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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...
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
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...
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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!
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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.
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.
-_-
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
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 don't know about movies, but regarding pictures, you can read the story of Playboy v. Sanfilippo.
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...