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'Pirate Act' Would Shift Copyright Civil Suits To DoJ
mammothboy writes "News.com.com has a story about the new so-called Pirate Act, which seeks to allow federal prosecuters to file civil suits against file swappers. These lawsuits can reach hundreds of thousands of dollars, and if you guessed that the RIAA is lobbying for it, you're right. What's scary is how fast and how quiet its march through the legislative process has been. In '97, the No Electronic Theft Act allowed for criminal lawsuits, but none have been filed, so isn't it clear that the Justice Department has better stuff to deal with?" There actually have been some prosecutions filed under the NET Act, but not many. Update: 05/26 18:51 GMT by T : Declan McCullagh (author of the linked News.com story) writes to clarify: "FYI there have been prosecutions under the NET Act, as you say. But
there have not been any of P2P users. That's why the Senate is doing this."
As a member of Citizens United against Network Thievery, let me be the first to jump for joy. For too long musicians and movie moguls have resorted to smaller mansions, some with empty garage spots, as wanton piracy has hurt sales of their reasonably priced products. This rampant hooliganism must be stopp... ed.. whoa... what's this square of blotter paper doing in my coffee?
Trolling is a art,
...spent on arresting pirating grandmothers and children.
Copyrights have to be asserted in order to be infringed upon. Therefore, the Justice Department can't just go accusing people of copyright violation without the copyright owner coming forward to claim the foul.
This is nothing more than the RIAA wanting to shift their legal burden over to the taxpayer...
Yep, seems fair to me.
Maybe the money recovered for the copyright lawsuit filed by the government should go to the government, and if the government loses, the RIAA/MPAA should pay the government's costs?
Fight Spammers!
Yep...that's what we have.. and will continue to have until people exercise their responsibility and vote all the scoundrels out!
Aren't the courts crowded enough as it is? Why make more work for the courts/government? I mean, honestly, there're enough useless/pointless civil cases out there right now, we don't exactly need -more-. And it just seems that if the Justice Dept really wanted to go after music piracy, they ought to do it through criminal courts and leave the civil courts to, well, the RIAA to sue people. How would the Justice Dept sue for damages anyway? Did I miss something in that article? And since when does the legislature ever move that quickly on something?
>insert witty sig file here
Critics also charge that the Pirate Act may invent a form of double jeopardy: It would let the RIAA sue the same people already sued by the Justice Department.
"The kinds of things we have a double-jeopardy doctrine to prevent seem to be implicated by the bill," said Jessica Litman, author of "Digital Copyright" and a law professor at Wayne State University. "I find it disturbing that the committee reported this out without at least having a hearing to consider some of the alternatives."
Not only do they want the same taxpayers who pay for the prosecution of these people they also have the ablility to resue the same people after the DoJ is done with them.
This isn't a deterrent... It's just going to piss everyone off.
I will be sending faxes to my senators detailing my opposition to this proposed law. If I am not mistaken Hatch tried to backdoor the last one or these too a few years back.
a civil suit is by preponderance of evidence,
a criminal suit is beyond reasonable doubt.
civil suit is *much* easier to 'win'
that's how the bastar^h^h^h^hlawyers are getting rich...
So, this is saying that there is a law out there file swappers could be prossecuted under. But, the RIAA is trying to get a law passed specific to their cause and what they want as an ends.
Evolution or ID?
I think the people sharing thousands of copyrighted items will be a lot happier to pay a few thousand dollars to the RIAA than face real jail time. If you were running a warehouse that was printing thousands of bootleg CDs and selling them you'd go to jail. If you download music, make sure you aren't sharing copyrighted material and you'll be safe.
Being a swashbuckler myself, I find the name
"Pirate Act" to be highly inaccurate.
It's copyright infringement.
Piracy is a different matter altogether.
Anybody can download a song, but it takes
quite a bit more daring to pilage at a professional
level.
Arrr.
OK, so now a group of companys that have been found to run a business selling overpriced plastic with artificially high pricing is now trying to get the govt to handle prosecuting their civil matters. I can't imagine this getting passed. However many futurests predict a future controlled by large corporations. This would be a good first step.
Just what we need. The DOJ must have TONS of resources left over from finding terrorists, rapists, murderers, drug smuggling rings, human smuggling rings, organized crime, white-collar fraud, embezzlers, etc... etc...
This should *clearly* be left a civil matter. Stealing is already illegal. Piracy is already illegal. It should NOT be a federal offence to share a file, even if it is copyrighted. There are plenty of civil remidies for copyright holders already.
From causal perusal, and IANAL, at least 30% of the US code should be ditched. There's a lot of redundant, unenforcable bloatlaw in there.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
The article reads like a story from the Onion. I love this quote, "copyright owners have been left alone to fend for themselves, defending their rights only where they can afford to do so."
Yeah, the members of the RIAA are just too broke to file their own lawsuits.
And if these civil suits are so easy to win, then why are the RIAA not filing them. It sounds like easy money to me. Heck, suing filesharers could become a new business model.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
They should test this idea out somewhere before applying it to this fine country. There are lots of good test data in places like China, India, and Pakistan. They'll see in no time how well their system will work.
Considering people are not making any money from file sharing, I'd have thought that a fine of something like $100, would be more than adequate as a deterrent.
It would stop the record industry looking like violent thugs, and people who genuinely feel they've been wronfully accused wouldn't have too much to lose if they wanted to challenge this. The record companies are not doing their cause a lot of good with aggressive penalties against ordinary members of the public.
"Tens of thousands of continuing civil enforcement actions might be needed to generate the necessary deterrence," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said when announcing his support for the bill. "I doubt that any nongovernmental organization has the resources or moral authority to pursue such a campaign." As always, they're looking for the "necessary deterrence" to stop a widespread cultural shift that has already occurred. Much like the war on drugs, this war on piracy is going to end up costing the tax payer more money, infringing upon non-infringing citizens, and lining the pockets of those in government who perpetuate heavy-handed methods of dealing with petty crimes. This nation doesn't want or need another war on drugs. It just doesn't benefit the majority.
Yet another reason not to move to the united states. Europe is looking better and better every day.
The RIAA hammering through thousands of hundreds of thousands of court cases.
Meanwhile we are hard pressed to give rape & murder cases adequate attention.
On the other hand, guess all those new lawyers need something to do.
That very first amendment is my all time favorite. Let's look at that one more time. It's a beauty.
.
`The term `financial gain' includes receipt, or expectation of receipt, of anything of value . .
Let's crop that and move in closer.
Financial gain includes . . . anything of value.
Wow, that's pretty interesting isn't it? Receipt of anything of value is the same as financial gain. So, if I tell my wife I love her --that's a financial transaction, right? Should I declare that on my taxes? Or is it that love has no value? Must be one or the other according to the logic of this law.
This is so intriguing how Congress is basing laws on terms like "value" without stopping to consider that any freshman philosophy class flunkie could tell you that value is an extremely vague word. It could mean just about anything.
In fact, it has often been concluded that all speech is an exchange of value. Human speech is one step above grooming behavior in chimps. Now, clearly this is nothing buy the exchange of value. Where is the limit here? I'll tell ya, there is none. It is ambiguous to the core. This amendment alone seems to make the NET Act so absurd that it is useless.
I don't use p2p to transfer copyrighted material and this legislation still bothers me. Why is the federal government enforcing copyright? Because the music industry doesn't have the money to pay for it? The gvmt is currently running a large deficit. What makes the gvmt (and thus taxpayers) more able to pay than the **AA. People always think money from the federal government is free and available but our taxes are the money that pays for stuff like this. Where is the fiscal restraint in washington. (The sad thing is... that last line might get me modded funny). Contact your reps/senators and let them know that copyright infringement suits over p2p trading are not the government's burden. Even if it were filing suits over any type of copyright infringement (which would actually help the little guy more - when his source code is stolen by a large company/etc) I still don't feel it's the government's place.
I know that people have settled, but has anyone actually prepared a defense and went to court? How did it turn out?
1. Convince all the software manufacturers in the country that they need someone to manage their industry.
2. Become president of the SIAA (Software Inudstry Association of America).
3. ???
4. Profit!!!
I think #3 has something to do with lawsuits...
FLR
Allowing people to be prosecuted in a civil trial for file swapping is a bad bad thing.
For a criminal trial, the prosecution has to prove to a jury that you stole music beyond a reasonable doubt.
In a civil trial, all you have to prove is that it's possible and probable that you did it.
So it's basically taking out all the expenses that a criminal trial would have needed. There's no need to do any computer forensics, deep investigating, etc. All they would need to do (basically) is get your ISP records and show you have used *file sharing program*.
