Slashdot Mirror
'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."
...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!
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.
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.
Although, it'll be much more difficult to prove damages in a Civil Suit, since it's nearly impossible to link a single individual copying mp3s to any financial loss incurred by the company.
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.
How do you "vote all the scoundrels out" when only scoundrels run for office?
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?
It even *says* it's a quote and provides a link to the source. Apparently we got the short-bus mods today.
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.
> Why should movies or cds be different?
Because the industry insists on having it both ways. If we say "I paid for that CD and I'm making a copy in case it gets scratched," then they say "You don't have that right! You only bought the rights to listen to it, not to make copies!" But when we say "I paid for the rights to listen to that music and the CD's scratched, so I'm going to burn/download a new copy!" they say "Screw you! Buy a new CD!" The media companies have stopped going after anything even remotely resembling fair revenue in return for fair use and now they're attempting (and succeeding) to have laws custom-written for them that will precisely spell out and make enforceable what they want, which is for their absolute control over their revenue streams by eliminating the possibility of you ever owning and having control over media they produced. By the time Hatch and the other corporate-owned politicians are done, all media will be pay-per-listen, copy-flagged, encrypted, and non-portable... and I don't think I'm being a slight bit paranoid when I say that. Our only hope is for the non-geek world to wake up one day, realise that they can't take their music to the beach with them, and start paying attention to what's been happening.
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,
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.
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
No, they're not "going after the actual traders." They're lobbying the Department of Justice to waste taxpayer money going after alleged traders. That's what the fuss is about.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
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?"
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 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.
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
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
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...
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/
Yeah, but what if I don't want these people buying laws without my consent? What do I do then?
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..."
Well, copyright infringement isn't theft, though...