Slashdot Mirror
Making The Justice Dept. A Copyright Busybody
This bill, put forward by your friends and mine, Msrs. Leahy and Hatch, would task the JD with filing civil actions against "pirates" - essentially putting your tax dollars to work bringing civil actions against college students in the name of the very largest Copyright holders, allowing them even more spare pocket change to spend lobbying to restrict your already shrinking online freedoms. A choice snippet from the floor: "For too long, Federal prosecutors have been hindered in their pursuit of pirates, by the fact that they were limited to bringing criminal charges with high burdens of proof..."
And it gets better: "In the long run, I believe that we must find better mechanisms to ensure that our most vulnerable citizens--our children--are not being constantly tempted to infringe the copyrights that have made America a world leader in the production of creative works." Hold on to your wallets folks, they're telling us to "think of the children" again..."
The more you make off your copyright and the more protection need, the more you should pay. You create a level below a certain point where you're not taxed (say... $10,000), and then after that, you pay. You could also tie it to length, so a longer copyright would cost more than a new one.
Wow, outsourcing legal work to the goernment, and you don't even need to pay them! Man, is that a racket or what? Up until now, you actually had to be elected to treat taxpayers as your own piggy-bank, thanks to the RIAA and the MPAA, copyright holders (with influence) can now get paid by the american people for... suing the american people!
Now hold up here, are you saying that the taxes that are taken out of my summer job are gonna go towards prosecuting my friends that are stealing music during the school year?? Well... can I at least choose who gets axe then?
I suppose it's nice that the fees are reduced for smaller entities. But can individuals or small organizations actually enforce copyright online? I mean, most people don't have the resources to fund drawn out or chronic lawsuits. Is a cease-and-desist letter powerful enough?
The point of this isnt REALLY about who stole what, but all of the freedoms... legitimate freedoms we lose so that Super Corp X can keep a few more dollars. And the sad thing is it is perpetual... the more rights they take away, the easier it will be for them to do it again... and again. Until we have nothing left.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Getting a bigger, more productive Patent Office which thousands of new analysts who know their stuff would do a lot to fixing some of the problems in the economy. By putting many people on the payroll who know what bad patents are, the government can ethically protect businesses from the real pirates: the ones who use IP law to control the productive capabilities of American industry.
Reform should not stop here though. The Bush Administration should make it a priority to strip the FDA of most of its discressionary powers to block drugs it thinks "don't do enough" and to give it more resources to expedite the processing of drug safety tests so that drug companies can profit more easily (thus they don't have to charge as much).
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
It is a question of resources. Their are a lot of more serious crimes being 'overlooked' that don't get enforced. Why are copyright laws enforced with such vigor, yet white colar (Sunpoint Securities) and illegal's are give what amounts to a free pass?
Wait, wouldn't that same bill also allow the Attorney General to prosecute people infringing the GPL? If we use the open licenses more and more, it serves us in the end, no? Or does it apply only to copyrights made with the copyright office? I think this could be indeed a useful law in the future, if used by us GPL lovers. What do you think?
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
This is /., not Fantasyland.
[Fantasyland is believed to be a registered trademark of the Walt Disney Corporation. It is used here without permission, but concurrent with the United States Supreme Court decision regarding Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc (1994) and the copyright laws of the United States protecting parody and satire.]
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Cuban security director: "ma'am, Cuba loves its children."
Woman: "Cuba only loves its children until they grow up."
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
I think you misunderstood what this is doing. This has the government sue people, but the RIAA et al get the money. The peoeple pay for the lawyers for the corporations, basically
I always thought the deal was the government give a monopoly to a creator in exchange for the creator doing the enforcement of the monopoly. Now government is extending the term (already done) and proposing to take on the role of enforcement also. What is government getting in return for taking on this extra burden? A small increase in filing fees and nothing else? If government is becoming a larger partner in IP enforcement shouldn't they get a larger cut of the IP profits? Somehow I don't think that the Hollywood accounting that goes on in IP companies will ever give government a larger cut.
I always found it odd that this post gets protection of my live time plus seventy years but a new drug only gets seventeen years plus a few extra months the lawyers cheat out of the system at the end of the seventeen years. If something that reduces suffering is only worth 17 years maybe the founding fathers were right to put the copyright term at 28 years.
In the beginning the recording industry ripped off poor (especially black) artists. The film industry moved west in order to avoid payment for their use of patented technology. These two industries are the original pirates, that's why they are so frightened of modern day pirates.
It is only natural that they feed like pigs at the trough that contains the tax receipts. Industries built on theft don't stop doing it once they become "successful", they do more of it and on a much grander scale.
Legislation is in the works to ban the key combinations known as "Ctrl+C" and "Ctrl+V".
are so high in price that only large organizations can afford to apply for them.
I have had many ideas I could not patent, trademark, or copyright because I could not afford to. Plus their database is hard to search, one of them is still in telnet form! When will these databases get into the 21st century?
My former employer said they made 40 patients based on my ideas. I tried to search on the employer's name, but that is not an available option. I searched on my name, which came up with nothing. So obviously they registered the patents in someone else's name as the inventor. Which I later found is not valid to do, as I am the inventor of those ideas.
