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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."
Well, if you are not allowed to develop P2P in the US, then only foreign P2P apps will be available. Then we will hear about legislation to ban these evil foreign pirate apps... ...or sever the US from the rest of the internet. After all, the world is full of shady characters just waiting to pollute the minds of the young.
Oh boy, I am on a soapbox today.
I become more and more amazed at the stupidity of everyone in government, and the music industry. They have clearly lost the ball, and are trying to protect short term profits, while sacrificing, long term market stability, profitability, not to mention a positive public image. I used to be really depressed. Then I realized that all these technical solutions wouldn't work; the techno-neophytes that supported/introduced this legislation would retire, or die. For a short period of time, I was happy. Then I realized that there are still places in the United States where evolution isn't taught in the schools. [And yes, there is a link, stupidity, evil, and fundamentalist religions rear their ugly heads everywhere]. Now I am depressed again. The technologically enlightened should form their own country, and screw the rest of them. Except the telephone sanitizers.
Clearly, there must be a balance to online music sharing, but music companies must recognize that they have to adapt to the changing world like the rest of us, or be left behind.
Not only that, P2P is an interesting alternative to the traditional C/S model. This appears to be a move that is not very well thought out, are they going to ban FTP since you can distribute copyrighted material over FTP as well? I don't think these guys know enough about technology to really tell what's going on and what needs to be done. I'm fairly sure they are not even willing to hear expert opinions on this either..
Children are extremely good topic for the `masses' - people who don't know anything about p2p will be against it - if you say them - that banning it will protect children.
Unfortunatelly not many know, who will really benefit from this legislation.
Basically, it seems that they're trying to restrict the law in a very reasonable way. The law states that in order to be in violation, it has to be proven that the P2P application's only method of commercially viability is by inducing copyright violations.
Sounds reasonably fair to me. It's not an end-all "P2P is evil and must be stopped" bill. It's a method to keep out the more dangerous offenders. For example, BitTorrent should be immune to prosecution under this law because its main intended purpose is to lighten the hit on the download of new versions of legal software, specifically Linux distributions.
Kazaa, on the other hand, really doesn't have a legal leg to stand on. Perhaps if they didn't have a built-in MP3/Video player in the client, they might have gotten away with it, but they specifically built the GUI so as to make it easy and convenient to download illegal songs and movies.
And yes, I acknowledge that there are legal downloads that can be made through Kazaa, but most of those were added as an afterthought in order to try and delay/counter litigation.
Section 501 of title 17, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:
`(g)(1) In this subsection, the term `intentionally induces' means intentionally aids, abets, induces, or procures, and intent may be shown by acts from which a reasonable person would find intent to induce infringement based upon all relevant information about such acts then reasonably available to the actor, including whether the activity relies on infringement for its commercial viability.
`(2) Whoever intentionally induces any violation identified in subsection (a) shall be liable as an infringer.
`(3) Nothing in this subsection shall enlarge or diminish the doctrines of vicarious and contributory liability for copyright infringement or require any court to unjustly withhold or impose any secondary liability for copyright infringement.'.
You may treat all information submitted above as wild speculation.
It's not "law-makers", it's Orrin Hatch. This is one of the problems, everyone sort of just waves their hands and complains about politicians in general, rather than holding specific people responsible.
It goes deeper than this.
In the old world there was a simple distinction: either a band was signed to a label, in which case the label dictated their term, whether they were promoted etc; or the band wasn't signed to a label and had no channel to get their music to listeners.
In the new world, P2P is an alternative channel between producers and consumers in which record companies have no control - the process has become disintermediated. In this world you have the appalling prospect (for the companies) that talented, affluent people will make music because they enjoy it, and and then distribute it via P2P networks so that people can listen to it and enjoy it without paying them.
In essence, the scarcity of music distribution has ended, and the beneficiaries of this scarcity (the record companies) are seeing their business model starting to fail. They're doomed, and they know they're doomed, but they're also keen to prolong their dominion as long as they can.
Dunstan
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
There are Peer-to-Peer uses of IM, FTP and EMail, but these uses are being degredated by firewalls.
That is to say that every hacker that decides they want to try their hand at cracking, or play with some script kit is directly causing the further segmentation of the internet into discreet networks connected only by the proxy servers hardened for use on the "open" internet.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
My advise to all opressed people: Use the same technique law/politics people are using very often against you. New-speak. Just change terminology, invent new words, as they do to infect you with false distractive ideas.
In case of P2P, say 'an equiv' instead of 'a peer'. Say 'resource scattering' instead of 'file sharing'. Say 'support lobby' instead of 'tracker server'. Insist you are not a peer, but an equiv, that you do not share files but scatter resources. Make a difference out of nothing, just as is the method of making human laws.
Words are software. Human brain is adaptable. Geeks are the most adaptable from all people, because they understand nature of software. Resist rigidity of any ideology by resillience of mind.