So it's very possible that you might have installed Kazaa, et al, to download a new game demo, OSS, independent 'free' music, etc - but if you have a NOFX mp3 on your drive that alone is enough to get some money out of you. If this thing flies, I fear the power RIAA will have. They will truly become a company to fear.
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
...and the feds get the revenue cutting the states out of the process... hmmm... sounds like a few state attorneys general could stop it...
http://www.house.gov/boucher/
(Having been raised Mormon, I also have a lot of other reasons to bitch about Hatch, but I'll save that for later. That whole state is run by asshats.)
Hatch's boy is one of the lawyers for the SCO. No surprise there. Daddy's just trying to make the laws for his baby boy to enforce.
Call your senators (you have two) and tell them to oppose this bill. If you don't know who they are, go here to find out.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
The trouble is, the courts are free. But then if they weren't, the common man wouldn't get any justice since he couldn't afford it. So where can we put the split?
How about this: anyone (read: company) who makes campaign contributions has to foot their own bill in any court cases. I mean, paying for the judge's time, etc, instead of the government. After all, if they're rich enough to pay off the politicians to write the rules for them, they can afford to pay to use the system they've manipulated.
Is that fair? Would a system like this stand up or is there a problem that I'm missing?
I was outraged after reading this article that Senator Hatch (the senator from my home state) would sponser this bill. So, I went to his website and proceeded to send him a professional e-mail stating my concerns on the bill while asking him to withdraw his support and sponsership. My question to everyone else in the US: have you contacted your senator?
Alright. SO, you know a big part of P2P traffic is porn - porn that is almost without a doubt copyrighted, but most Porn companies don't go out of their way to track down pirates (or at least joe average light downloader). If the porno industry no longer has to expend their own money or effort to crack down on copyright violators, don't you think they'd start? Pornographic copyright violations and investigations could, as i see it, drown out all the RIAA efforts by shear volume.
Don't worry - its just stigmata. Pass me a napkin and don't you dare tell my mother.
I've been sitting on my 1000th post (I'm such a nerd) for a while now, waiting for a good opportunity for a 5, Funny. But I just haven't been able to take the time to really put something good together.
So anyway, if you're in the U.S., write to your Senators. Tell them about your concerns about having your taxes spent on government officials pursuing civil suits on behalf of the RIAA. Point out the unconstitutionality of double jeopardy.
And while we're talking about senators, does anyone else think it would be a good idea to have senators in federal congress be the party leaders from the state congress? That would be a big step in going back to a republic of states (Assuming you're a propponent of states rights). It'd be kinda neat to replace the house that way too, but I can't think of a good way to do it with the current representation by population that we currently have in the house (which I think is a good thing). Something where voters elect our state government, and the president, and the federal congressional reps are a subset of the elected state reps. I think that would be really cool.
FALAFEL:
Federal Assistance for Limiting the use of Acronyms For Evil Legislation.
Consider for a moment just how large of cluster fuck this would create.... The DOJ attempting to individual process all of these suits.... LOL.
Sounds like a great plan to me, and a get out of jail free card for everyone involved......
The name of the "No Electronic Theft Act" was very accurate. This law which concerned unauthorized duplication of files had nothing to do with theft at all. No electronic theft was covered in it.
And there we go again... Apart from the fact that I find the influence that big industries have on the justice system in the US nauseating, the music industry seems to think that it can "stop" swapping in any way. This is typical black and white thinking
What is actually happening here is that the "system" (in this case the swappers and the music industry together) shift to a new equilibrium location, where the trade-off between speed and ease-of-use on the one hand, and speed on the other hand, is optimal for the given situation on the legal battle-field.
First we had Napster: very easy to use, but having the flaw of a single point of failure. Then we had the FastTrack and Gnutella networks (think KaZaa and LimeWire here): good bandwidth, but no anonymity at all, but at least without the need for a single point of failure. Then came eDonkey and his friends: less bandwidth, more obfuscation. A step further along the line lies FreeNet: anonimity beyond reasonable doubt, but a slow network and it's hard to find things. In the future, the balance might shift even further to the side of obfuscation, encryption and low bandwidth.
Now before you start yelling: "But FreeNet doesn't work!". Think again: Since about mid-May, it works well again! Try it!
So: go to their website and download that client! Happy browsing!
Support a Europe-related section on Slashdot!
from that can.
I know this guy who took his "exams" (in quotes because I don't know what to call them) in Germany and "they" pinned him as a fuckup. Well, he moved to the U.S. and became a kick-ass programmer and then a kick-ass C.I.O.!
My point, the European way of doing things has their own set of problems! - as explained by my Irish friend.
What you're thinking of is trademark, not copyright. Since the mid-1970s (in the US) copyright has existed for a creative work from the moment of its creation. No assertation is necessary nor is any registration (although registration may help in any legal conflicts).
So no, copyrights do not need to be asserted for infringement to occur.
-jason
If I could only live my life with my threshold at 4...
Finally jumped the shark.
Ok, first Ashcroft wants to tackle porn (link), then they want the DOJ to go after file swappers?
This is one of the biggest reasons Bush's continued 9/11 references make me ill. I could deal with it if they were actually working to fight terror. Instead, every time somebody waves the bloody shirt, all we get is some tired propaganda for drilling in the Arctic, a Federal Marriage Amendment, tax cuts for the wealthy, or some other thing we have to do to keep the terrorists from winning. Meanwhile, Homeland Security isn't getting the funds it needs for simple, basic port (seaport, not computer port) scanners: link (found on Instapundit).
I'm a hawk on security, folks. A hard-core, let's get them before they get us, serious hawk. And I'm voting against Bush and his idiots for precisely that reason.
(Sorry for the rant, but I just couldn't take it any more. Feel free to mod this down.)
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
In a civil suite you don't need to "prove" damages.
To be found guilty in a civil suite all the person needs to do is find you were responsible in some fashion for the crime. The damages are awarded by the judge, no actual proof is needed. Also think about the following.
My pirate gets sued for sharing 1000 mp3's. These mp3's are from 300 different albums thus Mr. Pirate has shared (at a price of $16 a CD) $4800 worth of music. He is sued for the $4800 x the number of people who downloaded files from him. Or better yet the full album cost for every download of one song.
I am not saying it is fair, but if I was looking for money in a civil suite it is what I would site as damages.
Right there, way before the first ammendment, is the delegation of power to the federal government to enforce copyrights.
For all those people posting copyrighted material that they know full well is illegal to post which alternative is better? Criminal prosecution or civil liability? I think this makes the punishment far closer fit the crime.
Why Justice? Because that's the law enforcement arm of the federal government. This is an improvement to the NET act, not an extension.
I'm trying to think of an appropriate term that fits here instead though. In the case of the net trading is almost a barter-type system, so it's hard to tie into words:
Exchange of physical goods: Fine if you're getting a tangible item for your filetrading, but when you're just trading files there are no physical goods.
Exchange of assets: Perhaps, but then somebody could just do something for me in exchange for what I want (nobody has slept with me in exchange for Mp3's yet though).
Exchange of goods or services: Probably covers the above, but could be a bit too broad as well. Perhaps exchange of appreciable goods/services... something that basically states what being traded should have a value for trade. Theoretically you *could* even trade your wife kisses/etc for some other item that you value.
The problem is that much so-called "piracy" on the internet occurs without financial gain. It's done for fun or mutual benefit, not profit.
Rather more laws to allow someoen else to foot the bil of lawsuits..why not gosh..
Have RIIA mangment accept that they have to pay for the lawwsutis they file?
Maybe RIAA should take a paycut for goofing up on the lawsuit strategy in the first place, no?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
that the Feds would have the power to get wiretaps. They get the wiretaps, they do the legal legwork, and then if the victim has a bean the RIAA files its own suit and sucks the victim dry with most of the work being done at taxpayer expense.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
We don't have liberals or conservatives running this country. We basically have corporate lackeys with two different marketing campaigns. Correct me if I'm wrong, but according to conservatives isnt the 'invisible hand' of competition supposed to be a self-regulating force that works best without government intervention?
Why is it that conservatives stop being conservative when large corporations want things to go their way in defiance of the wishes of the marketplace (such as file sharing)? Someone help me out here.
-_-
I dont give a shit about all these "you cant just ignore one crime because you have some others to deal with" arguments, filesharing should be the least priority on the governments list: catch people who want to blow things up and post anthrax, mass-murderers, punk shit-heads with guns who think they can go around in their stupid gangs shooting people for standing in the way, rapists, pedophiles, muggers, burglers and fraudsters and pirates who actually SELL things with big racks of cd-burners! Then, and only when these other crimes have dropped to a semi reasonable rate should you move on to kazaa users. The court-system has only so-much capacity.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Instead of innovating past these problems the record label's are effectively allowing the state to mantain their monopoly for them... expect more legislation and more erosion of civil rights just to keep them fat and happy...
