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RIAA Parses 'P2P' As 'Peer 2 Porn'
watchful.babbler writes "Having largely failed to galvanize public and political action against P2P systems, the RIAA has mounted a campaign to link P2P systems with child pornography (NYT, reg. required). The result is H. R. 2885 (available via Thomas), which has the remarkably clear and honest intent 'To prohibit the distribution of peer-to-peer file trading software in interstate commerce.' Amongst other things, the proposed law will require the creation of 'do-not-install beacon products' (do-not-ask, you really don't want to know), force P2P apps to include warning labels that users may be exposed to pornography, and require P2P developers and distributors to obtain and store users' personal information -- ostensibly for age verification, but one can think of other reasons that the RIAA might be interested in that info. Worse yet, even given the 'operation exemption' (Sec. (4)(b)(1)(C) in the bill), applications such as AIM and iChat appear to fall under these provisions."
Please remember the DMCA
So many people ignored it, simply because it was unconstitutional didn't stop it from becoming a law.
"...force P2P apps to include warning labels that users may be exposed to pornography"
They should put those labels on all web browsers too then.
If a person who don't trust sudenly starts doing something for the "common good", wouldn't you be a little suspicious and say "what're you up to?" This could easily be a way to find not just pr0n sharers, but illegal music sharers.
When you don't have a leg to stand on, don't even get up.
They also use email, ftp, http, nntp... shall we outlaw those applications? (I know some of them are protocols, smeg off.) Doesn't make any sense. I must once again call for viruses which install freenet and make people freenet nodes, sharing all media files on someone's computer.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This is it. This is the straw that broke the camels back in my mind. We need to find a way to get everyone to fight the RIAA with us. I'm registeringwith the EFF... I need to know what to do next. What are the most effective methods of protest (short of a suicide bombing).
I suppose we should put them on the insides of people's eyelids, as well. You can be 'exposed to pornography' walking down the street.
GL
That's great that they include AIM and iChat. We need companies like AOL, Microsoft, Apple, etc with heavy interests in P2P to help put a stop to this bill. They "rent" legislators, too!
Oh great! Now I'm going to catch hell from all my customers who run in-house P2P LAN's to share the internet or just to share a printer/fax/copier.
Thanks RIAA, I'm sending you my Excedrin bill for next month
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
I find this sort of bill among the more reprehensible things our legislature does. This bill has no chance of passage, and the authors undoubtedly know this. Further, if it were to pass it would be the target of a million legal challenges.
The purpose of this bill is almost certainly to force a "compromise" bill that achieves the achievable portion of these effects. By staking out an extreme position, the sponsors paint opponents as staking out the opposite extreme, and suggest that the difference be split.
Honest congressfolk: don't give in. There is no honorable compromise here. P2P is just folks communicating via computer---to restrict the medium of the net is the beginning of the end of free speech in America and around the world. I would rather see our civil liberties go down fighting than turn to the dark side voluntarily.
They are trying to make paying for music more attractive through legal downloading services, and in the case of Universal Music Group, the world's largest record company, slashing the price of most its CD's by 30 percent
Wow. 30 whole percent. What's that leave the profit margin at? $12 on a $15 dollar CD? I'll bet most of that %30 is coming out of the artists paycheck. Whoops! They never made %30 to begin with.
So, when the RIAA sees someone sharing songs, and it turns out to be a child, they can hold the parents legally responsible for the actions of their kids? I'd like to believe otherwise, but given RIAA's track record of wanting more legal power to prosecute sharers, they give me no reason to.
I think they have the wrong target. They should go for banning (photo)camera's. And let's not forget pens, brushes, paper and paint. They can be used to CREATE child porn. You always have to fight the root of the problem. O by the way, children can make very sounds that make people that are susceptible to such a thing very horny. Ever listened to a children's record? Here in Holland we have Kinderen voor Kinderen (children for children). Every year or so a new record with children's songs sung by childern appears in the shops. Who knows what can happen when people listen to that stuff... I say we ban the whole recording industry altogether. It's gone far enough.
-- Cheers!
This may work in the US, but the US is merely but ONE country with Internet access. The RIAA has no teeth outside the US, so in effect all they're doing is trying to create an island on the Internet. Good luck.
""As a guy in the record industry and as a parent, I am shocked that these services are being used to lure children to stuff that is really ugly," said Andrew Lack, the chief executive of Sony Music Entertainment."
He didn't seem to be shocked when his barbies (there's no way I'm calling them artists) were tongue-kissing then strip-teasing in front of millions of kids.
Portraying the intent of P2P app developers in this manner is beneath contempt. Hiding behind his "shock" and "parenthood" while making them is cowardice. Coming from the upper eschelons of Sony, a company which has released more than its share of violent, sexual content in the form of movies and games, is pure hypocrisy. 'Lack' is truly an apt name for such an individual.
A study in March by the General Accounting Office found that KaZaA would be effective for someone looking for child pornography. The agency searched for 12 terms associated with child pornography, such as "incest" and "underage." It did not actually download the files it found, but it determined that 42 percent of them had titles or descriptions associated with pornographic images of children.
Didn't actually download them huh. Well, they must be porn. I'm now off to download everything on project Gutenberg and rename all the files 'porn underage kiddies sluts with barnyard animals.txt'. Won't the RIAA be disapointed when they find copies of Emma and The War of the Worlds.
