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Super DMCA Bill In Tennessee
fowlerserpent writes "Middle Tennessee State University's student newspaper Sidelines reports the Super DMCA bill is the hot topic in the state legislature. After a fierce debate the bill has been amended to take the edge off. The Tennessee Digital Freedom Network caught the telecom lobby in the state offguard last year when they put up fierce opposition to the legislation. The original bill would have even made firewall illegal in your home or to be sold in the state, so some of the opponents say."
Making firewalls illegal so people are more easily identified doing "bad things" eh? Sounds like the RIAA is having trouble nailing some of us.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Is this the one with the exploding headphones that can get detonated if you listen to unauthorized music files?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Joint committee passes revamped telecommunications theft bill
By Patrick Chinnery
Published: Wednesday, January 28, 2004
After almost a year of contentious debate, Tennessee's telecommunications theft bill moved one step closer to becoming law Monday.
A joint committee created specifically to address the conflict created by the bill unanimously passed a significantly revamped version of House Bill 457/Senate Bill 213, one that has both proponents and opponents of the original bill unsatisfied.
However, Sen. Larry Trail (D-Murfreesboro), said in the meeting that that was exactly the reaction he wanted.
"It was our consensus, because we were ... unable to pull the two sides any closer together, we asked Mr. [Tom] Tigue [legislative attorney] to draft a bill that might be equally unacceptable to both sides," Trail said. "He came up with a bill that sent a lot of people crying to my office, so he must have done a pretty good job."
Lawmakers are trying to address theft of digital cable services (including television and high-speed Internet access) and Pay-Per-View movies. Items and actions that the legislature are trying to ban include digital cable descramblers, theft of Internet access through wireless "hotspots," and some encryption devices.
Though they could have been construed as illegal in the original draft, devices such as routers (Internet service splitters to be used inside a home or office) and firewalls (software designed to prevent unauthorized access into a computer) would be acceptable with the new legislation.
The cable industry claims that current telecommunications theft law provides too weak of a deterrent.
"We've had a problem in getting judgements, getting the courts to award sufficient damages when we find people that are stealing cable," said John Ferris, an attorney hired by cable companies.
The Monday's amended bill includes revised criminal and civil penalties.
After Monday's amendment was added, a first offense of less than $1,000 of theft would be punished by fine only, although an offense involving five or more communications devices would automatically be construed as a class D felony.
Damages an aggrieved party could pursue in a civil case include the actual damages suffered and any profits made by the violator or statutory damages between $750 and $5,000 for each offense, with judicial discretion to reduce the minimum or exceed the maximum. The original bill prescribed penalties ranging from $1,500 to $10,000 per offense, per day.
A key point of contention during the debate over the bill has been the phrase "intent to defraud." The original bill submitted in April by Rep. Rob Briley (D-Nashville) and Sen. Curtis Person (R-Shelby Co.) was model legislation drafted by the Motion Picture Association of America and didn't contain the phrase.
The amended version makes it clear that merely possessing the unlawful device isn't enough to constitute a violation of the law - a person must use "deceit, trickery, misrepresentation or subterfuge" with a device.
Several notable groups are behind the bill, notably the Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association (a lobbying effort of cable companies like Comcast and TimeWarner Cable) and the Motion Picture Association of America. When introduced, those groups claimed it was an innocuous housecleaning bill, meant only to update current legislation to encompass new technologies.
However, opponents of the original bill thought it went much too far.
"House Bill 457 was promoted as addressing theft of cable and Internet service, but this overly broad legislation instead threatens the manufacture, sale and use of legitimate products such as computers, televisions and personal video recorders," Douglas K. Johnson, senior director for technology policy of the Consumer Electronics Association (the l
That would be interesting.
Tennessee could push the adoption of IPv6
Federal HIPAA laws require firewalling of resident level data (ie, nursing home).
Everyday I lose more confidence in our ability to govern ourselves. limit -> 0
Here's what one of the legislooters had to say about it: "He came up with a bill that sent a lot of people crying to my office, so he must have done a pretty good job."
The thought never occurs to him that the reason a bunch of people are 'crying' about it is because it's yet another lame attempt at legislation drafted by a bunch of government goons who are completely clueless about technology.
The bright side of any legislation like this, is it really helps to grease the funds coming into the campaign coffers. That's why certain regulatory legislation comes up before congress every couple of years, so the lobbies of one side, the other, or both(!) can 'contribute' to make sure the legislootion never sees the light of day.