Give a discount to people based on income level for the fees. For Pete's sake they can gather the info from the IRS for people and the SEC for companies. Also have an idea tax that taxes a small fee for revenue used for the ideas, so the government can collect some money as well.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
....works that don't have such legal complexity overhead and consumer at risk issues?
i.e. free software...
the more complexity that is built up, the sooner the ever advancing world will move forward beyond such getting in the way complexity.
a simple matter of the ever increasing velocity of reaching new things for us all to benefit from and/or enjoy.
And I say it's genocide! Times a million!
We also know that by and large, "piracy" translates to end users redistributing reduced quality versions of the real products on their own dimes to the profit of the record and film industries. There are a long list of reasons why the Hollywood content cartel do not like letting the free market determine how they get marketed instead of giving them sole discretion as to what the public finds out about a product before release, the main one is that it can make crap movies or records DOA befcre they hit the street as well as take good ones to number 1. However, "protecing businesses from incompetence" is not a proper use of taxpayer funds.
However, the real question here is WHY should the Feds spend our money to assist copyright holders take legal action against end users. Traditionally, that is the copyright holder's problem, which the copyright owner asserts in exchange for the ability to derive income from the copyright.
If you wish to donate YOUR money to the RIAA and MPAA for attacking end users, your privilege. Don't bring the rest of us in to this.
Tech Public Policy stuff
OR, the more you consume copyrighted works, the more you should pay, no?
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
That day 0 copy of the next StarWars can and should land you in jail plain and simple.
Get a sense of perspective, for God's sake!
That day 0 copy of the next StarWars film should get you a stiff fine at worst. Prison? Are you kidding? I don't think people should breach copyright (sorry, it's not the same as stealing), but your extreme view shows you're way off base. Prison is for people who are dangerous to society. I am 100% sure that you yourself have done things that are more dangerous to society than downloading a stinking movie online.
What we all really know for sure:
1) Copyright and patent law in this country are out of hand, giving people the impetus for unlawful resistence.
2) Unlawful resistence is unlawful and not particularly effective in this case.
Everything else is speculation and fiery opinion. Personally I'm for reforming the laws. In the meantime, as an artist myself I have released some of my work under a creative commons lisence. I encourage other artists to do the same.
Cheers.
IT IS NOT *THEFT*!!!
It is copyright infringement. Plain and simple. I have not walked into the studio and taken the physical property of the artist. Still think its theft? Dictionary.com:
Copyright infringement doesn't meet all of those conditions. When I download something, I have not removed "every part of the property" -- you still have your copy, and so does the artist, the studio, etc.
So please, stop spreading the propoganda. It's not theft.
"Song of the piracy apologist" sounds pretty cool. Who's it by? I'm having trouble getting sources for it...
I've tried fast track, Gnuttela2 and Edonkey, all of them have found nothing!!
Boy, you seem to have had this one Locked & Loaded and ready to fire on a moment's notice.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
about the view that people who make illegal copies should be punished(and usually it's advocated that it should be severe punishment) is that it is simply against the law and therefore WRONG! If anything, law-breaking on a large scale should be an indicator that the law needs to be changed.
Song of the piracy apologist:
Or, in other words, if you agree with this screed, please use it to spam any future discussion of intellectual property law with pre-canned arguments rather than engaging in a rational debate framed in your own words.
(p.s. post it anonymously so people don't know who you are and mentally label you a mindless parrot)
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
People don't realise that it does indeed cost money to produce creative works, and those people who invested in them have a right to protect them. If it costs you $100 million to create a feature film, what incentive is there for you as an investor, a studio, whoever, to put that money in if within a week of the final edit being finished it is distributed to your entire audience for free?
Somebody else here has already pointed out that "open music" is about you going out, playing an instrument, singing, writing lyrics and tunes, putting it all together and distributing it under the terms you want.
The "file-sharing" model is to open enterprise what warezing Win XP is to downloading your favourite Linux distro.
So, instead of trying to take other people's music and distributing it without their permission, how about you actually try and create music people want and give it away under terms like the GPL, much in the same way you do with software now?
No? Why not? No, seriously, I want to know why not...
#1 What is the definition of Piracy? Is it making illegal copies and then selling them, or is it just making illegal copies? What about copies for backup purposes or that fall under "Fair Use"?
#2 Most other crimes carry the "burden of proof" on the prosecutor. Why is this one different? Hey there, John Doe is using Kazaa, even though we found no MP3 files on his hard drive besides the ones he bought or has a right too, the fact that he has Kazaa shows that he "Might" be sharing said files with others. We have no evidence of the sharing, but the fact that he uses Kazaa is enough for us to brand him a pirate! Slap an eyepatch and peg-leg on him and send him to jail!
#3 So what pirates are they targeting? While a majority of the pirated copies come from other countries such as China, Russia, etc, we have no legal power over there, so instead we shall target teenagers and college students who don't know any better and only want to share songs with friends, etc. "Sc*w fair use, we got the copyright laws rewritten to exclude it. Jane Doe is using part of a Metallica song in a college presentation, so we will lock her up and throw away the key!