That brings up a good point. The RIAA is trying to restrict P2P because their "could" be pr0n on it. Wake up, RIAA. The whole friggin' INTERNET "could" have pr0n on it, so why don't we shut it down, for the good of mankind?
Everything has drawbacks, but sometimes they aren't really that big. You can't just go around being more strict when a little problem arises.
When you don't have a leg to stand on, don't even get up.
On p2p the porn isn't waved in your face, but some spams are very explicit and you can't really avoid it unless you're clued up on spam filtering.
If you can't argue against them, argue along side them. The purpose of copyright is "To promote the progress of science and useful arts". If congress opposes pornography, why do they promote it with copyrights? The RIAA is not going to be happy if congress cancels copyrights on all sexually-explicit material.
Section 2: Findings spells out their beef with p2p software and it seems to be the same beef people have with that pesky first amendment.
Peer-to-peer file trading software has been very widely distributed. The most popular of these programs has been downloaded over 200 million times, and at any one time, there are over 3 million people using it.
Strange that they want to outlaw something that a substantial percentage of the public find useful enough to download. The people behind the bill obviously carry some heavy political currency.
(2) Peer-to-peer systems are emerging as a conduit for the distribution of pornographic images and videos, including child pornography. Child pornography is easily found and downloaded using peer-to-peer systems.
Emerging as a CONDUIT?!? Sense when do we go after the conduit. Speech is a conduit for unsavory ideas as are the radio, magazines, books, our minds. Shall we outlaw those too?
If the RIAA is behind this it is really the hight of hypocrisy. This is an organization that is happy to dress up a teenage Brittany Spears in next to nothing and pay here to wiggle around in front of a bunch of horny boys, but threaten their profits and suddenly they are the keepers of the moral flame. What a crazy world.
No group has done more to sexualize children for profit than the music industry. Go to amazon and pull up a photo of britney spears' first album -- she's wearing a school girl uniform. They have a lot of nerve talking about this now.
MTV actually did a promotional show for the snoop dogg girls gone wild video, the way they'd promote a hollywood movie. Not only is MTV's audience primiarly made up of kids, but the producers of those videos are probably going to go to jail for using minors in their tapes. Not one or two who slipped through -- several dozen young girls.
Don't get me wrong -- I believe in free speech, and I will defend their rights to promote music that sexualizes children, glorifies cop killing, rape, and drug use, and all of the rest of the stuff they promote. I don't like it, but I'll defend their right to do it.
But the sheer disingenuous of these sorts of statements is hard to take. I don't know where they find guys with the chutzpah to make them.
P2P, being a medium or a form of communication, can have various kinds of communication on it, some might be offensive, but, IMHO, IANAL, it is protected speech, just like a newspaper or a website - you can go after the content and restrict it, possibly, but how can you restrict the medium without interfering in my right to free speech?
The RIAA has been raping children for years (charging them $18 for a CD with 12 songs). Even with the price drop, it's still rape.
Children are NOT the people who seek out CHILD pornography. I know this as a fact because I have 2 boys in my home. They want to see MATURE (looking) women with great big 'bazookas', not flat chest-ed 9 year old little girls. For a 15 yr old boy, this is normal, natural and even healthy (not to mention reassuring that I may one day be a grandfather).
The people that seek out child porn are adults, sick adults, but adults none the less. The RIAA seems to think that it's children seeking this stuff out. They are truely lost souls...
This is the equivalent to outlawing cars because pedophiles use them to abduct kids.
Back to the rape, maybe the RIAA is getting jealous after watching the kiddy porn on the P2P networks.
RIAA's intent with this bill: "Nobody can rape those kids but the RIAA"
I always thought that the US music industry has a weird thing with sex and young girls. There was an interview with a 15-year old Britney Spears in the Washington Post magazine a while back. She was all cute and wholesome and nice. Then, after the music industry got done prostituting her, we have her sucking face with Madonna on MTV...
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
is that there will be a bill forcing us to use Microsoft products because of their restrictive DRM built-in. As preposterous as this sounds, think about it for a minute. Microsoft is pushing DRM all over the place, including in Office. RIAA is desperate to stop file trading so if they were get to an inroads to making people have DRM-enabled software, they would be jumping for joy. If a bill like the one proposed is pushed through, this is the next logical step. P2P software will have to have DRM and guess is more than willing to do this for you?
Preposterous you say. Again, think about it some more. MS is pretty good at buying politicians (and business execs, but that is for discussion on another day) so they could easily get something as ludicrous as this pushed through Congress. You think most Congressmen and women really have a serious clue about technology and stuff? If the RIAA successfully gets P2P associated with kiddy porn, the hammer will fall. I am certainly against child porn but this is a quite low-handed advertising. Nevertheless, this could be just the thing needed for Microsoft to really push the DRM. The thought of this just makes me shudder.
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
This is nothing but a pre-emptive strike at FreeNet (and the anonymously routed, stenographically encrypted networks to follow.)
.gov ... (When an irresistable force hits an immovable object, etc.)
The RIAA knows that once that happens, their ability to stop piracy will be absolutely NIL. So their only hope is to criminalize P2P software before it gets to that point. If they can make it illegal to distribute (and eventually own) file sharing software, then FreeNet ceases to become an issue.
And you know where those "beacons" are headed, don't you? Think mandatory on every new computer, automatically contact your ISP if you so much as ATTEMPT to run P2P software.