This is an ex-parrot!
I live in TN and what makes this so much worse is now on TV I see commercials about how telecoms are trying to change laws to "bring us into the future". And they make it sound like they are looking out for us and trying to bring us new technology and crap.
The commercials of course don't say anything ABOUT the laws, they just say stuff like, "When the current laws were made, PDA stood for.. well public display of affection. But now PDAs are everywhere. We need to change the laws accordingly so we can bring you the future, today." So apparently, I don't like their definition of accordingly.
Why isn't this article showing up on the main page? It is apparently over 3 hours old by the time I am typing this yet it would appear as if only subscribed users are seeing it (based on who is commenting). I only saw it because I was looking at another YRO article and this one was listed on the right side in that little block that has recent YRO articles. I know subscribers see it first, but isn't that only 20 mins earlier? Even if it is, I do not pay and I still saw it, just not on the main page, so that would be a hole in the system there ;)
Do they have any idea what such restictive nastiness does to legitimate businesses? They had to amend that bill so that they wouldn't suffer severe economic damage as companies were forced to connect every computer individually to the internet, and throw their arms open for the now firewall-uninhibited hackers in states OTHER than Tenn. How do they get elected?
------- "A true friend stabs you in the front." -Eliot
A truly dangerous trend is that large corporations are using their lobbying power to get their rules turned into laws.
When a corporation makes a draconian and/or stupid rule, there are usually pretty finite limits to the penalties they can impose. If a cable company wants to make a rule that NAT is not allowed on their network, the maximum penalty they can usually impose is the loss of service. Also, their draconian rule becomes a competitive disadvantage for them, especially as people become more educated. Corporate rules can also be changed easily if they realize the rectal-cranial inversion.
Making this rule into a law, however, expands the penalties drastically, removes the competitive disadvantage and leaves something lying around in the law books that is almost impossible to get rid of. This is a trend that really needs to be noticed and stopped.
You can have my firewall when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!
:)
Oops, ignore that. Wrong political debate.
People couldn't type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this.
Wait! So you mean it's illegal to steal cable in Tennessee? Thank god I don't live there! :)
These medieval biblebelters should just get on with their agenda, and cut off hands for telecom "theft". As they auction our rights between Jihad and McWorld, we're left with nothing but DMCA taxes to fund Oak Ridge National Labs. But then, when I realize that these soulless politicos think that Nashville is the pinnacle of music culture, I feel sorry for them and their kids. Then I feel their icy hands clutching at my rights, and I remember that the Ku Klux Klan was born in Pulaski, Tennessee.
--
make install -not war
If it's too much trouble to provide a clear list of rights and responsibilities, then the answer is easy. Make everything illegal. Selectively prosecute those at a) are breaking the law, or b) give you too much of a headache. Recommended reading http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html - Richard Stallman
IANAL, but it seems to me like this really has more to do with stealing bandwidth than copyright-related issues. Yeah, I guess I'm being mindlessly pedantic, but at least trying to stop bandwidth theft is a little more justifiable than what the DMCA aims to do. It's not quite as innovation-stifling or draconian, though I still am left with an uneasy feeling about it.
Oh, and I do believe I read that firewalls and NAT boxes --WOULD-- now be allowed under the rewritten bill. Doesn't matter though, uneasy feeling's still there. I'm kinda glad I don't live in Tennessee right now...
Help protect civil rights from abuse by the TSA - visit TSA News Blog.
http://www.tsanewsblog.com
They even make Tony B. Liar look good....
Somebody tell me why ISPs cant do this:
$X / month for the 1st Y bytes transfered, then $Y / byte after that.
Or,
$X / month for the first Y bytes transferred, then unlimited transfers at a much reduced bandwidth
After Monday's amendment was added, a first offense of less than $1,000 of theft would be punished by fine only, although an offense involving five or more communications devices would automatically be construed as a class D felony.
I don't like the wording there. Five or more communications devices? Where would the boundary of responsibility for the accused end in that? If someone downloads a song through their cable modem, which uses their (apparently not illegal in the revision) router and switch, would they count the server used to get the file, and the user's computer? There's the magic five. Would it stop at the source? Somewhere inside the ISP? Only local equipment? Seems to me they could easily construct a way to turn any of it into a felony using that rule. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding this?
If you know of any 18* year old girls in Memphis who are cute, not fat, and like geeks, please reply in this thread.
*The girls can be under 18 if their parents are down with the geek movement!