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Hatch Pushes INDUCE Act
An anonymous reader writes "According to CNET the Senate is leaning strongly in favor of the INDUCE Act sponsored by Senator Orrin Hatch. It looks like the RIAA is making significant progress manipulating the marionette strings in Congress. MP3newswire.net states that if such laws were to pass, the record industry would become the new AMTRAK. 'Bloated and inefficient as always, but now a drain on taxpayers wallets and liberty as well'." Infoworld has a story as well. Reader CryptoEngineer writes: "Marybeth Peters, of the US Copyright Office
testified recently before the Senate Judiciary committee in support of the INDUCE Act, which has been discussed
here
before. In summary, she thinks its not strong enough. Among other things, she proposed scrapping the Betamax decision, which makes it legal to timeshift TV shows with a VCR. Analysis here."
Oddly enough, by the same logic he's using in this legislation prescription drugs should be illegal because they can be abused as well. 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.
VOTE LIBERTARIAN
-- I could tell right away that she was impressed with my HUGE Slashdot Karma.
Funny, I remember Orrin Hatch was actually a SUPPORTER of the original P2P Napster, to the extent that he actually put some of his own amateur works on there.
See, for instance here
Why the change of heart? I guess sticking to one's original convictions is too much to ask.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
I find that I spend far too much time watching television, and listening to music. With the pain in the ass regulations that are going up, I can finally dump my satellite dish, DVD player, television, and TiVo. Without all that crap, I can finally get some programming done.
And just in case they come for my computer, I'm stockpiling schematics, a 68000 microprocessor, 16 megs of memory, and a hard drive. If my PC won't let me run untrusted software, then I'll fucking build my own.
Screw the content Nazis. I don't fucking need them, but they need my money.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
As much as I agree with the RIAA that piracy is wrong and should be stopped, things are getting ridiculous. Corporations shouldn't have this much power in government. This is supposed to be a government by the people, for the people, but is now controlled by the corporations...
Free iPod!eBay o
Does someone have a list of Senators currenty in favor of the act. They need to be urgently sto^H^H^H replaced.
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
This measure is supported by the RIAA but opposed by the tech industry at large. Why does Congress let the tail wag the dog when it comes to copyright legislation? Does Intel just not give enough money to politicians?
Hatch introduces these radical bills all the time. This one is Pre-committee [loc.gov]. Nothing to see here folks, move along. Eventually the computer industry will step in and say this is crazy.
Here's the way a bill is normally passed. This one is about at step 2 1/2.
1. A senator and a member of the house get togather and write a bill.
2. They drop it in their respective drop boxes, and GPO prints it up.
3. The rules committee send it to committees for review.
4. Subcommitees tell their committees whether they want a hearing on it.
5. Hearings are held, and each bill is modified.
6. Assuming the bill doesn't die in Committee, and most of them do, it goes to the rules committee for the Senate and the House. A lot of them die this way, too.
7. The rules committee schedules a vote. If they don't, time passes, Congress adjourns, bill dies.
8. Both the House and Senate vote. If one doesn't support the bill, bill dies. These are timed votes, and if you can't get a majority within about 15 minutes (usually) that's it.
9. Assuming all of the above has occured, you get a conference committee of Representitives and Senators who will hammer out a comprimise between the House and Senate versions. If they can't agree, it dies.
10. Then the President can sign or veto. If he vetos, or refuses to act in 10 days (Pocket Veto), the bill dies UNLESS 2/3 of the House and Senate vote to override it. This rarely (in less than 1/10th of vetoes) occurs. If they don't, the bill dies.
All of this has to occur in about 5 1/2 months. I don't think this one will get the fasttrack, and I certainly don't think the House will ever pass it.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
I and 500 of my closest friends have Tivo style television watching entrenched in our way of doing things that if it were taken away, we'd probably just stop watching it altogether.
(here is the letter I sent, misspellings intact)
Dear Senator Leahy:
I would like to express my concerns over the fomerly entitled INDUCE act.
I have read your statement, but cannot reconcile an important point.