I always wondered how the next generation of P2P was going to mix with the
Microsoft's Palladium (and its ilk) is going to be the champion platform for this, because the users can't control what is going on. The government can mandate anything they want, Microsoft complies, and the users don't get a choice.
Expect Palladium type controls to become mandatory within 3 years as well. They're just going to turn the internet into a passive entertainment medium like they've always wanted it to be. Just with more advertising.
This product facilitates communication. As with all methods of communication, it may enable communication that you don't like, similar to speech, photography, and skywriting.
Lets Look at the logic here. Child porography is being distributed via P2P. Since P2P is the method of delivery we must kill P2P.
Child pornography has been disributed by perverts by many diffrent ways before the advent P2P. Shall we make the US postal system illeagal for the same reason?
One could argue that it is much easier to get Child pornagraphy on P2P. There is a hole in that logic, you actully have to be looking for it to find it. The person looking for it in the first place is the root of the problem, not P2P.
In America we are imprisoned by our fear of them.
That sounds appropriate.
Insert multi-subject RIAA rant here
Cheers, Ed.
Yeah, but you know why this is going to fail? It'll fail because everywhere in the world, in the first few years of schooling, one of the main lessons that every teacher is trying to get into their kiddies' heads is that you should always share your toys.
;-)
Now, you may think this is encouraging piracy, socialism, and all those evil things. But the fact is that most pre-school teachers don't see it that way. They see it as necessary socialization of those selfish little monsters. Granted, a tiny minority of their students resist the lesson, and grow up to be CEOs and RIAA spokespeople. But the power of these millions of teachers is likely much greater than the greed of a handful of corporate execs.
In the long term, we will all be sharing our toys. This is especially true for songs we like. They may be able to sue the Girl Scouts for singing copyrighted songs around the campfire; they may be able to arrest us for walking down the street whistling a copyrighted tune.
But in the end, they can't throw us all in jail. And they ain't gonna stop all those teachers from continuing to instill in the little heads the idea that good people share things with each other. Eventually they'll have to face the fact that most of us become social beings, and we share things that we like with others.
(Yes, it does occur to me that this applies to pornography as well as to music. It probably applies even more to pornographic music. And to software that's better than what the commercial guys sell us.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
With P2P you really don't know what you're getting. You may think you're downloading The Lion King but you may end up with Debbie Does Dallas.
.zaa file format that uses a form of compression along with a header with a checksum, description, etc to ensure that the file it claims it has, really is that file.
.zaa file and submit it for community approval before it's checksum is added to a global database as "trusted."
On the web, sites are required by law to warn users before they can enter an adult site. Those that don't comply can be thrown in jail and/or fined.
P2P has NO SUCH MECHANISM to warn users about what they may actually be getting. Since the sharers have NO MEANS AVAILABLE to warn users what they're sharing then it's reasonable that the app itself must.
I don't see the problem with this.
Kazaa has become an abondanded street filled with hookers and the black market. If you don't want the law to clean up your street then you better do it yourself.
It'd be rediculously trivial to have a
If you want to share a file, you pack in into a
Users can then block certain headers and untrusted files.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
does that mean that they're continually exposing themselves to child pornography at will?
They are doing worse. They continually market underage (or barely of age) girls in a way that sexualizes them (and their blind followers, the pre-teen crowd). Just look at what the latest so-called pop artists are wearing nowadays. Now look at the 12-year-olds at your local school.
I charge that the RIAA is responsible for creating the image of children (the ones on TV and our own) in sexually suggestive clothing, poses and attitudes.
No, I'm not a parent. But someday I'd like to be (getting married next year).
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
If it has MP3 headers, it'll only play as audio. I'm sure audio porn is a big problem, though, and is certainly nothing like what you would hear on a movie or in music.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Install a P2P system that lets you see what people are searching for, and guess what...something like 99% of it is indeed commercial music and porn of questionable legality.
It is pretty amazing to watch.
...link Child pornography to Spam instead?
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
A far better way to approach the problem of offending the parents of children is to declare that the entire Internet is for adults, except where specifically labelled otherwise. We could have a Rated G Bit in every packet for this. Meanwhile, either watch your kids when they use the computer, use a whitelist, or password-protect it so they don't get on the Internet at all, if you don't want them exposed to 'pornography' (whatever that is).
Personally, I figure if Monsterette 2 (her older sister has flown the nest and is no longer a child) wants to see something sick and perverted, the fact that she wants to see it is the problem, not the images themselves. And if she sees something by mistake, she knows how to delete it, and won't be traumatized by it. Besides, if I put up a firewall, she'd probably hack her way past it anyhow.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
"Other distributors of pornography have also embraced the file-sharing networks as a promotional vehicle. They distribute sample pictures and videos in an attempt to attract paying customers to their Web sites.
"The adult industry, like others, is against the illegal downloading of their videos," said Gary Kremen, the chief executive of Sex.com, a directory of sexually explicit Web sites, "but they are much smarter than the music industry. They see p2p as money to be made."
"
Well, I tried to get Matrix Reloaded when it first came out in theaters, and some people had renamed other movies to it (why, I'm not sure; perhaps to boost their "share rating" but they should have just gotten Kazaa Lite).
