Slashdot Mirror
PIRATE Act Introduced in Congress
certron writes "Xeni Jardin has written a story for Wired about the "Protecting Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation Act of 2004" aka the PIRATE Act. It and another related bill are designed to criminalize P2P filesharing by lowering the burden of proof for law enforcement and proposing jail terms of up to 10 years. The bill was introduced by Sens. Orrin Hatch and Patrick Leahy, both of whom received large contributions from the entertainment industries. Under the bill, even sharing a single file (if a judge decides the value is over $10,000) could land a user in jail. Read the full text of Orrin Hatch's remarks."
Under the bill, even sharing a single file (if a judge decides the value is over $10,000) could land a user in jail
Given the strength of the dollar these days, that's like the price of a single Anne Murray CD...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
...you mean, like...
..?
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!
You mean something like that?
It's time to start outsource all that file sharing......just like all these companies are outsourcing jobs......
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Less than 30 comments and the server running Orrin Hatch's Senate page is slashdotted..... Well now we know where the budget is not being spent
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote
Last I checked copyright infringement was still illegal.
Yeah, but now it's illegaler.
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Slashdotting the US Senate webserver - that's got to be a new high point for /.
Canada is like most other countries. The politicians are corrupt [e.g. voting their own raises, letting Quebec do whatever they want, Liberals misappropriating money] but at least they're not "oh lets kill people to make us more secure" randomly.
On the plus side though we don't have planes smashing into our office buildings...
tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
How about N.O. A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.S. -- New Order Addressing Continuous Reuse of Novel Yet Meaningless Short-forms
Furthermore, downloading songs for free hardly qualifies as a "business model".
Next thing you know, money laundering will no longer be a legitimate business model..
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
I think we need *more* laws like this. For example, how about this one:
Any Congressman who receives $10,000 or more from the RIAA should be put in jail...
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
The new influx of skinny white, 18-25 year old males is sure to make the current prison population happy.
Frank can't benefit from it, but he left a legacy. It's up to his estate - Gail, specifically - to deal with that legacy in how she sees fit.
May she not abuse it.
This sig no verb.
Yeah, right.
"The bill was introduced by Sens. Orrin Hatch and Patrick Leahy, both of whom received large contributions from the entertainment industries."
I hear that in some countries corruption is not only illegal but that corrupt politicians go to great lengths to hide their crookedness. Probably just a rumor though.
_nfotxn
Mr. President, I rise to join Senator Leahy in sponsoring the Protecting
...
But recently, some unscrupulous corporations may have exploited new technologies
Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation Act (the "PIRATE Act"), a
measure that will provide the Department of Justice with tools to combat the
rampant copyright piracy facilitated by peer-to-peer filesharing software.
Mr. President, I'm going to join with Senator Leahy and prove once and for all
that democrats and republicans are equally as corrupt when enough money is
waved under our noses. Our "owners" would like to stop people giving away
works which don't actually belong to them, but yet, they make a considerable
amount of money from as they signed prohibitively restrictive contracts
with the actual copyright owners. My "owners" would like to continue to
make money (and short of being given access to the money printing press)
want to prevent a tool which can actually harm their monopoly by providing
an efficient way for independant artists to distribute their works.
Let me underscore at the outset that our bill does not expand the scope of the
existing powers of the Department of Justice to prosecute persons who infringe
copyrights. Instead, our proposal will assist the Department in exercising
existing enforcement powers through a civil enforcement mechanism. After
considerable study, we have concluded that this is the most appropriate
mechanism.
Some of us want to lock these pirates up and throw away the key, but others
want to keep them hooked to my "owners" products. So basically we've decided
we want to destroyt their current lives, and still give them a chance to
buy our stuff.
Peer-to-peer file sharing software has created a dilemma for law-enforcement
agencies. Millions of otherwise law-abiding American citizens are using this
software to create and redistribute infringing copies of popular music, movies,
computer games and software.
We think that millions of law-abiding americans are criminals but don't want
to come out and say it like that, so we'll back-hand them instead.
Some who copy these works do not fully understand the illegality, or perhaps the
serious consequences, of their infringing activities. This group of filesharers
should not be the focus of federal law-enforcement efforts. Quite frankly, the
distributors of most filesharing software have failed to adequately educate the
children and young people who use their software about its legal and illegal
uses.
We don't want to harm the stupid ones since they probably don't know how to
cause serious harm anyway. And since most of my constituents are as thick
as two planks and I'd like to be re-elected I don't want this either.
A second group of filesharers consists of those who copy and redistribute
copyrighted works even though they do know that doing so violates federal law.
In many cases, these are college students or young people who think that they
will not get caught. Many of these filesharers are engaging in acts that could
now subject them to federal criminal prosecution for copyright piracy.
There do exist a group of people that would probably never vote for me anyway,
as they think I'm a complete turd, and who happen to be poor because our education
system is up shit creek without a paddle but still enjoy listening to music and
watching movies so they do share alot of these copyrighted works. They know its
wrong but since we continually shaft them most of the time anyway they do it
as a type of protest. Basically we want them to stop.
and discovered that the narrow scope of civil contributory liability for
copyright infringement can be utilized so that ordinary consumers and children
groklaw, wired and slashdot. The holy trinity of work based time wasting.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
Question: What's more vacuous than putting Family Guy into the same category as Friends?
Answer: Wondering "what's more vacuous than putting Family Guy into the same category as Friends".
Like what I said? You might like my music
> Novels, inventions, music, art all becomes public domain the day you die.
That would create an incentive for Disney et al to employ hitmen (if they haven't already).
Somebody wasn't paying attention in biology class...
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).