#4 How much money earned is enough? Oh sure we make a ton of money selling $20USD CDs that cost us 50 cents to make and ship, and only give $2USD to the artists, but we could be making more if the John Does and Jane Does of the world stop using our songs without permission and sharing them, while they are promoting our songs and possibly generating more sales, we have a potential to earn even more income by suing these individuals.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Wow, I tried to see every argument you made, but there can be no expectation that I read all of that. You should come up with a more concise summary and link the overly verbose rebuttal of the 30 random comments that pissed you off. Regardless, I don't believe in copyright, and I can tell you why without using 30,000 words:
Copyright was created, at least in this country, for the extrinsic purpose of promoting "the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." Note that the exclusive rights granted are only done so for a specific end. I am not one to say that just because it is in the Constitution, that makes it right. Rather, it is just a tidy summary of my views on intellectual property. If the consequent is no longer contingent on the antecedent, we can remove the antecedent as extraneous. That is, if the "progress of sciences and useful arts" no longer depends on intellectual "property", then there is no need for this legal entity.
Many believe, and I'm sure you're one of them, that copyright and other intellectual "properties" are intrinsic rights of the author. I just disagree. There is no Archimedian point from which such disparate views can be arbitrated, so I don't see this debate being resolved anytime soon. However, I am quite certain that my position is coherence and cogent. You can only contradict it by assuming intellectual rights are intrinsic. Which is fine, but I can simply assume the opposite. And there's no way you can say that my view is wrong because of X, because whatever X you choose, I choose my view to trump it. So please, go ahead and try.
In a criminal case, the government must prove guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt". In a civil suit, they must only prove the preponderance of the evidence.
In a criminal case, if the defendant is acquited, the goverment must return the defendant's belongings. In a civil case, the government can seize a person's belongings and the defendant must prove his innocence to get them back.
The most significant difference is that in a criminal case, if the defendant can not afford an attorney, the government must provide one. In a civil case, the defendant is left to fend for himself.
Yea, fair use and all that crap. Most of the music downloaded is theft. The person has no copy of the song. The movies downloaded, Its theft plain and simple.
Hey, moron. This potential law isn't about the criminal act of copyright infringement - the JD already handles the criminal part. This potential law is about granting the government the authority to be involved in civil cases.
The entire concept of the distinction between civil and criminal law is that the government is not supposed to have the authority to punish we the people unless they have proof beyond reasonable doubt. Civil law is for cases where there is only a preponderance of evidence. Civil law has only ever been meant to encompass civil entity versus civil entity, not government versus governed.
When the dispute is civil entity versus civil entity, who is supposed to decide which side the government should back? Criminal law already deals with copyright infringement.
Take for example the IBM versus SCO fight - that is a civil dispute, which side should the government be backing? Neither. The government should never be involved in civil disputes except as the adjudicator.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I have to pay 3% of the remaining value on the computer to the local county
Good God, where do you live, Soviet Russia?
Yikes!
People around here are damned near ready to go to war over 0.095% per year.
The argument has been completely substantiated in repeated studies, the ones the RIAA didn't pay for. The only studies that contradict this are the ones the content cartel bought, the same way MS buys FUD studies.
P2P promotes sales. It does NOT displace them unless the product is such crap that the normal fan base for a musician won't buy it. That's why the industry uses Big Champagne for marketing purposes. Google is your friend, look up the studies yourself. You've wasted enough of our time.
Tech Public Policy stuff
No it's not theft. Your thinking comes from the belief that IP holders have a right to the ip they controll. In fact all they have is privilige,a leagly sanctioned privilige, granted for the express purpose of increasing the public good when those grants of privilige expire.
They do NOT own that music or movie or concept. The minute they place that info in the public view, WE own it. However in order to incourage them to create such things we (via our proxy, the government) grant them a limited monopoly on the profitable distribution/use of that material for a limited time.
At least that is how it is supposed to be in the United States. But corporate $$ has been spent to buy poloticians and propaganda untill a suprisingly large number of people actually believe they have some sort of natural right or ownership over ideas just because they were first to come up with it, or at least file paperwork claiming so.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Sorry.
Fuck the children. I'm not sure thats the best course of action, I mean look what its doing to the King of Pop...
That's why the bill is co-sponsored by Orrin "Hypocrite" Hatch, (R-UT).
"In the long run, I believe that we must find better mechanisms to ensure that our most vulnerable citizens--our children--are not being constantly tempted to infringe the copyrights..."
Yes, and the best way to make sure little Billy doesn't become a mean ol' evil pirate is to have the DOJ prosecute his ass the moment he downloads Barney's latest hit ... :)
(Not that people who listen to Barney's latest hit shouldn't be prosecuted, obviously ... but for different reasons, damnit!)
Awesome. Totally awesome.
:)
Eh. I download music. I will offer no defense or moral or legal justification for it however.
I download a lot of music in fact. But, let's consider the last week:
Friend sent me a link to this album by the Stars. Very good. Like, I was amazed how good. It was so good in fact that I went over to Amazon and ordered it. I also noticed on Amazon that they had another album, so I ordered it too, without having heard it before. Purchase was justified as the music was really top notch.