I downloaded 7 different movies before finding it at a BitTorrent site (most of the torrents are correct). I got I Spy, Almost Famous, Joy Ride, Saving Private Ryan among others -- and one of them was Swedish porn with money shots and everything: Lustgarden.
I don't have kids, but I wouldn't want my kids searching for Matrix Reloaded and getting porn instead. Yeah, it's not the kiddie porn that this idiot is blathering about, but the point is you've got to parent your children! You can't sit them in front of a box, any box, and ignore them. You need to work through issues with them, watch what they're doing, offer advice and corrections, and lock down the computer so they can't install software (if you want to shelter them).
They'll get to an age where they don't need sheltering, but until then it's the parents' responsibility to shelter them the way the parents see fit -- and it is most definitely not the government's responsibility.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Reading the bill HR 2885 on thomas.loc.gov, I noticed the following:
DISCLAIMER: The following is just commenting, not the truth.
The combination of Microsoft Internet Explorer and a web browser would be "peer-to-peer file trading software" in the United States. The server would perform functions (A), Explorer would be (B), and (C) would be satisfied by the fact that the server lets the user pick what files to distribute, even which file is the home page and how to link the files.
Then Explorer would be regulated by the Act: it would have to require a warning that it could access pornography; young children would have to send personal info to Microsoft. Also, interestingly, I would be able to set up a 'do-not-install beacon' preventing Explorer from being installed on a computer, and it would have to be possible to remove Explorer from a computer. This would cripple Windows.
But read the act more closely. The Windows version of Explorer is actually part of Windows, and Windows' "primary function" is not file sharing, or even network use. So Explorer may be exempt from regulation by this bill. But competing web browsers may be at a disadvantage because they meet the "primary function" requirement; thus Mozilla may have pornography warning labels while Explorer does not; meanwhile Windows' new default do-not-install beacon prevents Mozilla from running.
Also, notice that I mentioned an Explorer-web server combination, not Explorer by itself, so Explorer without a web server wouldn't qualify as "peer-to-peer", because Explorer would not meet (A) and (C): it can't send files to another computer, and it can't make files available for upload. Actually, Explorer allows web pages to include a file upload form widget (Mozilla and Konqueror support this also), which could be used to "transmit files or data to another computer," meeting (A), and also meeting (C) since I pick which files are available by choosing them with the widget. The web browser will only send files if the user has selected them with the widget.
Except (C) contains a crafty exclusion. Here it is again:
The exclusion creates the passage: is a web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, necessary "for the operation of" "the Internet"? The "Commission" (Federal Trade Commission) would have to decide. So it seems this bill has much language to protect Explorer, just in this one section.
But what about other software, like rsync and CVS? Does it co
==========
There are two types of people: those who are in the world, and those who aren't.
They seek to enlist the aid of a government which has been rampantly trampling (say that 3 times fast!) the civil rights of its Citizens. And doing so with increasing enthusiasm for the past few years.
Their argument says, essentially: "We cannot see what a given individual is doing. They could be doing anything!. Therefore, we MUST monitor and regulate each individual!"
The premise of our society (in the US) is exactly the opposite of that view: "...Chief among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..." The "liberty" part means that Yeah--you could be doing anything. Go ahead. We presume that what you're doing is none of anyone else's business.
In that context, the RIAA's argument "Unmonitored, unregulated private citizens are probably criminal, and must be treated as such." sounds absurd. Not to the folks making the laws.
This or similar regulation has a good chance of being enacted. Remember the "war on drugs" in its heyday. I personally know people who had property siezed and sold at auction because the property (a car) was "involved in a drug-related crime".
Problem is--the "crime" was an alleged crime--the person involved was never convicted of anything. Yeah, that sorta violates the fourth amendmant of our Constitution. And the law was overturned. But, he still lost his car.
The upsot of it is that there is (and always will be) a persistant layer of the legal system which undermines the same rights that are guaranteed by that same legaly system.
At any given moment, we can fight more or less diligently and determine the weight of that layer.
Make no mistake, however--it is the nature of power to concentrate itself. And if you don't take some of that power by speaking out, embarrassing politicians, joining your local zoning board, challenging that traffic ticket, etc.--then you are giving that power away.
Don't be embarrased to "take power" by taking action. Your very desire to protect your own freedoms conflicts with someone else's desire to regulate (restrict) those freedoms. You are in the game whether you like it or not. "I'll leave you alone and you leave me alone." is good in principle, but impossible to implement in practice.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
I'm in awe at the complete and utter ignorance of a certain Laura A. Ahearn quoted in that article.
She states that Kazaa has been deliberately used to "attack children".
The mind boggles.
If you give your kid a $2000 computer, broadband internet access, no supervision, and they type in "porn" as a search (on Google, newsgroups, P2P or even just as a URL) - is this an attack? No.
YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN WATCHING YOUR CHILD.
