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RIAA Sends Letter to Senate Supporting INDUCE Act
The Importance of writes "Slashdot has discussed the INDUCE Act before (and here and here). The act would make 'intentionally inducing' infringement a crime, but defines inducing so broadly that all sorts of technology is threatened. A little over a week ago, tech companies and civil rights groups sent a letter to some senators asking for hearings on the bill. A couple of days ago, the RIAA responded with their own letter sent to all 100 senators. There is also an abridged and annotated version of the RIAA letter. LawMeme has put together an index to INDUCE Act analysis."
S. 2560, introduced by Senators Hatch, Leahy, Boxer, L. Graham and both Majority Leader Frist and Democratic Leader Daschle - is timely, warranted legislation. We urge you to support it. It is intended to target bad actors only - those who have built business models to get away with stealing the creative work of predominantly American artists. The bill finds the right balance to protect both technology AND content innovators.
I *love* that they use the word "stealing". No matter what spin they try to put on this issue, spreading and copying music is not stealing.
Four of the top ten downloaded applications on the Internet are P2P programs operated by companies who purposefully set them up to be used for illegal conduct. Popular for sure... but lawbreaking nonetheless.
Oh, I just LOVE this. Yes, BitTorrent (just took over as the leader in P2P traffic) was created for illegal use. I could see Kazaa or Napster, but BitTorrent, no, I just don't believe that.
But it has been hijacked by some unscrupulous operators who have constructed a business model predicated on the taking of property financed by my member companies.
As far as I am aware, BitTorrent has no true business model. I got the software legally and without cost.
We take profits from sales - when we're good and lucky enough to get them - and plow money back into the search for that next great talent who will thrill music fans around the globe.
When you're lucky? Give me a fucking break. You support the consolidation of radio and other music distribution networks so you have tight control on who listens and how they listen. Perhaps if radio and music distribution wasn't controlled by you and your existance wasn't backed and supported by the government (who should have broken you up years ago) I would believe you.
In 2000, the top ten hits sold 60 million units in the U.S. Seven of the ten sold more than 5 million units each; every one of them sold at least 3 million units. Then the slide kicked in. Last year, in 2003, the top ten hits were cut almost in half, to 33 million units. Just two of the ten sold more than 5 million units; five of those top ten hits sold less than 3 million units.
Where are you statistics about units shipped? I don't see them listed there. Looks like spin to me.
This creative product is lost forever. Many of our greatest performers took years to catch on before their careers took off. In today's world, those performers are being cut before they have a chance to delight fans and realize their own dreams.
*BARF* You don't have creative products for the most part. You have cookie-cutter talent that you create and promote. You cut their chances at survival by overplaying their one-hit-wonders via your controlled outlets.
They are havens for pornographers that project their filth into your homes when your kids innocently seek to find their favorite artists.
Yes, news at 6, your children are affected by porno!
Do these illegitimate services compensate artists? No. Songwriters? No. Pay taxes on the value of product? No. Compensate the record label in any way? No. Invest in the generation of new art? No.
Do you fairly compensate them? Do you pay taxes like you should? Do you care about anything other than your bottom line? Would you have mentioned your own compensation if you did?
My industry can continue to sue users, many of them kids, to establish deterrence and educate the public. But the real villains are not the kids. The real villains are those profiteers who offload liability on these kids and are laughing all the way to the bank as American courts struggle to apply existing law (or misapply it) to this abuse of good technology.
So stop suing the children you claim you want to protect from the supposed evils of P2P. Also, please show me where BitTorrent (again the leading P2P application) is making enough money s
The same arguments the EFF uses in their mock Ipod lawsuit also apply to general purpose computers. After all, Intel and Dell could have designed their systems to only boot an approved OS like Windows DRM, and Microsoft could have made a version of Windows (Windows DRM) that only runs approved software, and software capable of infringment would not be approved. True, end users of computing hardware and software would not get in trouble as with the SSSCA and CBDTPA, but if it is illegal to sell general purpose computers or distribute the software needed to run them (Windows XP, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, etc), what is the difference in the end?
I already wrote a letter to mine. Do it now.
It's important to point out the absurdity of the wording--the fact that it's too broad and could even be used to target Mead and other paper companies for making tracing paper.
It's heavy handed legislation whose wording leave too much open for interpretation. That alone is enough to have any sane legislator view it as unsound public policy---regardless of the bill's true vs perceived/implied motivations.
Keep it short, but point out how ridiculous it is.
> I *love* that they use the word "stealing". No matter what spin they try to put on this issue, spreading and copying music is not stealing.