If a technology company wishes to make a tool, and induce folk to use it, expressly for sharing copies of works where the copyright has been freely released (my own writings, for example, that I may wish to share with the world for no profit) then that company might not feel it can create such a tool because of the possibility of it being interpreted as an inducement to infringe upon copyright.
I interpret our founding fathers' ideas behind copyright law this way: the more works that are created and shared, the better the world will be. If you create then you alone should be able to profit from your creation, if you so desire, but only for a certain amount of time after which further profit can only be had by creating new works. Copyright serves two purposes: to inspire you to create again and again and, ultimatley, to pass your previous creations into public property where they can be freely copied, thus insuring their preservation for the betterment of all mankind. They carefully crafted those laws with the goals of incenting artists to continue to create works and ultimately preserving those works' societal value forever.
I feel that the internet has provided a distribution vector never conceived before that meets those goals perfectly. Rather than being incented by profit, a corporate goal, many new and important works are being created and freely distributed simply for the betterment of mankind (as well as possible widespread fame or recognition), a societal goal. I submit to you the incredibly valuable Wikipedia.org.
In the past, when copying was limited by technology, an artist had no vector for distributing their works that wasn't corporate -- world-wide distribution simply was not available to the common man due to the tremendous economic hurdles of replication and transportation. Nowadays I, a simple native Vermonter, have an opportunity to share works with my world peers, far-flung and next door, and enjoy their works shared straight to me, without the burden of a cumbersome distribution model. I am hugely incented to create more and share it with humanity. This tremendous incentive never existed before.
Presenting legislation that could be used to stifle technology or activities that induce sharing of freely created works, simply because such could be used to copy works that authors choose to control, would directly contradict the spirit under which copyright law was originally established. Perhaps your response would be that this is not the intent of the law, but I believe that media corporations would try to bend this tool to further their own profits regardless of the impact on freely available works created for society's benefit. There's a reason why libraries are well-represented in the letter you recently received from the EFF!
Thank you for your time and attention, and for your continued work in the Senate.
Sincerely,
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
Or better yet, we'll realize that we watch too much TV anyway and start reading some damn books again.
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
> she proposed scrapping the Betamax decision, which makes it legal to timeshift
> TV shows with a VCR. Analysis here."
Perhaps you can write to your politicos, suggesting that a law which would have made every single VCR owner a criminal isn't really a very good idea.
My government officials are hell bent on making me a criminal then so be it.
Every direction I turn I see something that I do in my daily life that uses technology to make things more fun or convienient are put up as "evil" and neede to be made illegal. I give up, I'll be happy to live in the underground as a criminal. These ultra rich senators and represenatives have no clue as to what the real world is and do not give a rat's ass about one single citizen.
unless a mobilization of the american public to scream loud and clear to these out-of-touch fools in the government our desires nothing will change and everyting will get worse.
I strongly suggest that every technically adept person learn how to do things secretly and quietly. Making sure their technology is hidden from the police because what you do today will become illegal and more than likely have a harsher punishment than cold-blooded murder.
I laugh when people sell things like this to conceal what they are carrying. But it looks like it will be required in the future to listen to music or carry anything technological that is not "approved".
certianly makes you disgusted. men like Senator Hatch in congress are like people stopping to piss on the constitution... they are an embarassment and abomination to what america was.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
To your Senators.
It's all fun and games until someone loses the key to the handcuffs.
What I find interesting is that the current administration is perfectly happy to regulate the behavior of regular citizens, while allowing unregulated and irresponsible corporate behavior ...
Recollection becomes an "unauthorized derivative work", talking becomes "piracy." Forget Fahrenheit 9/11, the real danger is Fahrenheit 451.
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.
(Italics mine)
The problem here is that "reasonable people" are rarely reasonable.
Doh, didn't mean to post this as AC.
http://neokosmos.blogsome.com
Results 1 - 10 of about 2,850 for Orrin Hatch insane. (0.13 seconds)
Try to get proportional representation up so everyone has a voice.
:)
How the hell do you do PR on a presidential election? Each candidate gets a percentage of the Whitehouse?