It's called good old PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. The same way you shouldn't let your kid roam around town alone or talk to strangers.
well.. you see, he is shocked that someone else is already doing work on the area they are expanding their business to (because 'music' just doesn't cut enough anymore for them.) more permanently. they want to be the sole distributor of hormone kicking content, pron is much easier to sell than making music that will sell on it's own especially if you can disquise that pron to be 'publicly correct' so that it gets into daytime mainstream media, so that you can get the most profitable market for pron(12-18years, that is, kids-soon-to-be-adults-wanting-to-have-sex-now-but -not-quite-confident-enough-to-actually-do-it-so-m asturbation-is-king) to buy the stuff legally and in a fashion that is accepted and even encouraged.
heck, even elvis was pr0n(admittedly he made some good music as well but mostly he was pron for teenage girls, and they got exploited to sillyness with all the elvis movies and shitload of songs).
yeah i don't make much difference between ass marketing and straight pr0n, except straight XXX pron is honestly what it is, most of the time it lacks the fake glamour that 'music' videos have too that makes the girls wanna act like whores-for-free.
and yea i used three different words for pr0n=porno=pron, and actually i am not against porno at all(except if actors are forced to it), and i'm not for making distributing it shameful and the age-limit should be around 16 because at least then everyone figures out how to access it ONE WAY OR ANOTHER anyways(be it your dads video/mag collection, your uncles video/mag collection, shoplift, loan from a friend, buy on a trip to country *, vcr late night tv, hotel tv, watching baywatch, mtv late night videos, or gosh: dial in bbs's and internet!). i'm just against hypocrats that use it as a weapon to achieve their own goals.
all that being said.. man do the teens nowadays have it easy.. i had to nick mags from my brother at least before we got 14.4k modem and even then the best jpg bbs's around here had ratios!
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Nobody has suggested that the RIAA should not have the right to protect against piracy. The RIAA has every right to do everything in its power to stop piracy. This includes working with government agencies, and law enforcement agencies. The problem is that a "child-molestor" has more rights than a "file-sharer" when it comes to privacy. The law enforcement agencies have to come up with some "evidence" before arresting, the "child-molestor" whereas the RIAA just has to go to the courthouse before it can bring action agains the "file-sharer" I think the RIAA should have to gather some evidence before filing a suit. Now you may ask "How do you gather evidence against an anonymouse user?" The answer? PM them and say "Hey can I download that song off of you? I want to see if I like it before I buy the album." If the person responds "Yes I'll start your download." then you have all the evidence you need to prove that they are doing something illegal. If the person doesn't respond, or says "I'd rather you not download off of me unless you own the song." then leave them the hell alone. Fact is that I have a perfectly good reason for sharing my files. I want to be able to access "my" files anywhere that I go. I don't want to set up a VPN to my computer. I use the sharing software to share files with myself, and I have text files in my shared folder that state that I own all of the cds, and you cannot download them unless you own them too. Anyways, the RIAA is fucking with civil liberties. We don't have to come up with a solution for them. They have to come up with a solution for themselves. The constitution protects us from shit like this.
Ah screw it, you're not paying attention anyway.
The injection of "interstate commerce" all throughout this bill is clearly a patch attempting to stretch federal jurisdiction over something quite clearly beyond its bounds -- that is, out of the scope of the constitution, hence literally unconstitutional. It's a pretty common and sickening tactic among corrupt legislators and their corporate owners.
Would the courts consider open source licensing (e.g. the GPL) to be "commerce"? Perhaps more important, would prosecutors and federal police even pay attention to the "interstate commerce" restriction at all...?
Since nytimes.com really insists on having a registration system (stupid, I agree, but they seem stuck on the idea), they eventually find ways to close the bypass. I sure hope they don't tell Google to stop spidering their site!
Registration is free, and you can tell them not to spam you. Go and register, and spare us all the noise.
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
My letter:
Dear Congressman Inslee:
I am a registered voter in your district, and serving my country in the Navy; currently stationed in Pensacola, Florida. I am writing to voice my strong opposition to HR 2885, "Protecting Children from Peer-to-Peer Pornography Act of 2003".
The findings in Section 2 of the bill could easily apply to regular web browsing (HTTP) or USNET Newsgroup readers. As reported on the 7th of September 2003, by Saul Hansell, in the New York Times, "Aiming at Pornography to Hit Music Piracy", the RIAA strongly backs this bill, obstinately for the "protection of children". The truth is that this is another attempt by the RIAA to infringe upon the rights of consumers, to limit the use of new technology to distribute music, and to prevent independent musicians from legally distributing their music outside of the RIAA's monopoly.
The irony of the RIAA's stance is that they are guilty of sexualizing children through the behavior of performers like Brittany Spears, Christina Aguilera, and other young women who project a hyper-sexual image. Teen and pre-teen girls view these performers as roll models, and try to dress and act in their image. Young girls dressing in skimpy outfits encourages the deviant adults who prey on children. The RIAA and MTV put children at greater risk due to the behavior of the artists they promote.
Child pornography is evil, and those peddling in such material should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. However, excessive government regulation of an entire class of software in the effort to "protect children" is the wrong direction we should take. Sufficient laws are on the books to effectively prosecute Child Pornographers, and more importantly to protect children. HR 2885 is an oblique attempt by the RIAA to further protect its monopoly on the creation and distribution of music.
If this bill comes to a vote, please vote "NO".
Very Respectfully,
Craig Newcomb
Interesting that the RIAA suddenly "cares" that child porn is being distributed over P2P. This HAS to be a noble endeavour to creating a better, safer world... and they have no other motives. Right.....
But on a more serious note....
I believe all technology can be used for good and evil purposes. To merely condemn a technology because of its potential bad seems rather illogical.
