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Alternatives To The INDUCE Act
Iphtashu Fitz writes "The 'Don't Induce Act' proposes that only someone who distributes a commercial computer program that is 'specifically designed' for wide-scale piracy on digital networks could be held liable for copyright violations. The proposal includes three requirements that must be met before a software distributor can be found liable: The 'predominant' use of the program must be the mass, indiscriminate infringing redistribution of copyrighted works; the 'commercial viability of the computer program' must depend on revenue derived from piracy; and the software distributor must have 'undertaken conscious, recurring, persistent and deliberate acts' to encourage copyright infringement. No surprise that the MPAA and RIAA are opposed to this 'watered down' bill. MPAA vice president Fritz Attaway showed his organizations true colors by stating that the Don't Induce Act was so narrowly drafted it would be impossible to use it to shutter even operators of peer-to-peer networks."
Let me guess, the RIAA/MPAA gets to decide what software is specifically designed for illegal nastiness.
You oppose the Don't Induce Act, because it is "so narrowly drafted it would be impossible to use it to shutter even operators of peer-to-peer networks."
Now this may come as a surprise to you but this exactly is the purpose of this Act.
This may even further surprise you but there are other uses for modern means of communication (e.g. computers, internet) then sharing "pirated" software. That is why a lot of people don't want your concerns about software piracy to hinder the free flow of information more then necessary and the Don't Induce Act is addressing these concerns.
I hope this helped clear things up a little bit for you.
Thank you for your time.
Regards,
AC
Bah, If they are to sue Apple and other MP3 player manufacturers then why not sue everyone that makes CD players also since they could be playing illegally copied CD's. Not to mention manufacturers of CD/DVD writers. They are all pirates!!!
Even the don't induce is watered down pig-shit.
You cannot hold anyone liable who has not broken the law, but whose works has been used, without thier knowledge or consent (explicit) for purposes that may even be explicitly forbidden in the license terms.
You cannot make laws just because you are big corporations and have deep pockets.
Did I just say that?
Don't even hold it with this. Anyone can program anything they want. How it is used and by who is the problem.
Taking away liberties and rights to fight crime is not a good idea.
What will become of all this? We are on the pinnacle of having Microsoft laud 3000 patents a year in everyones face, SCO finally might roll over and die, the RIAA are still dogs.
Dear RIAA,
I found this website with lots of illegal music on it, please invetigate.
Illegal Music, only for RIAA people, do not click this link if you are not RIAA
IANAY but if I was I would smack the government on the side of the head.
People should contest this whole affair, not propose an equally distrubing watered down version.
I think the world cannot get any crazier...
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Piracy is okay as long as it's difficult? I mean nobody got too pissed about me using my VCR to copy the simpsons ten years ago, or record music from the radio back then.
But if it's easy, it's illegal? I guess I just don't keep up enough with the p2p legal stuff.
So. A court decides that software producers aren't responsible for the user's own actions with that software, and now these folks want to blame the software if a lot of the users abuse it?
How is that a serious argument? If it's right, it's right. If it's wrong, it's wrong. Number of abuses is irrelevant.
...there needs to be a way for everyday people to take away corporate charters & lobbying rights from vicious, narrowminded groups such as this.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Not enough information provided in this article. Anybody got some links for further reading? TIA
Is it just my dialect or is the word induce almost exclusively used in the phrase "in event of... induce vomiting"?
I think it is... I dunno, it'll be -6 modded before anyone picks up on my spelling, unless people like the idea of seeing RIAA clicking that link :-)
muahahah *cough* sod them
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
This is only a side effect of the fact that to date there hasn't been an effective means of enforcing the right of the content distributor to broadcast something for one consumption only -- technology has only recently gotten to the point of allowing distributors to exercise some measure of control over their level of distribution.
When DRM becomes a reality, it'd be up to Congress to determine whether or not we have a right to multiple uses of recorded content, in my opinion. And this Act seems to be a pretty clear sign of where things are going.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Alright, one of the criteria that a piece of software needs to meet according to this is that the software needs to get most of its revenue from the piracy use of the software. What if this is FREE software and there is no commerical revenue, like bittorrent.
How about we take it a step further, and unlike bittorrent, we have a piece of free software whose authors made with the purpose of piracy, what is to be done about that?
