Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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 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).
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.
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 ?
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.
Step 1 of your solution is only feasable for electronic music. If you want to do real instuments you'll need: a soundproof studio, the instuments themselves, lots of high quality microphones (each instrument needs different types), an unimaginable number of expensive cables, a mixing/mastering solution (this could be that 'cheap digital tool'). Furthermore you'd need someone with the skills to mix and master it. And possibly some session musicians to play the instruments, if you're a singer/songwriter.
Oh, and you forgot a step:
2.5. Spend lots of time/cash on promoting the act.
This step should be included in both your problem and your solution.
IAAAM (I am a amateur musician)
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?
In the old model, the "music industry" contributed (i) means of recording, (ii) means of mass reproduction, (iii) means of distribution, and (iv) means of promotion. (The music itself has always come from the artists.) Currently, means of distribution are nearly free (e.g. p2p networks). Currently, means of mass reproduction are nearly free (e.g. copying files or burning CDs).
Currently, means of recording are becoming cheaper and cheaper as recording / mixing equipment drops in price relative to other goods. Viva la semiconductor revolution! Seriously, how expensive would it be today to produce a recording of the same quality as, for instance, the Beatles masters? That cost is within the reach of artists who have day jobs. It certainly doesn't require a multi-national corporation to pay the studio fees, not when the multi-nat demands a usurious contract signed in blood.
That eliminates 3 of the 4 things the "music industry" used to contribute to the supply of music. What about means of promotion? This is actually the biggest bill the "industry" used to pay for an artist. If the "industry" can be replaced as the promoter of music, then they become totally unnecessary. (It would help to get some real numbers from a real economist to understand the relative costs of promotion, production, and distribution. We're just speculating here.) Free distribution provides a little promotion on its own, but just word of mouth will not achieve the kind of promotion that an expensive marketing campaign does today. So, promotion is the problem we still need to work on. Here is a slight revision of you problem / solution lists reflecting who kept/keeps what money.
Current state of music market:-
More efficient state for music market:-
In your new model, artists will get relatively the same money as in the old. However, the people will get lots more recorded music for far less money. So, where will the money that people used to spend on recordings go? Answer: the people will keep it instead of the Industry.
Contrary to what some of the replies have said, you're not being Polyanna here. An industry only exists if it is the cheapest producer of something people want. All we have to do is keep it legal for independent artists to make and distribute their own music and the "music industry" as we know it today will fall. We just don't need them.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)