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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?
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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 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?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
Yes, you are missing something - something that many Slashdotters are missing: Cash donations are not what politics and power are all about.
People in power are in power because they know how to manipulate the system. They do favors for each other. You manipulate the system so that my risky investment pays off and I'll do the same for you. They trade favors, not cash.Sure, they like to talk about campaign reform and limiting cash contributions, but this is mostly a ruse to show that they're on the side Goodness and Fairness and Honesty in Politics. They know that their ~real~ trading stock, favors, will not be touched.
Doubt it? Look at your local town council. How many Council members are involved in real estate or construction or own a local business? Why do you think that is? Because those are the people who would have something to gain by manipultating local taxes, zoning ordinances and building codes. The guy who just bought several hundred acres of farmland just outside of town will abstain from the vote to annex the property as part of the city because that would be a conflict of interest. But his buddy-to-his-left will support the annexation because our Honest Councilman voted last month for a tax abatement for buddy's business (which buddy-to-the-left abstained from for obvious reasons.) Once the property is annexed, the city will run water and sewer lines out to it and it can be rezoned "residential" or "commercial" (in trade for some other favors) and our Honest Councilman can sell it to a developer for a handsome profit. No cash has traded hands and strictly speaking, no conflict of interest ethics have been violated.No, the ideas of "follow the money" and "track the cash flow" are naive suggestions to catch any but the most stupid of politicians.
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
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/
If only we could pass the .NET Act, which would make running MS .NET illegal.
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..."
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
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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