The way I see it, this bill won't satisfy those in Hollywood for the above loopholes. So all the software used for de facto pirating will be non-commericial, how does Hollywood benefit much from this. Looks like they'll still want to draft some other legislation.
IANAA (I am not an American) but isn't the obvious answer to Hatch's problem: Yes we know Senator. That's the idea.
Or are you saying that you're happy to ban a technology which has many fundamentally excellent reasons to exist purely because it can be used to infringe copyright?
That being the case, do you possess a camera? A VCR? A tape deck? You won't mind disposing of them, then?
Oh, you say that the bill would never be enforced in that way?
WELL DON'T WRITE IT IN THAT WAY, STUPID!
does this paragraph make anyone else feel sick?
>Fritz Attaway, vice president for the Motion Picture Association of America, said the Don't Induce Act was so narrowly drafted, it would be impossible to use it to shutter even operators of peer-to-peer networks. "There is no way that anyone could ever meet the burden of proof that this establishes," Attaway said. "It's spin. (They're) not being honest here."
what's wrong with peer-to-peer networks?
what's wrong with burden of proof?
oh I see the problem - the last remnants democracy that need to be outlawed.
The "Don't Induce" proposals are definately the most ideal proposals, and despite what the MPAA/RIAA and Orrin Hatch might try to claim, it's the most fair to ordinary people.
It is also not any attempt to justify or allow piracy. It is simply a *fair* suggestion, which will catch the true commercial pirating organisations, rather than kids who share the occasional piece of software with their friends, or legitimate users who wish to make backups of their original data.
They claim that the Don't Induce act is also too narrow in scope, which would stop them from attacking p2p networks; I don't think this is a bad thing. They have proven over the last while that they are only too happy to use their legal powers against anyone, from young to old, to squeeze a bit more cash out of ordinary people, while commercial piracy is still rampant. It's not *too* narrow in scope at all, simply narrow enough to avoid ambiguity, and to stop half the net falling under their legal juristiction. It's narrow enough to be *fair*.
But then, it's to do with making money, not doing the right thing.
Now we must start holding gun companies liable every time there is a shooting death, and beer companies will be held accountable for all drunk driving incidents. Why blame the wrongdoer anymore when we can make the silly attempt to eradicate all avenues for wrongdoing?
Rather than arguing about how copyrights are going to be enforced, we should be revisiting the whole idea of copyright itself.
It bothers me that the debate has been framed in terms "stealing stuff that you didn't pay for and how can we stop that" rather than the fact we have, for the first time in history, a culture whose important facets are all owned by corporations, and whether or not that's a very good idea.
...and not the ball.
...is it then the kitchen knife producers fault?
If
a) 99% of the people wanted to use a kitchen knife to stab someone
b) 99% of your sales were thus made for that purpose
c) if you tell that your knife is razor sharp, anyone with IQ > shoesize will figure out it works for the purpose they want
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The correct link is www.goat.cx. Goatse got suspended by the cx registry.
For christ's sake, at least troll correctly.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Now, obviously the law can't simply name the companies it wants to get rid of, so there has to be some kind of test to identify these "bad actors". The fundamental problem (for the Induce Act) is that there may not exist an objective test that can effectively isolate those they wish to isolate, meaning that the Induce Act will inevitably require a subjective test. Subjective tests must be clarified by litigation, but it only requires the threat of litigation to torpedo many potentially valuable new technologies before they even get out of the angel investor's office.
It is therefore my suspicion that it will be impossible to rewrite the Induce Act such that it addresses the concerns of the IEEE, CEA, EFF, and others, while still achieving its stated goal. This probably means that the current effort to come up with a compromise is unlikely to bear fruit. I doubt the situation is improved by the fact that the person charged with achieving this compromise is the Register of Copyrights, Mary Beth Peters, who has a more anti-technology view than even the RIAA will comfortably admit to.
Whatever happens, I am sure that history will regard the Induce Act as the most violent death throe yet of a powerful and influential industry. Lets hope they don't take too many useful technologies down with them.
did u say comment more? oh, sorry...
"There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The man responsible for inventing the Replicator -a device he claimed would end world hunger, war, natural resource reduction, etc.- was simultaneously sued by three dozen multinational corporations for a total of over 800 billion USD only minutes after plugging it in for the first time.