This actually repeated itself twice in a week. Friend sent me really crappy rips of Pinback's new album Offcell... burnt them to CD, played them over and over and over again. Ended up buying that CD, as well as their two previous CDs. While I was at the store buying those, I noticed another CD from another artist I had downloaded (VAST) and grabbed that as well.
I have a lot of music however that I never did pay for. There are a few albums in there, that if I could find, I would definatly buy in a heartbeat. There are also a lot that I really would never buy in a second.
Now, im a reclusive computer geek type. I do not as a matter of habit go out to shows, or assoicate with people. If I hadn't gotten those albums from that friend, I wouldn't have bought them. Ever. And I also wouldn't have been buying random albums from bands that get absolutly zero air time on any radio station... in fact, this brings up a curious question. These artists I like are indie. where did people hear about them pre-internet? I don't know.
So, anyways, that's just one persons experience. I won't attempt to say I'm right or justified in downloading music. However, in my specific 1% case, it has made a big difference in the music I listen to. If it goes away, *I* will be out of a great source... and I'm not positive what it would be replaced by.
It's an interesting point....however, when your house is burning down, you don't start fixing the leaky faucet or the peeling paint or the creaky floorboards. You put out the fire.
"fist in the air in the land of hypocrisy"
So, recognize that I've only had one semester of constitutional law, but....
Article III Section 2 of the US Constitution says that the judicial power applies to "cases" and "Controversies." Under current constitutional doctrine, this means that in order to get into federal courts on a civil matter, there is a requirement that the person bringing the suit have standing: He has to have an injury which can be remedied by the court.
I don't think that the Justice Department would have standing because it neither (1) has been injured nor (2) is an organization litigating the rights of its members, who have been injured -- this is about what happens when the RIAA sues people.
IANAL (yet...), so don't consider this legal advice. But, the whole thing just seems a bit fishy.
"For too long, Federal prosecutors have been hindered in their pursuit of pirates, by the fact that they were limited to bringing criminal charges with high burdens of proof..."
Everyone here is talking about whether piracy is right or wrong. Duh. It's wrong. That's not the point.
This law would give the government the authority to punish people based on a preponderance of evidence. There has always been a distinction between civil and criminal law. When there is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but two people are still in dispute, the government is not allowed to get involved, because they tip the balance too much. If there is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, how is the government supposed to decide which side to support? This law is saying in effect, "whenever we're not sure if someone has been wronged or not, the government should back party A." It is completely antithetical to the distinction beetween civil and criminal law.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I presume here that we're treating copyright (and other similar intellectual property) the same as tangible artifacts.
Let's say that someone breaks into my home, and steals my TV. Right now, I can enlist the help of law enforcement, who might catch the person responsible for the theft. If they do, provided I want to pursue this, they could then go ahead and prosecute the thief, and if found guilty would then serve a punishment. I might not get my TV back, but the person who stole it did not 'get a free lunch'.
The same principle seems to be applied here to copyrights. The thing I need to understand, is the theft of a copyright a civil matter, or a criminal matter? If it is a civil matter, then the DoJ certainly does not need to get involved, they have enough to do in the criminal arena. Let the RIAA, the MPAA and all their cronies fund their own lawsuits, just like everyone else who has to fund a civil lawsuit. But if the theft of a copyright is now a criminal matter, and is to be considered a felony, then I see no reason why the person who has a precious artifact stolen has recourse to the police and the DoJ whereas someone who stole a copyright does not have access to these resources - especially if the consequences for the person who stole the artifact is the same for those who stole the copyright.
I personally don't care too much for the RIAA and MPAA's strong-arm tactics, but copyright certainly needs reform. Perhaps there needs to be a two tier copyright system, there would be Copyright I and Copyright II. I would envisage Copyright I to be like existing copyright. It would expire 90 years after the death of the creator, and the Copyright I holders would have recourse to the civil courts for enforcing their rights. It would be cheap to get, but expensive to enforce. There would also be Copyright II. Copyright II would be more expensive to maintain, and as someone mentioned earlier, yes there would be a 'tax', maybe a yearly tax. The Copyright would be tradeable, and would be in force as long as the 'tax' is paid on it (so the likes of Mickey Mouse would be protected forever). Copyright II would however, because of the increased fees that Copyright II holders would pay, would have recourse to law enforcement and the Department of Justice in order to enforce those copyrights, and theft of the copyrights would enjoy penalties like that in criminal theft cases.
That would be my simplistic way of reforming the copyright system.
Mark.
I think you're saying that the fact that some people abuse rights is what loses them for us. That's a fair point, and quite possibly true. On the other hand, as a matter of semantics, if they can be legally taken away from us then technically they're priveleges not rights.
Who defines theft? In this particular situation we can't rely on the government to define morality for us, as the government does the will of the party in power, and the party in power has a vested interest in creating law in support of those, like the RIAA, who give it cash.
