than a lot of tech workers are getting these days.
Someone will figure out that slavery is a superior system to the current con-game and also figure out a way to use the military against their own populations to enforce it. I think its already started in privatized prisons and their prisoner-labor programs and the exploding rate of incarceration in the Unted States -- however they really do have to figure out what to do about the prisoner rape problem before they can be considered good massah's by computer nerds who will then work not for money but for privileges in the system.
Seastead this.
If only we didn't know that "bootlegging" in that last class has to do with alcohol, there'd at least be one example of a felony that sounded remotely like "letting someone copy a song for free." But... nope.
One of the qualities of a working justice system is that punishments are proportionate. This bill violates that in spades. Why not let them chop off our mouse hands, you know?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
One more option: you borrowed it.
I regularly obtain copyrighted material without paying for it from the local public library. Of course, these are books, not "files." But then again, if I borrowed a CD or DVD you might say I have the file(s).
Since I enjoy reading quite a bit, the book publishers are definatley being deprived of income. In the relatively short time that I've had my library card I've already read a couple hundred dollars worth of books without paying a penny for them. Most are books that I would have paid good money for if I couldn't have borrowed them from the library.
Copying a copyrighted work without permission from the copyright owner is illegal. Period.
.
NO, IT MOST CERTAINLY IS _NOT_
I regularly take CD's I have at home, and make mixes to play in my car (as I have 400+ CDs, and my car CD player only holds 4.)
The CDs are copyrighted works.
I do not have permission of the copyright holder to make the mix CDs.
IT IS MOST DEFINITELY _NOT_ ILLEGAL FOR ME TO DO THIS , as it's covered under FAIR USE.
The *only* caveat that comes into play is with regards to geography, since people in one country are not typically subject to the laws of another.
If this is true, then how can fair use exist? How can someone in California legally copy a newspaper article from a California newspaper, and not be infringing copyright?
There are many instances were it's not illegal to make a copy of a copyrighted work without the owner's permission.
Alternatively, if the public domain was growing as it should be there would be absolutely no need to trade in copyrighted materials. There would be more than enough good PD stuff to keep most people occupied.
Of course this is probably what the RIAA and MPAA fear the most...
Why buy the new sh*t when the great old classics are PD?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Here's the funny thing to me about this debate.
The first copyright law (in Occidental history anyways) was the Statute of Anne, passed in England in 1710. The law was passed because of another technological innovation (albeit, by that time, a 250 year old one): the printing press.
Prior to printing, "artists" (in this case, mostly writers) were generally supported by "patrons," wealthy individuals who supported the arts for prestige or out of sense of religious need (which is why so much pre-printing western culture is directly related to the mass).
The arrival of printing created a market for books. A market that didn't previously exist. Printing commoditized literacy and literature. At first, the vast collection of classical literature was the source. Printers like Aldus Manutius made personal fortunes by printing vast numbers of classical texts. This re-emergence of classical learning spurred the Renaissance, and literally transformed European culture.
The pressure for a copyright law didn't exist. All of the "artists" being plundered were centuries dead. Over time, however, the vast distribution of learning and classical knowledge led to the existence of a significant community of educated men, and to the vast expansion of that radical late medieval institution: the University.
As the community of learned people grew, the reverence for the classics began to wane as people began to observe things that were, well, WRONG in those classical texts. (Take a look at the history of the University of Paris to see what questioning classical authority could lead to).
Printing can be said to be a major factor in both the Renaissance and in the Reformation. The Reformation is the other important ingredient in how printing made copyright law happen. The Reformation broke the absolute authority of the Roman Catholic Church. It became much easier to be an original scholar.
An era of intellectual freedom (some would say chaos) began. And for the first time in a millenium, Europe began to produce culture instead of merely to echo classical or biblical culture.
Prior to printing, writing was not terribly distinct in its mode of production from, say, painting or sculpting. The production of a book was an intensive labor, and a book was as unique an artifact, or almost as unique, as a painting or a sculpture.
Printing changed that. Printing made a book a commodity. Writers came to be paid by publishers, rather than being church men, wealthy men, or employed by patrons. Writers came to depend on payment by publishers. And this led to the problem.
The problem was that there were no laws to protect ownership of literary works. It was common practice for a publisher to take a book published by someone else, set it himself, knock off a few hundred copies, and sell it himself. In fact, this was much more profitable than seeking out new work. New work was risky -- it might not sell. But find yourself a popular book and then print a few hundred knock-offs and you'd make money for sure! Especially since you didn't have to pay for the creative act itself.
This was the situation engendered by printing technology, the Renaissance and its spread of universal literacy (universal compared to pre-printing anyways), and the Reformation (itself fueled by printing) and the intellectual freedom that came with it. Writers were making deals with publishers and then those publishers were being undercut by "fly-by-night" printers who would take no risk, make no investment, encourage no cultural production, and make fortunes off those writers and printers who were contributing to the culture.
The situation became so bad in England that the Statute of Anne was passed.
Without some legal protection, a living could not be made by creators. Nor could the owners of the means of production be encouraged to take risks on new material. When there is no exclusivity of right
Okay, maybe I could have been less long-winded. There is some sort of bug in /. (which I've reported on their sourceforge bug report form) that is truncating my comment. If you actually would like to read all of my blather, if you hit "reply," it displays the whole comment. I don't know why. Maybe /. has some sort of "pompous pedant" filter...
Anyways, I can distill my point down to: P2P file sharing is a disruptive technology that is directly analogous to the printing press itself, and, like the printing press, using it to avoid payment to creators and publishers is likely to lead to radical new protective laws. In fact, P2P is more disruptive than the printing press, since the means of production are much smaller, much cheaper, and much more widely distributed.
But surely you'd agree that the victim of copyright infringement IS deprived of something?
Not necessarily. If you download a song that has been out of print for five years, no one is deprived of revenue. If I download a single song from a CD that there is no way that I would ever purchase, no one is deprived of any revenue.
If you're a musician, and you release a CD, and only a handful of CDs sell, but far more people seem to have an mp3 copy... would you say you have been deprived of something?
Let me ask you a question: If you released a CD with one good song and a sales price of $18.99, would you be surprised if far more people had an MP3 of the single than had a purchased copy of the album? Would you assume that all of those people with MP3s would have otherwise paid $18.99 for the whold CD?
Copyright terms are practically infinite at this time. Every time the copyrights of certain pieces of art were close to expiration, Congress has been lobbied--successfully--that copyright terms be extended. The Sono-Bono-Act was the most recent example of that. There have been no additions to the public domains due to copyright expiration since the mid 20th century. So, for all intents and purposes, copyright is indeed perpetual.
"Light is faster than sound." - "Is that why people tend to look bright until you hear them speak?"
I just finished reading the bill. One thing I got from it is that if after going on a trip to Disneyland, I post the photographs on my website, one of them containing a picture of Mickey Mouse or some other disney creation, after one year I would be considered to have pirated $5000 in copyrighted works, and I would be subject to hefty fines and imprisonment.
I'm scanning the photos right now, and I will post them for my distant relatives to look at, legal or not.