It is very clear which side some of our Senators and Legislators are viewing the piracy problem from. But what about the consumers who are paying $20 for a movie/cd that cost the producer $0.10 to make? Of course the **AA is going to want to hold on to that enourmous profit. But maybe thats the problem. I think a step in the right direction would be these companies asking themselves why people are stealing their products rather than buying them; not how. I also think giving the consumer a little more for their money would be in order. If someone can get digital data easily, then the value has obviously decreased. Give the consumer something more than digital information (a unique t-shirt, a one of a kind sticker, discounts on concert tickets, etc....).
- Spend lots of cash on creating music in expensive studios.
- Spend more cash distributing music to shops.
- Customers buy music.
- Music industry and Artists earns cash.
- Some customers copy music for friends
- Music industry and Artists loose "potential" cash.
- Music industry spends even more cash trying to stop people copying music
- Lots of unhappy customers.
Possible Solution- Artist create music using cheap digital tools - these are already available.
- Artist uploads digital music to web sites
- Lots of people download / copy music for free
- Artist gets well known by lots of people
- Artist does a gig - lots of people pay to come
- Artist gets paid further by selling special CDs,DVDs or other merchandise on web site.
- RIAA now totally redundant - I think they already know this.
- Do same thing with software (Already happening - OSS)
- Do same thing with movie industry
- Do same thing with all forms of information
- Human race leaps forward, as it tends to do when information is freely available
I know some people already planning some of this !!Art Makers Just an excuse to show photos of naked women !!
The MPAA controls the bulk of the most addictive item on earth. Forget nicotine, booze, or crack...how many folks do you know that absofuckinglutely need their music fix?
What they should be doing right now is providing their own cheap, free, fast, and reliable downloading service and eradicate p2p services altogether.
Once the hardware dedicated to their system is omnipresent, start charging for the service. It wouldn't be too long before half the country is paying $50-$70/month for music, simply because it's by far the most convenient method.
What the MPAA can't wrap their heads around is that most people don't use p2p because they want to steal...they just want convenient access to a monster music library. Give it to them! Do you really think all the people spending $400 on an iPod won't pay exorbitant monthly rates for a truly useful and convenience source of music? Of course they will!
Yeah, there would be increased piracy under this system, but that's not lost revenue. People who won't pay for quality music access aren't the ones currently supporting the MPAA's obsolete brick and mortar infrastructure.
The thing that the senators and businesses in the US seem to be forgetting is that the Asian bloc is now starting to gain foothold in the markets.
China, for one, is starting to roll into tech markets, with all it's own internal infrastructure. Entirely self sufficient.
What the acts will mean is that the US ability to innovate, and distribute information effectively enough to research and develop at the rate required to compete with the new and upcoming countries (India, China etc.) will be seriously impared.
All the devices and mechanisms will be so tied up with 'legality enforcement' parts, and the ability to litigate under the existing legal system will mean most of the time that should be R&D will be spent on 'negotiations' to agree that certain areas may be used (for certain sums of money of course) by other people.
Meanwhile, the rest of the unencumbered world will be advancing apace, using a smaller set of laws, and a greater set of freedoms.
The US is showing all the signs of a 'falling empire'. In it's heyday, it had simple laws (relatively) that allowed it to adapt quickly to the way the world was moving. It advanced to become pre-eminent. Then it sat down, and tried to tie everything up to maintain itself. Internal politics and interests fought over shares of the pie.
And now laws are flowing like water, and researchers are being required to look more to internal information, and ways to work around the intrusive legal mechanisms.
This is a huge brake on development and innovation.
One that won't be shared by a good deal of the upcoming countries. At least not in the same way.
Now, if the world would remain static, and things would 'always be this way', then the laws, although draconian and oppressive in their implementation, would make some modicum of sense for the corporate entities to persue.
However, when there is going to be competition arising from areas that are NOT bound by those laws that have been bought, then it's the equivalent of long term commercial suicide.
If the US decides to stick to it's laws and carry on down this route, it stands an uncomfortably large chance of ending up on the wrong side of a built in firewall, preventing a lot of the international information from ever entering it's networks, due to legal reasons that nobody else can be bothered to work around.
Once it's cut out from the international flows, it'll start the slide into being a collapsing empire. Trashed economy, no effective R&D, and generally falling behind the times.
