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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."
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!!!
They tried to make the vcr illegal too (as well as the cassette). They failed. We did end up with the 'copy tax' thing on every blank media.
Let's hope the system isn't too coorporationalized that they succeed completely this time.
Back then, you were in a tiny minority. Now, you're the majority. That's the issue. The easier something is, the more people will/can do it.
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.
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 !!
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
We have strict restrictions on the creation of smallpox because the release of smallpox into the wild could cause a massive epidemic and kill thousands or tens of thousands of people. I know that the *AA are fond of hyperbole, but comparing the theoretical loss of potential income to the deaths of thousands is simply grotesque.
:-) )
A better analogy would be lockpicks: as far as I know, it's entirely legal to possess and even use lockpicks, as long as they aren't used for illegal purposes -- even though most lockpicks are used to commit crimes that cause financial damage to individuals and businesses. (of course, you probably don't want to be discovered outside a bank vault at midnight with a pile of lock-picking tools
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
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.
I have often mentioned that the music industry would rather make 100% of 5 billion dollars, than 70% of a 20 billion dollars. It's crazy.
"I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." - Jack Valenti.
But what happened? The VCR/DVD rental aftermarket today is actually bigger than the theatrical market?!
One of the best things I noticed when Napster first came out was the sheer selection. Rare, out of print, live, and non mainstream available. I agree, the Music Industry should have created their own iTunes right away. Who better than them to have availability to their whole discography?!
And as for video content. If we could have every show, at the touch of our remote, available at any time, for a cost per play... I just don't see the need for any warez traders collecting anymore. Would you even need encryption? It would be cheaper for THEM to store it, than for traders to store/burn/trade them.
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?