New P2P Battle is Heating Up

Digital Dharma writes "News.com has an article about a new P2P war just getting underway in congress. With Senator Hollings retiring, the RIAA and MPAA have found suitable replacement hosts in three key members of the House of Representatives. Lamar Smith, R-Texas; Howard Berman, D-Calif; and John Conyers, D-Mich are taking up arms against P2P networks with a bizarre new bill that would require companies that create certain types of software such as web browsers, instant messaging clients and e-mail utilities to add a warning that it 'could create a security and privacy risk.' How this would deter P2P activity is a bit of a mystery. The article also talks about putting software company executives in jail for failing to correctly label said software, empowering the FBI to release anti-P2P propaganda and other typical RIAA/MPAA sponsored oddities." A network application can create a security risk? Best firewall off every port!

Comments

And here are the Bribe numbers !

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

Wow! Stop the presses, this is a big shock. In 2004 here's the synopsis on how much milk each of these candidates sucked from the Entertainment titty. (They open in a new window).

Lamar Smith received a little over $21,000 from the TV/Music/Music lobbies in 2004
In 2002 he received almost $25,000

Howard Berman received a little over $4,000 from the TV/Music/Music lobbies in 2004
In 2002 he received almost (can you believe this?) $223,000!

John Conyers received almost $5,000 from the TV/Music/Music lobbies in 2004
In 2002 he received almost $50,000!

The ROI on congressional payoffs is insanely high..