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Senate Takes Aim At P2P Providers
thejoelpatrol writes "The Senate Judiciary Committee, led by everybody's favorite senator, Orrin Hatch, is moving to outlaw P2P entirely by making it illegal to produce such applications. Hatch says such firms 'think that they can legally profit by inducing children to steal. Some think they can legally lure children into breaking the law with false promises of "free music."' So, when was the last time that Kazaa told kids to steal music? Shouldn't the parents be the ones looking out for their kids? The RIAA is (surprise!) in favor of this, while P2P groups are (surprise!) opposed."
"Hatch says such firms 'think that they can legally profit by inducing children to steal."
Thankfully I only use P2P programs that are GPL, and thus free as in beer, so little if any profit motivation there.
The best p2p applications are usually free / open source like eMule, Freenet, and how apparently even Shareza 2.0 is open sourced under the GPL.
So UNLESS a P2P app blocks all not-authorised (by the *IAA) file transfers, it will be considered illegal. The implications are amazing, and could easily be applied to hardware (any file copy, burn to CDR, upload to MP3 player, etc...)
Actually, here it is:. 2560:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:S
You may treat all information submitted above as wild speculation.
I found this article that shows the direct inpact on digital media companies, its details that large fines could mean that a single lawsuit could force companied like Apple out of business
While it is not at all clear that Kazaa has ever told people to use it's software to steal, it is clear that some corporations now seem to think that they can legally profit by bribing senators with campaign donations.
Open Secrets
Note that he recieves a generous bonus from "lobbyists" and "TV/Movie/Music".
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
Mr. LEAHY - D VT
Mr. FRIST - R TN
Mr. DASCHLE - D SD
Mr. GRAHAM R- SC
Mrs. BOXER -D CA
Bi-partisanship at its best!
If you've never seen this film, The Corporation is a documentary covering the history of how corporations came to exist and their roles in society today.
This film begins by conducting a psychological prognosis of a corporation, where they find it's condition is of a psychopath.
It was shown on the Canadian equivalent of PBS.
So here's oddly enough a bittorrent download of the 3 part series.
http://66.90.75.92/suprnova//torrents/1983/The Corporation(3).torrent
If anyone is asking for more proof, I think this film will provide it for them. Otherwise, I still found watching this film to be very informative.
The integration of UPNP into common broadband routers has lessened this effect, or at least made such lessening more likely. An application can now request a port for receiving without there being a genius at the keyboard.
ISP firewalling and port blocking still chills, of course, but I don't think the sky is black yet.
I'm sending this at:= Offic es.Contact
t ory&cid=77 &e=1&u=/mc/20040706/tc_mc/billtargetsfirmsthatindu cecopyrightviolations
http://hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fuseaction
Dear Senator Hatch,
This is the third letter I have sent you over the last three years. I am a Ph.D. student at Brigham Young University and I have lived in Utah County for almost ten years. For my education, and my employment, I have worked in cutting-edge technology and multimedia. I have authored DVDs for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as well as several other commercial DVDs. I have also traveled to Europe and Africa to collect audio and video materials for use in online language instruction, so I understand the time, effort, and money that is required to produce high quality content.
However, your current assailing of fair-use rights has once again reached the point of being absurd. Your bill outlined in this article:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s
seems to follow the attitude of legislating broadly, intending to enforce narrowly. Senator Hatch, we have seen "from sad experience" that this does not work.
When I wrote you before, concerning Dmitry Sklyarov, you responded that the DMCA, as currently instituted, struck the proper balance between content provided rights and the rights of consumers. My question is this: What has changed in the last two years that the DMCA suddenly does not go far enough in impeding citizens' rights.
You might believe that peer-to-peer technologies have no legitimate purpose. I know this is wrong. I have used P2P applications to quickly move huge amounts of data across heterogeneous networks, saving me hours. I also attended a subcommittee hearing you held at Brigham Young University where four local firms, including Novell, demonstrated how they were using P2P applications.
I sincerely hope that you will reconsider the present INDUCE legislation, and realize that the scales are already tipped in favor of copy-right holders.
Regards,
Jeremy Browne
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
How many times will people get raped by the party of state power before they realize that there is not a lick of difference between those two faces?
Neither face of the party of state power wants you to have any control over your own lives. One side puts a nice shine on further controlling your private life, the other face shines the increasing control of your business life. Both vote for each others programs knowing that quid pro quo, one hand washes the other. Or face licks.
D's and R's both want whatever they can get from you. They will push and only back off to keep the general population from riding in armed revolt. Remember that the "assault weapon ban" passed a REPUBLICAN congress, who were trying to make sure they could push even harder.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
it does not stand for that, quit talking out of your ass and trying to score karma. It's POINT to POINT protocol.
see here
-lk
That is almost always a lie. In Missouri, gambling was supposed to help fund education. We all want more money for education, right? Think of the children! What happened was that the education budget was, say $1B. Gambling raised, say, $500M for the schools. $1B + $500M = $1.5B of highly-funded learning, right? Wrong! The school budgets didn't increase at all. The money coming in from gambling replaced taxpayer funds - it wasn't added to them.
