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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.
Guess we should stop teaching our kids that sharing is good....
With somewhere around a quarter of the US population engaging in filesharing, I suspect that corporate-run prisons will be a growth sector over the coming years.
I'll need to call my lawyer shortly...
... TECHNICALLY I would be in violation of "uploading" my song files to my Mac and playing them over my LAN to the stereo with my SliMP3 player? It's all simply peer to peer networking.
Based on this new bill
Ironically I've _never_ done Napster or Kazaa or Freenet or any of those types of P2P networks. Yet the RIAA probably wonders why people like me have simply STOPPED buying CD's. Not 1 for 3 years now.
I mean, it's not as if they're even hiding that they've been bought now.
So, publicly funded election campaigns and permanent and continuous auditing of their finances.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
I think this is a great direction to head with our already broken justice system. Within a few years I'll be able to go to work with a loaded AK-47 and massacre... ohh lets say anywhere between 10-12 co-workers, and get a lighter sentence than if I downloaded a few songs/movies from the internet.
WTF is going on when I can assault someone, sell drugs, or some such and get a lenient sentence (which means I'll be out in less than half the time sentenced for) but if I do anything computer related its some gawd-awful thing.
Its called a "perceived threat". And the entertainment industies are scared shitless that, as the article indicates "they try to hold on to their business models", they may have to change models. Lawmakers see a threat because they're campaign funds come from these sales. And it is amplified by the fact most are technologically-inclined(Lets blow their computers up, yeah!). Here's a thought, using technology as a tool. But what good is a tool to them if they can't control it outright? That seems to be their outlook.
The entertainment industries have to take a good hard look at the future. Piss of your buyers or work to accomidate them while makeing cash.
Read the proposal: "not less than $15,000,000" "for investigation and prosecution of violations" of the "Author, Consumer, and Computer Owner Protection and Security (ACCOPS) Act of 2003". [Great acronym]
Shit, everytime I hear about a law like this I get to urge to move to another country, and even then you're not always safe from this sort of stupidity.
"Engineers do the work of man, Physicists do the work of God"
A felony? Why not a misdeamenor? WTF?
I can leave a CD at my buddy's house and no one cares....
Time to write to Congress again... third time this week....
This space for rent.
But what jail will be big enough to hold all the fileswappers?
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.
Just wondering why when they are both Democrats, as in this case, the /. story does not mention their party. When they are Republicans the party is made very clear, like with Sen. Hatch.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Looks like Freenet is labeled as "enabling software" under terms of the proprosed law.
The proposed law also seeks to impose up to a 5 year jail term for registering a domain using false information... Bad stuff.
There's no place I can be, since I found Serenity.
Seriously, if things were as our forefathers had intended the people behind this type of legislation wouldn't want to leave their house without bodyguards.
I'm still amazed that Ken Lay and his Enron buddies haven't been shot yet; what was it, 150,000 retirements they destroyed?
I think the higher-ups (in gov't and corporations) would be a LOT more responsible if they feared for their lives a bit more.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
To support the EFF. It's quite clear that the major record labels have some pretty good lobbyists to get a bill like this one on paper.
If you can read this sig - the bitch fell off.
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.
This bill goes after people who allow "enabling" software to be jailed for up to five years if they don't jump through the proper hoops. It is not just going after people who upload copyrighted material. Try reading the law that you are supporting.
There's no place I can be, since I found Serenity.
Why risk five years in prison when you can do easy time instead? Give up your P2P networks and purchase (or steal, we know what you little motherfuckers are like!) a handgun. Now go to your local video store and rob them at gunpoint! You're still likely to get a lesser sentance than if you'd downloaded the file, plus you don't have the cost of burning a CD! Woot!
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
There's more! Under this bill it would also be a crime to use false information when registering a domain name. The punishment is up to five years in prison. Of course, there are no prohibitions against using that now guarenteed-to-be-accurate information for marketing purposes. Sigh.
OK, now I understand why the Supreme Court recently legalized sodomy. Clearly, it was necessary to make it legal before the RIAA and the US government start systematically buggering the general public.
<RIAA spokesperson>
Lube? What do you mean, lube? You're a thief, plain and simple, so you're going to be buggered in the exact manner that I specify. Which means no lube!
</RIAA spokesperson>
Same chances of getting caught... and it won't be a felony.
Welcome to the War on Copying!
(Brought to you by the government that brought you the smashingly successfuly War on Drugs, which after 32 years of increasing the drug abuse problem and smashing civil liberties, we're sure to win any day now.)