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
If the DOJ initiates the civil suit, it stands to reason that should keep any damages and put them toward the good of the public.
That doesn't make sense? Neither does someone other than the copyright holder initiating the civil suit. The damaged party should seek its own reparations.
You're correct of course, but remember the majority here aren't lawyers, and base their arguments on their version of "common sense" (invariably getting it wrong), as oppossed to what a court might say[1]. That's why the YRO section should be seen as entertainment, rather than any kind of precedent.
[1] Might be right, might be wrong, but most will never know, considering the shallow depths that most pursue legal issues (hell we can't even get people to get out and vote. what makes people think we'll make the effort to understand a complex legal issue?)
Gotta love a great example of Government by the people, for the people. Democracy at it's finest.
... Orwell was wrong! 1984, that's a typo man. This cannot stand! I mean what next? Will they start attacking free speech-^%
*looks around*
I mean it's not like this is a corporate tool to get our tax dollars to work against us.
*cough*
I mean it kinda is, but what can we do.
*wimper*
Yeah it is, damnit, I can't believe this. How can corporations be allowed to do this!?!
*arrrggg*
God damnit this is rediculous. What happened to the Republic that once was!!!
[NO CARRIER]
Today's episode brought to you by the PATRIOT Act, in conjunction with the letters F, U, C, K, E, and D.
**AA: a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes
I think the future is rather networks where hijacked computers on broadband host files (whereby none of them has the entire file). Since the RIAA is going after uploaders, it's only a matter of time before pirates happily transfer legal risks to clueless Joe Sixpack.
This said once this shows up in the mainstream press, everyone is going to go the "hackers ate my homework" route. If this works, I can't wait till the RIAA/MPAA starts suing Microsoft for letting the hijacking happen in the first place.
(assuming the **AA will happlily dismiss the legal discharge clauses in Windows' EULA)
I remember back when the file sharing networks were being attacked by the RIAA, it was common for people to post here and say that the programs and networks are just tools that can be used for good or evil. Thus, the networks are innocent and the RIAA should really be going after the actual traders. Well, now they are. So what's all this fuss about?
The company simply makes its campaign contributions in the names of its directors and employees to get round it.
Now that a government is doing the prosecution, all the file traders have a new avenue of attack. A company cannot violate your right to Due Process, a government can. The government's actions are held to a much higher standard of constitutional review then a private, non-governmental organization's. The first thing I see going is all that subpoena before filing a lawsuit bullshit.
"Just what we need. The DOJ must have TONS of resources left over from finding terrorists, rapists, murderers, drug smuggling rings, human smuggling rings, organized crime, white-collar fraud, embezzlers, etc... etc..." ...and the occasional speeder.
"This should *clearly* be left a civil matter. Stealing is already illegal. Piracy is already illegal. It should NOT be a federal offence to share a file, even if it is copyrighted. There are plenty of civil remidies for copyright holders already."
Already shot down by the court of public opinion aka Slashdot YRO.
"From causal perusal, and IANAL, at least 30% of the US code should be ditched. There's a lot of redundant, unenforcable bloatlaw in there."
Agreed. We should get rid of "Thou shall not steal".
False Assumptions:
o ns more. Lots of people like government regulation it seems. Sigh.)
1. Republicans are for less government.
Regan authorized spending on an A$$LOAD of money in the 80's. Remember, Congress spends money, the President just authorizes it. Heck, just about every Republican president in the last 30 years spent more money than the last.
2. Democrats are for corporate responsibility
Except for those companies who pay their bills. The Pirate Act is sponsored by Patrick Leahy (D. VT)
It's simple, if you want less government control:
http://www.lp.org/
If you want more,
http://www.gp.org/
http://sp-usa.org/
(T
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
They're Privateers!
All you need to do in a civil trial is prove that it's probable that the person commited an illegal act. So if it's possible to prove that FreeNet is mostly used for pirating copyrighted works, and that someone has used FreeNet to transfer xMB worth of material, wouldn't it be possible to sue them in a civil suit?
I'm not sure FreeNet is really a 100% safe solution. Simply using it may be enough to allow you to be sued for probably infringing on copyright, since it doesn't need to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a civil suit.
Then again, IANAL, so I have no idea if this would have any weight in court.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Double Jeopardy applies ONLY to crimial cases. "Life and limb" != property.
What you are thinking of is Res Judicata. In civil cases, you only get "one bite at the apple."
People have been saying this for years now. Every time someone says "Freenet doesn't work," somebody else responds with "It's been massively improved in the last month!" So I download it and try it again, and it sucks just as much as ever. At this point, I'm not going to bother, and I bet that many people feel the same way I do -- I have absolutely no faith that it works, testmonials or no.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
if you guessed that the RIAA is lob[b]ying for it, you're right"
I did not GUESS...
I was quite SURE from the moment I read about it.
- "They misunderestimated me."
I do not support Freenet because I don't support child pornography and software piracy (since I write software for a living it would be rather hypocritical of me to do so) and last I checked, that's what Freenet is primarily used for. People should not be free to exchange information in any manor they chose. This has been established legally and ethically for quite some time now. If you don't like paying for a product, don?t buy it. Your dislike of some things cost or its controlling party (RIAA, MPAA, Microsoft etc) does not give you the ethical right to take it without permission. If you RELALY believe in the free exchange of information, then take the moral high ground and post publicly EVERYTHING about your self. This includes bank account data, where you live, your sexual preference etc. In addition stop collecting a paycheck since you seem to think that no one else should be compensated for their time and work (after all, time isn't real so it cant be stolen. Just like that new CD you really want but won't pay for).
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
"I don't use p2p to transfer copyrighted material and this legislation still bothers me. Why is the federal government enforcing copyright?"
Because copyright is a creation of the Federal Government. Not the states, nor the individual (not directly anyway).
"Contact your reps/senators and let them know that copyright infringement suits over p2p trading are not the government's burden."
The rule of law is the Governments burden. Whom exactly do YOU turn to when seeking a remedy when one of your RIGHTS are violated? A court of LAW.
"Even if it were filing suits over any type of copyright infringement (which would actually help the little guy more - when his source code is stolen by a large company/etc) I still don't feel it's the government's place."
Frontier justice? Let's hang 'em from the nearest tree.
I know alot of people outside of the US use p2p networks.
So would this give the RIAA means to use the federal government to get at these people, when they can't through civil lawsuits?
Yep...that's what we have.. and will continue to have until people exercise their responsibility and vote all the scoundrels out!
I'm not big on kookiness, or conspiracy theories, but the two major parties are conspiring even if it's informally to keep third parties out of majority elections. In 1992 Ross Perot captured 19 percent of the vote and participated in the highest rated presidential debate of all time. After Perot's preformance in 1992, the Republicans and Democrats conspired to not include Perot in 1996. Clinton's aid, George Stephanopolous said:
STEPHANOPOLOUS: "[The Dole campaign] didn't have leverage going into negotiations. They were behind. They needed to make sure Perot wasn't in it. As long as we would agree to Perot not being in it, we could get everything else we wanted going in. We got our time frame, we got our length, we got our moderator."
In 2000 it was announced that candidates wouldn't be allowed in the elections unless they were polling at 15% of the vote ahead of time. Such a threshold would have barred Perot from the 1992 debates (he finished with 19 percent of the vote), and would have excluded Reform candidate Jesse Ventura from the 1998 gubernatorial debates in Minnesota (at 10 percent in polls before the debates, he won the election with 37 percent).
While this has strayed off topic a bit, how can you expect not to have laws against the will of the people when the people are no longer in control of who they can vote for? Politicians do their best to make the Republicans and Democrats look different, and they are on social issues, but surely not on economic issues despite what some democrats and republicans might think. They both spend carelessly, and support big business. As long as these people are in power, you will have crap like the RIAA getting free lawsuits going on.
it's be a wellcome irony use the law RIAA/MPAA bought against them.
1- create an encripted P2P network
2- make sure it's easy to decrypt
3- create a user licence saying that if you're DOJ/RIAA/MPAA you can't decrypt
4- wait for them do break in and tap the network
5- sue their ass based on DMCA
6- profit
What ? Me, worry ?
Spend a couple of hours (or a few dollars) supporting a politician who isn't (or won't be) voting for these stinking bills. Make sure that they know why you're donating your money and time. Make it an election issue when they have callins and/or town hall meetings.