One could argue that VHS or DVD acts as a carrier of child porn since it is a medium that can distribute child porn.... but I don't see the RIAA linking DVD == child porn. I don't see DVD players have a warning label saying that you MAY be exposed to child porn while using this system. I don't see stores selling DVDs taking down your personal information (except Radio Shack) and verifying your age before using the system. Hmmm.... i wonder why the RIAA doesn't take out these other technologies.
By induction, lets do case n+1. With the same logic, one could argue that the Internet is a medium for child porn; therefore, we should verify age and stick warning labels onto the Internet. Lets all jump on the anti-technology band wagon and ban computers, broadband, etc since they are all guilty of possibly distributing child porn. Oh, and electricity has to go since it's used in the creation of child porn.
This seems like a pretty good proof. End of proof, QED!
If the RIAA is *SO* concerned about the moral state of our world... why do they continue producing music and videos that promote violence, sex, drugs, money, etc.
"There is no spoon." - The Matrix
Would their definition not include server's too? Lets take Apache for example:
(A) enable a computer on which such software is used to transmit files or data to another such computer;
This is Apache's main purpose.
(B) enable the user of one such computer to request the transmission of files or data from another such computer; and
HTTP is a two way thing, not broadcast. The "client" needs to be able to send data to a server to request files. If not GET, the POST directive meets this. I'm using it to send this post.
(C) enable the user of one such computer to designate files or data available for transmission to another such computer, but which definition excludes, to the extent otherwise included, software products legitimately marketed and distributed primarily for the operation of business and home networks, the networks of Internet access providers, or the Internet itself;
Okay, this part is kind of vague. Designation of the files is program specific, but but Apache and most P2P software do something along the lines of "you put the files in a shared dir". The excluded part is REALLY vague. P2P software IS legitimately marketed and distributed. It only fails to meet that part is it is already illegal by this bill.
The actual exclusions seem to be written by someone who has no clue about networking. Lets see... Home(non-business) and business networks are excluded. Government networks are about the only thing that isn't excluded. ISP networks, which are yet another business network, are then specifically excluded.
Of course, if that isn't enough, the internet itself is excluded. WTF do they think "the Internet itself" is??? Some palpable item? The internet is formed OF the other types of networks(most of which were excluded). They either include the application layer in these exclusions, or they don't. P2P is excluded if the other servers are excluded. For that matter, it's possible to use Apache FOR P2P type things. P2P is just another service on the internet.
Or is there something I'm missing and I need to RTFA better next time?
Now the RIAA is attacking P2P because of the free exchange of kiddie porn. So does this mean that the RIAA is also trying to protect the kiddie porn industry from bankruptcy?
Man, these guys really are buttmonkeys, aren't they? ;-)
> The DMCA is not unconstitutional.
/.
Sorry, but it most certainly is. Forbidding the mere discussion of copy restriction schemes certainly runs smack into "Congress shall make no law...." and if you can't figure that much out on your own you are part of the problem. The Constituition isn't a hard document to read, you don't need to be a lawyer or philosopher to understand the plain language of the Founding Fathers. They didn't write any weasel words or leave anything ambigious, it is mostly stark Thou Shalt... Thou Shalt Not sort of rules.
> The concept behind it was rather needed, which is to say extending
> copyright (or at least atempting to define copyright) for digital
> products.
What does the distribution media have to do with copyright? Copyright is copyright, whether graven on stone tablets, stamped onto 120mm aluminum and acrylic discs, beamed down from a geostationary sat or downloaded via a DSL circuit via Gnutella.
> *This* bill however, does nothing to clarify the legal code, nor
> does it help to resolve any existing problems therin. Further most
> people know what P2P is and they can imeditatly see why such a bill
> would be a bad thing. It's not going to go anywhere.
Don't bet on it. They are playing the trump card; "Do it for The Children!" and that trick often works. Sure they only have a pair of jackoff, noname congresscritters for now, but they don't EXPECT to pass it this session. But watch it turn up again next year.... during an election year. As far as I'm concerned no living Congresscritter is innocent of violating their oath of office so we are only safe when the legislature is out of session.
> A rally call of "Remember the DMCA" is all well and good, but there
> are much more dangerous pushes for legislation (see patriot act II)
> out there with a far biger push (see Ashcroft and the US goverment)
> to get them passed.
Actually I'm far more worried about DMCA than Patriot. Patriot was an expected excess after an excessive provacation. But even then Congress at least had enough sense to write in a sunset clause and it is unlikely to be renewed. And while longterm Patriot would pose a greater threat to civil liberties I haven't heard of a lot of abuses of Patriot but DMCA is being wielded as a club against a LOT of people. And DMCA has no sunset clause.
Are you sure you aren't just so blinded by hatred of Bush and Ashcroft you are seeing the ghost of Sen. Mcarthy[sp?] behind every rock? Does seem to be a common meme here on
Democrat delenda est
The NYTimes has become more of a shill for the RIAA and conservatives in the government. In the article they actually printed this as credible information:
They go on to present the opposing side of the issue, but it doesn't really refute the meme of massive amounts of child porn on the net:By even lending any credence to a study that did not actually download the files the NYTimes is showing how easily they can be used.
A little clue here folks, these descriptions are what's commonly referred to as false advertising. 99% of that "42 percent" will not contain child porn. At most you'll get some badly dubbed European movie from the 80's where some 30 year old woman is wearing pony tails and trying to act coy. Those sorts of mile-long filenames with every sex search term you could think of are leftovers from files that have been passed around for years on services like Hotline where you either pay or upload other files in trade to download pirated porn or software.