I do believe that filesharing is immoral. But I believe it is immoral to about the same degree that kicking a door open rather than pushing it open is immoral - the marginal damage is negligibly small. And, if the profits of the recording industry are as damaged as they say, the system itself (their business model) could be said to be broken - unsustainable in a free market. In that case, the system needs to be fundamentally changed, as opposed to litigating against those who have individually done so little damage.
If, on the other hand, the RIAA is merely keen to get as much money from lawsuits as possible, regardless of how negligibly small the effect may be on sales, then I have no sympathy. I'll keep kicking the door open, especially if my hands are full (metaphor alert: I'm a student in debt).
Note: this applies only to filesharing. I do not support commercial piracy, as this invalidates the above argument by competing with the recording industries on their own turf by unfair means.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
True, but a legitimate question is "should corporations be allowed to hold monopolies on culture?". I don't think copyright should be abolished but this "world leader in the production of creative works" BS ignores the fact that mass-produced culture is not very authentic culture. Weaker copyrights might make a stronger society... it's an option worth exploring anyways.
That day 0 copy of the next StarWars can and should land you in jail plain and simple.
Go to jail for copying a song? Sending somebody to jail is not cheap. Not only do you have to pay the (relatively trivial) cost of incarceration, you also lose that individual's productive input to society. Also, the more people you put in jail, the more construction activity must go into jails (instead of say, libraries or offices). The more people in jail, the more guards/wardens/police/judges/lawyers you need. Human potiential that could be put towards space, towards knowledge, towards medicine...
As a general rule, when "everybody" is breaking the law, it's time to revise the law, not throw more people into jail.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
Protecting Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation Act of 2004
This is the so-called PIRATE Act previously Slashdotted. Note that the "related bill" mentioned in that posting does not seem to have materialized yet; it does not seem to be any of the four posted here.
The main thrust of the PIRATE Act is to allow the Attorney General to bring civil actions against copyright violators; before only criminal actions were possible (civil suits had to be filed by the copyright owner). I find it difficult to tell without going and reading Title 18 whether all the money resulting from the suit goes to the copyright owner, but some of it definitely does ("and restitution to the copyright owner"). There's some administrivia in the bill as well, but it seems to do what it claims to.
Artists' Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2003 (ART Act)
The official title of this bill says it all: "A bill to provide criminal penalties for unauthorized recording of motion pictures in a motion picture exhibition facility, to provide criminal and civil penalties for unauthorized distribution of commercial prerelease copyrighted works, and for other purposes." There's some weird stuff going on with it on Thomas; the entire bill seems to have been rewritten at some point, but the number retained. I can't tell how many of the changes, if any, were substantive.
The HTML on the revised bill is broken, but reading the original version, it makes use (but not posession) of camcorders, cameras, and other "audiovisual recording device[s]" in a theater illegal, with a penalty of "not more than 3 years" in prison, or 6 years for a second or subsequent offense. It also sets a minimum value for "prerelease" copyrighted works, which includes movies not out of theaters yet; the assumed minimum for P2P'ing such a work is 10 copies and a total retail value of $2500. Note that this bill specifically targets P2P filesharing; it makes reference to "making [the work] available on a computer network accessible to members of the public who are able to reproduce the work through such access." That last bit seems written to exempt streaming, but I'm sure you'd be ruled against in court if you tried it.
There's also an easy-to-miss bit at the end of the bill which recommends "amend[ing] the Federal sentencing guidelines, as necessary, to provide for increased penalties for offenses involving the illegal reproduction and distribution of works protected under title 17."
United States Patent and Trademark Fee Modernization Act of 2003 2004
This one is straightforward and is as described in the posting; it increases patent fees across the board (I can't tell how much without looking at the stuff it amends.) It also allows "small entities" to get a 75% cost savings if they file electronically, and adds "maintenance fees" at 4, 8, and 12 years from filing to keep the patent from expiring early. Sounds sketchy, but I'm not complaining. There's also some stuff about trademarks, which probably doesn't matter much.
Cooperative Research and Technology Enhancement (CREATE) Act of 2004
I don't know why this one was even included. It doesn't really seem relevant to anything; it makes some changes to the definition of "prior art," but it only seems to apply to things developed under a "joint research agreement," so I don't think there's any way it can be other than what it claims, which is "A bill . . . to promote cooperative research involving universities, the public sector, and private enterprises."
Well, the figures I've seen from customs activities border enforcement show that detected counterfeit computer software and music and related multimedia have increased 400% in the last couple of years, and piracy rates in this area are 40%.
When you have _actual evidence_ of this level of lost income, which for the government translates into lost taxes, then you understand why the government is stepping in and helping.
I'm sure if the figures were much lower, the government couldn't care less.
I always thought the deal was the government give a monopoly to a creator in exchange for the creator doing the enforcement of the monopoly.
"to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing, for limited times, to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
The deal is that they get the monopoly for the act of creating their works and inventions. There's never been any "principal" decision of who is to enforce it, as far as I know. Certainly, by their right to secure the monopoly, making the government enforce it is fully constitutional.
I think the government should step back and look at what the goal is: To promote the creation of new works and inventions. The expectancy to make money is a driving factor. But if I write a book today, do I expect money in 2150? (which would hopefully be life + 70 for me) No.