For the presidential election two changes would improve the system. First, get rid of the electoral college, make it pure nation wide numbers. And second, single transferable vote, instant runoff voting, whichever name you might call it - that would take away the "a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush" argument. You could vote for Nader, but at the same time vote for Kerry. And maybe once people catch on a bit more, Nader might even win! Yay for America!
And a vote for Kerry won't change anything either.
Wrong.
First, Kerry's and Bush's ideals *do* differ. Both Republican and Democrat parties are fairly right-wing when it comes to global comparisons, but claiming that they are identical is ridiculous.
Second, voters are very unlikely to go from Republican to Libertarian. In general, Libertarians compete with votes mostly with Democrats, and will absolutely not beat the Democrats in the immediate future -- there are not enough Libertarians out there. The best way for Libertarians to get a vote is for Democrats to have a large, secure majority over the Republicans -- at that point, Democrat voters that are dissatisfied with Democrat policies will feel safe voting Libertarian, and Libertarians will begin siphoning off votes, and working their way up to becoming a major third party.
Third, there is a particularly disagreeable type of person noisily advocating Libertarian voting at this point -- Republicans who do not believe that they can get any centrist voters, and are trying to convince people sitting on the line between Libertarian and Democrat to vote Libertarian, as Libertarian is not a threat to them. The Republican party is already in hot water in two different states for funding and backing Nader to try to weaken the Democrat vote. I am not saying that you are such a person, but there is no way for us to know that this is the case.
I understand that you want to vote based on pure ideals, however, the voting system is not a mechanism to make philosophical claims. It is a system to place the next set of officials in office. If your vote does nothing, you have simply thrown your vote away. That is not because people are operating badly; it is because the voting system in the United States is not structured in such a way that is conducive to many parties. The real fix would be to move to preferential voting (personally, I'd like to see the electoral college go away at the same point in time) or another voting system that doesn't discriminate as harshly against slightly smaller parties. The problem is that the people in office have little incentive to change the voting system to something that favors the little guy. Again, I think that the best fix for this, if you really believe in Libertarian principles, is to ensure that the Democrat majority is large enough, siphon off enough votes to win smaller elections and begin pressure, using these elected officials, for voting reform. That really needs to be pushed through for a third party to be in place. Once that happens, the Libertarian party has a decent ground to stand on. Yes, that's a lot of work, and it's a way off, but to do otherwise, to imagine that the Libertarian vote is going to beat Bush, is just wishful thinking.
May we never see th
Congress first of all doesn't particularly care about drafting laws that actually benefit copyright holders in general, rather they care about protecting the interests of the big donors and their pet causes. The DMCA's anti-circumvention statute actually hurts smaller businesses by cutting out "consumer reports" style reviews of DRM systems. Losing 25% of one's potential sales to piracy hurts a small copyright holder significantly more than a large one. In fact, it could make the difference between having a day job and being able to get better at one's creative endeavor.
Hatch has been steadily earning the name "RINO" in conservative circles for his "Republican In Name Only" politics. The RP may not be too conservative, but he's a flaming statist if there ever were one in the Senate. It's also alarming to see many self-proclaimed capitalists support this measure, as IPCentral, a capitalist IP blog and Motley Fool seem to think that INDUCE is common sense. Of course, IPCentral didn't have trackback enabled so I had to email a rebuttal to some of their arugments.
At this point I just don't understand the record labels. Why don't they push hard to get people buying on iTunes so that they can turn digital distribution into an even bigger cashcow? They seem to be convinced of the "justice" of their cause, so much so that they'd rather be dead right than wrong alive.
