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Sen. Hatch to Introduce Wide-ranging Copyright Bill
The Importance of writes "C|Net News is reporting that a new copyright bill, to be introduced next week by Sen. Orrin Hatch, will likely overturn the Betamax decision (which held that VCRs were legal) and threaten all sorts of innovation. EFF broke the story and Copyfight has been all over it. Don't miss the comments of law professor Susan Crawford who says, 'This is amazing. Now we're waaaaaay beyond contributory and vicarious theories of liability, which are court-created and pretty darn broad on their own.' Text of the bill here and PDF."
the Induce Act was scheduled to be introduced Thursday by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah
Senator Hatch has a powerful incentive in attacking P2P networks (see #'s 7, 15, 18).
Oddly enough, by the same logic he's using in this legislation prescription drugs should be illegal because they can be used to kill as well as heal. But since the rest of his top contributors are pharma co's he isn't likely to raise that as an issue is he?
Sigs cause cancer.
Sigh. Is anyone actually surprised anymore by yet another attempt to remove more freedoms? I thought progress was being made with the bill to remove the more dangerous elements of the DMCA, and now a new "Free Speech Killer"... The world's going to hell in a handbasket.
Orrin Hatch has been in the pocket of the recording industry for ages. Could it have something to do with the disproportionate royalties he receives for his avocation as a "popular song writer?"
I don't think it stands a snowball's chance in hell, but as it might, we'd better make sure to make our side of the case clear. Hatch may want to blow up our computers, but I hope there are some senators who realize that "He took away your VCR" won't go well on the campaign trail.
"Your Rights Online: Sen. Hatch to Introduce Wide-ranging Slashdot Execution Bill"
/. know about these bills.. someone has to do something, the general public needs to know whats going on.. having flamewars on /. isn't going to stop this.. Doesnt ANYONE have the ability to get this in major news outlets? No one from CNN or something reads slashdot?
/. about how our rights are being taken away and then no one else i know offline knows anything is happenning. FUCK!!!
Might as well, since it seems only people on
I'm so sick of reading on
The Induce Act stands for "Inducement Devolves into Unlawful Child Exploitation Act,"
See? Stop being mean to them. They're not corporate shills trying to control culture and take away computers. They're doing it for the children. Think of the children. Don't you care about the children? I, for one, welcome our new child-protecting overlords.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
Only by offending consumers and performing in-house raids to confiscate VCR's and arrest their owners, is it possible to get the public outraged. Non-slashdot-readers don't hear about bad laws until they're passed. Outrage from the general public will wait until this passes.
I'm probably at the karma cap. Mod up a funny troll instead, it lightens the mood
Child Exploitation? Child Exploitation? This has about as much to do with child exploitation as it does with farming subsidies or strategic national defense. The only reason this has "Child Exploitation" in the title is so that Hatch et al. can demonize anybody who opposes this as "having voted against protecting children from exploitation".
This is not about protecting America's children against exploitation; this is about protecting the revenue stream of a powerful business lobby.
Senator, you're a schmuck and a tool. The afterlife, if it exists, will most likely be a very unpleasant place for you.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
...to vote Libertarian. Question for conservatives: What the hell do you see in Republicans these days? They've become a bunch of right-wing socialists at this point.
Originally, the Induce Act was scheduled to be introduced Thursday by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, but the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmed at the end of the day that the bill had been delayed. A representative of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a probable co-sponsor of the legislation, said the Induce Act would be introduced "sometime next week," a delay that one technology lobbyist attributed to opposition to the measure.
Does anyone know who opposes this in the Senate? They deserve a cookie.
There is just something wrong about advocating PRISON TIME for someone commiting a nonviolent offense WITH NO PROFIT MOTIVE. Unlike the previous boogeyman of drug laws, nobody is even being hurt here - hence the whole idea of fair use. There's just something fundamentally wrong here. These proposed bills are getting crazier and crazier.
Legislators in Canada (I am not an American. YMMV) looked at this and while recognizing a problem, rejected the notion of stiff criminal penalties for this kind of thing. This concerned me here enough to write a detailed letter to the committee reviewing these laws in Canada.
Control over media devices has another impact to - it's about control over the PRODUCTION OF MEDIA. With so much news and speech regulated THROUGH the media, this is tremendously important for the future of free speech in the USA.