If you live in/near Hatch, then make sure to spend some time supportint his rival. If you don't feel free to send money.
Look for innovative ways to support an anti-RIAA politician.
It won't just affect the RIIA. It's a really good way to generate good contacts for other issues -- It's also a good way to meet people (including of the romantic persuasion -- I've actualy ended up going out with a couple of people I'v met thru my political work, and I consider myself pretty clueless at that game.)
If everybody on slashdot spent 3 hours (or $100) on this, it would make the Rifle Association look like chicken scratch.
It's a little bit of time and/or resources that could make a big difference in the next few years -- especially given that these people are still looking at passing this legislation.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
espo
"The rule of law is the Governments burden. Whom exactly do YOU turn to when seeking a remedy when one of your RIGHTS are violated? A court of LAW."
I would turn to a court of law but I myself would have to bring my own lawyer. I don't ask the federal government to act as my lawyer in the case.
"Because copyright is a creation of the Federal Government. Not the states, nor the individual (not directly anyway)."
This is why it's dealt with in federal courts. This doesn't mean, however, that the government should be the one prosecuting in a civil case. Patent's are awarded by the government but the individual is responsible for enforcing the patents.
The last arguement there deals with your last point.
They get what they always get - screwed.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
these humans are quite funny. what is it you're beeing sued for? sharing? even this pope creature says that sharing is a good thing. na, anyways. arthur phillip dent? yes, you. you are an asshole.
beer as in "free beer"
is that this admin is focusing on questionable theft while ignoring the huge thefts that we had during the dot com era and correcting the problems from then.
Unfortunately, even if kerry gets in, I am not all that certain that things will change.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'm tired of wasting my tax money looking for nonexistent terrorists. Bush wasted how many tens of billions looking for Ben Laden in Iran? Everyone and their grandmother knew he wasn't there.
It will be *much* cheaper to devote our govt forces to pursuing file swappers, than drug smugglers and terrorists.
Plus, file swappers don't shoot back.
So this is all good...
I don't know about movies, but regarding pictures, you can read the story of Playboy v. Sanfilippo.
It is not surprising at ALL how quietly this has been moving through he legeslation process. Think about it.
The RIAA raises quite a large stink with its inflated numbers and its skewed version of theft and piracy. Practically everyone in the US knows about their fight to stop file sharing.
How many congressmen do you suppose have heard of the RIAA? Great, now how many of those congressmen do you suppose read slashdot?
The problem here is the same problem Linux faces against Microsoft - marketing. We're all pleased that IBM is now marketing linux when the truth is, Linux needs to be marketing itself. We have the same problem here with the RIAA.
We have RIAA lobyists, but who's out there publically lobying against them? So far, all the mainstream voting population has heard is that file trading is evil. They don't know that there IS an alternative to RIAA action. For all they know, thats our justice system at work.
As many readers as slashdot has, or tech-zines or webblogs, what we really need to do is get Average Joe to know what the heck's going on.
Microsoft's already shown us that the quality of a product doesnt matter if you only hear about it form the competetors viewpoint. The same is true of competing ideas.
I have to say this is indeed a crafty plan by the *AA, get the govt. to do your dirty work for you so you dont have to deal with the negative press of suing an 80 yr old grandma when you screw up.
Not to mention you dont have to pay your lawyers, ot go to court to get ISp records.. the govt can just seize them under some pretentious warrant.
Its just a different kind of corporate welfare. Isnt this why copyright violations are supposed to be handled in civil court anyway?
And don't feed me that line of bullshit that you (or your 'friends') download music to protest/boycott the RIAA.
A real boycott would mean that you don't buy, download, or in any other way consume their product. That tells the RIAA that as long as they keep up with their nonsense, you don't want their product.
On the other hand, when you download music you haven't paid for, all you're saying is that no matter what the RIAA does, you still want their product.
That's not a boycott nor is it a protest. That's just called wanting shit for free. So tell me, are you a protester or a freeloader?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Thar be terminology confusion!
Greed, fear, and stupidity.
Thats the reality of the situation.
Geeks don't run the world, because geeks aren't greedy, fearful, and stupid enough.
What REALLY needs to happen is simple...the geeks need to breed the apes out of the gene pool.
Yeah right...geeks breeding....hahaha.
--A/C
You pay into social security.
Remember to tell your grandkids how 'back in the day' you could say what you wanted, when you wanted to, any way you wanted too...
One more slide down the slippery slope toward the end of freedom.
"Tens of thousands of continuing civil enforcement actions might be needed to generate the necessary deterrence," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said when announcing his support for the bill.
But only one bullet is required to stop Orrin's odious, sell legislation to the highest bidder, brand of lawmaking. Have all of these politicians forgotten how this country got started? Or that it was originally populated by criminals and mal-contents? You'd think that they would tread a little softer upon the rights of such people!
Something just occurred to me; could a publisher accidentally leak (purposely distribute) their copyrighted material on a P2P network and wait for people to entrap themselves by downloading it? ... I don't usually do cliches but here goes ...
1. 'Accidentally' leak your music.
2. Sue everyone who downloads it. The government pays for the lawsuits.
3. Profit!
I ran a benchmark on my quantum computer, now I can't find it anywhere!
If you agree with any of this, feel free to repost it in the future.
Song of the piracy apologist:
(1) I don't personally believe in copying CDs illegally-- but I think we should avoid using unkind words like "piracy" to describe those that do -- instead, we should describe it as an "infringement", much like a parking infringement.
(2) I don't believe in the record companies emotively abusing the word "theft," but I do believe in emotively abusing words like "information," "sharing," and "Copyright Enforcement Militia."
(3) I believe that piracy is driven by "overpriced CDs" even though CDs have dropped in price over the years.
(4) I believe that piracy is driven by overly long copyright duration, even though most pirated works are recent releases.
(5) I believe that illegitimately downloading music is giving the author "free advertising". I don't buy any of the music I download, of course--but lots of other people probably do.
(6) I believe that ripping off the artists is wrong. The record companies always rip off the artists. Artists support P2P, except the ones that don't (like Metallica), and they don't agree with me, hence they're greedy or their opinion doesn't count or something.
(7) I believe that selling CDs is not a business model, but giving away things for free on the internet is.
(8) I believe that artists should be compensated for their work -- preferably by someone else. I mean, they can sell concert tickets (which someone else can buy) or sell t-shirts (to someone else) or something. As long as someone else subsidises my free ride, I'm coooooool with it.
(9) I believe in capitalism but only support music business models which involve giving away the fruits of ones labor for free.
(10) I believe that copying someone elses music, and redistributing it to my 1,000,000 "best friends" on the internet is sharing. Music is made for sharing. It's my right.
(11) I believe that record companies cracking down on piracy is "greed", but a mob demanding free entertainment is not.
(12) I believe that it's not really "piracy" unless you charge money for it, because, receiving money is wrong, but taking a free ride is fine.
(13) I believe that disallowing copying and redistributing music over Napster is the same as humming my favourite song in public. Because when I hum my favourite song in public, everyone likes it so much that they run home, get out their tape recorders and once they've got a recording of it, they aren't interested in hearing the original any more.
(14) I believe that when illegal behaviour destroys a business, it's "free enterprise at work".
(15) I believe piracy is simply "free advertising." Even though that's what radio is, but with the legal permission of the copyright holder. Basically, what I really want is to be able to choose the songs I want, listen to them whenever I want, but I don't want to have to pay for it. Essentially, I want the whole thing for free with no strings attached.
(16) I believe artists "deserve their money" only in cases in which the RIAA is the bad guy. But in piracy situations, I'm fully justified in ripping them off.
What I find amusing is that the pirates seem unable or unwilling to distinguish between creative activity and brainless copying.
Since a lot of the people here are GPL/OSS advocates: the "OSS way" applied to this domain is to learn how to play an instrument. Or how to sing or whatever. Then get together with a bunch of other people who can also play music, and make some noise.
One of the unfortunate things that has happened to the OSS movement is that a lot of the loudmouth advocates for it don't understand what it's really about. They view it primarily as a means to get free stuff, and then they turn their eyes from the free stuff to the non-free stuff and think to themselves "maybe I'm entitled to get that one for free too". The noble ideals of grass roots participation in the creative
Couldn't reply to your blog, so I'll reply to your sig here. You might find income tax distribution to be insteresting. Most interesting thing to note: taxpayers with the highest 1% of incomes paid 22.6% of all federal taxes (for 2001).
"You foolish earthlings forget," said Kodos, "This is a two party system. You have to vote for one of us!"