These file names are just like the stupid search engine spamming where porn sites used to put as many porn words in their meta tags and white-on-white body text to get to the top of the results. Someone sharing on Hotline wanted to generate as much traffic as possible to their server. Then in order to download this forbidden fruit, you had to upload more warez or pr0n or pay them, thus increasing the size of the server owners collection and/or wallet.
Later in the article they (correctly) pick up on another reality of P2P porn: a lot of it is now just advertising for pay sites. Now let's see... do you think that the porn site operators name the files that they share in a way that clearly shows that you're going to download an ad? Well, no they also use the same sorts of filenames with every graphic description that you could imagine - which often doesn't have much to do with the actual contents.
If the RIAA members had half a brain, they'd stop pouring money into getting songs on the radio and MTV and just load up all the good singles and videos onto KaZaA. Then they'd all take a few clues from Apple and UMG and make it easier and cheaper to get the albums electronically or on CD. Oh, but wait, they've stopped making good albums.
Maybe this is a bad example, but I really can't comprehend the school of thought in journalism where you just report the statements of opposing sides of an issue with equal weight and little personal analysis. In this particular case it would be very dangerous for a reporter themselves to download potential child porn. If they actually found some they would be committing a serious crime.
The real problem here is that I read far to many articles by journalists who are generalists. They are taught that there is this universal approach to researching and writing stories and they can apply it to any subject - which is complete bullshit. Sure you can start learning from a general standpoint, but journalism should be about trying to present the facts as they are. That requires an understanding of the subject matter, which requires some expertise and experience.
Unless this particular article was completely watered down and edited to death, I get the impression that the reporter has never actually downloaded porn through a P2P service.
Wow, somebody is using the P2P technology for something illegal. That goes for HTTP, FTP, IRC, and so on.
I never saw any advertising on any P2P services saying "Here kids! Look at this disgusting porn!"
Companies only do things through motivation. What are the entertainment companies' motivation for smearing P2P? Obviously, because their music is being traded on P2P.
If some people are using the technology for trading child porn, law enforcement agencies have many ways to track those people down and send them to jail. Why is the entertainment biz trying to get involved? Are they really concerned citizens? Hardly. Every one of us is a number to them. They want to "monetize" us all using any means necessary, even to the detriment of society's values. They are the last people who should be trying to uphold what is right.
Sure, okay. If you read between the lines, what they want is everyone to either be of legal age on P2P, or make the parents knowingly allow their children to use the services. That way, it's a sure bet they can either sue who's using the service, or that person's parents. No more fruitless crackdowns on 12 year olds.
Wow, lawmakers need to know stuff like how viruses are spread. Better talk to them REALLY LOUD so they can hear you over the Microsoft Windows vulnerability reports.
Better brush up on your acronyms, Lackey.
Only those without a basic understanding of how the Internet works would dispute that.
Here's a good one. So, if you're sharing child porn on your P2P node, you should disclose that fact? Uh. It's highly illegal already, what the hell is a label going to do? It's not like the labels on an album cover say "WARNING: This package contains cocaine."
I
So when I go to open the pr0n-labeled-as-mp3 in Winamp...its broken, I delete it, and try to download from another source. I seriously doubt how anybody would think....HEY, this must be a movie renamed as an mp3!
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
This sounds like the kind of crap we were fed when the web first "appeared" in the public eye.
The media made it out as if you could open up your web browser and all of a sudden naked pictures of children would just start popping up out of no where, and you could do nothing to prevent it!!!
Ignorance breeds fear breeds knee-jerk style legislation.
What an interesting situation this would put The Freenet Project in. So we'd have an anonymous system that the owner of the P2P network would have to keep track of everyone on.
The thing I always come back to is that the internet itself is a peer-to-peer network. Start suing everyone with an ISP, that'll solve the problem, that'll make us all go out and buy CDs.
"God is dead!" - Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is dead!" - God
For all you crying censorship, why dont you look up "lolita sex" or "child f***." I called the FBI when scour was big. There is a lot of child porn available. Maybe the RIAA is not the one to point it out. We should be because all of you should be ashamed that a program you love so much is use this way. Those pix show child abuse, and the trading encourages the abuse. Someone out there download a preteen girl giving head may one day rape your little daughter. One of the problems with Sharman networks is that they make money with an engine that can be used for so much, but DO NOT CARE how it is used. Worse than anything Microsoft has done, they have traded morals for money. Whether or not you think its sharing music or stealing it, anything that allows such a sick activity to go one should be taken care of by law.
Ok, here's why I hate slashdot. When you have a great argument on a discussion, you post so late that none of the moderators even get around to awarding it karma.
Ok, here's my thought. RIAA argues that p2p is depriving the content creators of their fair buck. They are saying, if p2p survives, it will drive content creators out of business.
Well, guess what, porn is a content business also. By their reasoning, p2p would drive content creators out of business, rather than the other way around. Maybe we could say that p2p is the best way to fight commercial porn!
I don't blame RIAA for trying to throw this argument out. But it reveals the shaky foundations on which they argue that p2p kills content creation.
