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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?
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.
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".
"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!!
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.
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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
"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!)
"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.
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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
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/
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