I don't even need to boycotte them anymore because Century Media and Projekt make most of my favorite music now. Lacuna Coil, a fast rising goth metal band that stole the show at Ozzfest 2004, is signed to CM, which is not affiliated with the RIAA according to the RIAA Radar. This is the future, people. Labels like Century Media know the writing is on the wall, and that being a member of the RIAA is as socially acceptable in the 21st century as declaring you're down with people who gas Jews and lynch black people for fun.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Proposed Timeline: BetamaX decision is overturned. VCR's, Tivo's, and all manner of electronic gizmo are now rendered illegal. The MPAA, RIAA, and their cohorts will crack down on a select few people to make an example of them. For once, a legal battle fought on the grounds of COMMON SENSE will be won in court, but probaby be overturned by judges and/or congressmen or whoever decide these things (I'm Canadian) who have all recently bought huge new boats and houses with their big anonymous donations. Maybe, just maybe, at this point, Americans will wake up and suddenly realize that their country is being run by a band of brain-dead monkeys who don't give a rip about you, your job, your dreams or your future. Of course, it could also go the other way with the final vestigal organs of independent thought being wiped out forever, or fleeing to neighboring countries. Either way, it'll stop all this arguing.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
While they have good intentions(like the Burton snowboard issue), senators don't seem to realize, like the PATRIOT act, the potential for abuse. This act gives the RIAA and the MPAA, and their lawyers, free rein over current and developing technologies. "We don't like (insert technology here), so we will say it induces infringement." Those with the most to gain make the rules. This is EXACTLY why the BetaMax ruling should NEVER be overturned.
My favorite part is "Our experience with patent law shows us that such provisions work: over the years, the number of patents has steadily grown and patent-related industries continue to thrive." Yep, people like Teleshuttle Technolgies and MercExchange make the economy so much stronger. At least for their lawyers.
It has to be the ubiquity and fun, because it sure as hell isn't talent.
So once they drop the axe on PVRs, VCRs, MP3 players, any type of recording, sharing or portable media devices that don't require retinal scans and call in activation. Once this new "Digital Lifestyle" becomes an expensive burden, they will start to lose money.
I buy CDs, usually most the songs suck, but theres a few on there. I know I can just rip the CD, toss it in the closet (or garbage), move it around from PC to notebook to MP3 player at will. It probably wasn't worth the $12 for the talent, but oh well its fun and easy. The first CD I physically can't rip/move or that requires me to call some 800 number to activate - seriously - people will start examining the value and quality of the content first and the impulse buys will drop. It becomes a hassle to enjoy the digital lifestyle so people will only put money in the things they're really really serious about, and that will impact sales a lot.
I'm Rick James with mod points biatch!
Scrolling down to page 20 of Marybeth's statement:
she gives facts making it riduculously clear that Kazaa and others like it are designed to contribute and profit from copyright infringement
Unfortunately, Marybeth's understanding of peer-to-peer networking is just as superficial as your understanding of her statement. Her "ridiculously clear" facts include:
Kazaa gets more advertising revenue from having more users. Duh. Her same argument would make Microsoft liable for people who send copyrighted attachments with Hotmail, except that unlike Kazaa, Microsoft has finally figured out that large companies can buy their way out of federal prosecution with enough political contributions.
Kazaa automatically reshares downloaded files. Again, duh. Bittorrent (which you erroneously think she would support) works the same way. In any case it's irrelevant. If a file could have been legally downloaded once, then it's almost certainly free to upload afterward. In fact, the fact that peers do most of the uploading to relieve central servers of network congestion is practically the definition of how P2P software works!
The X button minimizes instead of closes Kazaa. This doesn't "hide the program from the screen" as she says, it leaves the program in the taskbar, just like countless other programs from Mozilla to Winamp. Again, this is how P2P is supposed to work: because the software is always running, there is always a wide selection of uploaders available, and so uploads can be fast without swamping a central server.
Kazaa lets you download more if you upload more. Again, Bittorrent works this way too. And yes, this is how P2P is supposed to work: fast download speeds for everyone are made possible by ensuring that the first people in line to download a file are the ones most likely to help others download it as well.
This might be an excuse to start getting out the youth vote. I suggest the following add be placed by 'interested citizens' in his riding:
These ads should start going out as soon as possible.. Similar adds in the constituencies of other senators who are supporting this bill.People should start putting notices on their websites about senators and congresscrittors trying to outlaw these things.
