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Jail Time for Movie Swappers
ArmenTanzarian writes "The MPAA is at it again, reports CNET in a story from yesterday. Apparently, suing the pants off of teenagers RIAA-style isn't good enough, they want to go ahead and throw you in jail. To that end, their senators will introduce the Artists' Rights and Theft Prevention Act today; which carries with it a maximum sentence of 3 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Here's the best part: you don't have to infringe on copyright to be found guilty!"
Anytime you see legislation like this. Feinstein has taken payoffs to the tune of $264,566 from the Tv/Movies/Music lobby. No one should be suprised by her involvement.
It reassures me to know our "leadership" is spending its time on important things like catering to the complaints of insanely rich corporations instead of trying to fix trivial problems like the state of public education or massive government waste.
it does not say any actual copyright infringement must take place--only that the file be available in a shared folder, Web site or FTP (File Transfer Protocol) site. "It says we don't care if anybody got any of these copies," Jaszi said. "We're going to conclude that at least 10 people did. It relieves the copyright owner of having to prove that any violation of their rights actually happened."
Good thing these guys aren't involved in the security of the retail sector. If I owned a store, these guys might put ME in jail because I have merchandise sitting out, available for someone to steal!!
Don't you just love how they spin things by calling it the "Artist's Rights and Theft Prevention Act"? Wouldn't a more apropos name be the "Big Fat Hollywood Studio Thoughtcrime Prevention Act"?
Ernest MacDougal Campbell III
geek ramblings
What a wonderful breakthrough in law enforcement: assuming that an actual crime has been committed and acting accordingly. In a day and age when people can be automagically declared enemy combatants and permanently removed from the legal system, I guess this was the next step.
Since we're all theoretically capable of criminal actions, I think we should all pre-emptively surrender to the proper authorities.
Nice try, lol, but copyright infringement IS a criminal offense, and a federal one at that. The penalties can be pretty fucking severe too.
Hell, senators don't even need to be bought these days, they're too busy selling their votes.
Just curious how laws such as this one affect Canadians, if at all?
I wonder whether one person making an audio recording, and another just recording video, would each qualify for prosecution. Is making a copy of a movie really worse than making a copy of a concert performance, with no video?
In any case, we don't know if John Titor was a real time traveler from 2036 or not....his postings/messages make a lot of interesting reading though. He "predicted" the development of CERN's blackholes, China's space mission, and more importantly, the American Civil War, which is supposed to start in the next two years (2004-2005) or so.
The primary reason he mentioned was the ever increasing highhandedness of the US government (this was in 1999-early 2000), before Sept 11 happenings/Patriot Act etc.
Anyway, what he said was, that people got tired of the US government monitoring them all the time, passing more and more unjust laws favoring corporate America, and curbing basic freedoms of the people.
True or not, every time another such YRO story comes up on /., it makes me wonder where America is headed.
From the article:
The Cornyn-Feinstein bill also creates another federal felony, punishable by up to five years in prison, for using "an audiovisual recording device" in a movie theater to make a copy of a film and boosts civil penalties available to MPAA member companies when suing over prerelease movies placed on the Internet.
This is truly astonishing, and to my knowledge, unprecedented. Note that all cases of prohibition of cameras, tape recorders, MD recorders, etc from concerts, variety shows, etc, have ALWAYS been civil matters; rules set and enforced by the persons or companies doing the entertaining.
This is the first instance I can think of where this type of activity has crossd over from civil to criminal jurisdiction. The only possible good that can come out of this is that a conviction will require unanimous guilty verdict from a jury, whereas civil cases are decided by judicial fiat or a majority of the jury.
I don't use p2p myself, but I'd be interested to know where the MPAA & RIAA would stand if a huge worm hit 10,000's of windows systems and installed a p2p client, and then hosted infringing movie/music titles for others to download using any of the currently available p2p apps.
If the worm had a high propogation, surely this would make life very difficult for the MPAA & RIAA.
Come to think of it, if such a worm got into a computer system through a weakness in the operarting system, could the creators of the operating system be held responsible?
Ok, how about OLD movies? Say, something you have a copy of that has since gone out of circulation on DVD and has no chance in hell of being re-released in theaters or shown on TV? This happens with books and music quite often, not everything is in circulation.
So do my files become jailbait again when the studio decides it's no longer profitable to press more copies and blockbuster ditches it to clear shelf space?
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
I think there is a legal and moral principal that says that the punishment should fit the crime. Here if there is any crime it is the depriving of the artist of maybe a few dollars of revenue from a copy of hundreds of thousands of copies that are sold. Do you think that that is worth years of someones life. Or maybe we should make swearing a crime by act of congress and toss your sorry ass in jail for infraction of community standards. What do you think, your crime has been spread to millions of eyes rather than a single small file transfer. Which is the worse more far reaching infraction.
Also note they chose not to call it "Fine Art".
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
For those of you who didn't bother to read the article before you posted (which is 99.9999 percent of you), this proposed law would only apply to those who have prerelease items that they are not entitled to have, NOT just any damned thing, which is what most of you want to think/imply. "Prerelease" is a $10 word for "not yet available to the public".
If it is not available for release to the general public, and if you don't have permission of the copyright holder to have it, then gee...you're violating copyright.
So here is a quick tip on how to avoid getting busted under this act if it does become law:
Don't have prerelease copyrighted material on your system if you don't have permission of the copyright holder.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Isn't this already illegal based on intellectual property or copyright laws (or something else? Why does this industry deserve special attention from the government?? (in an ideal world that is... a previous post showed the real reason.)
I agree that this practice should be illegal and punishable. However, it seems as though it already is (but IANAL, of course). This CERTAINLY does not warrant a criminal offense punishable by 3 years in prison, IMHO.