Mandatory minimum sentances for copiers. The death penalty for copying "kingpins". Criminaliztion of CD burners as "copying paraphernalia". Zero tolerance laws, where kids who write down pop song lyrics in on their schoolbook covers will get busted.
Oh yes, and more smashing of civil liberties. And more people in jail (in the nation that already has the highest incarceration rate in the world), and more money for the prison-industrial complex.
Coming soon to a nation near you. But you know, Copying is public enemy number one...
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Jails are already running substantially over budget and overpopulated in many states. They are releasing actual felons and lots of non-violent drug offenders prematurely due to this fact.
Locking up some poor schmuck as a felon for sharing his shitty 128kbps rips of 50cent would not only define anti-reason but also would be unfeasable from the economic standpoint. Either you have to lock up half of your population or be unable to enforce the law. This is just a losing position this bill has, and was put forward for symbolic purposes only.
Sort of like that time when Rangel introduced a bill to reinstate the draft to prove a point in the wake of Iraqi War.
A felony is the highest form of criminal offense. Convicted felons also give up certain rights (some even after their prison sentence is over), rights like voting, serving in the armed forces or running for any political office higher than county level. And oh yeah, convicted felons give up their right to self defense as well. They are unable to own firearms.
This bill doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of passing--it wasn't written to pass, and it isn't expected to get very far.
HOWEVER, the 'rewrite' of it, which is far less egregious and overreaching, will seem like a huge compromise in comparison, and will get through without much problem. If it was introduced on its own, it would be fought tooth and nail, but now...
This is standard practice: If you want the moon, shoot for the sun. If you want a controversial law passed, start by asking for something ten times worse.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
love is just extroverted narcissism
There's no place I can be, since I found Serenity.
Content like movies, music and software are the country's No. 1 export, but the creators are being hurt by people who use technology to get the content for free, Conyers said.
I see, so passing this bill into law will clearly prevent people in foreign countries that are not subject to US laws from sharing and downloading files. Right.
It's not a question of not buying CD's, it's a question of not buying CD's that are on RIAA labels. Speaking as someone who is a memeber of the independant music community, I can say that bands like ours could use all the support we could get, in order to try and find a place for ourselves and avoid what boils down to a Management Union. The more independant music you buy, the less power the RIAA has, whereas if you don't buy -any- music, then the balance of power stays the same, and believe it or not, you actually help fund their statistics of people not buying music due to piracy. And for the recrod, there are plenty of music labels that aren't members of the RIAA. For example, If you're into Punk, (My area of expertise) there is Street Anthem Records and Fat Wreck Records. Both are known for treating their bands with the level of dignity and respect (and revenue ) that performers aught to be due. What I'm saying is that it's necessary to go a step further than not supporting the RIAA. You have to support their enemy, which would be free and independant music organizations.
And now its time for my shameless self plug, since we don't have the billions of the RIAA backing us for their own exploitive purposes, and probably never will:
The Pubcrawlers
http://the-pubcrawlers.com
New England Celtic Punk
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GCS d- s: a-- C++ UL+++ P+ L+++ E--- W+ N+ o K- w-- O M V PS+ PE Y+ PG
It's perfectly reasonable
You have a pretty strange definition of "reasonable".
Hmm, let's play the Sesame Street game:
Kidnapping.
Rape.
Assault with a deadly weapon.
Grand theft auto.
Uploading a file on a P2P network.
One of these things is not like the others. Can you tell me which one?
Hmm, you upload a file to a P2P network, and you are now a felon. Think about that - federal jail time, a fine of $250,000, and a permanent black mark that will prevent you from working anywhere but McDonalds.
I think you need to re-evaluate your definition of "reasonable".
It says you are in trouble if you provide the ability for the public to copy more than 10 copies at a value of more than $2,500.
You misread.
The part you are probably referring to says that merely making files available to the public over a computer network is automatically considered to satisfy the 10 copy/$2,500 requirement, even if no one downloads it.
It makes the mere act of sharing a single file fall under the criminal penalties, whereas before they had to prove you distributed significant amounts of copyrighted materials.
--------------
For purposes of section 2319(b) of title 18, the placing of a copyrighted work, without the authorization of the copyright owner, on a computer network acces-sible to members of the public who are able to copy the work through such access shall be considered to be the distribution, during a 180-day period, of at least 10 copies of that work with a retail value of more than $2,500.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
But it seems we are heading into two different directions. Crimes and their punishment are being classified into crimes against people and crimes against corporations. Crimes against people can be plea bargained down to minimal sentences. Crimes against corporations are constantly on the upswing as far as severity and punishment.
