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Senate Hearing Webcast Today On DMCA Subpoena Powers
An anonymous reader sends this clipping from the Senate Commerce committee website about today's hearing into "consumer privacy implications of the use of subpoena powers by copyright holders to obtain the identities of Internet subscribers allegedly infringing on their copyrights. Members also will examine whether the government can mandate content protection technologies without limiting consumers' legal uses of digital media products. Senator Brownback will preside. Tentative witness list will be available at a later time."
Here's a link to both the schedule and the webcast itself; it starts at 10:00 a.m., EST.
It is important that the right to subpoena is upheld and protected by both the Courts and Congress. Without it, the courts become helpless and powerless.
It is just as important to be able to subpoena customer information as it is to be able to demand information through the FOIA, just as it is to be able to demand that the government be accountable. It is important that citizens be able to demand satisfaction from those who violate the law and injure them.
This does not mean that one condones the RIAA's zeal in taking a machete to pirates. This must not be seen as the same issue.
This should be fun.
After the parade of ridiculous witnesses showing the *AA lawyer goons going after Joe Citizen the Department of Justice and John Ashcroft will be embarrassed that their Patriot Act is a wimp by comparison.
Seriously, though, it should give some people pause when some random 11 year old getting sued by the RIAA for a "gravely serious violation of copyright law causing billions in loss CD sales" tells everyone that they aren't making tons of money selling "stolen" tracks that get off the internet, tracks that they hear all time on the radio anyway so what's the big deal?
It's really hard for common people to take this artificial issue seriously - they can't identify with the problem, because it's only genuinely serious problem to the people whose money stream is affected by unrestricted trade of media.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
This is about whether CORPORATIONS can issue subpoenas. That was NEVER intended by our Government's framers. The governement represents, or at least, ought to represent, the will of the people. The RIAA represents the desire of rich greedy people to get more money by knifing artists and the people.
Quite simply, this enforcement campaign would never happen without the DMCA, because people don't consider copyright infringement to be a serious crime. Before the DMCA, enforcement of copyright law was generally in touch with the public's perception. There was no public outcry, so the police only cracked down on huge cracker rings.
The DMCA is the hijacking of the will of the American people for corporate profit. The RIAA wants to use our "basic human rights" to bleed us dry. It already has laid claim to powers reserved for our government, while declaring itself immune to the protections of the constitution, especially against unreasonable search and seizure. So please, the last thing I want to hear some ignorant troll bitching about is how we're depriving the RIAA of its rights.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
Crap. The webcast requires RealPlayer.
Maybe Ashcroft wants every viewer's RealPlayer to phone home IP addresses, to later check each address for running Kazaa.
I don't think I have time to figure out which sub-sub-sub-menu of the 11 tab page RealPlayer config contains the 47 ambiguously named checkboxes that I'll have to alternately check or uncheck in order to turn off the spyware.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
"Members also will examine whether the government can mandate content protection technologies without limiting consumers' legal uses of digital media products."
If Congress attempts to mandate any kind of copy protection technology, they have deliberately, knowingly, and unabashedly sacrificed their Constitutional responsibility to protect the rights of the people for the protection of billions of dollars for a few CEO's controlling the RIAA member companies. That kind of elitist "scratch-my-back" bullshit goes against everything that this country was founded on!
It's been said before, but the recording industry's business model is completely ridiculous. The reason people most download is because bands don't actually produce enough quality material to justify the price of a whole album. However, record companies no longer produce cheap singles. So rather than feed money to the hungry beast, consumers look elsewhere.
It's not the job of Congress to protect the interests of the self-righteous assholes who run the RIAA. The fact these money grubbers get so much attention, while our country is facing real problems shows just where our elected officials' interests lie. FWIW, at the time Napster was still around and Kazaa was waiting in the trenches, record sales were at all time highs. And the RIAA had the cojones to claim that file sharing was hurting business!
There are 10 kinds of people: those who understand binary, and those who don't.
When did these words become interchangeable?
There's a subtle bias involved. Ask yourself this:
Is it more important to protect consumers or producers?
Is it more important to protect citizens or corporations?
If Chaos Theory has taught us anything, it's that we must kill all the butterflies.
... from the Center for Democracy and Technology website.
http://www.cdt.org/testimony/030917davidson.shtml
A quick google on todays event turns up surpisingly little. It is shameful how the media conglomerates are sweeping DMCA related stories under the rug.
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
Stolen from 'The Onion':
Revised Patriot Act Will Make It Illegal To Read Patriot Act
WASHINGTON, DC--President Bush spoke out Monday in support of a revised version of the 2001 USA Patriot Act that would make it illegal to read the USA Patriot Act. "Under current federal law, there are unreasonable obstacles to investigating and prosecuting acts of terrorism, including the public's access to information about how the federal police will investigate and prosecute acts of terrorism," Bush said at a press conference Monday. "For the sake of the American people, I call on Congress to pass this important law prohibiting access to itself." Bush also proposed extending the rights of states to impose the death penalty "in the wake of Sept. 11 and stuff."
Well, I watched part of this, and I'd have to say that the Congresswoman with the short dark hair and the red shirt (didn't catch her name, or what state she was from, assuming California since she said that content industries are a major player in her state) is the Stupidest Person Alive. She was blasting William Barr (Verizon) for including in a Verizon brochure something along the lines of, "There are music downloading services that you can pay for, and also free ones, but the free ones have ads," because as we all know, "free" automatically means "illegally downloaded from Kazaa." Hey, Ms. Stupidest Person Alive, ever heard of mp3.com? Or iuma.com? Or hundreds of other free and legal sites like them? How about "downloading legal music from Kazaa"? She quipped that Mr. Barr should have warned subscribers about lawsuits resulting from using said (legal) services, and not ads.
Interestingly enough, I am a subscriber of Verizon, and I remember receiving in the (snail) mail a brochure explaining how to download free music online. It was obviously geared toward people who had never touched a computer before, because it said, "Click Start. Click Programs. Click Internet Explorer. In the address bar, type "www.mp3.com" etc etc." And it did tell subscibers to go to mp3.com. It never mentioned Kazaa or any other P2P software specifically, and I can't believe that Verizon ever would, because judging by the way the brochure was written, I'd say Verizon doesn't think it's users are capable of installing software.
Reprise the theme song and roll the credits!