Given the chance, most people out there are decent and honest. Hamstringing the country's ability to develop, just to try and catch a few people who may (or may not) influence a company's net profits by a tiny fraction of a percent is a dangerous game. One day, if these laws go ahead, those clamouring corporations may just realise how they've managed to sow the seeds of their own destruction.
They might as well outlaw breathing, and arrest people for "air piracy" if they have a bone to pick. It would be convenient to all involved (except the victim, but he's a nobody anyway).
... itself is under assault. Just whittle it away, one step at at time until it's gone forever, just like many more of our rights. This is just another example of the concept known as the "slippery slope". It's happening at an ever-accelerating rate too. We're boiling the frogs in a pot of water, and only a few of them are starting to get jumpy but most are still too fat, happy and complacent... enjoying the warmth and oblivious that anything is going wrong. Now we have the Registrar of Copyrights indicating by overturning the "Betamax Decision" that she'd actually like to see us heading down the road of "pay per view" of *LITERALLY EVERYTHING* that's copyrighted, even though that wasn't explicitly said, that's how I read it. Looks like RMS is more of a visionary than even I've given him credit for.
If your Congress changes your fucked up copyright laws there will be no need for filesharing laws. Or laws that tell you what programms are constitutional or not
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
Why not pay your favorite artist personally?
Circumvent the managers at the RIAA by letting your software music jukebox manage your favorite artists. This requires a central database listing creative works and the artists who actually made them so that you can donate automatically to your favorite artists.
problem: telling some site what kind of music you have my get you sued as you declare to have illegal music.
solution: give partial hash code (checksum). Site returns say 200 potential hits. You verify for yourself if you have have a copyrighted song 'belonging' to the site. You discard the 199 misses and you use the info about the song to compensate the listed artist directly. This can be done anonymously: "I love your (unspecified) work here is a donation of 20 cents". Artist uses statistics to figure out how to compensate those who helped him with popular creations if the donations rise above thousands of dollars.
So you spend say 300 dollar per year to (automatically) compensate your favorite artists directly without confessing a crime as your jukebox figures out compensation anonymously and you can also donate manually, even though you do not have any works of arts of that artists in your possession, making the system a black box, meaning that donations do not directly indicate illegal possession.
Why pay for distribution? Let's circumvent the RIAA.
--
Dennis SCP
After that (and now i am being pessimistic) i would not even be surprised if they start to try to making unlicensed *content* illegal.
Congress can't do that because even more than the DMCA, it would run directly up against the First Amendment, which bans Congress from materially abridging freedom of expression.
Making a copy of a copyrighted work and distributing it is not theft. It is a copyright violation. These are two different things.
Yeah, right.
Possible Solution 1. Artist create music using cheap digital tools - these are already available.
The incumbents would stoop and have stooped to stopping the artist at the songwriting stage. Incumbents have successfully claimed that one who subconsciously copies a song he had heard 10 years ago owes a million dollars to the songwriter. Bright Tunes v. Harrisongs -- read it and weep.
Artist does a gig - lots of people pay to come
Even when the incumbents own virtually all of the all-ages music venues?
Do same thing with movie industry
Aren't the incumbents trying to get Congress to ban the "cheap digital tools" for this?
Hypothetically speaking, if I am a songwriter, I am perfectly within my rights as the owner of that song to tell you that you cannot distribute it. That is unlicenced content
I come from a background where "unlicensed content" refers to content that hasn't been approved by the owner of copyright in the player software, such as independently published console games. Imagine if every title published on DVD Video had to be approved by the DVD Forum.
For some reason software is regarded differently than about everything else in this world. That's nonwithstanding that computers & their communication are (becoming) as common as a screwdriver.
.
Why is it than that (specific) software is singled-out in a (company-supported, broad) "we take you down, if we can find any illegal use for your product" -attack, when most *if not all* producs that are created today have their illegal uses.
Telephones are used to communitcate evil intentions between common robbers, as well as white-collar company management persons. Should we ban the telephone ? Cars are used in the same way. Post-offices should be closed, due to their transporting of illegal goods.
Crowbars, bolt-cutters & lock-picking equipment should be outlawed too, as should a "slim jim" be.
Let's not forget screwdrivers, as they are very handy in cracking door-locks, as well as a stabbing-weapon.