Ask any movie producer, book author, music artist when they expect to make money off their work. Sure, sometimes a book like LotR can become massively long after it was written, but did JRR Tolkien make it because it'd be a wildly movie triology in the next millenium? Hell no.
There's two kinds of copyright. One that promotes the creation of new works, and one that promotes the hoarding of existing IP because some works will become "classics". The latter is a cancer that only contributes to making artificial profit, not to advance science nor the arts.
That is why copyright should be cut, massively. A few decades should be more than enough to put it through any normal life cycle (like e.g. cinema -> rental -> dvd sales -> premium channels -> normal channels -> reruns).
What is a concern, is the "pollution" of the setting, like e.g. the Star Trek universe. However, make it real simple. Only what is expired from copyright is expired. E.g. if TOS didn't contain the Borg, but Voyager does, they are copyrighted as long as Voyager.
But if you want to take Capt. Kirk on adventures to meet some completely new and unknown aliens, you're free to do that. If the "original" can't introduce enough new things (new characters, new plots, new items) to live with that during say, 30 years?, well they don't deserve it.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Dear Mr. [me]:
/
Thank you for contacting me about intellectual property protections. Although we disagree on this issue, it is good to
hear from you.
Throughout my career, I have been concerned about the theft of intellectual property and the effect it has on
innovation. Protection of digital content is just one aspect of this effort. On March 23, 2004, the Senate Judiciary
Committee held a hearing on physical piracy, entitled "Counterfeiting and Theft of Tangible Intellectual Property:
Challenges and Solutions," at which the Committee examined the harmful effects of stealing another's creation.
Reasonable estimates show that the U.S. economy loses between $200 billion and $250 billion annually to piracy and
counterfeiting. At that hearing the Committee heard from a representative of Burton Snowboards, which employs 350
people in Vermont. That witness reported that knock-off Burton products have been found in multiple countries, and
fake goods often turn up on internet auction sites.
The improper use of Burton's trademarks is illegal, it is unethical, and it robs the company of revenues it should
rightfully reap but that others siphon off. In the 104th Congress, I introduced the Anticounterfeiting Consumer
Protection Act of 1995, which gave law enforcement additional tools to fight counterfeiting and which became a public
law. I am currently looking at additional legislation that would help hard working Vermonters protect the goods they
produce.
Likewise, downloading music without paying for it, and without the copyright holder's permission prevents artists,
authors, musicians - and those that work behind the scenes to produce creative content - from realizing the benefits
they deserve.. In order for the promise of new technologies to be fully realized, high quality digital content needs
to be easy to use and portable, and I am glad to see that several companies are now offering legal alternatives that
are meeting with success. This is a development I continue to encourage.
While illegally downloading music is wrong, I do not think that handcuffs for copyright infringers should be the
government's only option. That is why, on March 25, 2004, I introduced the "Protecting Intellectual Rights Against
Theft and Expropriation (PIRATE) Act." I do not believe in a "one size fits all" system of justice, and the PIRATE Act
will provide needed flexibility by allowing the Justice Department to pursue civil penalties for copyright infringement
when criminal penalties are not appropriate.
Thank you again for contacting me about this important issue, and please keep in touch.
Patrick Leahy
United States Senator
http://leahy.senate.gov
Since counterfeit snowboards seemed totally off the wall to me, here was my reply:
Dear Senator Leahy:
Thank you for your response. It does not, however, show consideration of
many of the most pressing issues in "intellectual property." Please detail
what you are doing to:
- Roll back copyright terms to the reasonable period envisioned by the
writers of the Constitution
- Allow Web "radio" to have the same rights to broadcast music as
over-the-air stations, without the additional fees for using the music
which are currently assessed, which only serve to enforce the broadcast
monopolies while restricting artist access to the public
- Preserve the "fair use" rights that have long been in copyright law
against the large corporations working to remove or negate them through
using encryption technologies
- Undo the chilling effects of the DCMA on free technological development,
where it prevents normal testing and reverse-engineering of encryption
schemes
- Restore restrictions on the number of radio or television stations that
may be owned by any single corporation (surely you are aware of the
political disaster that results f
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I think the point was, there's no difference.
A tax on copyright holders (those that have an income stream from customers of those copyrighed works, at least) will simply be accounted for as a business cost and added to the price their customers pay.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Ahh but that defines the taking of solid objects and was put in webster before computers even existed.
That's ridiculous. Copyright infringement predates Webster. I'd say the printing press pretty much let that cat out of the bag a few hundred years before Webster was even on this planet.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
That day 0 copy of the next StarWars can and should land you in jail plain and simple.
Yeah, because downloading a movie is such an anti-social act that you need to be completely deprived of your liberty at the taxpayers' expense. Geez, get a grip and then get some perspective.
I do not have a signature
Needless to say, there's already a tax on copyright holders for money that they make off their copyright -- it's called "income tax."
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Eisner's family owns a large estate in SE Vermont for many years.
So, see how Eisner has rewarded Leahy for his work on the Mickey Mouse copyright extension and other acts of kindness.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I wasn't really sure how to respond to this as many of the points are valid. I don't apologize for violating copyrights and just disagree entirely with the copyright system.