:-)
I have to agree with you. Stealing is when you deprive someone of something they have; copyright infringement is merely making a copy of something and passing it around. It's like cutting the line to pay cover charge at a bar, kinda. But it's not so literal. In Canada, it's legal to do pretty much anything except distribute copies of copyrighted material. But many institutions have a free pass on it, like libraries and museums.
> Oh, I just LOVE this. Yes, BitTorrent (just took over as the leader in P2P traffic) was created for illegal use. I could see Kazaa or Napster, but BitTorrent, no, I just don't believe that.
They are only attacking Bit Torrent because it broke Kazaa's record. Bit Torrent was created as a science project to see if it would work, and when it did, the usefulness of the project became apparent to anyone who wants to pass around large files. Actually the original use was not intended for copyright infringement at all... it was for public projects like games mods and stuff like that. Gamers really pushed its use more than anyone at first.
> *BARF* You don't have creative products for the most part. You have cookie-cutter talent that you create and promote. You cut their chances at survival by overplaying their one-hit-wonders via your controlled outlets.
Funny you should mention that. Last nite I happened to catch part of the Jessica Simpson show and I was thinking how much she is like a replacement for Britney... like a cutout doll, but not quite as stupid as Britney is. Stupid, but not that stupid.
They are in it for money, and music was never about money... it was once about spreading news and stories all over the land, because music was easier to remember than a long dry tale. Bards intended it to be useful as a way of transfering data between cities. The songs made people want to listen, as a side effect.
Nowadays, the music industry is only an industry.
> "They are havens for pornographers that project their filth into your homes when your kids innocently seek to find their favorite artists."
That's just a way of getting sympathy, they're using. It's nothing new. They'll tell you that child porn is available on these systems and that the systems are to blame. Next they'll say terrorists profit from downloading.
> Do you fairly compensate them? Do you pay taxes like you should? Do you care about anything other than your bottom line? Would you have mentioned your own compensation if you did?
Totally accurate. The industry has been robbing artists blind for decades now! It's a crying shame.
Corporations are never going to support interesting new music. They get a new hot ticket and try to get others to be breadwinners for them. It destroys the music and the life of the artists. Touring also hurts the artists, who are no more than slaves to their creativity until they have to become shitty just to have some peace of mind.
It's just the way it is, and it's always been. Greed ruins everything.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
...after all it is overwhelmingly preferred pirating software tool in use worldwide.
Member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation? That's a great place to go to get form letters to send out to your congressmen, find out about copyright law and digital rights, and, of course, donate or become a member to an organization that has professionals involved, including lawyers.
They've already been at it with something like that before, they dubbed it TORA BORA - The idea is that `Trusted Operating Root Architecture' (Palladium) will stop the `Break Once Run Anywhere' attack, by which they mean that pirated content, once unprotected, can be posted to the net and used by anyone.
Essentially, it only involves replacing all general purpose-computers with semi-programmable applicances. Your burners would be appliance add-ons and the Internet no longer a general purpose network, but a semi-restricted appliance network. Welcome to the future.
Fortunately, that seems to be many years off, and Longhorn's ship date seem to drift further and further off. None the less, just be beware that there are people that seriously wish to do pretty much what you just suggested.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
FYI, the word is "plutocracy".
The EFF has issued an action alert about the proposed "Inducing Infringement Act". They have set up a website where you can push a button and a pre-composed letter gets sent directly to the senators.
2 &item =2918
Please help and participate and also tell your friends about it:
http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=
The science of economics fails if a replicator is introduced (which is essentially the device described).
Economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources. Replicator machines would give a population resources bounded only by whatever raw materials the replicator would use. Assuming lots of cheap energy (which would be quite feasible a short time after the introduction of the first replicator) and plenty of matter (you're sitting on some right now), the resources available would essentially be infinite in nature - there would be no scarcity of resources.
At that point, the only thing that has any value any longer is intellectual property, and only then until the first production model is actually created. Note that the creation costs are also essentially nil; a replicator machine could probably act as a creation machine, taking raw energy and/or matter and coverting it to the proper part or set of parts.
Well, I guess one other thing would be a scarce resource: real estate. Given that you could probably replicate any environment you desired on a piece of land, though, would it make any difference?
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has introduced the Inducing Infringment of Copyrights Act (IICA, née INDUCE Act) in the Senate. The bill would make it illegal to "intentionally induce" copyright infringement, but is worded so broadly that it would have all sorts of unintended consequences, one of which is to severely limit, cripple or kill innovation in many different fields
:-)
Fortunately I live in Utah and will be voting for someone else. Hatch "claims" to be for the people. A comment I've heard him say frequently. Then why is he in the back pocket of these special groups such as **AA? People here in Utah have been telling him to spend his time on more important issues.
After reading the article I'm pissed. Making MAME illegal? Transmitters? 3D printers?