"But what if we vote for a third party candidate?" says a faceless voice in the crowd.
"Oh, sure, you can do that," Kang replies, "and throw your vote away!", laughing maniacally.
The problems with our brand of "democracy" is that those in power spend an innordinate amount of their resources attempting to skirt it to gain more. What's worse, is that we let them. We propel those that wish to gain the most power (um, the greedy), and call the idealists and political logicians loonies. Why? Because what kind of loony doesn't want more (power/control/etc...)? That's what's important, right? Screw the human spirit, it's dynamic, and our will to be peacefull. We want MORE damnit!!! And we want it now!
Enter, the United States. We are simply the best at it. End of story.
pretty obvious too. Look just one single step above file sharing. See it? It's got little to do with file sharing, it's to get another point of entry for the federal government to snoop in and regulate the internet, especially P2P networks in general. Those programs scare the snot out of governments all over, because they are uncontrollable, and allow real time exchange of information in a wide area, to thousands/millions of people. Governments have a track record of regulation and control, whatever they find that is UNregulated and OUT of their control, they pass laws against. They do it all the time. If fits all their other actions the past few years, chip away here, chip away there. Simultaneously pass enough laws to make everyone a potential criminal,in some form or another, then create and promote crises so they can go "see, we need this additional power".
It pays to never lose track of the larger picture, and not get bogged down in minutiae.
The RIAA is prone to filing hundreds of frivolous lawsuits in an attempt to extort money from "the little guy."
The DoJ, AG and state AG's really, truly, couldn't care less. They're interested in "the big guys." So if the RIAA gives the DoJ 500 names, odds are good that 499 of those people will be able to continue living their lives in peace, while the DoJ unleashes a smackdown on the one big-time pirate scum whose name somehow made it onto the list. Don't believe me? Just LOOK at how many junk-faxers and spammers the government has taken down. Running out of fingers on that hand yet? Why, you practically have to be Osama bin Laden to get caught by the feds. (What's that you say? Um... okay, er, why, you practically have to be Saddam Hussein!)
Test 1 2 3 4
Senator Cantwell:
I am seriously concerned about S.2237, and the effects that it will have.
Generally, the difference between a Civil action and a Criminal action, besides the level of punishment, is that the Government brings criminal actions (because they are considered offenses against society), and the offended person or persons bring civil actions. S.2237 changes this balance by having the Federal Government bring civil actions in cases where the Federal Government is not the offended party.
This leads to a large inequity here. In criminal cases, government-paid lawyers represent defendants who want but can't afford an attorney. However, parties in civil cases usually have to represent themselves or pay for their own lawyers.
Thus, this bill has the effect of shifting the costs of prosecuting civil cases from the plaintiffs (the RIAA or Copyright holders in this case) to the Federal government, while leaving the costs of defending the cases with the defendent. Besides being inequitable, this also has the appearance of 'Corporate Welfare'.
I am strongly opposed to the passage of this bill, and would ask that you, too, oppose Senate Bill 2237.
Thank you,
Bxxxxx Hxxx
P.S.
GENERAL COMMENTS ON THE SITUATION THIS BILL ADDRESSES
The prevalence of copyright violations in our current society indicates to me that either the basic law needs re-thinking, or the organizations marketing the products being violated need to re-think their methods of marketing and/or distribution. However, neither of these are sufficient reason (in my opinion) for the federal government to get involved in potentially thousands of enforcement actions against citizens.
As in dozens or hundreds of cases in American history, mass societal 'rebellion' against a set of laws indicates that the law needs to change, not that society needs to increase its enforcement efforts. From Civil Rights to the right for women to smoke, from Women's suffrage to the ability to drive a car without requiring a flagger to walk in front of it, 'mass' rebellion against a law has shown that the law must change, not that the government must more stringently enforce the existing laws.
Currently, those still using the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) exchange sources must (mostly) be conciously choosing to do so, knowing that these actions are in violation of current statutes. Reading in appropriate venues on line, you can find that many have stated that they will continue with this, and boycott purchase of the copyrighted materials until such time as the manufacturers correct their (perceived) inequitable, unfair, and monopolistic practices, and (in some cases) start treating the artists and the public in a fair manner.
Yes, there are millions (estimated) of people using these P2P applications. Currrently, for example it appears that the average number of people connected to the KaZaa network (one of the larger networks) at any one time averages 2 to 3 million, with perhaps as many as 20 million people connecting to it sometime in a month, with indications that this number may be increasing. The question is: What, exactly, does this say?
Surveys of musicians indicate that P2P file sharing has helped more artists than it has hurt. A Pew survey of musicians indicated that 35% felt that file sharing had helped their careers, and 30% felt that it had increased attendance at concerts, as opposed to only 5% who felt that they had been hurt by file sharing.
However, the P2P programs do affect one group directly: The music distributors, members of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). These companies cumulatively control the vast majority of the outlets and methods for distributing music... or they did before the internet and P2P applications became prevalent.
From MP3.Com (now a distribution source for independent musicians) to Napster (now a distribution source for some record companies) and KaZaa (still a P2P application/network), the RIAA has had its mon
We are the Music Makers, and We are the Dreamers of Dreams...
Evolve how ever much it takes, for your tiny little monkey brain to accept that you can't "take" what for lack of a better term, I'll call "intellectual property". Only the RIAA tries to deprive others of it, and look how well they are suceeding.
You see, evolution proves that there is indeed a nich for parasites, but when those parasites are lawyers and/or RIAA executives, they start to get uppity. Most parasites have the deceny to hide out in slime, in dirt, or your bowels. And that's for a good reason. Nobody's likes them, needs them, or whats to see them. We even try to exterminate most such parasites. Now, I know that Rosen isn't totally at fault, she obviousl has tried to crawl into someone's bowels, because I heard someone here mention that she has her head stuck up someone's ass.
Another thing about our universe. It's composed of patterns. A few hundred fundamental particles isn't anything... its all the different patterns that can be made of them. And, for whatever reason, the universe seems to copy successful patterns. Music, movies, software, these can all be seen as extensions of this effect. Now, here's the root of our problem. The parasites are so big, so disgusting, that they're no longer satisfied to simply suck the nutrients out of our blood or tissue. They've decided that if they can "own" this effect of successful patterns being copied, which happens everywhere in the universe, they can be as rich as God.
Why should we care? Because what little intellectual property I create, I want the entire world to enjoy. You should want this, too. If I can't gouge a few thousand dollars, what's the point? Because, if the only scarcity is artificial, and if we eliminate that artificial scarcity, we can all be richer for it. All except the talentless parasites, of course.
And zookeeper, put the parent poster back in his cage. I realize you feel clever for teaching it to type, but you have *no idea* where its fingers have been.
To me the Libertarian party is right about many things but gets it totally wrong. I want more government keeping business in check and less giving business a check. To me if you want less government we need smaller business and that really doesn't require a new political party that thinks the US is a great thing ruined by the parties, but a new constitution that reasserts the rights of individuals.
Borrowed from the Clash - "Know your rights"
The right not to be killed.
The right to food money.
The right to free speech.
From me:
The understanding that the government shouldn't make any effort to ensure your future enrichment based upon past performance. AKA copyright. That true innovation comes from building and borrowing other peoples ideas.
"And in some circles it is believed this is not enough." But it is a start.
I just want to put my 2 cents in that the only way we are ever going to get these people off our back is to get rid of copyright monopiolies alltogether, the more we foolishly cling to hope against hope that there is some type of middle ground - the more the attacks on our freedom will be neverending. In an essay I wrote a year ago called 'a bitter progest against copyrights' (see google) I pointed out that copyrights are like a vine that will never stop growing to choke off our freedoms until we cut it off at the root. Well, it still holds more true today than it ever has.
If passing the other laws just resulted in the DOJ looking at the new law and then looking at their teetering stacks of current investigations and then shrugging their shoulders and continuing as usual doesn't this move, if anything, reduce the risk that you'll get sued?
I mean I'd rather be on a DOJ's scale of priority (which goes from stealing mail to murdering thousands of children) than onthe RIAA's (which goes from suing pirates to suing pirates).
I have a lot of opinions about Cyborgs and Architects
Quoting a line from a bok is allowed - what happens if someone starts to quote the first line of a book and puts up a link to another who quotes the second line of the book and so on and so on...
An entire book can thus be quoted and someone may read the entire book without anyone providing the full text.
Just saying it like it are.
You have "None of the Above" as an option in your ballot?
"Don't complain about lack of options. You've got to pick a few when you do multiple choice. Those are the breaks."
Sure you can vote blank. Voting blank in my opinion indicates that you have no opinion whatsoever, that it doesn't matter if anything from far right to far left is running the country.