Sigh, sometimes I think the world went mad while I wasn't looking. You just don't put people in PRISON for sharing a SONG with NO PROFIT. There is this thing called CIVIL law. Sue him into the ground, sure. Prison is where you put murderers and rapists - not copyright infringers. I wonder how many politicians in the USA would see the irony if they looked back at the treatment of international patents over historical timescales.
Arrgh! Please, get involved in this process and get organized. DO SOMETHING.
"Inducement Devolves into Unlawful Child Exploitation Act of 2004."
What!!???
Using peoples' fear of child exploitation as a tool to push through draconian copyright measures to help BigCorp Inc. is despicable.
Surely this _is_ child exploitation.
It's bad enough that there are sickos in society preying on children for their bodies without someone to then abusing that exploitation to steal their legal rights.
Fascist Alert.
I, for one, welcome our new Mormon overlords.
What I think is more important is the RIAA hired Senator Hatchs son as one of their lobbyists. It should be a conflict of interest. Since they can't outright buy the Senator, they hire the kid who will have a wealth of oppertunity to influance his father.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Just making the right noises to please his masters.
Or (and this is probably closer to a tin-foil-hat type theory, but that doesn't make it false), he is taking the extreme so much farther out that the merely ridiculous looks sane by comparison.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
...I would recommend that you do the same. Looks like a full court press while the Republicans control everything...too good an opportunity for the greedheads to pass up.....
Utah. He's from Utah.
Ralph Nader called Washington DC a "corporate-occupied terrority," and I think we need little proof beyond this bill to bolster his claim.
Giant corporations walk into a congressman's office, just flat-out order him to introduce a bill that their lawyers wrote that suspends the Constitution so that they can make a little bit more money, and the congressman goes right along with it, apparently without a moment's hesitation.
As far as enforcing this law, I cannot imagine in a million years that any standard of fairness would even be considered in its application. As Drummond states in Inherit the Wind, "I say that you cannot administer a wicked law impartially. You can only destroy. You can only punish. I warn you that a wicked law, like cholera, destroys everyone it touches -- its upholders as well as its defiers."
When people who innocently use technology like TiVo and VCRs and CD burners start getting randomly sued and arrested by RIAA and MPAA members, I can only hope that the public outcry is strong enough to reverse the trend. But I fear that the opposite will happen, that we'll all be huddled under our bedclothes, shivering in fear that the giant corporations will come after us next. Terrified that armed corporate goon squads, deputized under the banner of protecting copyright, will break our doors down, confiscate our computers and home entertainment systems, and lead us off in handcuffs, we'll do anything to protect ourselves from them, even if it means testifying against a neighbor, friend, or family member. Boy, do I hope that I'm just being paranoid.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
These congressman are paid hitmen and are all corrupt because the system is about lobbying(which needs to be outlawed). Lobbying = Corruption. This should not be a lobbyocracy but a democratic republic.
From what I have heard, Hatch is a very amiable, likable guy. People who have told me that have also told me he is completely full of BS. The folks in particular I am thinking about who met him came away with an overall good impression, saying "he's a really nice guy" but were also somewhat frustrated because he would pretend to answer their questions but really just gave them a stream of BS (that sounded good, but looking back it was clear he didn't know what he was talking about). Unfortunately, folks like this slip through the cracks and into office a lot in a democratic system; I think that's the bad we take with the good.
I think if Hatch were up for re-election in November, he might get the boot (even in the ultra-conservative state of Utah). But his term isn't up until 2006. There is a good Democrat running against him then, I wish I could remember his name, that might have a shot. But I am just worried that with 2 years left to go, Hatch has plenty of time to do some positive PR work to help his image.
I love the idea of a sponsored congressman. They should go to work each day dressed like those NASCAR drivers. Logos all over the place, head to toe. He pauses in the middle of his speach to take a refreshing drink of Coca-Cola. Ahhhhh.
Hell lets stop pretending anymore. Lets create corporate representatives and get our elected ones back. All these probablems coming from the fact that corporations are seen as people in the eyes of the law. Make the House, the Senate and the Market. People elect the first two, corporations vote for the third and can't contribute to the others.
"If you make a product that has dual uses, infringing and not infringing, and you know there's infringement, you're liable." Wouldn't this automatically make all copy machines illegal? IANAL, but they seem to fall precisely into the same category as the VCR. I don't see anything that restricts this bill to digital media. I'm sure there are more ripple effects as well, but that one certainly jumped out at me. KeS