Actually : why don't we just ban *everything*, and let you first get some special permission to use
You want to use a telephone ? Proove that you need to exhibit activities that warrant for the use of such a criminial-affiliated method and/or tool.
Or is it the wish of the gouverment that we should (try to) battle for any use of software that is not under their control ?
I fail to see why this post was modded offtopic. There has been a lot of talk over whether the INDUCE act will affect the ipod. For example: http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/10/095421 4&mode=thread
Okay, I'm not with the MPAA or the RIAA but I am a professional screenwriter and director, and I've recorded a few CDs as a musician, too, so my entire livelihood relies on people paying for my shit. The problem is that both the music and movie industries have consistently focused on notional lost revenues instead of revenues gained. During the last 25 years the penetration of CD, DVD and MP3 players has massively increased but instead of using the net to leverage this opportunity, the industry has instead focused on the entirely bogus idea that people who pirate would otherwise have paid for what they pirated. Imagine if, five years ago, the movie studios and big music recording companies had aggressively pursued digital distribution via the internet for their content instead of leaving it to Napster and subsequently iTunes. iTunes in particular has shown that the public is totally willing to pay a dollar a song to download high quality music free of malware. I believe the same is going to be true of movies for those who have the bandwidth. By concentrating on the notional lost revenue and forming their wagons into a circle, the companies with most to gain from the net have instead consistently cast themselves as the bad guys. If they had instead embraced digital distribution and implemented a responsible, rational and reasonable DRM strategy they would have won the PR battle and made a lot of money into the process. The most ridiculous aspect of this is the idea that there was some 'golden age' before piracy. There never was. It was exactly the introduction of easily copiable media -- the audio cassette in fact -- that really opened up the way that the public consumed music (Walkman, anyone?). The MP3 (and MP4) format could, if handled properly, have enormously leveraged the business operations of the audio and movie companies, at the risk of a certain amount of leakage -- the digital equivalent of what happens at Walmart every day. It baffles me that it is STILL not straightforward to download a legal copy of a song or movie from the distributor's website. (Here in Canada, still no iTunes). The movie and music industries formula for business success in the internet age would appear to be: point gun at foot; shoot; repeat.
I'm not wrong. You haven't thought about it hard enough.
if the Register of Copywrites is either being (over) zealous in performing her duties or is trying to protect her job...
Why stop with tunes?
Why not go for every camera manufacturer.
Afterall, they have the ability to copy any copyrighted image or text instantly an then produce multiple copies.
Damn, better register my memory and brain while where at it - I have a pretty good memory and could possible copy any image, text or tune without any DRM restrictions.
...if someone could prove all the provisions of the 'Don't Induce Act' they wouldn't need the don't induce act to at least sue, if not prosecute. So we add even more legislation to an over legislated society. There is a reason there are so many lawyers. Its because there are too many people in Washington who insist on making their mark and keep passing more and more bills in stead of revising, and deleting the old crap thats been lying around.
Art Makers Just an excuse to show photos of naked women !!
Judge Richard Posner, a good writer, has been blogging about IP and fair use at Lessig Blog. The series of entries are very informative and give a good background to IP.
Electromagnetism is one place to use the word "induce", but most of the population that reads warnings on the sides of bottles associate:
Must be that whoever came up with names like:
- "Digital Rights Management",
- "Patriot Act",
- "Clear Skies Initiative",
- "Digital Millenium Copyright Act",
- "Healthy Forests Initiative",
etc. was on vacation that day. They missed their chance to name it the that would help it to fly under the radar and gain approval from legislators who read only titles and listen only to lobbyists and pollsters."Provided by the management for your protection."
Well, if you're going to declare it illegal to revisiting something you've seen before, the whole thing becomes a bit pointless. Is it OK to rewind a little, to see what that word was that you missed? What if you heard it, but your wife didn't? What if you just remember it, and go over it again in your mind?
Once it's delivered to a viewer, it's delivered.
If the maker of a P2P network should be held accountable for piracy committed with their software, why can't gun manufacturers be held responsible for murders committed with their guns?
If the 'induce' principle is worth a damn, it should be a general legal principle rather than a single piece of legislation aimed at a particular target.
I'm not wrong. You haven't thought about it hard enough.