On the porn/harm issue, I have two thoughts. First, the typical 13 year old (boy and girl) today probably has already viewed hardcore pictures and maybe videos. It's unavoidable,and perhaps will inure them to these images/video experiences. Second, it would be easy enough for kazaa to filter out certain keywords, although ultimately kids understand the technology better than adults will. Although not very sophisticated now, it's only a matter of time before traded files to be rated by other traders (if only to prevent viruses and other malicious software).
With regard to videos pretending to be something else, it's more likely that a vid will promote itself as a hardcore and turn out to be a music promo or some ad.
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
If pron is marked as an MP3 file, Windows (which is what most people use) will try to open it as such. IT won't work. Epople will delete teh file, that they presume to be screwed up.
I was thinking the same thing when I read through it. In fact, several of the findings, such as posing a severe security and privacy threat, would seem to apply to Windows much more than to any p2p software I've seen. At least with the p2p stuff, if you aren't brain dead it should be fairly obvious if you're sharing your tax returns and check register. With Windows even the ubergeeks are largely dependent on the manufacturer. Oh, wait, I forgot, ubergeeks don't use Windows. But I digress...
This reminds me of the efforts to outlaw use of cell phones in cars. The problem isn't the cell phone; the problem is distracted driving, a situation for which most states already have ample laws on the books. If someone's driving unsafely, ticket them, get them off the road. Who cares if the unsafe situation was created by cell phone use, infants in the back seat, a dropped cigarette, makeup application, whatever?
Same thing here. If somebody's distributing child pornography, hunt 'em down and shoot 'em. Who cares if they're distributing it via p2p, news groups, IM, or fly-by-night web sites?
If you don't want your kids installing p2p software on your system, get an OS that allows you to restrict user access. There's lots of software kids probably shouldn't be using. It's ridiculous to spotlight one particular type and put all sorts of draconian restrictions on it.
A study in March by the General Accounting Office found that KaZaA would be effective for someone looking for child pornography. The agency searched for 12 terms associated with child pornography, such as "incest" and "underage." It did not actually download the files it found, but it determined that 42 percent of them had titles or descriptions associated with pornographic images of children.
In other news, searching for "murder" and "torture" is likely to bring you results with titles or descriptions associated with violence, searching for "cuddle" and "kiss" will bring the results associated with tenderness and sentimentality. Like searching for "robbery" and "burglary" bight turn up some links to materials associated with criminal acts and searching for "shithead" and "moron" will give you some RIAA-related materials.
Sometimes I feel like Anakin from Attack of the Clones. We need someone to make all people behave right. Someone like Darth Vader. No kidding.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
In the article:
A study in March by the General Accounting Office found that KaZaA would be effective for someone looking for child pornography. The agency searched for 12 terms associated with child pornography, such as "incest" and "underage." It did not actually download the files it found, but it determined that 42 percent of them had titles or descriptions associated with pornographic images of children.
So, without actually verifying that the files are child porn (which would, of course, be illegal) they've decided that results from something as innocuous as "underage" must be child porn. Makes me wonder what else they searched for. "Baby", "child", "young", "not-the-mama"?
So, at what point is the RIAA (and all the censorship-loving idiots) going to demand that the internet be "turned-off", VCRs and cameras be banned, parents forbidden to have children, and artists and writers arrested and "re-programmed" since each and every one of them can, in some way, create or contribute to child porn.
PRetty soon we'll all be mindless zombies, unable to think for ourselves, unable to reproduce, and within a generation the human race will have disappeared.
These people are truely stupid.
Whew, it only applies to interstate commerce.
I'm virtually certain that an ordinary free download falls within the absurdly broad interpertation given to "interstate commerce".
Lets put it this way. Courts have upheld federal laws prohibiting the mere possestion of obscene porn on "interstate commerce" grounds. Were does crossing state lines come into the picture? Would you belive they successfully argued "interstate commerce" applies if so much as a single screw in the camera crossed state lines? A camera manufactured within the state and used within the state to take the photo. A photo handed for free to an otherwise innocent person, within the state. That person can be held subject to a federal law on interstate commerce grounds for possesion of that photo.
This bill's claimed purpose it to protect the children. Not only that, they are supposedly protecting them from kiddy porn. Congress and the courts are more than happy to twist interpretations beyond the breaking point and even even violate the constition the name of a Nobel Cause.
Sigh. This moronic bill will probably pass because anyone who opposes it will be accused of promoting child molestation.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
The DMCA is not unconstitutional.
Yes it is, and I don't need to reffer to fair use or over-broadness to prove it. To avoid repeating myself please reffer to this post for the exact argument.
[the DMCA] was rather needed, which is to say extending copyright (or at least atempting to define copyright) for digital products.
Nonsense. Copyright applies to any creative work and it already protected "digital works". The word "digital" should not appear in copyright law whatsoever. Hell, TEXT is "digital" data! Text may not be binary, but it is certainly digital in nature. There is absolutely nothing analog about text copyright.
There is absolutely no justification for expanding copyright in the "digital realm". It already exists there. The only thing that needed to be clarified in the law was that it is not copyright violation to make "copies" when it is an essential requirement for ordinary use of something when you have the legitimate right to use it. This was (mis)handled by section 117 of copyright law. 117 has one flaw and one case of questionable wording. The flaw is that it only addresses computer programs. The questionable wording is that it reffers to the "owner" of a copy and some people are trying to make arguments that that is different from "a person in rightful possesetion". There have been bills floating around to alter the word "owner".
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.