Are you trying to tell me there's no parties to vote for? There's some countries in the world like that, just didn't know the US was one of them... I vote as I vote not because I like my party. I despise them the least.
Voting blank is a bail-out if you feel you have to pretend to vote (peer pressure, whatever) but don't actually want to. Protesting you can do from the couch. Or at least find some direction to vote for, not just "against everything". Do you expect them to care about a vote they don't even know how to try to get?
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Frankly we are witnessing corporations flex their muscle. We no longer have govt for the people. We have govt for the corporations and they are fast realizing it.
....)
12 year old girls sharing songs is crime worthy of banrupting her family. Corporate CEO cooking the books and pocketing millions; Well that is just buisness as usual. (Enron, Lucent, Nortel
I pretty much considered myself in favor of unfettered capitalism most of my life but my views are changing. The biggest change came recently after watching the documentary: "The corporation". It makes me want to be an activist (but I am lazy).
If you are interested: http://www.thecorporation.tv/
...approach. You know, bunch of friends, everybody buys 1 CD/DVD and dupes it for the rest.
I am getting the urge to do this just to fuck with the RIAA and their govenmental butt boys.
Blar.
If only we could pass the .NET Act, which would make running MS .NET illegal.
Actually, due to aggressive expansion of asset-forfeiture laws, the WoD is self-funding. If you're a cop, all you have to do is hang out on the corner, see a guy purchase a bag of weed, and you get to take his car and sell it for $1000-10000 (depending on how nice a car it was) at auction. Pretty good for 10-15 minutes' work. Even if you just impound it and fine him $500 or so to get his car back, you've made your department a profit.
When computers were expensive, I thought that asset forfeiture laws ought to be expanded to spammers. At the time, there were plenty of local school districts that needed computers.
Likewise, because there are so many people (10-20% of the population) who are guilty of downloading copyrighted musical content, a WoM (War on Music) would be a profitable venture for the local police department. Download tunes while Officer Friendly's lookin' at the router, pay $1000 to get your computer back at the auction next weekend.
Unlike the WoD, the funny part about the WoM is that if you're downloading enough music, it could still be a bargain for consumers. "Hi, Officer! Good to see you. Here's the box. I've downloaded 100 CDs' worth of stuff since your last visit. I'll plead 'no contest' and see you at the impound yard with my check. At $15 per CD, that's $1500 worth of music I'm getting for only $1000 -- and the best part is, the money stays in my community, rather than going to the RIAA!"
Win-win in my books :)
I think you meant war on some drugs.
Also, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but many of the anti-drug laws were initially written in order to oppress minority groups. Marijuana was criminalized after Mexicans started immigrating in larger numbers. Cocaine was criminalized because people from Africa were using it. Opium was criminalized because the Chinese used it, etc.
The use of the word "pirate" brings to mind the forfeiture laws which were created when fighting sea pirates -- the concept that you could confiscate the ship used in commiting the crime. This is used today to take drug dealer's houses away. Would this new law lead to taking away a file sharer's computer, cable modem, and house? Dave
"Debugging" by Dave Agans - the perfect gift for your favorite imperfect engineer.
This bill puts Federal prosecutors in charge of the filing of the civil suits, making it look like a government action. It's fairly nifty. If this passes, file sharing in the US will die, mostly because of the deterrent factor of having the government enforce it.
File sharing will die the way drug use died when the government began waging its (now 30-year-old and ailing) war on drugs.
I.E. Not at all.
35 year olds with a sense of their own mortality may be dissuaded, but teenagers with their sense of immortality and their firm belief that "it will never happen to me" will not be dissuaded in the least.
In fact, if anything, this law will enhance the "coolness" factor of downloading music illegally.
I won't go on a rant about how the government will be reducing itself (even further) in becoming stron-arm thugs-for-hire for an industry that has already been convicted numerous times of price fixing, extortion, ties with organized crime, drug trafficking, and assorted other crimes if this legislation passes. Others will no doubt illuminate those points quite well.
The bottom line here is that, when the carnage is done and the hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of lives have been destroyed, this will have done nothing but fill our prisons and our courts even more, and file sharing will probably be relatively unaffected by the whole process.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
That was not a post, that was an essay, and it feels so very much like an essay written by a corporate shill.
I mean really, what's the deal with someone's writing an essay complete with selective quotations from an opponent in an online discussion which he then attacks. Really, that post is garbage, the pure, too-well-focused writing that is the life's blood of corporate America at its worst: 'we can hire someone who can approximate passion and use him to make you believe anything that makes us money.'
Instead of an essay that purports to demolish the points of people who argue for sharing music online on a point-by-point basis, you can make a few simple statements and work from there:
When CD's were first introduced, the music industry decided that they would cost much, much more than the mature technologies embodied in the vinyl albums and cassettes that preceded them and that they replaced. The industry was simply 'recouping the cost of introducing the new technology.'
They never finished recouping it.
People, as in, musicians, pirates and the man on the street, all knew that something had changed, they knew that there was something strange about a CDs costing anywhere between two and four times the cost of a cassette tape of the same performance by the same artist, but no one ever articulated it: no one put their finger on it, no one knew what it was and said it exactly.
The result was the music industry turning music into a nameless, faceless commodity treating all but a very few musicians in the same way that agro-businesses treat wheat farmers: the farmer/musician produces something that the agro-business/music companies process, package and resell turning the commodity into a profit center for themselves and NOT the farmer/musician without whom the thing couldn't exist. In other words, in today's world, there are important similarities between Latin-American coffee-growers and any musician who isn't a superstar.
This is something the (advertising copy-)writer of the post leaves out in his moralizing screed against music pirates: the music pirate doesn't pay the musician for his hard, hard work, but in the case of all but the most successful players in popular music, neither does the record company.
In order for the moralizing of his article to stand, the writer has to depend on an essential ambiguity resolving itself in favor of his position. That is, he needs everyone not to see that outside of the public's successfully waging tobacco-industry sized, class-action lawsuits against the record industry (an oligopoly of multi-billion dollar corporations), there is no way of ever making up for the extent to which we the consumers and the musicians whose work we admire have been and continue to be screwed over.
In other words, the writer wants us to believe not only that musical piracy is wrong (and three decades of price-gouging and price fixing are just good business), and that the only decent, law-abiding thing to do is to return to the status quo ante; to be a good, moral, law-abiding citizen, you should and must participate in the system that makes the music industry (and not musicians) rich: the one that gets anywhere between twelve to twenty dollars out of your pocket for a CD with three songs on it that you actually listen to, and that then hands all but the most popular musicians a quarter for their trouble.
The simple solution is that there isn't one. In order to really reward the musician for his efforts, you either have to filter the money through the record industry, mail the musician a check (which most of us are just too weak to do), or you can wait to buy a ticket for a performance by good, but underappreciated bands when they decide to go give a concert where you live: in a small corner of the left armpit of the world.
Maybe mass P2P networks are a bit much in the great unmeasurable scheme of things, but it will take a lot more than one whore with a copy of Word to make me believe that the record industry and its defenders have any interests at heart but their own.
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
All we're talking about is people acquiring a collection of non-material data which they probably wouldn't have bought in the first place. No throats slit, no women molested, not even any plank-walking. Sure, we can't allow someone to bootleg 1M copies of "Lord of the Rings" or there wouldn't be any financing to make movies like that. But what RIAA is doing is nothing but pure greed. And they cover it up by calling other people pirates. Jeez.
I'm familair with napster, fastrack and gnutella, and freenet. However, I'm not really familiar with how edonkey works. Can someone explain how it provides more obfuscation than fastrack? I had always assumed it was effectively the same as fastrack (just a different network using a different protocol, etc.), but the parent seems to indicate that that's not the case.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
Your entire post is just chock full of wierd assumptions and inaccuracies.
1. There's plenty of stuff on Freenet besides "child pornography and software piracy". Mmmmkaaaay, maybe if you look for something else besides the above two items, you might find something else. Surprise!
2. Believing in the reasonably free flow of information AND personal privacy are NOT mutually exclusive. Idiot.
3. "In addition stop collecting a paycheck since..." Okay, I just stopped reading at this point because you're coming off like a whiny flake with an axe to grind...
I do not support Freenet because I don't support child pornography and software piracy
Um, last time *I* looked at freenet, there was much more political blogs than kiddie porn or warez. Makes me wonder what you were looking for if that is all you found...
The text of the proposed bill only applies to violations of Sec. 506 of the Copyright Act. Sec. 506 refers to criminal offenses - those willful infringements (1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or (2) reproduction or distribution of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, having a total retail value of more than $1000.