Now, I would support the copyright system if it was a system of open distribution, like a GPL style system, but to say without copyright you can't have the GPL is not really the case if what a person is really advocating is change, not simply elimination. I think the arguments that person made are pretty weak but I also think some of yours are.
You say it's legally and morally wrong. Legally, yes, morally, who's morals? Yours or mine?
I think Abe Lincoln says it better than I ever can:
"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
If you don't want someone to copy something, don't give it to anyone.
It's scary because it provides the federal government with a very effective way to crush political free speech. Why? First, keep in mind that, unlike many countries, including some other democracies, we do not and cannot have seditious libel laws--meaning the government cannot openly ban criticism. For that, we can thank the First Amendment and our culture of independence.
But recall that any effective criticism of the actions of government agencies and politicians will require fair use quotations. Under current law, the government cannot use copyright to attack that sort of unwanted speech. Copyright infringement lawsuits are civil lawsuits, initiated and (even more important) funded by private entities. This law would allow the government to create an "enemies list" to be attacked on alleged copyright violations and open up the entire resources of the federal government in those lawsuits.
Keep in mind that the government does not have to win these cases, it simply has to file a lawsuit to create an enormous burden on its critics. (This is a bit like both the Nixonian and Clintonian administrations using the IRS to attack political opponents.) And remember too that the government doesn't have to sue over the specific book or media production that criticized the government. It can sue in some totally unrelated area. It can crush an opponent without ever appearing to violate the First Amendment. That is what I mean by scary.
Second, the law is stupid because it demonstrates no awareness of just how cluttered, contradictory and filled with gray areas present day copyright law is. Yes, there are areas where the law is not gray, republishing without permission a recent best-selling book for instance. But there's no need for the federal government to intervene in those areas. Civil suits already work quite well there. Will the government intervene in more ambigious areas? If it does, it has taken sides when it shouldn't. If it doesn't the there are lots of people, particularly impoverished authors and publishers, who are being denied help but are forced to pay taxes to fund lawsuits the government does choose to initiate.
Finally, the law is clearly unfair. The bill isn't intended to help a poor author or publisher (like me), who typically can't afford to sue, even if he has a good case. The remarks about "technological challenges," "technical experts," and "electronic data" make it clear that it's the deep-pocketed entertainment industry who'll be getting their legal costs covered by tax-payers. This law is about ordinary citizens being forced to fund lawsuits that only benefit those who can easily afford to file their own civil lawsuits.
--Mike Perry, Inkling Books, Seattle
http://www.InklingBooks.com/
Well, the argument I was trying to make is more that we should only hold copyrights necessary to the extent that progress of science and arts depends upon them. Whether copyrights and other intellectual property concepts are, in fact, necessary, is another question. But I also feel that they are not. For example, some sciences have applications to business needs, such as genetic engineering, while some do not, such as astronomy. And while there has been much more business interest in biotechnology and related scientific endeavors of late, the attention paid to those that do not share such business interests is, in my view, sufficient.
It depends largely on how you define "progress". But I know that people will still be singing, writing, or learning whether copyrights exist or not. That there may not be anymore "blockbuster" sized games or movies is not a loss, or an insignificant loss compared to the curtailment of freedoms that their existence requires.
Senator xxxx,
Please vote "No" on S.2237.
- Having a look at who is sponsoring it (Hatch and Leahy) alone, it is obvious that this is a matter of legislation on behalf of the large media conglomerates.
- This legislation would involve the justice department in pursuing action against casual, non-criminal (civil) infringement.
- This legislation is an attempt on behalf of the large media conglomerates to place upon tax payers the legal bill for pursuing unreasonable and outrageous civil penalties against their sons and daughters in highschool and college.
If we are to be forced to assume the legal bills of the RIAA and MPAA, then it is time to have a legitimate and serious public hearing on the illegitimacy of the ever expanding "Intellectual Property" regime that is:
- Destroying our commons.
- Defying the intent and wisdom of our founders.
- Tying up and suppressing the past 70 years of our history in the pocketbooks of corporate non-entities.
- Inventing a "right to profit" from what was originally a right of the public to promote the interests of the commons.
Disney's archive vault is NOT the commons.
Thank you for your time,
xxxx
I don't mean to sound trollish, but shouldn't terrorism be the DOJ's biggest focus right now? There's been an attack on Turkey and Spain this year alone. Between this recent bill and John Ashcroft's assault on porn, the JD is getting distracted.
No one would have any problem with them slightly changing it, and getting cheap rates since they would only have copyright on the new work.
Napster could still legally shuffle the old version around, after all.
Most importantly, and no one seems to realize this, they should be required to publically release keys so they (now) public domain works are accessible. Else none of the rest really matters, they might as well keep copyrights forever.
I think the point of an "IP Tax" would be to encourage owners of IP to return ideas to the public domain when they are no longer profitable.
Its less about collecting taxes then it is about restricting the government enforced monopoly called "copyright".