Ever notice that the same legislators who argue against gun control (like waiting periods and background checks) on the grounds that the gun has nothing to do with people getting shot have no problem accepting the argument that machines violate copyrights all by themselves?
It's true that it's totally idiotic, and getting more so with each passsing month. However, that sort of thing is somewhat self-correcting.
Eventually, someone will get sufficiently annoyed to provide them with customer feedback in the form of a bullet. Of course, that will end in tears for both sides in the debate, but it will at least send a message.
In a nation where posession of firearms is still legal, there is an inherent limit to the idiocy and excesses of public figures and high-profile institutions. Even if massive government suppression makes it appear that nothing is served by shedding blood, the resulting international furore puts the participants in the limelight and eventually provides a remedy, after much suffering. This is not how things should work.
It's no surprise that politicians are the scum of the earth and totally in the pockets of big business, but it's pretty sad when 50 million lawyers act as if they were totally powerless on this issue, despite being well informed and easily capable of raising their collective professional eyebrow when the public interest is clearly ignored.
The INDUCE ACT and other legal efforts by the RIAA and other media organistions are lame efforts to control the current distribution model media companies have .IF you are an independant artist you will never have any chance of getting into Blockbuster, Best Buy, Wallmart ,Tower Records ect unless your record label is owned by one of the Major record companies as they have contracts that only allow thier artist to get into these stores .The EFF proposed a Voluntary Colletive Licencing model for payment of copyrighted material where you pay a flat fee to download copyrighted content from p2p networks but the problem is the RIAA rejected it becuse it screws up thier antiquated distribution channels. Thier Idea of inovative distribution is itunes or the new Napster . The problem they have is that an artist could release a independant recording without thier input and may even become a number one hit all without the input of the RIAA members .The record companies would have to become advertising agencys for the Artists and would actully become contractors or employees of the Artists. The current distribution model and bussiness models of media companies forces most Arists to be employees of the company and the company controlls the copyright .Collective Licencing would give the artists controll .
Big Champane and other p2p monitoring companies sell data to the RIAAs members and others to see what is swapped and have a TOP 10 so it is well documented and auditied on what is being shared out there .
http://www.eff.org/share/collective_lic_wp.php
There's a lack of basic economic understanding in your response. Decentralization lowers specific costs while raising overall spending. DIY and learning can solve many of the external "ills".
The microphones are a perfect example. They are expensive because there are so few studio settings buying them. More studios, say one per band as in the posters design, leads to more sales and an inevitable lowing of the cost per unit. As cost lowers, so does the specialization, as users demand commodification. Add in, say China, manufacturing low-priced microphones and the costs are reduced further.
The cables are expensive for the same reason, but as almost any wiring technician will tell you the materials and connectors are far cheaper. The cables are easy enough to make for yourself with a high degree of precision. Granted one needs to be very, very careful.
Soundproofing? I have a soundproof closet for my noisier equipment, which would otherwise wake the twins. Db levels tend to zero outside and with the equipment off, you'd think you were in deep space. Total cost? A lot of work with sealing compounds and construction styrofoam. The foam cost about 100 USD all told.
You don't need someone to mix and master it. You teach yourself. Sure, you'll make mistakes, but how do you think the people you're paying learned?
I suppose the bottom line is that if all you are is a musician; you're sunk. If you're an intelligent musician with a yen to DIY; you can follow the beat of your own drum.
Now, studio musicians are a problem for which I've no ready response. The example presumes a band and so do I.
The lack of WMDs might get GWB out of the WH. There wouldn't be a lack of WMDs if there weren't WMDs in the first place (something has to exist before it can't exist, WOW, have I just made a scientific breakthrough ?! Where's Stephen Hawking's phone number, I had it somewhere around here ...)
I'm sure the Democrats would agree that WMDs have other, non-explosive purposes if they win the next election.
Sorry if I've gotten the Democrat / Republican thing the wrong way around, I'm an Australian.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
If the stated goal is to punish conduct only, as opposed to create a loophole to the Betamax test so that litigation may be used to effect technology regultion, there are many ways to do that. Indeed, responsive to requests from Senate staffers asking precisely the question you pose in the title to your piece, namely; "what might a viable induce act look like," IEEE drafted its proposal, which can be found at the end of my written testimony.
