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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.

4 of 727 comments (clear)

  1. So what now? by Tirel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why did they have to wait so long? Couldn't this have been done _before_ so many people lost their money/got expelled. Do we really need to make so much noise before they make things happen? All in all, I'm glad they finally got their act together, but I worry that the only reason they're doing this is because the RIAA has something else planned.. Apparently, you only have rights if you belong to a group big enough to actually influence politics.

  2. What I'd be more intrested in... by Sir+Haxalot · · Score: 5, Interesting

    He believes the RIAA's tactics may not be taking into consideration the damage they do to innocent people
    I'd be more intrested in questioning the legality of the RIAA's 'tactics'.

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    I have over 70 freaks, do you?
  3. Theft is theft, copyright infringement is theft by Rogerborg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    And so on. Interesting opinion. Unfortunately, it's incorrect.

    Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun back, Dowling v. the United States: 'It follows that interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright: "Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner," that is, anyone who trespasses into his exclusive domain by using or authorizing the use of the copyrighted work in one of the five ways set forth in the statute, "is an infringer of the copyright."'

    I know that this is playing to the gallery, but if we're simply going to redefine terms to suit ourselves, how about try a bit of it ourselves. For example:

    1. Copyright infringement becomes theft
    2. Citizens - sorry, consumers - becomes suspected thieves

    Then we get a go:

    1. Cookies become spy-bugs
    2. Closed source becomes untrustable
    3. capitalism becomes plutocracy
    4. republic becomes oligarchy
    5. Congress person and RIAA/MPAA become whore, moron and/or mobster.

    Not perhaps technically accurate, but hey, they started it.

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  4. Re:"Fact of Life" != Today's Rampent Corruption by MrR0p3r · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While I respect your relatively low user id #, your views are somewhat mislead. Understand that here in America (don't know if you're american or not) we have a rule by majority. Concentrate on that word..majority. It takes a larger group of people to get hurt or angry before something will be done about what is hurting them. Until now the RIAA had both the loudest and the most numerous voice, thankfully the right number of people have spoken up for some action to finally be taken.

    I will conceed that some corruption happens on the hill on a daily basis, it's gonna happen because some people feed on that. However, I will not conceed the point of view that all people who make a living running this country are corrupt. They do what is either in the best interest of their constituants, or they listen to those people when they change their minds (as a majority). He still needs to get votes to keep his job.

    On a side note, yes attorneys have a large voice in DC, but that's because they hire a ton of folks to do lobbying for them. It's not what you say, it's how many voices you say it with.

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    Whatever man, I spelled it write!