So Missouri taxpayers got a lower tax bill that year, right? Wrong! The first rule of governmental spending is that it almost never goes down. The state found some other project that coincidentally needed $500M (probably For The Children). The gambling proponents sort of told the truth: the money did go toward education. What they left out is that an equal amount of money from other sources came out of that budget item.
Good luck in PA. I hope it works out better than it has for any other non-gambling-centric state (ie, excluding NV) that I've ever heard of.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
1. Last year, Hatch proposed creating black-ice like software that would destroy the hardware of people who download music illegally.
2. One of Hatch's staffers illegally cracked several Democrats' computers in the Senate.
3. Hatch's staff illegally used software for hosting a website at the same time Hatch was proposing destroying the PCs of those who would do similar.
4. Hatch is routinely involved in passing laws to reinforce copywrite protections, even if there might not be any grounds for the lawsuit.
5. Hatch's boy is a lawyer, one of who's clients in the SCO.
6. Hatch is constantly trying to amend the Constitution. For example, he keeps introducing an amendment to ban flag burning over and over and is now talking about amending the Constitution so Schwarzenegger can run for President. But he opposed the ERA.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Orrin Hatch, is moving to outlaw P2P entirely by making it illegal to produce such applications.
No doubt he would like that result, which failed in previous attempts to legislate regulation out of existence, such as the several forms of technology regulation previously advocated by Hollings. But that was not to be.
In any case, S. 2560 does not address production of P2P applications, but rather, the inducement of infringement by a third party. Some background is in order to understand the difference.
DIRECT INFRINGEMENT. Really, the question is when should a person be liable for infringement? One easy answer: when she infringes! Did Sarah infringe a copyright when she reproduced, distributed or made copies of a copyrighted work without consent or any other defense? If so, Sarah needs a lawyer. O/W, she isn't an infringer.
INDIRECT INFRINGEMENT. But then, couldn't Sarah avoid infringement altogether by instructing her employee, Julia, to make the copies for her? Nope! Even though Sarah herself committed no infringing acts (reproducing, distribution or derivation), Sarah engaged in conduct that gives rise to a kind of liability, the genus of which is variously called, indirect, secondary or derivative infringement. There cannot be any kind of secondary liability unless and until some third party actually infringes. Then, the question is when is Sarah liable for Julia's infringement, even though Sarah did not herself commit a prohibited act?
INDIRECT: VICARIOUS INFRINGEMENT. The particular species of secondary liability in the Sarah/Julia example is called "vicarious liability," and it derives from the fact that she controlled (in her capacity as employer) the conduct of Julia, directed the infringement and then enjoyed a financial benefit from that control. It is a well-settled idea in copyright law, and offers nothing new to this discussion, except to understand some of what follows.
INDIRECT: CONTRIBUTORY INFRINGEMENT. Now, what if Sarah didn't ask an employee about this, but new that Sleazy Sammy will take just about any work left in plain sight to infringe? Now, Sarah, knowing SS is going to do the deed, advertently places the copy in a location to facilitate the infringement. This now is the classic example of contributing to the infringement of another. (The classical example is leaving a print of a movie in a place for someone to pirate from.)
So, there you go. Acts of direct infringement by Sarah, she loses. If some third party, either Julia or SS infringe, Sarah might still be liable if she is vicariously responsible or if she contributed to the infringement. Proof of secondary liability is usually trickier, and requires proofs of scienter and financial benefit from the conduct, but varies somewhat, depending on the circuit.
NOW, the copying machine cases. Assume Sarah doesn't even HAVE a copy of the Paul, the plaintiff's, work. However, Sarah makes this really neat new movable type printing press, that can be used to reproduce and facilitate distribution of Paul's stuff. The question is whether Sarah can be liable for Carla Customer's use of the printing press to infringe Paul's work. (Once again, we assume that Carla DID THE DEED, and has no defenses. If she didn't infringe or has no defenses, then Sarah is always off the hook.)
This was a hot issue for awhile, that seemed to be raised by someone literally every time a new duplication or distribution technology is produced, from the player piano, to the radio, to the audio tape machine, to the television, to the video tape machine, to the DAT machines until today, with P2P filesharing technology. Allegations are old news. But what of the law? The problems are that the cost of suing a mass market of customers is often great, but liability creates a risk of deterring the development of useful and important technologies.
Well, the principal case here was the Sony Betamax case, in which the movie studios sued Sony for manufacturing a video-tape recor