Inquiry Into RIAA's Piracy Crackdown Tactics

MongooseCN writes "Sen. Norm Coleman started an inquiry to check the RIAA's tactics on attacking online music swappers. He believes the RIAA's tactics may not be taking into consideration the damage they do to innocent people. It's good to know that someone remembered people in the US have Rights." As a former roadie, Senator Coleman doesn't oppose file sharing penalities, he merely wants to make sure the punishment fits the crime.

Comments

Here's how to contact Norm Coleman

[Warpedcow]

Send you ideas, thanks, whatever to Norm here:

http://www.senate.gov/~coleman/contact/index.cfm

This is what I sent, short and simple:

Thank you for taking a stand against the ridiculously strong-armed tactics that the RIAA is taking against innocent people. $15K to $250K per song is "Cruel and Unusual"

Re:he's right.

[Dashing Leech]

You are wrong on three accounts:

• File sharing is not illegal, unless you are violating a copyright. For instance, I can share all the files I've created or anything in the public domain.
• Sharing copyrighted files is not stealing, it is copyright infringement. This is an important distinction. Copying someone's work is not the same thing as depriving them of property, and is not handled by the same laws. At best, some people (e.g., RIAA) try to argue it is analagous to stealing, but it is not the same thing.
• Copyright infringement is generally not a crime. It generally comes under civil law, not criminal law. The RIAA is suing under civil law, not pressing charges under criminal law. (Which again, makes it distinct from stealing.) However, under certain circumstances it can become a criminal offense, usually when the violation is intentional and for profit.

Re:he's right.

[Pofy]

>Explain what copyright infringment is and why
>it's bad without using any concept of stealing or
>theft. I can't do it. I don't think you can,
>either.You cannot use the concept of paying
>people for their hard work if you enjoy the
>fruits of their labor, since not doing that is
>stealing.

Copyright ionfringement is creating a new copy of something which you are not allowed to do. That is, you gained something you should ne have been allowed to gain.

Theft has an additional part, which is that not only did you gain something, the one you stole from lost his copy of it (since there was not any copying involved creating a second copy).

In addition, copyright infringment works on non physical objects while theft works on physical ones (well, at least normally).

Finally, copyright infringement is limited in time, after a certain time (which is definately to long in my opinion right now), the copying IS suddenly allowed. If any copying would be stealing, how come it suddenly stop being theft just because the copyright expired, it is still the exact same copying.

It is also worth noticing that copyright infringment is NOT directly connected to money or value since even if there is no selling for money or other value transaction, it is STILL copyright infringement to to copy something you don't have the right to copy (even if someone holding the copyright for example is giving away copies for free which makes it very hard to claim the equality of theft in such a case, while it is still copyright infringement).

Ahem. NOT.

[72beetle]

Bush got more votes, so Gore lost. Simple as that. Get over it, quit whining and move on.

How soon they all forget.

Gore won the popular vote - he had more ballots with his name on them.

Bush won the electoral college - he won more states.

'Sheep, thought I.' - Anthony Burgess

-72