What is the man thinking!!!
Personally I don't think Hatch is all that great of a singer. I've heard a couple of his songs. I think he could use more singing leasons myself
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
I'm sorry, but you are mistaken. Here is how it works. We Canadians pay a tax on blank media, such as CDs, minidiscs, DVDs, tapes, MP3 players, and VHS tapes. Now, included in this law is the provision that you can copy to these media for personal use, without breaking copyright law. Downloading to your hard-drive does NOT qualify, even if you say that you intended to burn them to CD and then delete them from your hard drive...there may be a recent ruling that clarified this and made downloading allowable, but I'm not aware of it.
Recently, a judge said that sharing songs online is no different than placing a photocopier in a library. He argued that, although the person sharing a file is providing an automated copying service to the public, it is the person USING the service who is making the copy, and therefore, breaking the law. So, in Canada, it is illegal to download songs, but precident now says that the mere act of sharing them is not illegal. This is different that the USA, where both parties are making the copy, and both are breaking the law.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
So many laws are plagued with them. This is a case in point. The lawmakers seem incapable of making legislation dealing with technical matters, especially where the Internet and computers are involved. We all see how well the Can Spam act is working.
The concept of this "paid for by big media legislation" is carrying things to extremes and shows their desperation. There are all sorts of analogies that relate to this, but one of the most simplistic that comes to my mind is that a hammer can be used to commit a crime, even murder, therefore the possession, manufacture or sale of hammers must be made illegal as well as the use of blunt objects like rocks that could be used as a hammer. This proposed legislation makes as much sense.
Recent news articles say that the BSA claims that software "piracy" has cost the industry $29 billion. I call BS. The vast majority of such copyright infringement is by people who cannot afford the ridiculous prices of M$ software and would not otherwise use the software if they had to pay the full retail price. I suspect that the buggy whip industry did everything they could think of to discourage the use of automobiles. Our current IP situation leaves the "AA" associations in the same position. They have to find a new paradigm because this one just isn't working. All they are doing is pissing off their customers. I think that the success of iTunes shows that alternatives can work if they will just move their thinking into the 21st Century.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
You think it's a joke? It's very real for camp groups that have been threatened for not paying royalties for singing around the camp fire.
And how would you remind them anyway? Write a letter? You can write all you want, but you better be a big contributor, like the RIAA, if you want them to actually read it.
I went into shock over Leahy's position here. He's always seemed to 'get it' about tech issues. Then, I decided this was possibly a case of /. collective stupidity and went to his website (http://leahy.senate.gov), did a search on INDUCE, decided that his staff was lax/lazy since the articles came up in random-date order, found his press release on the introduction of S2560, and I just about died:
Right there is where he lost me. Here's the letter I've just sent. Keep in mind, I've considered Leahy one of the few net-friendly congresscritters, so I gave him a last chance to explain his stance. Considering his last paragraph tries to soft-shoe unintentional inducement, I doubt much will change (and I'll be singing Sayronara Leahy from now on!):Not sure why you were modded troll here. Oh well.
...
> define "liberal".
OK - liberal means the opposite of statist. Liberals are not intrinsically socialist. E.g. anarcho-capitalists and libertarians are liberals but not socialists.
> let's take a look at the socialist party platform
>
> These are all very "left" and all very "centrist" in the US.
Assume the french parliament definition of right/left and that a fundamental definition of liberty yields an absolute center (exactly enough government to provide said liberty).
Put together in one platform, the policies you listed are to the right. Such a platform is statist, and it's indicative of a statist political climate (i.e. the effective center where the parties meet is right of the absolute center). Right now, the parties seem to think that their lifeblood (donors, and maybe even voters) want a lot of government. Libertarians' core principles are centered around non-statism, so their platform is naturally less affected by this, but that doesn't mean that the other parties don't have principles - it just means that if liberty is your primary concern, the other parties' differences seem minor compared to the similarities because yours is the only one that still cares primarily about liberty (otherwise, it ceases to be your party).
A political atmosphere in which statism of any kind is favored is shifted to the right. Looking at the two primary parties: one is catering to the right, one is catering to the extreme right. The latter party has a long history of conservatism and statism and has no liberal roots to speak of. The former does, and if the country's gestalt is fixing to put the brakes on conservatism, then that party needs to return to those roots.
I agree that voting libertarian (or at least voting for the least right-wing candidate) would aid greatly in encouraging both big parties to lay off the statist policies like INDUCE. It will probably be democrats who will be able to embrace liberalism more readily and begin voting against this kind of bill, because it's not as big a stretch in ideology for their base. The republicans, on the other hand, can't as aggressively solicit liberal dollars and votes without alienating an equal or greater chunk of their conservative support.