There you are, staring at me again.
..... when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Seriously, all this fuss is being made because people aren't paying record companies money anymore. You know what? I couldn't give a fuck. Record companies made every penny they ever earned because the ability to manufacture recorded media was scarce. Now it isn't -- thanks to the Internet, ready availability of CD burners, compressed audio formats, portable devices, and so forth, just about anyone can make records. I'm almost surprised the RIAA aren't trying to demand that you buy a licence to own an instrument (after all, performing a song might be construed as copying it, in some warped, twisted way).
Of course, before you can make a record, you first need a song. Musical talent is a scarce commodity -- and the person whose voice is on the record is the only one whose job can't be done by someone else, and probably for less money. Everyone else is just a middleman, and is totally replaceable. That, the record companies need to realise, is how the real world works.
My proposed new business model for the recording industry works like this. A singer or band borrows some money to cover the overheads of hiring a studio, session musicians, producers, making a glass master, stamping CDs, designing and printing booklets, and so on (of course they may well already have some equipment of their own, so they won't need to borrow as much); and then sells the CDs at such a price as to recoup that loan and make a profit for themself. Like any other business venture, the money is lent on the understanding that the recorded performance will be of a sufficient standard that the resulting product will be saleable. Until the moment when the loan has been paid off, the lender has lien over the CDs and the content in them, and can prevent anyone else from distributing independent copies; but as soon as the loan is paid off, then control reverts to the original performer (until the work goes PD, anyway; and if the work goes PD during the lender's lien, that just serves them right for picking the wrong person to lend money to). Some fancy wording will almost certainly be required to prevent any shenanigans, e.g. where the artist holds out on the last pound and so the music still belongs to the lender.
I would also make it law that, once any debt incurred in making a recording is paid in full, then an artist must allow anyone to distribute copies of their work, for a fixed fee -- which would be the same amount irrespective of who does the distributing, and irrespective of the format in which the recording is made or the medium on which it is stored. This fee would be applied whenever a permanent recording of a copyrighted work changes hands, unless in the course of transfer the supplier loses the ability to make further copies. The onus would be on the supplier if any payment is made to the supplier, or on the recipient otherwise. (So I can make a free copy of an album I own for my MP3 player, but I have to pay to make a copy of my friend's album; and I would not have to pay anything if I sold a CD outright, unless I retained any copies of the songs on it. If my friend made a copy of one of my albums, it would be my friend's responsibility to pay the artist -- unless my friend bought me a pint, in which case I would owe the artist.)
It's also quite feasible that a few local bands could get together, pool their resources, and produce an album each without having to borrow any money against their "audible collateral" (for want of a better phrase to describe it).
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Knowing Hatch's other brain children, I'm not very shocked by the news. As with most of his other bought-and-paid-for legislation I don't see much coming from this. On the unlikely chance something is produced, won't the vagueness of the wording be applicable to legitimate P2P applications as well? This sounds just like the Betamax case. An industry doesn't like new technology, so they buy politicians to try and completely outlaw it. P2P is the future of the internet. Star topography, even though the dominant layout of the internet, still has major weakness that mesh topography can provide solutions for. By the looks of everything, he is being so vague as to include any sort of decentralized communications.
I was always told republicans were about less government intervention into personal and business sectors. In the last 4 years I've seen more laws passed where the government takes an active role in propping up the powers of big business while legislating away so many personal rights and privileges. This doesn't seem like the hands-off approach they like to pat themselves on the back so much for.
Actually I remember PPP standing for "Point to Point Protocol".* Minor quibble, really, because when I first got into networking in 1995 the Internet was indeed held up as an example of a massive peer-to-peer network, where content is offered by the machines on the network, as opposed to a server-based network (think NT domain or Netware network).
Trying to redefine "peer-to-peer" network as "mechanism for wholesale IP theft"** will of course net make it so. This strikes me as one of those bills whose purpose is to make it look like Congress is doing a Good Thing(tm), only to have the law struck down in the courts so the congresscritters can say they tried, it's not their fault.
* But hey, they tell me I remembered the origins of PHP wrong, so what do I know?
** Yes I know it's copyright violation, not theft, but that's the way they'll try to present it.
Someone you trust is one of us.
I'd love to see a Jonathan Swiftian white paper on this subject.
It becomes difficut to do when people have already gone so far off the deep end. Hatch has stated that he wants to remotely destroy people's computers. He has introduced legislation to outlaw ordinary computers. Hatch has has sponsored or co-sponsored no less than SIXY-SEVEN attempts to ammend the constitution, often various attempts to STRIP AWAY PORTIONS OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS. And those are just the antics I can think of off the top of my head.
Attempting to parody Hatch is like attempting to parody White Supremacists or fanatical religious fundamentalists (of any flavor). Anything short of "lets eat the children" winds up looking just like the genuine and sincere words of those you wish to parody. It is frighfully hard to successfully parody some people.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.