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
-John Van Voorhis
Coming from a country that built itself on infringing existing copyrights. Look back at the history of the USA and how it used to deal with copyright. Now they want the Criminal Justice System to also prosecute Civil cases. Since when has the establishment been civilian? The sooner the USA stops the commercialisation of the government (see Senator Disney and Senator RIAA as examples) then perhaps the government might get back to being "for the people, by the people".
Consider Disney and Pinnichio. Right now, stipulate that it's sitting in a vault, earning $0 in income. (If not the case for Pinocchio, then consider another film).
If Disney gets it out of the vault, they can make $X million in gross revenue, with $C million in costs. It's the judgement of Disney's management that $X is less than $C. If $X were more than $C then Disney, profit-maximizing corporation that they are, would distribute Pinocchio and make a profit of ($X-$C) that way.
Your proposal is to increase $C by adding another tax to income from copyrighted materials. That makes Disney MORE likely to keep Pinocchio in the vault (no revenue, no expenses), rather than take it out of the vault (same revenue, increased expenses).
Oh, and what is the "fair market value" of 20 million copies of the Linux kernel which contain my copyrighted material? Do you want me to pay tax on that every year? It's a tiny amount of material, to be sure, but I do own the copyright on it.
I emailed both of mine and one from a previous state I lived in. I did the third because I know him and think he is fairly honest. If that gets three nay votes I'll take it. Sometimes congresscritters do the right thing either; by mistake or if enough pressure from voters is applied.
The 3 of them know that I'm a veteran and I vote!
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
The truth is, as someone who has pirated music, I just dont give a crap about stealing music. Now I guess I could try and justify it with the standard reasons but you already know them.
Why dont the holier-than-thou anti-piracy types justify their position. The reason they dont, I believe, is because to them being on the side of the law is all that matters.
Either that or they believe in the "free market" and that by engaging in piracy you are somehow
'distorting' the market. As though there were such a thing as a free market in the music business.
Why you would defend the music establishment is beyond me. This is an industry whos meat & potatoes revolves entirely around leveraging as much dosh as possible out of Mom & Pops wallets by way of their children.
And they're fucking good at it too. When asked what they think they will be when they grow up, surveys show that the kids of today all basically think they're going to be fuckin famous. It's patently absurd. I really feel sorry for the little buggers actually. Not only are they constantly fed shit ideas/products but they have little to no exercise as well, and are so fat that it is believed a whole generation of kids are going to have serious heart problems by their mid-30's!
Oh Yes, I can see the future now. An entire generation of fat thirty-somethings living at home still clinging to the belief that a talent scout will 'find' them and shower them with fame, fortune and a triple by-pass operation.
Now what was I talking about, oh yeah piracy....
Destroying copyright doesn't destroy the outlets. It still takes an expensive FCC license to get a tv station and even more money to keep it running. You think without copyright MTV is going to be any quicker to put you into rotation? The Britney Spears and Jessica Simpsons would stll dominate because they have the money behind them. No copyright would change the kind of deals those people get, but for indie artists all it would do is leave them vulnerable to exploitation without ANY means of recourse; your band's underground music website becomes popular? Great! We'll use your music to sell pepsi... and you won't get a fucking thing - thanks so much for breaking down those "monopolies on popular culture."
Russia has just about zero enforcement of what little copyright protection exists in their laws. So, do you think MTV Russia is some sort of free range of Russian indie artists? Hmmmm... p diddy, Britney, Elton, Jessica... sure doesn't look that much different. And what Russian lables are those Russian artists on who DO get played on mtv.ru? EMI, Warner, Sony...
Without copyright protection indie artists don't suddenly become more marketable - they just become even easier to exploit.
And so do programmers.
"This potential law is about granting the government the authority to be involved in civil cases."
Um... doesn't that strike anyone else as a dangerous precedent that could conceivably be extended to ANY area of civil law, such that the gov't could "take sides" in ANY civil suit??!
Someone above mentioned how this law could become a spearhead for censorship. I'm thinking if it isn't found unconstitutional, it could also be a toehold for just about any field that thinks the gov't should be on their side, and has the lobbyists and bought-congresscritters to ensure which side the gov't comes down on.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Can you really, with fair conscience...
A politicians conscience is indistinguishable from his bankbook.
There is an inherent conflict of interest when a Drug Company goes through clinical tests. They want to get their money's worth, the FDA wants safety. Read about Antidepressants & suicide. The most recent prescription boondoggles I can think of are the whole problem with Phen-Phen, hormone therapy for women causing heart attacks, and now antidepressants causing kids to suicide.
Drug companies have a 20 odd years until their patents expire, so they suppress studies, encourage off-label use (ie. giving medicine to age groups it wasn't tested on) and whatever other techniques they can use to get the drug to market and make their investment back
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
You are right when you say a person needs standing, but the justice department in this case would be acting on behalf of the U.S. government. You can ask your con law professor why this is different. (Civil actions by the government are very common - securities actions, environmental actions, etc.)
With great power comes great fan noise.
No matter what various dictionaries might claim or say, and what people might think of similarities, it is important to note the difference in regard to LAW. From a law perspective it is NOT theft since theft laws does not apply. If they did, why on earth would we need copyright laws to beging with? We could just apply normal laws regarding theft.