What happens if you release a scanned or text copy of a not-yet-released book? Will this be treated the same? If not, why? Because a movie makes more money (maybe... don't know the facts on this)? What about other some-joe-releases-a-net-yet-released-product situations?
"... the advance of civilization is nothing but an exercise in the limiting of privacy" - Janov Pelorat
... to the 50's; yes. But it's the 1850's, not the 1950's.
Solution 1 - encrypt the file. Then it's a DMCA violation for them to unencrypt it.
Solution 2 - name a garbage file w. the same name as an unreleased movie and share it, then counter-sue when they have you arrested.
Solution 3 - Move the file to a non-US site
Solution 4 - Send a (short) clip as an email atachment to each senator and congressman, with a note saying that they are now, without having done anything except check their mail, violated the proposed legislation and are liable to 3 yers in jail.
There really is no solution for the **AAs except to build more value into what they're offering. Doing world-simultaneous openings of stinkers like Matrix Revolutions in the hope of ripping of consumers doesn't cut it any more than re-releasing the same song in yet another different format/compilaton/variant.
The Fourth went out with the Second when the courts ruled that the phrase "the right of the people" does not protect individual rights.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
Seriously, practically every week we hear about movies setting box office records.
/RANT ON /RANT OFF
:)
Yet, someone with a Hulk workprint on their PC is instantly guilty?
I seriously doubt the movie industry is in financial straits. Despite DVD, pay per view, specialty channels, etc. People still love to see movies on the big screen and will not jump en masse to peer to peer to get their fill.
Even with broadband, it;s a pain in the ass to download movie files.
Go to the theater and watch a movie the way it is meant to be. And from the box office number$; it seems that that is what the majority of consumers are doing!
Anyone who is going to download and watch a crappy camjob of LOTR ROTK is a moron. That is a big screen movie! However, they shouldn't be crucified for it either. The punishment here does not fit the crime IMHO.
If there is a crime being committed it is by the movie studios for:
1.) Jacking up ticket costs to the point where it is now worth waiting for the DVD release. I can pay up to $13.50CDN per person depending on the theater and show time. So, instead of taking my girlfriend to every freakin' movie. We now pick and choose. If it's big screen worthy (Matirx, LOTR) we'll hit the theater. If it's not. (i.e. any romantic comedies) we rent it on DVD for $5.
2.) Recycling the same plots over and over and over again. There is a movie formula in America that is followed to the T by practically every studio depending on the genre. There are not too many truly original films anymore.
3.)Blaming the leaked movie files on the end users (consumers) and not the people within the movie industry making this material available prematurely. What's to stop the MPAA from manufacturing this crisis for their own gain? It's not that far fetched.
US Senators should be spending their time and resources questioning the validity of " The War on Terror" not passing sweetheart copyright laws that hammer the average consumer to the benefit of a multibillion dollar industry.
Cheers.
I agree that copyright infringement isn't theft, and I think pre-DMCA law bears this out. Recent laws, such as the DMCA and the No Electronic Theft Act, along with the proposed law in discussion here, seem to be pushing the idea that copyright infringement is the equivalent of theft (or worse, in the case of some of the penalties). That this doesn't represent reality (i.e. copyright infringement doesn't do harm in the way that physical theft does) is being ignored. That these draconian laws are being pushed by "content providers" is no surprise - they don't want to lose contol of their "content."
How much does this really affect their bottom line? It seems to me that the people who get so excited about a movie that they feel the need to view a prerelease version are likely to be the same one's who are first in line when the movie opens.
They should worry more about people like me who have become so bored with hollywood's drivel that I haven't been to the theatre for years. I might rent it later but I haven't run across anything for quite some time that would drag my butt to the cinema to see.
----Corruption----
Widget Industry: We will donate a ton of money to your campaign if you promise to pass legislation to help our industry.
Politician: In that case, I will enact the legislation if elected.
----NOT Corruption----
Politician: If elected, I will enact legislation which will help the widget industry, because I believe it is the right thing to do.
Widget Industry: In that case, we'll donate shitloads of money to your campaign, so that you are more likely to get elected.
So it's a fine line, and not very different, functionally. One thing is for sure, though. If 2 people are running for the same office, and a company donates money to BOTH of them, that is a sign that, at least, the company thinks they are corrupt. Otherwise, the company would only donate money to the politician that would be most favorable to them regardless of whether they donate money or not.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
"WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights"
Treaties, of course. But a nation as powerful a force as *China* only follows treaties to the extent that benefits China. If China decides to go hostile, what does the rest of the world think it's going to do about it?
All the military and political force in the world isn't going to force China to do anything China does not choose to do. Treaties are toilet paper without either cooperation or force. Right now, there is substantial cooperation. What conceivable force is there, in the absence of that cooperation?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
sadly the 9th and 10th amendments have been ignored for a long time, some would say paving the way for the subsequent ignorance of the other amendments.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
How is this not violating copyright again? Last I heard, copying movies fell into that category.
It's the same as the difference between selling somone a kilo of cocaine and planning to buy a kilo of cocaine that you are willing to sell.
Next we're going to see people charged with "intent to violate copyright".
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
(note: this is in Utah, where, with the exception of the occasional congressman, we don't allow them dirty democrats into office) ;p
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Half of them are imprisoned for drug offenses.
Yes, and not all of them for the more benign drugs.
Anyway, my post was not to defend the US judicial system, but merely to refute the OP's badly mistaken assertation that the US currently imprisons more people than the USSR under Stalin.
"Lose their freedom". Break the law, and yes, you may lose your freedom. Don't like the law? Let's change it!
Let's attack the reasons for the drug trade.
Let's attack the reasons for the drug desire.
Let's attack the victimization of the low end people in the drug trade (mules, street dealers, etc).
But to spout false 'facts' is counterproductive