I remember when I first noticed this was during a period when those two kids from Delaware murdered their newborn child and dumped it into the trash. Their bail was set at $250,000. During that same time someone got nailed with a tone dialer (Bernie S mbe) and his bail was set at $300,000. The Delaware kids sentence for murder ended up being just two years each. Not bad, huh?
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.
You do understand that self defense and owning a firearm are not the same thing, right?
Convicted felons also give up certain rights (some even after their prison sentence is over), rights like voting,
Of course, they have to do this. Think about it, if 100 million people vote in elections, it only takes 50 million people voting together to elect the people they want. There are 50million+ file sharing people, so if they got their shit together, they could take over the system and make file sharing legal. Therefore, you have to take them out of the equation.
As people have pointed out before, systems and people route around damage. If you have a system (Copyright) that gets damaged by massive numbers of people (File sharars) and they could destroy you if they woke up (by voting) you route around them by neutering them by keeping them from voting by making them felons.
Of course they might just continue with their extortion racket of getting 10-20k from everyone in the world, but who's counting?
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
Wait, so if I write a song that contains an E-F chord progression and then upload it onto the KaZaa network, can I be charged with a felony?
Then, can I punch Lars in the face? Repeatedly?
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
I guess the current politicians figure their only shot at getting re-elected is to disenfranchise the Napster generation before the kids who grew up filesharing start replacing them with copyright-reform candidates.
Not that it would work -- what jury in the world would convict someone of a felony for sharing and listening to music? How could it not be cruel and unusual punishment to take away someone's voting rights for the copyright equivalent of going ten miles over the speed limit?
I'm not worried about this law passing--it would be political suicide (I hope) to support something so broadly unpopular--but you know how this works. There's one outrageous law that everybody knee-jerks at, and then there's another that's still horrible, but seems reasonable in comparison. That's the one to look out for. (Not that it's not a good time to write your congresscritters now.)
The requested URL
To drive that point home a little more: theft of copyrighted material would be stealing a CD out of a store - a misdemeaner.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
From article:
If you have a file stored on your computer and your computer is connected to a publicly available network, you may not even know that you are committing a felony, but this law could put you in jail...Every computer has copyrighted material on their machines. Windows is copyrighted by Microsoft, so in essence, this bill makes committing a felony as simple as connecting a Windows machine to the internet. Someone who misconfigures their file and print sharing services, and inadvertently shares their whole C drive has just committed a felony - regardless of their intentions.
There are already viruses which turn unsuspecting Windows machines into filesharing nodes and spambots. If this law is passed, computer virus victims could literally be sent to jail for doing nothing more than checking their email. When it comes down to it, most users are not sophisticated enough to correctly configure their file and print sharing on windows machines, let alone detect when their box has been owned by a filesharing virus. This law would literally make it a crime for joe user to connect to the internet after his box gets hacked.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
- Copyright infringement is not the same thing as theft.
- Copyright infringement is already illegal. We do not need an additional law to deal with it.
- Prison time is not a suitable punishment for file-swapping.
- The vast majority of copyright infringement and subsequent revenue loss takes place not online, but overseas.
- Dropping revenue figures, particularly in a sluggish economy with high unemployment, cannot be blamed on file-swapping alone.
- The Recording Industry has not made its case that file-swapping leads to substantial lost revenues.
- The Recording Industry is living under the illusion that it is a mature industry. If it wishes to earn more revenues, then it needs to shed its adversity to risk.
- The Recording Industry does not care about artists, and does not represent their interests.
- The Recording Industry is not pro-First Amendment.
- The suppression of file-swapping is not about preserving intellectual property; it is about controlling the distribution of information, including legitimate distribution of properly licensed information.
- The single best way to prevent the spread of computer viruses is to not use Microsoft Office or Microsoft Outlook.
- If kids want to get their hands on pornography, then it is time for their parents to have "the talk."
- Without peer-to-peer networks, kids will still get pornography from friends and from the vendor down the street.
- The government creates its own security risks with bad foreign policy.
- Peer-to-peer networks aid, rather than inhibit, intelligence gathering efforts.
- The best means of protecting national security is through human intelligence, not by making illegal a line of communication.
Have I missed anything?Finding God in a Dog
Theft is a criminal offence. Copyright violation is a civil offence. That is a very big difference, and one the media don't seem to have noticed. Wonder why the word 'piracy' is used? Because theft is implied but not stated.
Roman Law is only binding in Louisianna. The other 49 states are common law states, with all British Commonlaw prior to 1776 being binding unless overruled by the legislature...