What the bill is doing is adding civil remedy to the already existing criminal provisions in the Act. This is just the RIAA's attempt to double dip at penalties. If you read the bill at (a) it mentions that the imposition of a civil penalty does not preclude any further remedies, criminal or otherwise.
Troubling is that Sec 506(a)(1) contains the words "private financial gain," which has increasingly been interpreted by the courts to include not only sale for profit, but also the acquisition of material for free whereas you would otherwise have to pay for it (savings of money). So the RIAA's purpose is clear.
Thankfully, we still have a shelter in Sec. 506. It plainly states that "Evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement." So the DOJ will still have to prove willful intent, which, even on a preponderance of the evidence standard, is a high hurdle to cross.
Furthermore, Sec. 507 provides a statute of limitations on the penalties. Criminal actions must be commenced within 5 years of the infringement, and civil actions have an even shorts 3 year period.
While I agree that the Attorney General should be empowered to bring CRIMINAL suits, as that is exclusively within their expertise, I am really concerned at empowering them to bring civil suits for which there is no precedent in Copyright Act. In fact, Sec. 501 of the Act expressly provides that "The legal or beneficial owner of an exclusive right under a copyright is entitled, subject to the provisions of Sec. 411, to institute an action for any infringement of that particular right committed while he or she is the owner of it." Here, it is the Attorney General, not the copyright owner, filing a civil suit in the district court, yet the Attorney General is not the owner of the copyright or any part of it. Additionally, under 411, the copyright must be registered with the Copyright Office before any suit may be filed, although I doubt this is a problem since the RIAA registers everything it has.
I hope somebody picks up on these nuances. Ideally, this ridiculous piece of legislation won't pass. If it does, it would be wonderful to see the RIAA have to assign its copyright to the DOJ before bringing suit under its own legislation lol
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
How can the retailers possibly stay in business with the current advances in technology? No offense, but you retailers can't; not with the way the Internet is growing.
So I really don't see putting the retailers out of business as a loss; it's going to happen eventually.
And don't bother threatening everyone with taking away return privledges. Go ahead and do it. You well know this will only force your customers into going elsewhere.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but with all due respect you really need to find another business to be in.
How right you are, Sen. Hatch. Call in the moral paragons who smoked the Branch Davidians and tortured immigrants, ASAP!
In Hatch's words, this bill will address the limitations that NET had, because large scale use of NET would end up "putting thousands of otherwise law-abiding teenagers and college students in jail and branding them with the lifelong stigma of a felony criminal conviction". I guess what Hatch is saying is that it's ok to sue "thousands of otherwise law-abiding teenagers and college students" for thousands of dollars, driving them out of school so they can pay for their lawyer and then pay any settlement or court imposed fines.
The point is don't think that because NET was hardly used this bill will pass and be forgotten. Its sole purpose is to ensure that the government can go after thousands of people. It is addressing the reason NET wasn't used on a large scale, as well as officially putting our tax-funded resources of the FBI on the side of the corporations in the war to control consumers. (Just a side note, guess who pays most of our US taxes? Corporations or people?)
Slashdot covered this story before, with a link to Hatch's letter on his website. People need to know that this is not an idle threat. It is, by far, the most dramatic and relevant move in the RIAA file-sharing debacle. If this bill passes, the result will be the Tiananmen Square of America, taught in history classes to our children.
Whether or not you believe it is OK to trade copyrighted songs, do you honestly believe a large scale tax funded war on our citizens, most of which, in Hatch's own words, are "otherwise law-abiding teenagers and college students", is justifiable? I personally don't even listen to RIAA affiliated music, and never download songs without the permission of the author; but, I am repulsed that our congress even thinks this is remotely the role of our government that was "created by the people, for the people". If the crackdown comes as planned, then that will be the day I'll it will be official that our congress no longer represents the people.
In order to try to salvage democracy before it is too late, I believe we need to start a campaign to support Hatch's next opponent for re-election. If Hatch can get re-elected, then I'll believe that democracy in the US is purely an illusion.
Open Standards Portal
The RIAA may want to reconsider this with the DoJs history of conset decrees.
Years ago software pirates weren't very knowladgeable law wise and the law wasn't very knowladgable tech wise. All it took was a law enforcement offical who understood computers to catch em.
Music pirates have always been organised and software pirates have folowed sute in recent years. All it would take is a pirate with money (not uncommen BTW) and a good legal team and if you can wait it out (in jail) you'll have a liccens to steal soon enough in the form of a ill considered conset decree.
The DoJ looks for political hot points. Something to justify a budget increase. But it has no real investment in the details.
As long as the general public believes the "bad guys" have been stopped it dosen't matter how little it matches reality.
Let's look at the Microsoft vs DoJ deal. Forget how evil Microsoft is for a second here. The DoJ didn't for one hot second give a care if Microsoft was doing anything wrong all they cared about was that many of us were unhappy with Microsoft. It didn't matter why. For all they knew some ludite cult was behind all the anti-Microsoft stuff and never forget a wildly successful company like Microsoft will generate enemys earnned or not.
Then when it came time to punish this "evil empire" that they couldn't even be sure was evil the DoJ handed out a liccens to compleatly ignore everything that just happend and keep doing what they'd been doing all along.
As true as it is Microsoft is a monopolistic entity who will do anything to make sure EVERYONE uses it's product. Everything but actually produce a useful product people actually WANT to use. The DoJ didn't care if this was true or not. If Novel hadn't let go and the DoJ didn't get involved things would have been very diffrent.
P2P file sharing will get screwed if this happends but so will the RIAA as the sereous pirates have the legal power for a "get out of jail free" card and keep masproducing illegal disks for sale on eBay.
I don't actually exist.
As an actual pirate, I resent the fact that the name pirate is being used to describe people who use file sharing networks to download music or video files. Now as a pirate I work extra hard to keep up a fearful image so ships I attack will be more willing to surrender. Lately they just laugh at me and tell me to quit using apps like Kazaa or else I will be sued by the RIAA. I do not use Kazaa or any other file sharing app, I am a real pirate, not a file swapper! When I want a CD, I just attack a ship carrying CDs and I get to pick as many as I choose.
;)
My profession is now a laughing stock, because of the unfair comparison to file swappers. Therefore I propose you change the terminology from "pirate" to "file swapper" in your bills and laws. Then I can get back to real pirating, and hope you nimrods don't catch me.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Has anybody even considered that it's NOT JUST THE RIAA that might want something like this to go through?
The stuff I work on every day (maybe 200 people work here, small company, niche audience) gets ripped and downloaded all over the internet, to the point where more people are downloading it than buying it. It's not like we can't find the people who are doing it, because they're not hiding at all; they're grouping up on IRC and running BitTorrent sites and -advertising-, for goodness' sake.
But you can't do anything about it! Because copyright is a federal responsibility, it's impossible NOT to make a federal case about it... so if we want to nail somebody for doing it, we've got to spend thousands of dollars on federal court filings, every time.
And even then, when we win, we don't gain anything! Sure, you can get a big monetary award, but these people don't have tens of thousands of dollars lying around to pay; the best you can do is ruin their financial lives with a bankruptcy, and that sucks (nor will it pay our costs).
Think about what would happen if your police department told Wal-Mart that they wouldn't send an officer down for shoplifting, because the value of the item wasn't worth the price of sending the cop car and booking somebody.
What's good for businesses is good for the citizens of the good ole US of A.
This comment gets posted on every story involving the RIAA or copyright law, and the poster never answers any of the responses to it.
Right, even though some 2/3 of it is devoted to responses.
Next.
Once they get into office, they can betrayal us with out fear of punuishment or retribution. Yes, if the betrayal is egregious (as in this case), future political candidates can use it against them in negative political ads. And that may lead to their defeat. But so what? Once they have served their corporate masters well in Congress, they know that they can go right to feeding at the trough when they are no longer in office.
So how do we stop this betrayal? We have to institute a structure for PUNISHING politicians who betray us. And how do we decide if they have betrayed us? By letting the people vote on whether they have or not. And if the people vote a politician out as a Betrayer, then that politician should be punished suitably. For example, by hanging them publicly, or placing them in the stocks, etc., depending on the severity of the betrayal.
We have to show the politicians that we are the boss, and not them.
We need a whole slew of political reforms, include national initiative referenda, proportional representation, etc.