The patent Act has had conduct-based secondary liability coextensive with a "substantial noninfringing use" test since the 50s. The difference between Section 271 of the patent act, and S.2560, is a set of careful and narrowly circumscribed constraints. A recent federal circuit opinion by Judge Gajarsa discussed the interaction of the patent notion of induce and a Betamax exception.
If folks are honestly looking for a way to clear up the muck and mire that the trilogy of Napster, Aimster and Grokster opinions have created --the absolutely ridiculous proposition that secondary liability for infringing uses of neutral technology should be grounded in the right and ability to control users--, to adequately balance the interests of technologists and content owners, it can happen. It won't satisfy anybody seeking to protect their own interest to the exclusion of others, but it will provide sound, albeit incomplete, protections and avoid chilling innovation.
Buh? Did you know a drug dealer was labeled as a "terrorist to our children" so they were able to use the Patriot Act against him, allowing them to wiretap & break in without a warrant?
I think the RIAA/MPAA have proven time and again that they ARE willing to go overboard any chance they can get within the boundaries of the laws they've currently purchased.
They still bandy about the $150,000 per copyright infringement to scare their civil suits into settling. That law was specifically set high to go after professional criminal pirating operations.
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
we have a winnar!
with my own copyrighted material, then suing. What's to stop me from doing that? Nothing. If this continues with the RIAA/MPAA using the court system wastefully, even little guys like me will be able to sue the pants off of people I discover are sharing my "seeded" file.
I can't believe no one has brought this up before, and I can't believe I just thought of it.
Don't pass the INDUCE act. There, that's my alternative. Can I have a cookie?
Nathan's blog
Granted I have not read the whole law yet, but it seems to me that if the predominant use is mass copyright infringement and that one must ALSO provide tangible efforts to further such mass infringement, it seems relatively ballanced.
The RIAA/MPAA is using the argument that "without the INDUCE act, we have to resort to suing children." This law does call their bluff. It does give them a way to try to sue companies which are distribuing these sorts of tools while establishing a reasonable legal standard. Unlike the Induce Act, it is not a blank cheque to cause arbitrary damage to arbitrary parties.
RIAA: Please give me a blank cheque.
Us: Here is a cheque for $50.
RIAA: But I want all your money!
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Need a bill to make it illegal for big corporations to "induce" lawmakers to take away fair use rights, or to "induce" technology companies to add restrictions that the market doesn't want.
WMD are the undesireable product of specific uses of physical, biological, and/or chemical processes.
Copyright violations are the undesireable product of specific uses of current consumer technology and/or programming.
The problem at hand is the copyright violation or the acts of using technology to create them. To ban or criminalise technology and programs that can be used to create copyright violations (an action already civilly and criminally punishable) is equivalent to banning bunsen burners, test tubes and centrifuges.
It may well stop the creation of WMDs, but the concomitant loss of other, beneficial uses contains multiple risks of equal magnitude to WMDs.
Technologies banned/criminalised by INDUCE have similar alternative, non-infringing uses. What we may and certainly will lose has far greater value to society than the ability of one segment of society to sustain its current business model.
It would be an amazing irony if INDUCE were passed to protect copyright owners and significantly inhibited "the progress of science and the useful arts", the very goal which constitutionally justifies the power of Congress to grant patents and copyrights.
No one has an implicit right to profit till the end of their lives (or beyond) for a nice piece of IP (music, code, whatever) that they came up with once. The biggest problem with the copyright/patent laws isn't that they exist, as they have been shown to be effective at encouraging innovation/creation, but rather that they last, for all practical purposes, damn near forever. Reduce the duration of software patents (possibly other patents as well, but I have no idea whether it'd be good or bad) to no more than five years, but more like two, and copyright to something around 5-10, and I would call that a nice compromise -- the law gets to serve its original purpose (providing a limited monopoly), corporations/artists can profit, and everyone else can either pay money to get it now, or wait a few years to get it for free (note: I don't think most people are that patient -- it'd be more like the current situation where most people buy the music they have money for and download the rest (later), except legal).
Work is punishment for failing to procrastinate effectively.
Let's start with the fundamentals: copyright (NOT "copywrite") is a monopoly for a limited time (we hope) to promote innovation.
Profits are seen as a means to this end--e.g. people will innovate more often if there's enough reward for doing so.