If anything will get out the youth vote, I think that this will.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Mr. Hatch,
You have proven yourself to be a man of noble intent. Your support of the DREAM Act alone shows that you care about individuals, and that you care about the future of America. I am certain that your support of INDUCE is also backed by noble intent; it is wrong for people to steal from the works of others.
On that note, let's examine the business practices of the corporations that have asked you to help them. They frequently state that they are here to protect artists; if that's so, why do artists who work for them revile them? They say that they are here to prevent theft; if so, why do artists accuse them of stealing from artists? They say that P2P applications have no legitimate uses; if that's so, why do struggling independent artists -- those not affiliated with the RIAA's member corporations -- embrace P2P applications as their last, best hope?
I write to you as an artist, and on behalf of artists, whose livelihood is threatened not by P2P apps, but by INDUCE. The RIAA is not speaking for me; it is my competition. Their true purpose is not to protect me, but to lock me out.
Remember how hard you worked to secure digital law for the RIAA, so that they could distribute digital content safely? And how afterwards, they never did it -- except for a few third-rate websites? Instead, they used the law to lock out the means we independent artists use to promote our music -- P2P applications like Napster! These file-sharing applications give me a huge audience and distribution mechanism, so that I can find new fans without the need for the RIAA. That is the REAL reason for laws like INDUCE -- it's not about theft; it is about CONTROL.
What protection is there for legitimate uses of P2P software? What is there in this bill to ensure I can still promote my music without having to sell my soul to the RIAA's member companies using the latest in technology?
If you would like to discuss this issue more, please give me a call on my cell phone any time at (redacted). I believe that you would not promote a bill that would hurt America and its future. I think that if you understood my point of view, you would understand why I feel this bill, in its current form, may be very dangerous to America's future.
Our stores will sell gear without DRM. (It's cheaper to make stuff without it.)
Thats about to change. DRM will be included in most chips (CPUs, MPEG-Decoders & other DSP etc..) and once its in it will pose no extra cost. Finding chips without DRM will be the hard (i.e expensive) thing. Im guessing no American or European companies will risk making them for fear of being fined, some other enterprising foriegn manufactures might make some (or make mod chips) they could potentially make a fortune. Once the big players have got together with the US government and agreed on hardware, life is going to suck and since the US polices the rest of the world (i.e decides what laws we need to have in order to trade with the US) life is going to suck for everyone else too.
Just read about high-flow toilets ROFL "you have the right to own an assult rifle that can cut through trees and brick walls, but not a toilet that can flush more than 1.6Gs!"
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
This is a type of law that focuses on people who don't vote, young people. Young people are really the only people who are downloading MP3 and DivX stuff. 55 year olds aren't going to risk jail and bank account confication in order to hear "I can't get no satisfaction" one more time.
Basically when laws like this are passed, they are written very broad so that anything involving music recordings in digital form can be interpreted by some mean old judge somewhere as illegal. But they are always enforced very politically. Rich white kids will get away with claiming that their brother's girlfriend's old college Napster account makes it OK for them to download anything and everything, while black college students will be thrown in prison for downloading 80 year-old African-American history items from the Library of Congress without written permission from the CEOs of the global media corporations.
These kind of laws just perpetuate and intensify the level of institutional corruption already present in a country. They seem new and extreme for America, but it's just standard operating procedure in the third world. What's disheartening is the extent that the US Congress is adopting third world legal standards. Before the Reagon era there was always someone in the back rooms of the Capitol who would just say that these bills were Bongo Congo laws and not the way that we do things here. Now the corporations are in a positive feedback corruption loop passing dumb laws right and left.
In the long run, the effect of really dumb corrupt laws is to transfer innovation both in culture and technology to another part of the world where there isn't so much pressure from the government. The reason Hollywood became the world's film capital is because all the bright people moved there from the NorthEast in order to get away from Edison's crushing patents, back when he claimed to have invented everything and had enough money to hire private goon squads to bust up any movie or sound recording activity that didn't pay him off.
Sometimes you just gotta lighten up and let people create and copy, regardless of how many patents or copyrights your lawyers say you own. In the end, it's good for business.