Obviously, the Democrats and Republicans will never institute such reforms, so therefore I recommend you vote NADER!
eat shiat and bark at the moon
A few months ago I was looking into the legal requirements of setting up my own streaming MP3 station. While I was trudging through all the legal information one must consider while starting such a venture I came across an interesting fact. The licensing restrictions that are placed on music varies greatly depending on whether the music is considered to be Public Broadcast or Individual Use. Broadcast licenses, such as one used by the FM/AM radio stations and MP3 stream operators are relatively inexpensive and easy to get, especially in non-profit environments. However the industry is throwing a tantrum about individual use licenses, as seen with P2P controversy and debate over a 'fair' price for music purchased online. This is because when you go to a retailer and purchase a cd you're not only buying music, you are also buying the plastic jewel case and CD the music is distributed on. The record companies have spent many years streamlining the manufacture and distribution systems of these products; and now due to many deals with the manufacturers of all these physical products the recording companies make money at nearly every link in the music supply chain. I believe this fact goes a long way towards explaining not only the effort the RIAA has put towards stopping P2P music distribution, but also the complete lack of effort the industry has put into electronic distribution of individual use music. If the music industry was at all interested in providing a better service to it's customers we would be seeing online music stores with more complete music catalogs and perhaps even 'print on demand' style music retailers which could sell music at a fraction of the cost of current music. To me all of this controversy is in effect 'Innovation v. RIAA' I am interested to see who wins.
People should not be free to exchange information in any manor they chose.
You need to move to China or Singapore; you'll fit in well with their thought police. America is supposed to be a free country. If I want to exchange information anonymously, that's my right to do so, and it's none of your business what that information is. If you want to live like a prisoner there are plenty of other places on the globe where you can find your sick, twisted Eden already implemented. Stop trying to implement it here.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
Hatch: Public health and safety are also directly threatened by business models that tempt children toward piracy and pornography and then use them as "human shields" against law enforcement.
Is he talking about Britney Spears here, or Disney?
"The way the music died" on Frontline.
EXCERPT.
I think the future is rather networks where hijacked computers on broadband host files
This has already been going on for ages. For example, if you mis-configure an ftp server, either intentionally, or due to ineptness, all you have to do is let it run and wait. Almost magically, pirate stuff will start to appear.
"If everybody on slashdot spent 3 hours (or $100) on this, it would make the Rifle Association look like chicken scratch."
I'm sorry. With the downsizing, and outsourcing of my job I haven't the money, and the time is spent locating enough "chicken scratch" to stay alive.
Maybe when the middle class comes back, then we can fight.
Stripped to its essentials, an administration that wanted to squelch any author, musician, periodical, book publisher, or media outlet could go after them for copyright infringement. They would not have to target the speech they dislike. They would not even have to win. The cost of a defense against all the financial resources of the federal government would to crush all but the very deep-pocketed.
You can read the entire argument at:
Free Speech
--Mike Perry, Inkling Books, Seattle
However the industry is throwing a tantrum about individual use licenses, as seen with P2P controversy and debate over a 'fair' price for music purchased online.
This is because when you go to a retailer and purchase a cd you're not only buying music, you are also buying the plastic jewel case and CD the music is distributed on. The record companies have spent many years streamlining the manufacture and distribution systems of these products; and now due to many deals with the manufacturers of all these physical products the recording companies make money at nearly every link in the music supply chain.
I believe this fact goes a long way towards explaining not only the effort the RIAA has put towards stopping P2P music distribution, but also the complete lack of effort the industry has put into electronic distribution of individual use music.
If the music industry was at all interested in providing a better service to it's customers we would be seeing online music stores with more complete music catalogs and perhaps even 'print on demand' style music retailers which could sell music at a fraction of the cost of current music. To me all of this controversy is in effect 'Innovation v. RIAA', I am interested to see who wins.
A Civil suit, is a suit between individuals, and not an individual versus the State, even less the Federal government. P2P will always be susceptible to "crimes" (read: disagreements) between individuals, thus Civil suits. The a State, or Federal, governments have nothing to do with Civil suits, unless one of the parties commited a crime, which would then a Criminal Suit, and prosecuted first (remember OJ, 1st Criminal suit, then Civil suit).
Just so I'm clear on the subject of Individuals, Corporations claim to be one, but a better Individual, since they can make laws (OK, not really, but influence them to be made), literaly overnight, and trample any other individual who can't fight them capital to capital (Bullies?).
It seems so obvious to us that the RIAA's tactics cannot possibly prevent file sharing. I don't think that the reason they pursue these tactics is that they are simply out of touch with reality. It's almost as if their actions are carefully thought out to get us to move to something more anonymous and secure. People in power don't generally hang on to it by quashing all dissent. They manage it, giving it a place to fester, but not letting it get out of control. They can't let it die, because if there is no proper place for dissent, it will be everywhere. so they want you to misbehave properly.
So what does the recording industry have to gain by anonymous and secure filesharing becoming reality?
Everytime somebody mentions the word Freenet, somebody else mentions the C-word (Child-pornography), and the stuff gets modded up to +4 or +5. Let me make clear from the start that I also do not support child pornography, but I think a few comments are in order here.
As some of the other posters already said, Freenet now is mainly used for political statements and software that's morally ok but not legally. I suggest you have a look at The Freedom Engine (SSK@rBjVda8pC-Kq04jUurIAb8IzAGcPAgM/TFE//) and looks what's available there. I ranges from anti-Scientology stuff to Bush-critical stuff and just personal Freenet-blogs ("flogs").
Now, even though I started my previous post with a rant against black-and-white thinking, you complete made that same mistake here. Let me introduce you to some statistics. I we call information that can morally "be allowed to be shared" (this is a fuzzy definition, not a hard one) "positive", and other information "negative", then, when publishing to a medium, you always get four cases:
For the regular internet:
Repeat after me: You can, however much you would like it, NEVER build a system without false positives and false negatives. That's the way it works.
Now, for Freenet, another trade-off is made: the number of false negatives is reduced, at the cost of somewhat more false positives. I'm sure that there might still be information that could get pulled of a part of freenet, by using enough "cancer nodes" (false negatives, again), which would only be possible with very sensitive state information and it would require an investment only possible by world governments. And, alas, there are false positives: (child/animal) pornography, warez (arguably).
Now, remember the PlayFair story? Thanks to Freenet, you can get it:SSK@Qv3D1xm646Sat6DpmCt7BCyOGiQPAgM,S91vuF3XDSR OK6GSiWp9Xw/PlayFair//
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Freenet is an encrypted P2P network where information is not stored at fixed locations: nodes exchange "keys" (information bits) all the time, and in this way "popular" information stays alive while non-used information gradually fades away.
Since every connection between a different pair of nodes is encrypted using different keys, it would be very hard to use traffic-analysis to find out what somebody is sending. To make matters even better: even you don't know what your node stores; it's all encrypted. This makes legal defense rather easy: it seems the only thing they can charge you with is participation in a P2P network or something alike.
Now, when using Freenet, you download the node-software (see my original post) and run it. This spawns the communication software, and a "virtual web proxy" at port 8888. This proxy interfaces you webbrowser to the Freenet. Browsing thus is a matter of directing your browser to your local host at port 8888.
As for searching: Now this is still a bit of a problem; since information is decentral, there also cannot be a Google-like central database that you can search. However, there are many "spider"-sites (remember the web in the beginning, especially Yahoo before they implemented a real search-database?) that you can use to find info. The most important ones for starting are The Freedom Engine (TFE) and Find Is Not Dolphin (FIND). Links to both are hardcoded into your local freenet proxy.
On the other hand, things are becoming better: The I2P project will be providing fully anonymous IP (IP over ann I2P interface!). Once that's done, you can run anything you like on I2P, even central search engines and the like.
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Even if prison time is not in there, it might be on the next pass through, and you can't forget the other "justice" related industries - lawyers, those who sell bail bonds and so on.
If you think for one minute that your local Wal-Whatever store is going to refund you ANYTHING for your 'now used and listened to and "presumed copied" CD, you must be either crazy as a June Loon or must have ingested funny mushrooms.
Conservatives/republicans/moralists are whats dragging this country back 30 years.
Last time Conservatives/republicans/moralists ran unchecked was in the 20's, the result was prohibition. Which of course was a huge mistake.
The copyright/IP problems of today are similar. Downloading/duplicating content just isn't the same as stealing a candy bar and shouldn't be treated the same.
When everyone and everyones mother, brother, sister and even their grandma break the law, it isn't the citizens that are wrong it's the law thats wrong.
"If you think for one minute that your local Wal-Whatever store is going to refund you ANYTHING for your 'now used and listened to and "presumed copied" CD,"
Are you a little slow? Did you miss the bit where I said 'unopened'? When it's unopened, it's not presumed copied or listend to.
"Derp de derp."