I remember reading that the right to trial by combat wasn't removed until 1780 somthing...
Alex
You looked at the wrong stat. You looked at the PAC contributions only. Politicians are bought also by individual contributions...
Top Industries supporting Berman lists TV/Music/Movies as #1 with roughly 25% of all contributions made to the "honorable" Howard L. Berman (for sale for highest bidder).
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill politicians who've been bought
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
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.
Felons may not have bulletproof vests as well, which I classify as self defense.
This is so far from true that it's the best possible illustration of a vital point: media industries have influence vastly out of proportion to their economic impact.
The entire MPAA takes in, charitably, about $40b in revenues each year, including domestic and foreign video and film releases, and the RIAA is even smaller. Compare to the tech industry: Microsoft did over $35 billion in revenue last year. IBM did about the same. Cisco, $19b. 3 companies together take in more than double the entire movie industry - more than the movie and music industries put together, in fact. (To say nothing of Dell, Sun, Apple, Oracle, HP/Compaq, etc. etc. etc. etc.)
And yet it's the media that set the rules. Why? Tight political connections, of course (Jack Valenti was the first presidential advisor sworn in by LBJ after JFK's assassination), bred of one simple fact: politicians depend on the media to get elected. Quid pro quo. That's a rant for another time, however.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
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.
> these SAME old arguments about P2P and/or theft appear DAILY on slashdot now and its e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y boring.
Thank you for coming out and saying that. We've all read the same arguments over & over, yet I'm not reading anything I haven't read before. Unless something really interesting comes up, there should be no +mods, although there will be, because Mods moderate when they agree, not when they think it's important.
True, but I think it is the abridgement of the constitutional "right to bear arms" that is being mentioned. As a citizen of the US, you are supposed to be entitled to bear arms, so-as to put yourself on an even footing with criminals and invading infantry. Of course, since the criminals have automatic weapons, it's kindof a moot point.
Of more long-lasting harm is the fact that a convicted felon must report that felony to any potential employer when asked (usually on a job application). While the employer doesn't have to consider this, most will toss your application in the circular file if that box is checked, regardless of what kind of felony it was.
That means that as far as rejoining society as a useful, productive citizen, a person convicted of file sharing will have about the same chance as a murderer or rapist. Does that seem logical to you?
It's knee-jerk responses like this (by the congressmen) which unbalance our system so much. They all think about what will get them reelected next term, rather than what their laws will be used to do 20 years down the road.
The RIAA is not a government organization. They are not a police force. They are no different from Uncle Joe's Deli down the street. Why then does everyone in the legislature seem to think they should have special provisions and laws passed on their behalf? If *I* start a business, I'm sure they won't pass laws to make MY life any easier...(the rhetorical answer, of course, is money and the legal form of bribery known as contributions).
So, why cant we just admit that none of us are lawers in a courtroom, just people posting on a web site, and let normal useage of words go?
Because we are discussing laws and there has evolved very specific language that is key to understanding and discussing the law. If someone does not feel qualified to discuss the law in a meaningful way, then they should bow-out rather than misusing legal terminology and confusing important issues. Someone need not have a law degree to understand that theft and copyright infringement have wholly different legal meanings.
"Theft" is a crime. "Copyright infringement" is a civil offense. The people sponsoring this bill would like nothing more than to have the general public think of "copyright infringement" as "theft" -- because the average person is far more likely to believe that someone should go to jail for theft than for copyright infringement.
Theft and copyright infringement are different for a very important reason: In a theft, the victim is deprived of something that they previously had, whether it is money, jewelry, a car, or some other tangible thing. In copyright infringement, the victim has no less after the crime than before.
I think I'll add to the static.
I have no sympathy for the record companies. I think they started a downward spiral years before P2P networks came on the scene. Napster & co. have just been the last nails in the coffin.
I used to have roughly 35,000 mp3s. I can't pretend this was any sort of legit file sharing, it was a gross orgy of gathering every song I liked even slightly. But I recently deleted them all and bought from Apple iTunes maybe a half-dozen song I couldn't live without.
The lessons I learned were: a) sharing a few tunes with someone to turn them on is one thing, downloading tens of thousands is imposible to justify. b) As I said I don't have any sympathy for the bands represented by the RIAA, and don't think they deserve any money. By having thousands of songs, all I'm doing is helping to promote them for free. c) Music is addictive, and free music is even more so. There's much better things to obsess over.
So in short: RIAA is bad, but so is downloading mp3's. Avoid it all and just enjoy the ocassional song, preferably a local band or something. You don't need much more.
_______
2B1ASK1
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.