Fair use balances that interest in that, if your use of the material doesn't, among other things, threaten their profits, if it is educational (e.g. likely to lead to more innovation), etc., it is not seen as harmful. Thus, it is protected by the First Ammendment, which is balanced with the concerns of the copyright clause in the constitution.
So there's no fallacy in deciding whether something is really fair use simply based on profits--after all, most sensible people recognize the value of fair use. However, many of us do think that there are issues for reform, as we have shown via free & open source software (FOSS) that profit isn't the only motive whereby people are encouraged to innovate (though people can certainly profit from FOSS), and that there are thus legitimate issues on which to reform IP law to maximize it's true goal--increasing innovation (and not merely increasing profits to increase innovation).
So there's no black and white moral imperative here, and no fallacy in pointing out that, under the current scheme, increased profits are calculated to give increased innovation, making those things which substantially decrease profits more harmful than those things which do not. Granted, there's the issue of how exactly P2P applications really affect their bottom line, and I would much rather see reform, but the number of abuses really is relevant here.
...for anyone other than a registered voter to contribute money in any way, shape or form towards any political campaign.
Why not make just everything illegal?
We, the american people, do not need any fucking induce acts. Several hundred thousand people have already written their senators to decide against it. If they still take RIAA's dirty money and try to push it on us then some people might be right that our government is increasingly corrupt and cannot be considered legitimate anymore.
Your first two sentences should end with for now and yet.
People should be very concerned when people go around saying "Oh, they're just passing an overly broad law so they can selectively enforce it on the bad things and leave out the good". Because at that point you're only a few nudges away from your new-law-wielding overlords from actually enforcing those laws as written.
That's like saying "we're only going to violate the Constitution a little for your own good". Once they've done so, they aren't going to suddenly give back your rights, they'll just "selectively enforce" it differently over time until the things people said initially would happen, do happen.
I don't think you're actually advocating the whole deal with over-broad laws, but the ramifications of the way you say it are chilling.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Of course you're not an american, look at you're post time! It's freaking 3:00am here on the west coast!!
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
It's already illegal to obtain or redistribute copyrighted material, so why the supplemental laws?
Like the whole "no open alcohol container in a car"... these are just useless "babysitting" laws. It's already illegal to drive drunk, so why keep making laws?
In any case, people worry for nothing about these laws. IF this got passed (at that point you might as well call this country a failure), it would just spawn more desire for open source anonymous P2P networks.
Once those are released, then what? They will NOT be able to stop it or track piracy. They're just backing themselves into a corner.
There's only so much you can do to the general public before they just fucking snap and do something right back at you. They'll get theirs.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
"Selective enforcement" is a phrase that is supposed to trigger a libertarian response from you.
Try to keep up.
"Selective enforcement" has a long, glorious history.
Please do your research.
They could sue the people that made up the DVD video standard for allowing movies to compress and be transmitted easily. Oh wait...
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
JESUS PEOPLE get your acronyms right
MUSIC - RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America)
MOVIES - MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America)
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Dear Sir or Madam,
I write as a concerned user of the internet, as I was made aware of the Motion Picture Association (MPAA)'s site at http://www.respectcopyrights.com/
Unfortuately, I am unable to view this site as I do not wish to install the Macromedia Flash plugin. I am also concerned for Macromedia, as their site states (http://www.macromedia.com/help/copyright.html):
"Unless otherwise specified, the materials and services on this website are for your personal and non-commercial use, and you may not modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any information, software, products or services obtained from the website without the written permission from Macromedia."
The site, http://www.respectcopyrights.com/ appears to be infringing on this by linking to a plugin on the Macromedia site without any comment on the ownership of the software used. Therefore the MPAA may be guilty of infriging terms of agreement and not respecting copyright.
As a company that is so obviously respected by users of the internet, who I am sure all will agree are a worthwhile organisation to ensure that all members of the community are aware of copyright infringment, and healthly promote DRM, accurate reporting and statistics and ensure that copying and backing up of video and data so obviously causes terrorism (I cannot see how anyone can not make the connection in my opinion).
I have forwarded this message onto both the MPAA, my website, and Macromedia, and I reserve the right to publish this message and any replies, direct or indirect.
Good luck, Macromedia!
Yours,
imai diot
"Rip, Mix, Burn" is going to come back to haunt him.